It has been like waiting for a train when unaware that there has been a derailment further down the line.

You wait in hope. At first, quite patiently, unconcerned. It will be coming soon.

Gradually other emotions creep in. A slight anxiety, morphing into concern. What’s gone wrong? The train should be here by now.

It is never this late in coming.

Then irritation mingles with the anxiety. What if it doesn’t arrive; what happens?

There is no one else around. Porters have been phased out, sent to the railway museum of antiquities. The absentees are the wise ones who always have a Plan B, even a Plan C. They don’t get caught out by a train that doesn’t come; they have their alternatives ready and set to go.

But not this bunny, stuck in the midst of nowhere, waiting for a train that seems destined never to appear. Fretting and fuming that life has come to a standstill.

And that is how it has been for far too long on the creative front. Days, weeks and eventually extending back into a previous year.

All that time gone forever, lost in waiting for inspiration for the next book. To have an idea would be good, a theme, a topic, anything that would get things moving forward.

But no, not a cracker.

Several stuttering starts were made when frustration forced the brain to come up with something, anything. But brain and I both knew these were false starts, not worthy of being classed as ideas.

They were dross, the rejects of an uninspired mind.

Such words as were scribbled were ill-suited to each other; sentences were ill-matched partners in a forced fictional marriage.

Suddenly the familiar railway cry of “all change” is heard. There is action down the line. An idea flows in from nowhere, words quickly follow. A metaphorical engine towing carriages of characters pulls in to the station.

I see the familiar face of Bromo Perkins among them.

I board. Exhilarated to be on the move at long last. Words arrive almost without bidding, sentences follow and an opening chapter soon comes into being.

The next book has begun. Let’s call this one Crossing The Line.