Day 30 Case of the blinking cursor

Have not gone out today. Spent day with nose to grindstone at work on would-be mystery novel.

Okay, here's the entire truth: I sat here, inside my pretty room, from about 11a.m. to 5 p.m. but my fingers were not busy every moment fashioning a whole big world for my heroine sleuth.  If I believed in God, I'd say at this point that I now understand why it took Her seven days to create the world.  Creating something from nothing is a real bitch.

I'm remarkably good at finding reasons to stop writing. There are myriad facts to check on the Internet. I wouldn't want to make a mistake, would I? Hunger is an excellent excuse to walk away. It calls often, and so does nature, especially if you take a sip out of the two-litre bottle of water every time you hit a snag. There's also gmail to read and answer, mosquito bites to scratch and so on and so forth.

I could have taken a bus and gone to Gallipoli for the day, which housemate Frances visited yesterday and encouraged me to see. In fact, during my 60 days in Italy (half of which I've already consumed), I could criss-cross this glorious country twice over. I could visit the artwork in the shrines of every major saint the Catholic Church hasn't struck off the record. I could eat Milanese in Milan, Bolognese in Bologna and Florentine in Florence. Hell, I could jump on a ferry from Bari or Brindisi and spend a week in Greece.

But will I? Well, I’ll visit Gallipoli but “no” to the rest. ART calls bloody hell.

So I here in front of my computer, spending as much time staring at the blinking cursor as I do advancing my story letter by letter, word by word, page by page. At this pace, I hope to finish writing this baby before I'm too old to remember what a cursor is.  

Maybe I should write a book about masochism instead. It sure would be easier than writing a literary mystery. 

In truth, I have seen a few lovely churches on the way to my blinking cursor curse. This one is in Martina Franco.

La chiesa del Carmine
Built between 1727 and 1758 in an elegant baroque style, the church has a fine polychrome statue dedicated to Santa Maria della Misericordia, attributed to Stefano da Putignano. (martinafrancatour.it)