The Pursuit of Happiness

Crikey. Over a month since I last posted a blog. And it's not as if I've done very much of any other kind of writing either ...

It's been a funny month, with the burglars mentioned below revisiting three weeks later to clear out what they'd missed before; My Girl having some troubles at school; finding myself constantly treading that tightrope in my career, stretched taut between doing what I want to do, and trying to make a living.

All in all it hasn't been the most perky of times. Last week, however, saw an upward curve which became exponential as the days progressed. First of all, I decided we couldn't let this burglary business get us down too much, so I convened a 'Beat the Burglary Blues' party, invited all the neighbours including the many I hadn't yet met, along with lots of friends, and we ate comfort food washed down with comfort wine. It put a whole different spin on your home being invaded. Here it was, invaded again, by lovely people this time. New friends and old. Ha, burglars. You may take our TVs, our laptops, and our Bobbi Brown make-up, but you may never take our spirit ...

Then came a series of events towards the tail end of the week that saw my smile brightening ever more.

Thursday night: comedy class, where several would-be comedic actors/writers are tutored by the sparkling and generous Fiona Edgar. We had an end of year performance for an audience of two - Fiona herself, and Jacob's dad. It was plenty: we made each other laugh, felt proud of ourselves for being brave enough to act stupid and make each other laugh, and then we retired to the bar and made each other laugh some more. My friend and I were so inspired by all the laughter that we're going to commit our sketches to print and send them off to some TV show or other - maybe they'll make other people giggle too.

Friday morning: I went along with my lovely friend, Catherine Milford of Woman's Day mag, to the book parade at her kids' school. Her daughter, Jess, was dressing up as Jane Blonde, so I could hardly resist going to see that, and I offered to talk to some of the school while I was there.

Well, it was a thing of joy. Jess was a sensationally triumphant spylet, and Charlie her brother was the most adorable knight (and while I didn't get to talk to him, I was party to one of those gorgeous skull-type smiles kids do when they can't smile for the camera properly, so they sort of bare their lower teeth and gurn, like Wallace of Wallace and Grommet fame). The talk with years 4,5 and 6 was properly rowdy with lots of great questions and a foot-stomping G-Mamma rap in the middle. That's what it's about, really, this writing lark - eyeballing some readers and reminding yourself that this is why you do it. What made me smile the most, however, was at the end of the book parade, when the 71 year old caretaker took to the stage as Bob the Builder and danced the length of the catwalk with 'Wendy', to the raucous applause of the whole school. I actually had tears in my eyes. That's a school that loves its pupils.

Friday afternoon: I trudged into my dancing lesson, a little tired and even more hoarse from rapping over 150 shouting children, still a bit worried about the events of the last few weeks. And then ... the magic of dance chased it all away. I swear, my teacher is a shining creature put on this earth by God or Richard Dawkins to spread light. (He's also, I discovered somewhat belatedly, a most courageous soul for what he's been through and what he's doing about it). A dance lesson with Aaron Gilmore is like a game of LaserQuest with light-beams. After just a few minutes your feet are light, your heart is light, your eyes start to glimmer with it. Forty five minutes later, I sashayed out of that studio, zapped with happy, troubles forgotten and a full three-quarters of an inch taller. And I could cha-cha a bit more, too.

So, re-energised with my three blasts of joy, I set about running a workshop on Saturday, on writing picture books. As I erected my flip-chart, I pondered on the stages of happiness I'd gone through the previous few days, and those generous people who pass on their passion so the rest of us can experience it. Suddenly I remembered that writing used to feel like that, all the time. I'd just get that hit of energy in the sternum, open up, and start channelling. Much of the time it's still like that, but sometimes these days it's also about deadlines, and getting a cheque, and not really wanting to but having to ...

Well, I don't think it's any coincidence that I got that shot in the solar plexus again, on Saturday, in the middle of my training course. I always love running workshops, but this time I got more out of it than ever before: namely, a whole book. I'd just been running through a plotting technique with my enthusiastic delegates, when suddenly all the pieces gelled. The roof above my head opened up with the sound of singing angels; seraphim clustered around the edge, giving me a thumbs-up while directing a ray of light onto the table; the beam swirled into a story vortex that suddenly flung all the words onto the page in the right order and with all the right emphasis.

It's good, this little book. I know it's good. It has to be, because it came from on high, from somewhere called Joy. We'll have to watch this space on how good other people think it is, of course. But whether or not it leads to anything, it's nice - no, great - to have that feeling back. In spades. And it's made me think a great deal about what brings us happiness, and how lucky we are that there are people who pass on their passion (and I never noticed before the similarity between those words - 'pass on' is 'passion' with 'I' taken out of it. ...).

So I'm on the lookout now, for joy. If I find it, I'll let you know, and I'll pay it forward. And I'm back to full-on, passion-induced writing, right now. It started with a blog ...