This is how online neurosis works - seed to tree.

Neurosis might be the wrong word - it's just brain-thoughts. And if it is neurosis, that's okay. It's a writer's fuel I think. I want to be a writer. I just edited this to say - I am.

Megan Boyle is too, or she was. She uploaded a YouTube film of her walking round this maze in a wood. Cos of where she puts the camera (on the ground it seems) she occasionally walks in and out of shot.

Four minutes I watched before skipping to when she steps into view at twelve minutes sixteen seconds. Then I paused and positioned it, replayed and typed: 12:16 - Enter Boyle (to sound of woodpecker pecking, I think.)

In the seconds I was writing the comment, I knew the word pecking was superfluous. But I like the rhythm and repetition, which kind of suits the sound of a woodpecker's beak on a treetrunk. It was a split-second decision, unedited (a Boylean word), just unplanned chitchat.

(The sound's either a woodpecker, I thought, or a road-drill. I wasn't a hundred percent sure.)

When I'd pressed Post, however, I thought people might think I'd unintentionally added the surplus word pecking or they might see it as a pretentious thing to write, seeing that's what woodpeckers do - they peck. Maybe I thought that cos in April 2016 I published a novel on a literary press that targets the type of readers who buys a Megan Boyle book, known for her understated tone without surplusage.

I just predicted that the word pecking would be picked up on.

And it was ... Twelve or so hours passed and Megan Boyle replied: It was a woodpecker, I think.

That of course mirrors my comment - but without the word pecking. No major thing, I know. Maybe if I had deleted the word pecking Megan Boyle would have replied as she did. But I wanted to reply to Megan Boyle, to say if you were in the wood the sound of a woodpecker would be unmistakable. Though it's likely she didn't register the pecking, I thought. But anyway, I was unsure why she typed I think and I couldn't find the right words in the right order without sounding like an arse. It's as if Megan Boyle's comment combines sincerity, an unthinking sincerity with a nod to my word choice. And cos I want to be a writer, word choice is important to me. Not many things are important to me (the UK's sovereignty for instance) but word choice is, a voicey unpolished prose style is too.

Five minutes later, anyway, I replied.

Like joggers joggin, I typed ... the tone of which might be dickish but I wanted to convey my okayness with using a superfluity. And (although when typing my original post I didn't think yeah, I enjoy alliteration so let's do some alliteration) the reason why I put a woodpecker pecking is perhaps cos I like alliteration in speech. I also like it in the style of Joyce and Shakespeare. But I think reading Nabokov's prose put me off it - alliteration. But despite disliking it in most prose, I can't help speaking or typing alliteratively. It's just how the music in my brain sometimes beats, my zombie soundtrack. And I also think the missing G in joggin might scrape the ear of an unknown reader - but that's how it sounded in the instant I typed the reply.

One of my favourite sounds is a woodpecker pecking. I've not heard that deep but like hollow vibration for around twenty years. I remember it as a kid, with my dad up Bluebell Wood. Hark at that Peppy, he said. A woodpecker, pecking a tree!

Phew... Yeah. I'm unsure if what I've tried explaining is neurosis. I can't help how my feelings translate the world. This thing with Megan Boyle was only ten minutes of brain-time. The thoughts that pass thru the mind, however, when communicating to strangers on social media ... it's confusing - as it is in real life. And this is the kind of thing you'd explain to a mate and they'd think what-the-fuck are you on about? So I've blogged about it.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... I know.

The metaphysical impossibility of neurosis in the bones of someone who is not you...


Coiled inside ... Uncoiled outside, whatever that means.