I'm turning into a hermit

Posted by Ellie Omahoney at 12:38 on 7 Jan 2010

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So, 2010 is here and I'm, well, still living with my parents. That sentence sounds like something you stand up and tell a circle of people in a village hall on a Tuesday evening. But I don't have my own helpgroup so you guys will have to be my circle of people. Don't judge me okay?

This ‘time off' business to write a book has, well, just kind of kept on going. And then kept on going some more, so that I find myself still here in Cornwall five months on, not much further on with my book writing plan than I was in, well, August.

What I HAVE done is written a good number of nice (well I thought so) pieces of work for nice magazines, but that wasn't the point really.

And Sam's started to get a bit het up about the fact that on a practical level, he is living the life of a single man without any of the associated benefits (benefits including a. no need to buy Christmas present knowing you're going to get it wrong anyway and b. free rein to fraternize with pretty girls wearing Russian hats).

I know he's right. Something has to change. I can't live down here forever. For a start I am slowly turning into a hermit.

When friends came to visit a few months ago they actually laughed, out loud, at what I was wearing when I came to pick them up at the station. ‘You can tell you haven't been living in London for a few months,' they sniggered. Nice to see you, too. But it's true. I can't remember the last time I wore a pair of heels, a dress, in fact anything other than skinny jeans, Uggs and a jumper I picked up from the H & M sale in 2003. I've no need to, you see. The last week, since my siblings returned to their LIVES elsewhere, I have spent my time doing the following:

1.    Opening the computer file that contains my book, looking at the words I've written, sighing and then closing it again.
2.    ‘Popping' along to Tesco ‘just to get out'. This is true. Couldn't go today, though, too much snow. Tomorrow, she says, hopefully...
3.    Contributing FAR too much to the Twitter/Facebook body of work.

My agent/friend emailed me a few days ago with these words ‘Just three scenes, three scenes is all I need'. She's getting bored of it, too.

So I have made a resolution, I'm giving it till the end of February and then I am making a new plan. A maybe Go-Back-to-London plan and in the meantime, I am going to write 1000 words a day and wear heels while doing it. Wish me luck.

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