HANGING AROUND

Obsession has climbed on my back, wrapped itself around my shoulders, my head – which is lost inside a huge fiction...yes, thirteen books one after another will do that to you. I'm back in True Blood land, living in Bon Temps with Sookie Stackhouse, hanging on every word, to the extent of sometimes going back a bit to re-listen because my attention had strayed to the real world...of just one of my other fantasy places. It's a nasty addiction, this audio book trail, this reading with your eyes shut...this falling in love with the deep south accent of the same reader through the books. I've only escaped for a little while to skin Facebook, Twitter, and to force a scribble for blogging. The last book is calling me so I think I might have time to make a quick cuppa after I post this before the walls close in. outside I hear the rain running foul of the wind and am glad to be imprisoned in this wee flat, in this cosy bed.

Though, last couple of days I've been working on another set of tarot majors, including creating the hanged man above. I took that pic in Budapest more than ten years ago, and thought he would be an interesting take on the traditional image.

Writing with the Tarot

I posted a while ago about using tarot as a prompt, and that I was expanding the exercise to create a stream of characters, names, places and events/plot/situations. So now I have recently returned to the first story that came out of this project and am expanding it. I’d stopped at a thousand words, thinking that it was a short story, but as the months passed I questioned that. It had occurred to me that this may be a novel. Now I think it should be a novella, and it’s sitting somewhere around 6k. The first thousand words sets up the atmosphere of a happy home expecting a late baby, and the expectations of change hitting the mother in an unexpected way; at first she was the key figure and the major change happening to her, and everyone else in the family being satellites who would, of course, respond to what she had done…but I had left the reader to imagine that response.

I myself, even though I’d created them, was charmed by all these characters and that’s probably why I couldn’t get them out of my head. So when I was writing something else I realised that the two girls were Violet and Melody, so I changed the names and moved the pieces over and found the perfect situation to slip their story onto the already written one…and because I’d done that it was natural to continue on with yet another character from the household after that.

So, the tale appears to revolve around one morning, and the choices each character makes and how they affect the dynamics of the family and its future. I did think of killing someone but that would halt the onward progress of their choices. I’m more than half-way through the third section and faced with real action in a building site (which I know nothing about) so I’m faced with the prospect of having to go photograph some of the doings of house-building - luckily, there’s one near me… I just need to wait until the stormy weather calms down so I can go spying.

In this section there are two of the characters, the oldest daughter and her father, coming together really just to show a more stabilising unit within the unit, but during this time something unusual comes to light and perhaps we get to know what’s going on inside this pleasant man’s head…some of the time. It is a very female crowd, and he’s the only man - although, the mother is expecting their first son.

If this exercise is anything to go by, I should get a ton of work out of the whole thing: this set-up came from only the first card in a spread - there are six more to go!

Link to tarot exercise

LAUNCH DAY

It’s launch day for the anthology, Tales from Elsewhere, which includes a story written by me. There are some brilliant and wonderful tales in this book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tales-Elsewhere-Sarah-Thomas/dp/1522725628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452170228&sr=8-1&keywords=tales+from+elsewhere

I pondered what to blog about, on launch-day, and have already written about our group of writers on my personal blog - here, so I think the perfect thing is to offer you the out-takes, the bits of writing at the beginning of this project that never stayed in the story.

September 2014

My notes from that weekend include phrases like, ‘It’s bosomy here…’ There is also an unfinished poem, but I want to let that lie around for a while more.

OUT-TAKES

Liza had felt the invitation, the crisp flick of paper in her hand; she feared her sweating fingertips would smudge the officialness of her name, her right to go there...to drive up that lane listening to the arse of her poor old car dragging its tail on the un-gouged middle. This place was nowhere, with no witnesses...anyone standing on the moon would never give that landscape a moment's thought, wouldn't know of its existence.
She stepped out of the car in a gravelled circle and pushed the door closed with a click. Someone knew she had come, would have heard her scrunching up the lane and now the gravel could bring the meeting onto the path. Liza was instantly taken with a table and chairs set out under a tree but she turned towards the cottage's open door.
'Hello,' she called.
A sound from the door on her right might've been an answering voice – Liza opened the door and walked in...into a bathroom and found a little round woman sitting in a bath with all her clothes on.
'Did you want to speak to the Oracle?' the wet woman asked.
'Is that you? Are you the oracle?'
'Well, I'm in her bath so it stands to reason that I am probably her.'
'But you're fully dressed.'
'Which is my own business in my own bathroom.'
'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, but the front door was wide open.'
'You must be expected then. Take a seat.'
She motioned for Liza to sit on the fluffy lid of the toilet.
Liza sat and looked at the woman.
'Why are you taking a bath in your clothes..if you don't mind me asking?'
'Why should I mind you asking me personal questions?'
'Well, there was no answer at first then I thought I heard someone say, Come in.'
'What's your name dear?'
'Liza.'
'Hmmm.'
Liza took out her invitation and waved it. 'I was invited,' she said, 'though I don't know why.'
'Well, Liza. Perhaps you might like to climb that little tree and pick me a few apples before we begin.' She pointed out of the window.
'Begin what?'
'Introductions of course.'
Liza stood up and peered around the flapping curtain out of the open window.
'Oh. Okay,' she said, and left the room.
She walked down the side of the garden, looking into bushy corners but no one appeared. It was a big space, not quite a lawn but pleasant short grass. Picking the apples was only the first task of seven; there were mushrooms to get, chestnuts to gather from the cemetery and Ginger-beer to bring up from the old schoolhouse. Now she was stuck at the fish and had no idea what the other two chores would be.

*

I can't see Liza in the kitchen but I know she's still staring at that gutted fish on the kitchen table; she knows it's dead but can't get past the wide eyes, won't chop the head off because it's a vile thing to do but is in a quandary about serving it up cooked. She's a carnivore for God's sake. Distance is a dance. I only met her a few hours ago and already she trusts me to teach her something that will help her to cope with all the things she can't talk about.
September here is bosomy. I live under this tree, sit outside all day and pretend it can change me, make me more fundamental, grounded in the basics that exclude electronics...and yet, knowing that the skies are hoaching with technology and I was reduced to candles, oil lamps and scrubbing carbolic wouldn't bring me the tranquillity I'd need to fulfil my purpose – if I had one. Liza thinks I have; she heard it from a good source.

*

'Oh I do love a bit of company,' said the Oracle when Liza came to join her under the tree. 'You arrived on time dear, now come sit. I feel the skin holding us together burst, seeding our words into autumn...'
'I feel as if I've been here for days.'
'And all the better for it. Tell me now, what is it that consumes you?'
'Last night I dreamed about a woman who could astral walk, talk to others and live a different kind of life but her body was killed while she was away, and all I can think about now is where does that leave her? Are we attached to our bodies even when we're gone? Would she be a waif-ghost?’
'What do you think?'
'I'd want to believe the most, the positive but the state of the world these days, what with all the privatisation and food-banks, I'm leaning towards the opposite. She's fucked, isn't she?'
'But she doesn't exist in the world of politics so cut them from the picture and see what's left.'
'Everything.'
'Exactly.'
'The fish must be cooked by now,' Liza said.
'Yes, the others will be along soon, oh yes I hear them coming up the lane.'
As they walked up the lawn voices drifted through the trees that used to be hedges.

There had been no introductions, no names, just women passing bowls of food to each other. Sauce boats sailed up each side of the table, crossing at one point before being captured and re-filled. The great fish had been picked clean, only remnants scattered inside the curved cage. Liza loved the way the steaming flesh had slipped off the bone just from the hook of a fork. Apples, cheese and cake appeared like magic as hands lifted the old course away...the talking caught her at every turn – she couldn't keep up. There was wine but not too much to notice and yet there must've been a lot. She counted fifteen at the table, though some of them just wouldn't stay still and their faces blurred into smiling characters from a story she'd read in her childhood. What was she doing here?

The next morning, in the middle of all the small conversations going on all over the place, there were shouts and laughter, and two heads rising over the lilac bushes. A little round woman was taking photos of the two gyrating women on the trampoline. Liza stood behind her and watched her capture them up in the air, legs and arms dancing – she was breathless just watching them and the world was suddenly quite overwhelming. Why was she here? And then a memory slipped into her mind – had she eaten anything? She couldn't remember the taste of the fish the night before, but she must've had some...she was right there amongst the others, who were all eating and enthusing and congratulating the cook. When she looked down there was a mug of tea in her hand.
'I am here. It is real, isn't it?'
No one answered her; she wasn't sure if she'd spoken out loud, but it was pretty noisy where she was and anyone passing was watching and laughing at the trampoliners.

https://talesfromelsewhereblog.wordpress.com/

HUNGER GAMES

I have a new project - of course I do. It will also help re-shape an old project, which is good; I'm building a book of prompts, and it's been lying around now for a couple of years, more than partly done so this idea should polish it into a finished product.

January is going to be all about Hunger in all its glory or mess, and the poem below is still in first draft but in essence is the birth of a creative spirit...whether you're new to writing or not.

HUNGER GAMES

The days in front of me are lawns of empty pages…
my stomach ponders the arrival of more food
but I'm thinking about women starving to feed children,
and the news I can't watch will offer visions of need
into my poor but satisfactory life. I buy bargain food,
save my money for £300 phones, and gadgets
that starve my muscles of exercise – I'm comfortable,
not ashamed to have survived my struggles.

Farewell; I may be gone for some time

Sailing into the new year and working extra shifts, grumbling all the way, but I suppose the money will help cover some expenses and get me on a level path again...not that I've gone off the path or fallen down the pipe. Things are cool in my world, though I have taken out a teeny wee loan with my credit union to treat myself to a new phone. Number 1 son got the old one yesterday so now I am phoneless, and have to go out into the world on Monday to work and be incommunicado for a change. The lovely new phone could arrive by the 31st so let's all pray I have a new gadget to play with on Hogmanay.

Now that xmas is over my next project is to put up new art in my hall. I took down all the postcards from my mad world hobby the other year but have chosen some to keep and find a new nook for them - maybe behind the kitchen door. So now I will have to sort out the printers - they only need ink and to be reunited with the laptops. I've been buying photo paper because I've got some fabulous doodled pics I want on my walls...captured a couple of pieces from Lesley too, and, demanded something creative from the boy Spencer.

As I clear and clean these neglected corners of my life and home I should be able to slip myself, my legs, into the hole in my desk - actually there are two desks in my room, and they are almost tidy, nearly ready to be put to work. I don't want to make empty promises again at this time of the year; it's time to do without quibble, to finish what's been started. In the last week I have found snug homes for lots of the jewellery-making supplies so the place is looking much more business-like and less like a mad poet's place - maybe that's because I'm on a prose-spree.

Next year I plan to read more paper books, prowl through what's on my Kindle, and write some reviews. I think that should be my only resolution...there's no point me saying I will try to be healthier, to lose weight, to go out more, I will just have to hope all these things happen accidentally, as by-products of my other obsessions.

TAROT TALES

Speed does not exist this month - time is full of essence and I am smelling all the roses, feeling languid, rested but itching to get up and go full pelt for December. I've got all the makings for most of my Xmas presents and am now clearing the desks (again) to begin with all the creativity...or I was. The other day I had a great idea to write a collection of stories around a tarot reading, but one set of cards wasn't enough for this project - I used 8 packs of cards, pulling out the reading from each one and laying them down in a grid so I could snap a picture for future reference. So, that has captured me for the last few days...I even taught myself a few new moves on Scrivener.

It's only been four days but I think the marriage of Tarot Tales and charm bracelets will do well.

The first story is inspired by the cards in the top row - they are all 8 of pentacles but the difference in the images is incredible from a writing/creating point of view. I've got 8 lines of description or character or place, and 8 names to choose from. Each card in the original reading sits on a position, which gives me a base-line for the story and characters...and the whole story of the reading is yet another level in the tales. It has turned out to be a fantastic exercise, so I'm hoping that the good first drafts of all of them might be ready to rest over the holiday season.

A MUST-READ BOOK

On opening Catherine Czerkawska's historical novel, The Physic Garden, I know immediately that I will have to plan ahead and read it chapter by chapter because it is so beautifully written, with each chapter encapsulating a thought, a question, a time. You want to stop and think, relish what you've just read – also, life has to revolve around work and shopping and cooking/consuming meals...there will be no housework done until I have finished this book.

Half-way through and I am still captivated by the interesting detail, the characters and the hook – I want to know; what happened? I'm a city girl and really interested in how the writer has stuffed every crack in the floors with knowledge...things I want to know but have been too lazy to find out for myself, so far. When I'm reading I'm immediately immersed in these characters' lives, and it's so annoying when real life interferes and I have to stop.

Oooh, there's a fabulously disgusting passage 85% of the way through, describing some of the poorest places in Glasgow:

'...I found myself peering into rooms that never saw the light of day, stinking bug-ridden rooms and passages...in a drab and deadly succession, all leprous with damp, I thought that I had found myself in some hellish labyrinth, an underground warren where only troglodytes might live.'

...and, several hours later, I have finished reading a wonderful tale. I don't need to tell you what it's about – you can read that on the book blurb. This is not a genre story; anyone, with particular likes and dislikes would love it. It is set in the historical past but is fiction, and such an imagination has conjured up a place and a time that will leave you spellbound.

A FANTASY LIFE

I'm reading, mostly with my eyes shut – I do love audio books. So far this year I've gone back and listened again to Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Dresden Files, The Walking Dead, and am now on the fourth book in The Game of Thrones. It's hard to explain why I keep returning to all these, but it's probably because there are so many characters and stories to love...I must be a saga-gal! I easily fall upon series, including TV versions, and often re-read True Blood and watch the dramas re-envisioned where killed-off characters live again. I love the differences.

My reading taste changed because I wanted to write fantasy so began reading lots of it...and then I found audio versions of Asimov's Foundation series, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth and oh the feeling when the right voice reads life into those characters is beyond fascination...it's a drug, and I became addicted so now am obsessed with listening to books, so much so that I hardly ever switch on the TV. It goes on for me to watch one thing and off again. I can't watch normal programmes, only drama. I don't live in the real world.

It doesn't matter that I'm not in the real world and I'll be gone from it soon enough I suppose, so why should I spend my last years trying to interpret the reported news and politics? I enjoy every minute I spend alone in my cave; I love the flashes of time with my many grandchildren; and I refuse to become a Moaning Minnie like the old woman I meet on a Monday morning at the bus stop on my way into work – if that's how the world bends us then I'm opting out. I can easily deal with the tension created on pages of text because I can turn the page to find out who did what when and where and to whom...and more than likely the why of it too...and yes, I believe in fairies.

Have I written my fantasy yet? No. Gestation is a bitch, but something is creeping out now and after years of working with Tarot cards I'm splashing some of it all over my pages. So there's a short story almost finished that will appear in an anthology, and some kind of magic has appeared in poems, some of which have been published. I started working on world-building a few years ago so that is always in the back of my mind when creating characters..and there are more than a few novels lazing around waiting for my attention. I'm drowning in fantasy...see the bubbles coming up?

THE RETURN

I am thinking, of a revival, of the road ahead so I must bring this old head to bear on blogging again, turning my mornings into pages and communicating with the world. At present, I know nothing about what goes on outside of my hermitty circle/cycle/phase...is it a phase? Shall I really enter the wide world again? I won't be reading its newspapers or watching its crap TV - who needs that when you can live in fantasy with Netflix and listen to someone reading books to you on Audible?

Apparently I haven't set foot here in four years - eek! I often see Time flying around, and let me tell you, that butterfly can change its spots all right. I am officially old now - hit the number 60 last year, and as I'm Scottish, have a lovely wee free bus pass - but I'm still too young for the pension. Writing-wise, there's a lot of it going on and I have three Kindle projects slowly building: Poetic Forms, Reading Tarot, and Writing Prompts - so I'd better shore up the platform, hadn't I? I will need some fencing-in, a shepherd to pen me into a small timetable, then maybe, just maybe, I'll perform nicely, like a good writer.

TRUTH & FICTION

Aye, the years are fair drawing in; I’ve been thinking about dying, and how it could come all too soon. Really, I have pondered on the fact that my family are not long-lived and I might only have a very small amount of time left to do the things I want to do. Hopefully I will be the exception and will bang on ‘til I’m a centurion. Mostly, I want to see my grandchildren grow up but the fact is, that the longer I live the more likely it’ll be that I’ll lose a child and I definitely don’t want that.

So, to be that selfish I will have to be tough enough to keep going through the loss of my friends and writing buddies, and whatever the barmy politicians drag us into – the way they’re going the western world could be wiped out this decade!

Someone recently asked, why do you write? I said I wanted to entertain my future progeny with true stories, and strangers with my fiction and poetry. It’s so easy, these days, to communicate and spread our personal history; we can tell the stories that would have died with us.

When I was a child I loved to sit and listen to the adults talking, gossiping and telling tales of old childhoods; my children had only a little time to spend on that because technology was interfering; my grandchildren won’t have a minute to allow old tales to sink into their memory. I hope there will be at least one amongst those future grandchildren, however great, who will be a reader and perhaps a writer, but interested in what has gone before.

I have experienced a lot in my life, and the horror is hysterical in its own way – I will make it attractive and someone will read it, I’m sure. But, I’m having fun learning how to show them how it was for me…of course, I’ll fictionalise the sexy bits so they won’t know what’s true to me or someone else. Ordinary life will be straight and true.

PILLARS OF THE WORLD

This is the first book I’ve read this year, and I loved it. I was sucked into this world from the beginning and read it in a week – which is good for me.

Written by Anne Bishop who is the author of the bestselling Black Jewels Trilogy – well that’s what it said on the cover. I’m researching Fantasy as a genre because I want to write something witchy and magicky, so had called for suggestions. What a wonderful start; a very satisfying read.

The story drags us into a world where a struggle between humans and Fae has existed for generations; witches live in a kind of peace between them until the arrival of the witch-hunter.

It is written from many points of view which immediately gives the reader the three stars of the show in three quite short chapters. Something mysterious is happening to the world of the Fae, the witch-hunter is killing a witch, Death’s Mistress is gathering the dead, and our young MC is being treated unkindly in the village. What more could you want? I read on, and on. My first taste of Fantasy since I was a teenager is a success, I’m glad to report.

And now I have to choose another. I’ve had a great time these last few weeks, swapping books, and the day that five books were stuffed through my letter box was definitely red letter. Imagine, watching the postman squeezing all these brown parcels into that hole in the door – so fast that I couldn’t get to it to open it for him! I’ve abandoned a Terry Pratchet, The Wee Free Men and don’t think I’ll go back to it, yet. The Name of the Wind is calling to me so I might answer it first.

THE LONG HAUL

I’m saying goodbye to my old writing community; after three years it’ll seem strange not to click in there for a chat, but it’s time to move on, for a while. I might return at some point because it feels like home. I’m a bit like a teenager, running off to join the circus – belting out into the world to see what kind of life I can make for myself. More like what kind of trouble I can get myself into! No – I’m too old for trouble.

And, I’ve got a new one to pick up the pieces, to critique my blunders and help me shape this novel that feels as if it’s on the road to the end. This week I posted what I thought was a well-edited version of Chapter Two but there were a couple of great slovenly elephants sitting right in the middle of it! Cheek. Litopia has so many brilliant eyes and opinions that a writer can’t help but improve because of it. It’ll do me.

As the years went on, I neglected my old group, Women’s Fiction on WriteWords. I also neglected my writing but I keep the online friends I found there and hope to always have them around, in the ether, in the world of writers and artists – some of them are in Litopia too. Maybe all roads lead to this utopia for writers. I know that I’ve trawled and tried many, many groups and communities, as have a lot of fellow Litopians – so I’ve moved in lock stock and smoking barrel.

WriteWords is worth every penny of its yearly fee; it served me very well. Over the years I was also part of several other communities and enthusiastically took part in all sorts of writing games and exercises but now I need to settle down for the long haul; it’s time I was serious and put my nose to the ground/grind. I think Litopia is the grown-up place, the colony where career is held up to a mirror and you have to see your real self - not a picture of Dorian Gray.

HAPPIER

I have just discovered Google Docs. How F.A.B. is that? I was prowling the app store looking for something to hold and move files, found a cheap office thing that invited me to connect with the Google Docs and I love it. I've never really used Google except to search...and here it's got all these lovely functions and stuff! You might not see me for days - weeks even!

So I've copied loads of bits of stories and ALL the novels over there so I can edit, write as the mood takes me when I'm out and somewhere with wifi. I've been inspired to blog three times tonight; once in my DIET blog too. Only good can come of this.

Well, What a Surprise - not

Well, I think I’ve battered Chapter One into the right kind of shape. Now I can push through the next four chapters to get to the muddy bit; the bit that hadn’t been written/created before I dived into Nano. This is where I have to take myself in hand and do the Billy Connolly impression – ‘Appreciate Cunningham, appreciate!’ to which I must reply, ‘Sir. Yes sir!’

I can feel the excitement bubbling up; the idea that I’m going to write through the missing middle of this book and eventually write the ending that’s just appeared in front of me (with a bit of help from Lulu) makes me want to freeze everything around me. I will sit down and do it, as much as I can as often as I can…but I’m still me – lazier than a sloth!

Internet and writing forums are my life blood but I don’t have to keep checking every ten minutes – I could get a whole paragraph done in the time I waste popping in and out of sites. Maybe a timetable would work. Pshaw! (I think that’s how they say that) ‘Know thyself!’ (Is that a bible quote?) This is just a little hump in the middle; it’s not a huge bloody mountain – it’s just that if feels like work. I like to slide along on the seat of my pants – do things off the cuff at the last minute.

I’ve been in this area for almost/about 15 months and am only now changing my doctor – days before I need my repeat prescription! It takes two weeks to get an introductory appointment so I have to go two days without my medication and pick up the scrip at the old place on Monday. Slap me now. Yes, I know I’ve demanded that before.

When I started this entry I didn’t plan on battering myself but it was inevitable.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

And here we are, in the countdown to a new decade – wonder what they’ll call this one: the tennies? So this is where I promise to be good, better, perfect; to write more, finish a novel, clean the flat, lay the carpets, sit at a desk instead of lounging in bed with the laptop…be more professional. There is a profession that’s conducted in a bed and it’s not writing! Oh but I love this bed, this room and my position in it. I almost got the armchair emptied today – maybe tomorrow, or later tonight.

I’ve even got a little drink beside me; leftover chardonnay from my visitors in June – waste not want not. There’s lemonade in it, but that’s flat, but I might be driving tomorrow so I don’t want to open the whisky, and it’s such a waste to drink by yourself. I’m happy with my flat old wine and lemonade.

My biggest success this year has been the fall of television. I meant to call Virgin today and cancel the cable; I hardly watch it at all now. So, this could be it – the year I become a real writer as opposed to a couch potato! Hmmm, howz about that then?

I began a brand new short story today for a competition in January and plan on putting this large bum on the seat to do just that more often. I know I’ve said that before but what better time to say it than the end of a decade and the birth of a new one.

See ya sooner than you think. :-)

 

 

HOWZ IT ALL GOING THEN?

Sleep; what is that – a novel I read years ago? Oh, sleeeeep, where you close your eyes and drift off into some other world for seven or eight hours – not in this life I don’t. I would pay fortunes (if I had any) to experience unconsciousness for more than an hour at a time. My friend, Sylvia mentioned on the phone yesterday that there is a version of Nightal (don’t know if I’ve spelled that right) that works like a dream, even on the usually impervious. It’s supposed to be natural drugs: not real serious drugs – I thought drugs were natural. Well anyway, I might try it if she can find out the right colour for me.

 

My two weeks holiday is almost up; back to work on Monday, full of my usual bounce and enthusiasm. Actually I’ll be glad to get back to work; I’ve got a blanket to crochet for my new great-niece, and one to finish for my daughter Amazon’s boyfriend. I push these blankets on everyone and the big/young people like them especially for their hangovers, especially in winter when they’re mooning around the house, or mooching from neighbours. Actually, she’s been going out with him for over two years now, so I’ll have to give him a name; he works in a bank but I don’t think Banker would suit him, but he’s a DJ too, so DJ it is. Welcome to my blog, DJ.

 

Where was I? Oh yes, sleep. I lay down about half-past twelve, because I seemed to be tired, as you do. One hour later I’m still trying to fall off to sleep. So I gave up and made a cup of tea, opened the laptop and suddenly a section of the novel appeared in my head…but I still quickly checked email and Litopia for conversation. Nothing doing, I delved into the novel and wrote almost a thousand words. by half-past two I was nodding and congratulating myself, talking into the room. Then I lay down again but not a lot happened so I’m going to sack the hell out of that manager who runs the Land of Nod.

 

Half-past nine, text messages from Amazon. Nine-forty-five phone call from Musician. Isn’t everything in the world about how we get the loan of a fiver to bloody Musician? But I got up and actually wrote more lovely words (well that remains to be seen) before I had breakfast at eleven. I like it when a plan comes together – what plan? That’s why I’m having so much trouble with this bloody novel; I haven’t planned it out and don’t know what happens at the end – writing by the seat of my pants here, as usual.

 

So yeah, things are going good.

REALITY

I have to confess to a small case of Lazyitus – well I hope it’s a small case. I lay in bed last night (early hours of the morning) planning to get up and write for most of the day today, Oh I was going to do all sorts but I was delayed. The bed held me back. I automatically took my first cup of decaffeinated tea into the bedroom and slipped between the covers again, then, as the laptop warmed up, my hand reached out for the lovely shiny thing that is my iPod Touch – and that was me snookered. I’ve been here all day.

 

Of course I have to set the beautiful thing up; assign favourites in uTube, checkout the apps I captured last night and learn how to type on the fabulous little keyboard. The fact that today was my first weighing-in day fell by the wayside, and even that I’ve lost 10lbs – YES 10 whole lbs! didn’t make a dent in my prone position on that bloody bed. I can write like this too but did I? No, I consoled myself that my back was still a little sore so I should take another day off. Twit that I am.

 

Well, anyway, I’ve had a lovely day and have X-Factor to look forward to tonight (yeah right, with the diabolical twins) but I know that the CSIs will be repeats, so perhaps I’ll write then. I’ve been surrounded with blankets and can now feel the cold sinking into my shoulders so I’d better go put the heating on and have some dinner.

 

Now that I’ve bought my new toy and set it up, there’s not a whole lot left to do with it until I go out – which I don’t plan to do for a while. There is no more dreaming of the thing; it’s born and will be a normal feature of my life, so I might as well spend the time writing and finish this bloody novel. Hmm.

NaNo Begins

Oh I’m busy beavering away at the novel for NaNo – keeping pace, but it’s only day three; plenty of time to screw up! No, I’m not going to do that this year. I’ve got two weeks off work to get myself into a nice routine. I did think of running ahead of the game but I could turn myself right off doing that. So, nice and easy it is; just what I’m supposed to do and no more.

 

Though, after three days in bed I’m getting a bit twitchy – I’m in here with the laptop, hiding from the TV. So, I think I might take myself out to the loch tomorrow. Mmm, fresh air, exercise, photography, coffee…Oh God, it sounds positively dangerous!

 

I’ve also been thinking of cleaning the flat, finishing the wallpapering in the kitchen even – then moving the fridge to do the other side. Maybe I’m ill. I haven’t slept much the last two nights; my friend says it’s because I haven’t been out of the house, that I should walk somewhere – without the car! Ooh, I don’t know if I could do that. I might drive over to the loch (about 500 yards away) and have a little wander further than the decorative part, away from the shops and benches.

 

It’s a problem, but I might solve it.

SEASONAL MAYHEM

Across George Square bare

skin sizzling: not drowning

in high factors.

Here, summer lands

like a sledgehammer.

SURPRISE!

Drop everything, Glaswegians

desperately seeking brown

burn red.

Hospitals prepare

people swear – Never again.

How many degrees?

Blisters glisten

skin dries and peels

to squeals of pain.

Bra-less and free

goose-bumps, fever

just in time for autumn.

WHAT TO WRITE

Oh what fun it is prowling the corners of my imagination; the new book will be called DELILAH. I've had a great time building this plan and look forward to writing it in November; I wonder if I'll be able to write right through to the end - something I haven't done with any book yet but they were never planned to this degree. Maybe I should return to the others, waiting in the wings, and give them this treatment so that when I continue them they'll fly right off to the end.

I am awash with ideas, always, and have to keep myself from going off at tangents; all the books lying behind me are not blocked or stuck: they're only paused - there's nothing wrong with them, except me! I read a blogpost that was posted in one of my witers' forums; this man is taking his novel ideas and selling them, fully planned, themed and shaped. I think this is a fantastic idea but wonder how many writers will go for it - how will they feel about not having the original idea and doing the early work on the creation? But it all looks so wonderful on his blog, here.

Digging up the ideas and flying with them is just mind-blowing. I look at my behaviour as stocking up for the future - I doubt if I'll ever be at a loss on the subject of what to write.