by Debs Greasley

Created on: July 15, 2008

Faye was distracted. Too many things were competing for her attention. Life!

Her immediate concern was the article she had been asked to write for a new regional travel magazine about life in a small but thriving coastal town. She had decided to base the article around her own daily life in just such a town but as an emerging travel writer, she wanted to portray life accurately whilst at the same time making it attractive to the reader. So far, she had made little progress and with the deadline looming in two weeks time she was beginning to panic a little.

It was still relatively early in the day and she knew she should be full of energy and enthusiasm. She sighed, pushed back her chair, went to the loo for the umpteenth time and made yet another cup of tea. She knew in her gut that she had already had too many today, but she was 'Wabbing' (a phrase from her student days for Work Avoidance Behaviour!). Settling back down at the computer, she was distracted by her to-do list. Would it ever get any shorter? She focused all her energy on the list anything to avoid finishing the article and before she knew it she had wasted another precious half an hour.

"Blast", she mumbled to herself, "I've got to go to that appointment today". She didn't want to go to it.

She re-applied herself to the article. She had written three paragraphs about one of her days but somehow she needed to flesh them out and make them into a coherent whole. How on earth was she going to do that? The writing stared out at her from the page and she re-read it, again:

"It is an early April morning in Port Alfred. There is a slight chill in the air but the sky is crisp and blue. I know that by mid-morning, it will be warm and the sun will be shining. The sounds of the birds, the barking dogs and the waves are carried over the stillness as I park my bakkie at the beach car park. My dog Shadow is over-eager for her early morning walk. Ours are the first footprints on the beach as we head east into the morning sun which is obscured by a misty, yellow halo. The slight wind from the east adds a chill to the air as we step along the hard sand at the water's edge aiming for the exposed rocks that are our regular turning point for the walk back. As I zip up my fleece against the breeze, I breathe in the misty, salt-laden air, listening to the regular beating of the waves on the beach. At the rocks, my dogs sniffs all her favourite hidey-holes and comes running when I call her to start the walk back. Once we

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