Deep in the forest

Each morning I wake at 5:03am. If my brain knows why it’s not telling. 5:03am and the dread of what’s the point yet I must because what else is there when you’re this deep in? I can’t go back. I am more than a year and 44,000 words lost in the forest of this book. It is dark. I can’t see my way except this one directive, to get up each morning and meet it at my desk, at my fingertips, as the sky turns pink and parrots escaped from cages settle in the trees. I wish I could say more about it. I wish I could talk about her but I fear this would ruin what already feels broken. I fear that would be the end of something that began as all novels begin, with the seed of an idea containing multitudes. I am disappearing. I am growing more silent by the day. So I’ll write of other things, how I tried to cross London to meet WS for a long planned afternoon at V&A east, and how the gods disavowed it; South Kensington, shut. Sloane Square, shut. The tubes District and Central disrupted by minor works and major tragedies and nothing running to Stratford that would get me there on time. I hate letting friends down.How J and T went out last night in war paint made from my eyeliner to dance up the dawn somewhere far south. I heard T knocking about as I woke and J fell in the door, just as I finished work; covered in dust and laughing, how I gave him water and put him to bed in my room. I’m on the train now, a Sunday emptiness and I’ve stolen a first class seat because no other carriage has a table. I could write about how the weather cooled this week and I heard a friend who’d been at a festival - predominantly white, predominantly with feathers in their hair - argue the heating of the planet was nothing to do with us while in the same breath that “they” control the weather. But I feel spectacularly separate. As if all the talking is done.Eleanor This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe