Fourteen thousands words and not even one week in

Well.  I am relatively impressed with myself. Despite it being half term and the fact that I have a heavy head cold (thanks Absent Husband), I have managed to write 14,043 words. Am really happy with the way the story is progressing. Have just managed to get the inciting event in today in Chapter Three which is about the best place to have it.  I do find it difficult to keep the balance of description and dialogue.

One other thing, how many ways can you describe a rugged handsome, good looking man????

A good day's work

The good news is I am three days in and 10,161 words on.  Feel really good about this.

I haven't felt the best over the last couple of days.  Absent Husband has been coughing and spluttering everywhere so now I have it. Today I felt too hill to go down to the writing shed so I wrote on the sofa, squashed for a large chunk of the time by Faithful Hound.  Still, I did write the whole of Chapter Two, 4201 words.  A good day's work.

Writing new novel Day One - I began backwards

Today is the day I began to write my romantic suspense novel.  My plan is to write everyday with a first draft of around 60,000 words finished by the end of March.  I have chosen to blog about it after each writing session.  This will mean:

My hands will be knackered from all that typing (I hope).

If I don't write much on the story, the embarrassment of trying to explain it to the blog will hopefully give me the mental kick in the you- know-what for the next day.

And so to Day One:

The sun was out (yes seriously!) and by 9.30 I had walked Faithful Hound and put the washing on, and the long day stretched out before me so down to my shed I went.  The shed, unused for over a week, was cold and it took a while for the heater to warm it up.  Faithful Hound protested slightly and moved his cushion closer to the heater:

Two and half hours and four thousand one hundred and seventeen words later, I finished the end of the penultimate chapter of the book.  Yes, that's right - the PENULTIMATE chapter.  I chose to start there (in the middle of the climax) in order to set my mind on the right direction from the beginning.

Well, if J K Rowling could write the last chapter of the last HP book before she wrote anything else - so can I.

I rewarded myself with chocolate and a walk around the garden where I saw the plain and simple beauty of these snowdrops:

Bring on Day Two.

Out with the old and in with the new

Isn’t it wonderful when you have a clear out at home?  It’s so nice to open a cupboard and see the virtually empty space with only the necessary items in situ, or to look across at tidy, uncluttered shelves?  Spring is all about tidying up and clearing out the winter mess in preparation for the summer.  We do it with ourselves too.  Going on a diet after Christmas and joining a gym is virtually the same thing as sorting out our homes.

However, like the New Year fitness resolutions, spring cleaning can also be tricky.  I have written before about how difficult it is to throw things away.  Sometimes more things get put back than thrown out.  This year I had an early spring clean forced on me as I was having work done in the house in January and therefore needed to “sort things out” (as Absent Husband put it more than once).  This deadline meant I had to be ruthless.

So I started with a large cupboard in our family room.  This held years of puzzles, board games and various assortments of video and DVDs.  Yes, videos.  I looked longingly at each one, mainly great Disney films, and wondered where the time had gone.  I pulled out boxes of wonderful Duplo (Lego for little ones) and found myself immersed in building a secret garden scene complete with animals, just like the one my daughter used to create.  And then suddenly I noticed the time and realised I been doing it for over an hour.  Clearing out does that to you.  You find something from the past and all the memories come flooding back.

But the clear out had to be done quickly – I had a buyer coming to collect the oak cupboard and new built in furniture being installed all later that week.  So the Duplo and the videos were hastily dealt with, videos to the tip (nobody has a video player anymore) and the Duplo consigned to a box in the loft informally known as “the grandchildren box”. 

I took several cartons of games and puzzles all in good condition to a local charity shop and they were, as ever, extremely grateful to receive them.  As I looked around the shop, I was struck by how many things like mine were in it and I wondered how they manage to sell all those things.

The job was done and I can now look across at my beautifully tidy shelves safe in the knowledge that I won’t have to do anymore clearing out.  Well not in that room anyway.  And if I feel the inclination to design a secret garden again, well, I know where the Lego is kept.