Now it is time to return to the joyful task of writing.  I use the term "joyful task" of writing in its widest form as there was a lot of joy, interlaced with a fair portion of angst, loads of self doubt,hysteria, laughs (alone in a dark room) and rewrites, many, many, many rewrites.   
Then of course there are loads more self doubt which can morph into self hatred and then veers right off in the other direction where I imagine myself  the greatest writer who every lived (that lasts a couple of seconds) before getting sucked back into the vacuum of  self doubt. 
More rewries.
This is accompanied by hundreds of pint glasses of sweet milky Bell tea and slices of toast with lots of butter and a smear of marmite - made for me by my husband or son - as I tackle more rewrites. 
Why do I do this torturous thing alone in the dark.  Well obvious because I love it.  It's like drugs, the good kind (okay okay, I lied,  the naughty kind)  
Also all the love and support I get from people especially the few I allow to visit and who can put up with the wiffiness of me after I forget to wash for a while (yes my husband has literally had to sponge me down, and not in a sexy way) 
Those who sit with me and give me a break with tales of a world outside the confines of first my room and then my beautiful Otaki Garden in which I am agoraphobic-ally imprisoned.
I hope that doesn't sound awful, because it's not.  
My favourite place is alone in the dark, swaddled by blankets, the grey tinged glow of a laptop highlighting my chubby cheeks.  That is the place I feel safest and the most real and comfortable as a person.  
Out in public you get to meet an anxiety ridden, hot flushing, frightened, mess who can't remember anyone's name and that's including aunts and uncles I've had all my life and sometimes people I've been married too - (No wonder everyone had nicknames in our whanau)


love Olivia xxx