No time for blogging

I’ve just hit 90,000 words.

Thursday is my day off writing because it’s usually Neilson Hays Library or BWG day but I couldn’t bear not to write because I AM SO NEAR THE END. I’ve got a website meeting this afternoon but it hasn’t stopped me writing. (Actually it should have done: I had a banner to make for the website and although I’ve started it, I won’t get it finished.)

Things have gone a bit wrong on the word meter over there on the left… And I can’t be bothered to stop and sort it out. Anyway I don’t know how many words are left… round about 5 or 6k I think.

So there’s no more blogging now either. No time to blog. Must. finish. this. draft.
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Email from Husband

I received the following email from Husband a few days ago.  I think, maybe, he's trying to tell me something. I'm just not quite sure... what.

Some Maths Homework

41 = Books read so far this year (from your blog book list)
2/12 = Fraction of the year remaining (November and December)
41*2/12 = 7 More books to read this year.
41+7 = 48 Books read in 1 year (forecast)

43 = Current age of reader.
16 = approx age reading reached current pace and books were not just Enid Blyton
43-16 = 27 reading years
27*48 = 1296 Books read so far.

500g = Average weight of quality paperback (use 200g for chick lit and 800g for Stephen King)
4cm = average thickness of quality paperback (use 2cm for chick lit and 6cm for Stephen King)
500g * 1296 = 648kg.
4cm * 1296 = 52m

500cm average width of bookcase shelves
5 average shelves per bookcase
500*5 = 2.5m per bookcase
52m/2.5m = 21 bookcases required to house your books; with a total weight of a small family car.
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A new low...

A while back (although it might have been yesterday given the regularity I am reminded of this sad episode) I told you how I’d gone to sleep in Starbucks. I hadn’t accidentally fallen asleep; I’d realised I was tired, it was nice and warm in my armchair and I’d clasped my handbag to my front, and settled down for forty winks.

Honestly, you’d think I’d done something really dreadful like vomit down my front in public. I am reminded about this low episode, almost weekly. Thais sleep everywhere; on the pavement, in coffee shops, at traffic lights (I kid you not.) I was just showing how culturally immersed I’ve become, honest.

Anyway, today I sunk to a new low (no, not sleeping on the pavement; that is going too far.) Today, I had a little weep in Starbucks. It wasn’t quite a fully fledged sobbing episode but definitely a moist eyed, wobbly chin, in need of a tissue to mop up my runny nose, kind of weep.

I was writing you see. I’d got to a scene where I thought my MC was having some thinking alone time in the kitchen garden, when quite suddenly, Jean was out there, confessing stuff. Before you tell me how great this is – that if I’ve moved ME, I’ll move my readers – I don’t think the scene is ready yet, but it will hopefully get there.

When I got home I found this article. The website looks as though it will have other useful resources too.

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On a cheerier note: Yesterday I discovered that I have won a copy of Short Circuit from Salt Publishing: HURRAH. I cannot wait to read it.

This is the plan

I’m hoping to finish the first draft by the end of November. You can see over on my wordmeter I’m in spitting distance from the end. I’m not 3k away… but more like 6-8k. I think. But even when I’ve typed ‘The End’ I won’t actually have finished the first draft because I’ve got an extra character, a subplot and a bit of business that needs to happen earlier, that need to be written into the first half of the book. I also have my mentor notes to act upon. When I wrote the first 60,000 words, I was receiving feedback from my mentor at TLC. When each report came back from her, I was frantically writing the next 10,000 words to send her. I would read her report but not go back into the text to change anything; partly because my head was now in the next section and partly because I needed to absorb and decide what to do about the feedback. But. I have had an offer of a read through from someone (it would be stupid to decline) and they need to do this in January. So. When I get to 'The End' my plans are to go straight back in to write in the new character, the new subplot and a structural change between a minor and the main character. When that’s done I will let it rest. I will put it in a drawer, let my reader see it in Jan and then start on it again. This is the plan.

Word count day

Whirrrkiiiiplunkkkkeeee. That’s the sound of my relief after four days of being offline at home and trying to negotiate with a Thai internet provider. It was quickly followed up by a surge in serotonin and a ‘wheeeeee’ sound. It really is a bit pathetic and I think I may need help. **** Okay, so Sunday is: • Word count confession day. • The day Daughter goes off on school residential. • The eve of Son’s GCSE mock exams. I can’t DO any more about any of those things. Words are written; bags and brains are packed with clothes and facts respectively. (I do hope Daughter's gone up north with the clothes and not the facts... What would Son do tomorrow in the exam hall to find his brain containing nothing but frivolous outfits?) Still, apart from checking who has packed what, I’ve done what I can. This week's word count confession: 3814 words. Now I’m off to catch up with some blogs…

Friday Photo: London October 09

I love this picture. At dusk in October the simple 'black and white' of the decorations and roofs made me think of Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney sweep. When the Christmas lights are turned on by a minor celebrity, I expect it'll morph into a garish and bland image.

Two faced

I went to art college two years after my daughter (my second and last child) was born. I did it because I wanted to bring my children up but being at home seven days a week was starting to make me a bit mad. I was writing up until the time I went to art college. Mostly I was writing angst ridden stuff that will never see the light of day in any form other than an emotion for my fictional characters. But I was also trying (unsuccessfully) to write ‘how to’ articles for craft magazines. I hadn’t heard of perseverance in those days and my (non digital) photography skills were pitiful. However, it was pre-art college that through a friend, I wrote and recorded six or so talks for BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought. Then I forgot the writing and went off to art college. It took two days a week, for two years, to do a part time foundation course in Art and Design. How I loved Mondays. When everyone else I knew was bemoaning the end of the weekend, I was cheering: Monday and Tuesday were my days in college. Towards the end of my foundation course, I knew I had to do another course and so when Daughter was one term away from starting school, I enrolled for a full time degree in Fine Art at the same university. I knew, by the time this course started, that I was a maker (not a painter and I don’t like the term sculptor) and the more I made the less I felt the need to write. Except that I was writing essays – there’s always an element of theory – but I didn’t think about that as writing. So I thought that I needed one or the other: writing or making. I’m not sure that’s true any more. Making takes you to that place where your subconscious does magic stuff all on its own for the benefit of your writing. And see, I’m still desperate to make… Meet my two new friends; they’re helping with the hat making.