Noise from the black stuff

Tar baby: a bubbling young upstart
in a bottle

This will be a quick one, I expect. After a day spent fannying around changing the odd word here and there and talking about generating others, writing more now just seems like overkill. 

Some say it's a thankless task doing what you're supposedly good at for a living if it's not quite what you were hoping and that's something I'm definitely feeling now. Work involves writing things other people want you to write in a way they want it written. Before they then change it to something worse than it was before. 

I don't mind having my copy criticised or hacked to bits; it's something you have to get used to if you have designs on being a writer. Sometimes the subject matter is interesting, other times it's dull and it's your job to make it engaging. I'm pretty sure I can do that five days a week. 

The difficult bit is coming home and feeling any kind of enthusiasm for creating anything else - usually the stuff you're inspired by as well. Which is often how it feels with this blog and the other things I do in my spare time. Quite frankly, there are some days you get home and the last thing you want to do is sit in front of a computer tapping out more words that frequently feel - by that point at least - laboured and forced. I'm sure this would be far more entertaining were I a bus driver or something.

Tonight's update being a case in point. I feel like I'm going through the motions, so it wouldn't surprise me one jot if readers are struggling with this too. I console myself with the thought I'm nearly two thirds of the way through this annual marathon, but in the back of my mind there's the nagging thought that this really should be more entertaining. A showpiece. A calling card even. 

And it's not this evening. It's just all I can muster on what's been a pretty dull Monday. Not much in the way of drama happened in my world today. So an unispiring piece is at least accurate if not exactly knicker-gripping stuff. 

Hopefully the stout will provoke some kind of reaction that will lift this from the arena of the mundane. 

Beer: Stout

Strength: A mildly unnerving 6.4%

Smell: Darkness in a glass. Like I imagine a barrel of pitch would smell if it were turned into beer.

Tasting notes: This made a right racket when I poured it into the glass, but the fizziness faded fairly quickly. It's a similar story in the mouth. Brash as a dandy teenager in a pink plaid suit at first - enough to make your whole face crease up in a mixture of respect for the audacity and outright revulsion - it settles down briskly and behaves considerably more placidly after that. Like it had just met a member of the opposite sex it liked and immediately became introverted to the point of awkwardness. It still has a temper, mind. And as soon as it realises it's not wanted, it clears off sharpish with not much more than an 'uh' as a parting shot. 

Session factor: Not particularly company you'd want to keep, but nice to bump into every now and then. 

Gut reaction: Difficult to tell. They're unpredictable, these adolescents.

Actual beer: Towles' Fine Ales Ma Beese's Chocolate Stout. Comes in at 7% according to the label. Didn't get any chocolate in there at all, really.