When I first started to write a lot of people recommended Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones. It’s a marvelous entry into writing that helps you free the writer within. Of late I think I have not only freed the writer within, but she wandered off and didn’t leave a note. The eternally effervescent Connie Stetson has described my arid condition as “blog clog.”

Now people say that writing is not easy and if it were everyone would be doing it. Well, as far as I can tell, everyone is doing it. Blogs abound, they spill out every time I check my email. People are writing about everything all the time, putting together interesting, funny and provocative collections of words. And I sit here struggling to find something to say. I set off down a story path and within a matter of 70 words or so, I become aware of an increasing pressure on my forehead. What is it? It’s the literary version of a dead end, up against a stonewall of the imagination, no way out, no thread to pick up, the string has run out. I go back to the start to see if I can find another path.

I walk in my garden, plant flowers and vegetables waiting for my muse to return. I even beg the rabbits to come out and eat at will. I read books and wonder how the writer came to create these huge stories. I did write a piece about a recent book I’d read and submitted it for this blog. I asked our Head Blog Goddess what she thought. “It’s a well-written essay, but not really blog material.” Ouch! She was right, it was an okay book review but there was not a personal note of interest in it.

All day long at work I draft thousands and thousands of words into contracts so that our clients can get on with their business, sharing their stories in musical and visual forms. For me to tell my stories I have to cram all “in the events,” “in no events,” ”hereins” and “whereas” in the no-no word closet and slam the door. But, they sneak out.

The other night I turned to alcohol. It was wonderful and completely therapeutic. That naughty little muse had been hiding in the Beaujolais. I wrote a killer blog and drifted off to sleep, contented. I awoke with a headache and a blank screen. Trying to recreate the piece was as easy as remembering a dream, and made about as much sense.

In a couple of weeks I am off to Hawaii to spend my birthday with my son and meet his partner. We are going to spend a few days on the Big Island. There’s a volcano and I hear there’s a goddess up there. May be I’ll ask her for help and make a sacrifice. She might like a nice fat bunny from my garden.

Ten Years After album cover (1972) "Rock & Roll Music to the World"

I recently joined Facebook at the urging of two friends. I am quite bemused by this social network, and the comments people post: E wants to know if B is awake, M has changed his profile photo, B confirms he is awake but that it’s not the world’s business. I have ceased striving to find meaning.

Recently former colleagues from Chrysalis Artists/Records/ Music have found me on Facebook. There’s a 40^th reunion in the planning stages. We are trying to meet up sometime this year before we are all too gaga to remember why.

I joined Chrysalis when Swinging London was in full swing, although how a shy girl from the industrial Midlands came to be part of a white-hot music scene is still a bit of a mystery to me. What I remember is this: I was miserable in my job at a Mayfair real estate agency; the place was full of snotty public school boys and disappointed Sloane Rangers (upper middle class girls looking to get to the next social level) who thought it frightfully amusing to ask where my people were from. The man at the employment agency asked me one question before sending me out on the interview, “What do you know about rock music?” “Nothing,” I responded truthfully. “I’ve found one,” he yelled incredulously to co-workers.

About an hour later I was perched on a sagging velvet couch in the dimly lit office of one of the founders of Chrysalis. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and all the women looked like they were about to leave for a fab party or had just returned from one. I didn’t hold out much hope for my chances. In my Marks & Spencer navy blue matching skirt and top I looked like I was collecting for the Mothers of Perpetual Help. I remembered my mother’s advice for all situations, “Speak clearly when you’re spoken to and keep your knees together.”

Founder and his chain-smoking colleague barely nodded to me when I was shown in; they were engrossed in a transatlantic telephone contest to see who could use “f–k” most inventively—as a verb, adverb, adjective, noun. I tried to look unfazed, and keep my knees together. An hour passed, they were still on the phone and had moved onto Chaucer for source material. I had sunk so far into the couch by this time I was about to join loose change, lost pencils, pet-sized dust bunnies and maybe find the door to a parallel universe where people combed their hair and used electric lighting. Then it occurred to me; they weren’t ignoring me, they couldn’t see me. I was actually hidden in the couch like some Mata Hari of linguistics. I could be there for days. Some one might sit on me! I had to escape.

My knees were still together, but level with my chin. I had two choices, bring my legs up onto the couch, slither over the arm and crawl under cover of the smoky pall to the open doorway, or hurl myself forward using my handbag to cushion the impact and crawl out from under founder’s desk—which was where I would probably land. If they noticed, I could apologize for the interruption and leave on two feet. The slither seemed to have less potential for lasting injury. I prepared to become prone and had the uncomfortable feeling that I was probably not the first young woman to stretch out on this couch. Founder and pal suddenly noticed me. “What do you think D, should we hire her?” “Yeah.”

I spent a few years with Chrysalis and learned a lot about rock music, the business and myself. I soon dropped the novitiate outfit in favor of peasant blouses, mini skirts, torn jeans and no bra. Just like our Ranger sisters, our clothes defined the tribe and the goals. Bonking band members was somewhat frowned upon but a steady stream of secretaries strolled out the door and into the mansion of some snake-hipped Lothario who had just gone platinum.

I found my rock musician husband elsewhere, but that’s another story. I hope the Reunion happens… I’ll be sure to let you if it does.