Rags To Riches...?

I wanna be just like Jodiiii...

2009-03-03T19:24:00.002Z

As a general rule, certain types of people like certain things.
Teenage boys like football.
Teenage girls like boybands. (I may have been somewhat obssessed with the Backstreet Boys. I heart them still.)

Me, as a writer...I am in love with Jodi Picoult.
Not in the literal, I'm-a-bit-gay, sense. Love in the, 'I'm a writer and wish to high heaven that I could be even a tenth as good as she is', sense.
The woman amazes me with every single book she releases. She's incredible. She has such a way with words that by the end of the book, I am literally in there, living with the people she has given life to in the little world she has created. I'm totally attached to every single plot line she has ever thrown onto paper.

I was first introduced to her books a couple of years ago, when I had run out of good books to pick up and my mom lent me her copy of The Pact. I read it in approximately 9 hours. Seriously.

I now own all 15 of her books and have read them all at least twice. Most of them are signed. This years book is released in the UK on the 30 April, and I have it pre-ordered. The UK tour dates have been released, and I am driving the two and a half hours to Kent in April to watch her one hour talk, and then I'll be driving home again.
I've been to about 6 different book signings and talks just in the last two years.

Do I have a problem?! Haha!
I just am in total awe of how good this woman is....she is exactly who I want to be.

So, imagine me, in a fit of adolescent-like hero-worship, emailing her web site to gush over how excited I was that the book was almost out and that the tour was coming over here....and then imagine me bouncing off the walls when she emails me straight back from her Blackberry.
Dear lord, it was like a teenage girl getting a text from a Backstreet Boy ;)

If you are reading this, and you have never read a Jodi book - you are seriously reading the wrong person. Shame on you. Get thee to a bookstore at once.

So...how many cards...

2009-02-16T19:37:00.002Z

...did we all get this year? One? Two? A dozen red roses?

I got my gas and electric bills for Valentines day this year. Pah. I want to say Humbug, but thats a Christmas grotty expression...so Pah will have to do.

Oh well. I spent my valentines night at a house party with a whole bunch of friends (as Boyo had decided to do a runner to London for the evening) - and actually, I had a great time. There was no pressure to be romantic or slushy or make that extra over the top effort just because the date tells you you should. I just drank, danced, sang and took lots of silly photos, and didnt get home til past 5am. That was a good night.

And seeing as I had given Boyo such a hard time all week for deserting me and being a general arse, when I saw him last night I had a take away bought for me, I was allowed to watch Dancing On Ice without any complaining, and as many cups of tea as I could drink made for me. Its the little things that show someone cares. (Although a big fat bunch of flowers would have been nice. But you cant teach an old dog new tricks.)

And on a completely different tack....during work today, I had to spend an eon sitting at the scanner on a different computer (tight bastards wont buy me a scanner of my own). And so I decided to open up the email I'd sent to myself from home, attaching my NaNo from 2007. Seriously, that one is still on the go. I cant believe it has been over a year and I still havent finished it.

So I opened it up, and I started attacking my keyboard thinking it would be fine to just get some done while I was waiting for the scanner to finish. And before I knew it, the scanner had finished - and three hours later I was still sat there. I havent had a roll like that for aaaaages!

Woopsy that I was supposed to be working but...hey ho. It happens. And no one seemed any the wiser.
And now...now I am almost finished. I am half way through the penultimate scene - the tricky bit seems to be out of the way.

I have lived and breathed this god damned story for fifteen long, gruelling months - I both hate it with a vengeance, and love it with a passion. I have thrashed out the plot so, so many times in my head that I can physically play it from memory like a movie I have watched far too many times. So writing it is proving to be easier than expected.

So I'm both excited that finally that first draft will be finished, and give me a good solid base to start the re-write from - and a little bit sad that this first thrilling, scary part of writing a book is almost over. Weird, huh?

Famous Friends

2009-02-09T22:15:00.008Z

Yikes. This week has been a bad week all round for dieting!

I have eaten crisps, peanuts, lots of bread...and another skinful of alcohol on Saturday night. Eep!

Guess who isn't looking forward to her weigh in tomorrow!

But on a good note - I had a fantastic Saturday night.

Some of my bestest girlies are in a band called Tremain (see link on the right hand side). For those of you that read me, you'll know I've talked about them before. L & A, two of the best friends a girl could ask for, also happen to be stupidly, mind-blowingly, fantastically talented sisters, who have the most amazing voices in the world. I kid you not. I know I am a little biaised, but please go and have a look for yourselves - I promise you, you will not be disappointed.

The girls recently recorded the backing vocals on the Eva Cassidy remixed album, just released over here in the UK. They are THAT good.

On Saturday, they played at the Indigo2 arena - a venue inside the O2 arena in London. It is massive. It was full. And they kicked some serious musical butt.

I found myself pushing people out of the way so I could stand at the front of the stage and scream like a 14 year old groupie. I heart them.

Tremain on stage at the Indigo2

My friend L

My friend A

Go and have a lil listen to their myspace

It'll brighten up your day :)

Naughty Naughty

2009-02-03T13:54:00.004Z

Weight loss this week: 3lb

Last Friday was my girls night out on the town, me and 3 or 4 of the girls hitting a couple of local bars for some dancing and a couple of drinks. Seemed like the perfect idea to take my mind off the split from Boyo, and try and relax a little. I told myself that I would only have a couple of vodka and soda's, so as not to consume 20 thousand million calories, and totally mess up the diet.

Things never go as planned though! I successfully managed to drink my weight in Vodka (which, until I get thinner, is a considerable amount), and threw in more than a few tequila's for good measure. I knocked peoples drinks over, I somehow bruised my back hideously, and I ended up a sobbing mess sitting on the cold pavement outside the pub my friends were having a great time in.
Not Good.

My friend V apparently scraped me up from the floor and took me home, where I promptly passed out feeling very sorry for myself.
Things turned out better on Saturday, despite the hangover - Boyo picked me up at 6pm, and took me to the flat he has just moved to. We ate chinese food, watched films, and talked for ages. It was good to curl up next to him when I fell asleep.
Sunday, we went shopping pretty much all day. I was supposed to buy trainers and jogging bottoms ready for the gym this week - I ended up buying two dresses, a pair of booootiful shoes, and new food bowls for my kitty kat. Oops. We drank hot chocolate, made dinner and watched more films.

By Monday, I was a much, much happier bunny than I have been.
Things are not fixed, by any means, but they are better. And I have missed him so much, that better will do.

However, 'better' did not seem to do much for the diet and I was terrified of this morning's weigh-in, which would then need to be communicated to my other girlies doing this lose weight programme with me. We share our weight loss (or gain) every week as a way of motivating ourselves to stick to it. So yes. Scared Was I.

BUT......I lost 3lb this week! I have absolutely NO idea how...maybe the gods just felt that lil' ol' me deserved a break! Woop!
On a better behaved note...I have now bought trainers, and jogging bottoms, and the gym starts tomorrow. If it is open. (we've had freak snow for the last two days which has kept everybody off of work - including the gym staff!)

A reason to fight the flab

2009-01-27T19:14:00.005Z

Weight Loss This Week : 1lb

Some friends and I have decided that we have put on too much weight over Christmas, and so the time has come to shift our lard arses to gyms etc, and get rid of the vile flab.
So, I have been dieting for one whole week (unfortunately, I have to wait til pay day to join the gym, so that will all start next week!), and so far I have lost 1lb in seven days, just from cutting out the crappy food.
Now, 1lb might not sound like a lot, but I was quite happy with this. Its a start. Its just the first tiny step towards the target I set myself, and I am pleased that I managed to make that step. Usually, I am just far too lazy and far too fond of my naughty foods to manage it.

But this time, I am determined. In July, we will all be taking part in Race For Life. For those of you not UK based, it is a charity, 5k walk/jog/run that raises money for Cancer Research. Most of us girlies participating have had family who have suffered from Cancer in some form or another.

My Auntie Christine was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago. She underwent a masectomy, a long round of Chemotherapy, lost her hair, her eyebrows, even her eyelashes - and she smiled through the whole thing. She is in her 30's.
My Auntie Judith, Christine's sister, has just last week had a lumpectomy to remove the breast cancer that was diagnosed a few days before Christmas.
And at the beginning of January, I went to the funeral of a friend of mine who lost his fight to cancer just a few months before his 60th birthday. He was the funniest, most friendly, most loving and heart warmingly wonderful people I have ever had the chance to know, and I'll miss him forever.

So, us girlies, we've decided to take part in the Race For Life this year. Not just to get fit, or to lose weight - but to try and make some sort of difference.

The getting fit and losing weight may just be a bonus, though.

Comfort in things gone by...

2009-01-17T13:06:00.002Z

Boyo and I had a row last night.
Actually, thinking about it, not so much a row as a drunken conversation at 3am which resulted in us splitting up.

For those of you that know me, this does happen sometimes. We get together, things are good for a while, we drift a bit and then split up. Then we get back together, and it starts all over. We've been doing this for 7 years - you'd think we'd have found a way to fix it by now.

But, however often this happens - it still hurts like hell. I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. I called him this morning to see if actually, it was just a drunk row and that today we could sort everything out and go back to planning which restaurant we wanted to book for Valentines Day. But, sadly, no.
Boyo doesn't want me anymore. I explained I couldn't be friends with the man I've been in love with for 7 years - so I guess thats it.

Pretty shitty way to start my weekend - dumped, hungover, and having to make my own cups of tea. Yikes.

So, what could I do to cheer myself up? Had a quick look at Facebook, watched a boring programme about animals in a zoo, thought about getting out of bed until I realised I didn't really have a reason to do that. None of that worked.
So I reverted back to my 14 year old self. What did I do when I was 14 and needed something to make me feel better, I hear you ask?
I watched Backstreet Boys stuff.

For those of you who never crushed out on a boybander as a kid, you really don't know what you're missing. Its being in love with a guy who will never hurt you, who will sing all the soppy words you ever needed to hear, will dance around without his shirt on, and will be readily available on television, dvd, the internet and live in concert, whenever you should need him.
As a 14 year old, I was totally in love with AJ Mclean. He was the absolute light of my life, and I could not picture ever finding someone as perfect as he. Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure I ever proved this theory wrong!
Whilst perhaps the scary stalkery obssession has calmed somewhat as I've gotten older...if I ever turn on the tv and catch a programme with him on, or hear one of their songs on the radio, I still get a little happy belly flutter.

And its nice to know that there is something that will always make you feel that way, even if everything else has turned to shit.
So I watched hours of videos and funny little clips and interviews....and now I feel as though I'm ready to get out of bed to make a cup of tea.
I'm getting back in bed straight after, though.

Can't shake the feeling

2009-01-15T20:58:00.002Z

I had the most vivid dream last night.
And when I say vivid, I don't mean just vaguely realistic - this was so hauntingly real that I haven't been able to shake it for most of the day.

The details of the dream are a little hazy now, which is a shame. Its annoying that you can't record your dreams and watch them back later when you're fully awake. But I do know this. In my dream, I was pregnant. Very, very pregnant.

Now, having never had a child, I clearly would have no idea what it feels like to be carrying a child at almost full term. But in my dream, I could not only see my tummy as thought I was looking down at myself - I could feel it. I felt all stretched and distended, and heavy, and it was so, SO real. In the dream, I was on my way to hospital because I was about to go into labour. I knew the time had come for me to have my baby, and I was excited and terrified all at the same time. There was no pain in the dream...but the weight of the baby belly and how distended my stomach was...I could feel the baby moving around. It was so weird.
To the point where I woke up this morning, and not only did the dream stay with me for a few moments - I actually sat up with a bolting feeling of happiness that today was the day my child was going to arrive.

It was only when I put my hand on my tummy in what felt like a totally normal action, that I realised it wasnt real and there was no baby, really. And I was so gutted.

Now, dont get me wrong - I'm almost 25, and I would be lying if I said I didnt think about having children. Of course I do, I want to be a mum in the future and I wouldnt contemplate a future without a baby or two to stress me out along the way. But I dont actually want one now.
I'm quite happy with life how it is at the moment, I like that the only stresses I have really are mine, and Boyo's, and my cats. I dont have to think about, or take responsibility for, anything else.

But the overwhelming sadness when I sat up in bed this morning, realising that I wasnt going to have my child today, was choking. It didnt feel like disappointment that the dream wasnt real - it felt as though something I had had moments before had been physically taken away.

And I have not been able to shake it all day!
So....anyone out there any good at interpreting dreams?
Or interpreting strange lady behaviour once the dream has ended?!

A little summary...

2009-01-10T16:57:00.003Z

Well, stone me crows. However long has it been since I communicated with my cyber-diary/thought-leaking-page/method-of-containing-crazy-inducing-outbursts?!

Firstly, there was Christmas. Christmas was good, this year, I think. We seemed to have quite a nice time, lots of drinking occassions out with friends, Christmas dinner with my family, lots of presents. Some very amusing photographs of myself looking perhaps slightly less than sober (for those of you friends with me on Facebook).
Only one complaint from Christmas, I think, and that was the television.
I don't know about you guys, but Christmas for me always makes me think of being a kid, and what it was like way-back-when.
Christmas used to consist of - me and my younger brother jumping up and down on my moms bed at far too early o'clock, until she agreed we could go downstairs and see if Father Christmas had indeed left us presents for being good children that year (which always made us a little nervous).
Then it would be tear downstairs, open our presents from the three of us, and then go shower and get ready. Then the family would arrive, and we would eat the biggest dinner you ever did see. Then we'd open the rest of our presents - and then the best bit - play with the presents. Did you ever get 'doing' presents as a kid? When you're parents know that, heaven forbid, if all you got were clothes and smellies and some money, you would have nothing to entertain you for the rest of the day and you would undoubtedly become too much to handle?
So, we'd play with the presents - then collect them all up into a little pile and escort them to our bedrooms, then back downstairs to laugh at my Poppa for being asleep on the sofa, and my Uncle Dereks red nose.
Then...THEN...there was the telly. There was always something good on the telly - a film or two, some entertaining programmes that had pretty colours for us kids, and adult humour to make the grown ups laugh. There was inevitably something on that the grandparents thought unsuitable, or my tipsy mom would snort at as she tried to laugh with a mouthful of wine - but it was always happy programmes.
This year....what happened this year????
For all you British readers who saw the abismal shit they broadcast over the festive holidays...what the hell happened??

But we got over Christmas horrors, and then the weird little time between Christmas and New Year, where no one really knows what day of the week it is or what they're supposed to be doing. I can safely say that I ate and drank and danced my way through this odd little time blip.

New Year was again a bit of a drunken experience - what can I say, I looked happy in the photographs and my arse was sore after a falling over incident at the end of the night - so I'm guessing that all went well.

So, now we are all back to work - thrusting ourselves back into the land of the living and having to contend with 10 hour working days, traffic, cars breaking down and not getting to finally sit down and chill out until at least 9 o'clock, by which time I'm tired and Boyo is getting tetchy with me because he knows I will shortly fall asleep, and we wont actually get to spend any time together.

All's normal on the southern front, then.

ps. There are plenty more specific stories since I have been away from this blog. I just dont have the energy to post any of them today. Stay tuned! ha ha!

Phlegm and Festivity...

2008-12-16T18:37:00.002Z

Yes indeedy. I am Sick, again. With a capital S.
Not poorly sick like last time - no lying in bed with a bucket beside me and a cold flannel on my head. No no.

This time, I have the mother of all chest infections. I swear, God hates me. Its Christmas for goodness sakes, I should be humming carols and putting up decorations, wrapping presents and planning christmas drinkies with my friends. Instead I am coughing my lungs out of my chest and feel like I have swallowed a bucket of acid, and am having to cancel much needed shifts at work because, somehow, I cant imagine serving people their Christmas dinners with a side helping of infectious disease would go down so well.

On a good note though - I had my first little creepings of festive feeling today :)
I actually put up a Christmas tree, with a little help from my friend V, and decorated it with lots of funky little ball balls and lights. It looks quite pretty over there in the corner. And while I was sitting here writing the beginning paragraph of this, beginning to feel all sorry for myself again - Santa actually drove past my front room window in his sleigh, playing Christmas tunes and waving!

Well okay, maybe it wasnt the actual Santa. Maybe the sleigh was being pulled by a mini-bus with the Council's logo on it, and maybe the guy in the red suit sitting in the sleigh was a very cold and semi-pissed-off Council volunteer...but it was very charming, and it was nice to see all the kiddies coming out of their front doors so they could wave to Santa as he went on his merry way.

Skiving!

2008-11-21T10:17:00.000Z

Right now, I should be ploughing my way through the mountain of post on my desk that seems to have piled up over the last couple of weeks that I have been held captive in training sessions.
I seriously think my head may explode from all the lessons on roofing, plastering, wet & dry rot (now there's a topic)....eurgh.

If I wanted to be a tradesman, I would have studied a trade. I dont want to know this stuff - I wanted to settle down into an office job, work 9-5 at my desk doing organisey, officey things, and then hot foot it on to The Club/The Pub to earn the extra pennies.
Instead I've managed to spend two and a half years in an office job that has now promoted me into dealing with public liability property damage claims, which requires me to learn all about the things I didnt want to know about! ha ha!!

Funny old world eh? I think thats how things work round here.
I took on the extra shifts outside of my main work, so that I can earn spending monies that I could put towards a new laptop, pay off old debt, and spend all my free time writing.
Unfortunately, taking on all the extra shifts means I have absolutely NO time for all the writing I really would rather be doing! Eep!

What is the world coming too when you even have to blog at work, in secret, when you should be concentrating - because you know that when you leave here at half 5, you have to speed down the motorway to The Pub before work starts again at 6 - and by the time you finish at midnight, your brain is fired up for writing but your body has given up the ghost.

I am still a little gnarked that I had to let go of NaNo this year. Can you tell?

I'm sorry, I think I may have to pass...

2008-11-15T17:46:00.002Z

NaNo Words So Far: 12,541

I think I have reached the sad conclusion that I may have to pull out of NaNo this year :(

As well as falling miserably behind with word count due to an insane training programme at The Job, along with shifts at The Club and The Pub - I then got sick. And I dont mean like a cold, snotty sick. I mean like sick. Disgustingly, every 15 minutes, projectile, sick. It was horrid, and it literally came out of nowhere!

Thursday night me and Boyo went to a little bar near the seafront to watch my friend Lucy sing. She has an amazing voice, but hasnt really been on stage recently and I was so looking forward to seeing her get up there and do her thing. Only, 20 minutes after we got to the pub, and half a vodka and coke later, I was throwing up in the toilets and Boyo had to take me home. And I was up all night, and all of Friday, and all of Friday night, feeling like absolute total horse shit.

Today I feel marginally better. I have eaten, and actually washed, and don't feel like the Grim Reaper has just put me in the microwave to keep me a little toasty. But I am thoroughly washed out, and this is the first time in almost three days I have picked up my laptop.

So, I am now beginning to feel there is not much hope for achieving 50,000 words by the 30th. I now have 14 days and 6 hours to write about 37,500 words, in the minimal time I have between the three jobs and sleeping. I am quite gutted, as I really do like the story this year. But I think my brain is just too fried this November, too stretched between work, work, work and sleep to have enough time to let these characters breath.

I'll keep writing til the end, I think. But I'm not heading for the 50k target anymore. I doubt I'll even be able to see the finishing line come the 30th, let alone be able to cross it!

Today

2008-11-11T23:09:00.002Z

NaNo Words So Far: 12,186

Have hit a small blip in motivation, again. Oops. I still know the direction its going in, I just seem to have run out of steam, or something.

I think its cos I'm pooped. Work is insane at the moment. I am currently training to move on to a different job role - which means I have to spend the next 10 weeks learning about Policy Liability, Legal Liability, and a whole bunch of stuff about buildings like masonry, roofing, plastering......eurgh god. Yes, I do work in Insurance. For a Loss Adjuster, not an Insurance company. So yes, I guess we can be seen as the bad guys! And being that Im about to start working on Public Liability Property Damage claims, its about to get all intense and stuff. So my brain is pretty fried.

And then there is The Club, and The Pub. All shifts are needed, so I cant give them up. So I'm just permanently tired!!

I had a good go at it tonight, got another couple of thousand words done, but its all totally shit and thats really disheartening. So I am currently sitting with Boyo, watching him play his PS3, wishing I had the energy to do more than try to help him clear this level on Fallout 3.

On the plus side, I have tomorrow evening off as well, so other than a visit to my dads house for a nice cup of tea, I should crack on with some more of this god-damn-im-starting-to-hate-it novel.

A break from the norm

2008-11-09T23:13:00.002Z

NaNo Words So Far: 9,601

After a bit of a hectic weekend, some cramming writing and now a bit of a frazzled brain, I decided to kick back a bit this evening and do something non-writey. It was nice!!

Some very dear friends of mine, Dan, George, Ali, Rob and Kev, are in an fabtastic band called Tiny Spark (go and have a looky...on the right hand side, under 'Amazingly Talented Musical Friends Of Mine')
I love the bones of them, and it just so happens that their music is pretty awesome.

During the week they went into a London radio station to do an interview and play some live tracks, which you should all check out here.
They are amazing live, and god bless them, like to think they're quite funny with the old jokes and super sharp wit (hence the comment about the Tiny Spark Street Team just being 'girls in tight white shirts'. I tried to ignore this comment, being one of the Street Team myself.)

A bit of music is good for the soul, and I promise that you won't be disappointed.
Hope you've all had a nice weekend :)

...and I'm feeling good

2008-11-08T22:55:00.002Z

NaNo Words So Far: 8,537

Thank god.

Its taken a little while this year, but I have finally found a pace with this god damn novel. Hallelujah!

The plot outline is the same, but it is very vague. And the fact that it was vague had scared me because it didnt detail every little thing that I needed to write about, like my plan did last year.

What I've found though, is that by not detailing every minute detail, I have allowed the story to kind of dictate itself. In the last chapter I wrote today, 3 new characters have reared their heads and added a whole new little story to my MC's life. Granted, they will only be in the story for 2, maybe 3, chapters at the most. But their very presence has added strength to what happens later on in the story which I had actually planned for. They give later events more of a reasoning, they make it more plausible.

And I love that they just wrote themselves! I dont know where they came from or how they did it, but these random little sub-characters have just given me the inspiration to carry on with this compeition, right at the moment when I thought I was going to quit.

I have a bit of a challenge ahead of me next week. Working monday-friday in the daytime is normal. But I am also working 4 evenings at The Club/The Pub. Which will definitely limit my writing time. So weekends are becoming very important in catch up time!

But I is feeling more positive.
I hope everyone else is having an imagination-filled, proactive weekend!
Roll on week two!

:) xx

Car Crash Writing

2008-11-04T22:56:00.004Z

NaNo Words So Far: 2,125

Ok, seriously. I am more than a little scared now.
The beginning of NaNo is always the same for me...slow, almost a non-starter. Painful. Scary.
And then on day three, the three pages I have somehow managed to scrape from the bottom of the mouldy barrel that has become my brain, seem to make more sense than they did. Day three brings a quick skim read of the drivel, ignores the stuff I hate, and somehow finds the inspiration to throw out another six or seven pages. And then I'm off!

This year, it is currently day four - and I am only on page five. I am roughly 3,000 words away from where I should be at this stage. I am not a happy bunny.
I love the idea for the story this year. The plot outline has been buzzing around inside the grey matter for months, and coming together slowly but surely. I love the way it looks and I love the way it feels. And then I try to put it on paper.

Its not that I dont like whats coming out. Because thats just how it goes with NaNo. You don't like what comes out, but thats just tough and you deal with it.
No, its not that I don't like it. Its just not coming out! And I am now panicking, ever so slightly!

What is disturbing is that I am working in the week days again now. 8am-5.30pm.
Wednesday night I have promised to go to see the fireworks display with Boyo. His friends are going to a different place to watch them, but he wants me to go with him someplace else. That is so unlike him, to prefer going with me than his friends, that I can't bring myself to say no.
Thursday night I have work at The Club from 7pm til probably around midnight. After the day in the office.
Friday night I have work in The Pub from 6pm til midnight. After the day in the office.

Writing time seems to be rapidly disappearing from my day...actually, any free time seems to be rapidly disappearing from my days!

Do you think we could create an extra day in the week?
On the 8th day he did write, and it was good?

Fried brains, anyone?

2008-11-03T23:08:00.005Z

NaNo Words so far: 1,860

So, today is day 3 of NaNoWriMo...and I am ashamed to admit I only started writing today. This evening, in fact. At 8pm. Disgraceful!!!
I had planned an entire weekend of writing bliss, confined in the space of my room accompanied only by hideous amounts of tea and chocolate. I imagined myself writing so fast only a blur of movement and steam would be seen around my keyboard. People would come from far and wide to admire the 'girl who cant stop writing'.

Do you know what I actually did with my weekend? I got hideously drunk with Boyo on Friday celebrating Halloween. On Saturday we slept all morning, then drove around in horrible traffic attempting to get to the shops and failing miserably, and deciding instead to go for dinner. Then I went home and slept while Boyo went to a party - only for sleep to be interrupted at 3am when Boyo wanted me to come and get him. Sunday, we went to see James Bond, then watched crappy telly and ate chinese food until we went to bed.

I wrote absolutely zero words. Balls.

Today, I went back to work. At 8am this morning I was wide eyed and bushy tailed, attacking the mountain of work that has accumulated in my two weeks off with the ferocious motivation that I should have applied to writing over the weekend.

So, after work, and after a meeting at The Club to discuss this months rota, I came home, made dinner, and then sat down and started. Thats always the hard part!! Starting NaNo every year is always my very very very least favourite part of the competition. Its so hard to just let stuff flow out onto the page the way that Mr Baty encourages you to do. You want so desperately to re-read, re-write, re-think everything that you have just written - which is exactly what you are not supposed to do. DO NOT edit this stuff. Just let it leave your brain at 80mph, and hit the page with such a force that your characters explode into life, and don't look back. It may be messy, but who cares. You have a whole 11 months to go back and clear it up afterwards.

So, I managed an unimpressive 1,860 words this evening. Its not much, and its certainly nowhere near the word count I wanted to be on at the end of day 3.

But. Its a start.

Ooh. And. Please see horrifically scary me in halloween make up below :)

Happy HalloScreeeam!!!

2008-10-31T13:13:00.002Z

The one good thing about halloween? Is that it doesn't matter how old you are, it is guaranteed to cheer you up! There is something about the chill in the air, the autumn colours scattered around (ie the nasty brown leaves falling off the neighbours tree), and the very blatant excuse to wear fancy dress and have outrageous make up, that makes this day awesome!

This evening me and a group of my girls are heading into town to our favourite pub, dressed in crazy clothes, with crazy make up and even crazier hair. I is a little excited :)
(Watch this space for photographic evidence...)

So today I have to skidaddle my butt out into the cold, and buy white face paint and some black nail polish, and then pick up a couple of the girls, do some serious back combing and head to another house to meet the others....before celebrating and being merry for the rest of the evening!

Of course, the intense concentration on the festivities that will be happening this evening, means I can postpone thinking about the fact that NaNo starts in.....T minus 10 and a half hours. Good Lord. Moving on.

Last night I drove my excited little self to Camden in Central London, to see my friends band play. I know I may be a little biased but....they are amazing. Seriously. Destined for bigger things, I tell thee. For the love of all things musical, please go have a listen here

All five of the Tiny Spark boys are friends of mine, and they deserve great things to happen for them. So, if you like what you hear...spread the word!!

Happy Halloween you lovely people!

Distractions...

2008-10-27T20:44:00.004Z

This morning I picked up Chris Baty's (NaNoWriMo) book, No Plot No Problem, hoping that it would be full of a multitude of ideas and genious ways to get the old grey matter working.
(It was a Christmas present last year, but by the time December came I didnt want to think about anything NaNo related until my brain had recovered!)

One thing that Chris recommends is working outside of your home. Take your laptop, being the wonderfully portable device that it is, and get out of your front room. Get away from your telly, get away from the 'siren song of your bed'. It dawned on me that the man has a point.
I am terrible at getting distracted. Don't get me wrong, I have the best of intentions - I'll get up, have a nice bath and get dressed, and take my laptop and note book into the front room. I'll set it up on the table, get myself a cup of tea and some toast and switch on, almost cracking my knuckles in anticipation of all the creative things I have flowing through my mind.

And then I log onto messenger, just to see who's around this morning.
And then I'll check my emails, just to make sure there's nothing important that I've missed.
And then I'll check my facebook. And then switch the telly on to make sure I'm not missing anything good.

So, as is written in the book: "Working in public gives you more...obssessive email checking is curtailed, the mood is lively, and buckets of caffeine are sitting there for the asking."
So, I packed up my laptop, my notebook, a stack of already lovingly scribbled ideas and the all important power lead, and I took myself off in my car in search of somewhere quiet but comfortable, where I could set up station and get down to it. Interruption free.

Unfortunately, by the time I had decided that this would be the path to enlightenment, I had also realised I needed to do some washing. And that the clean laundry needed to be put away. And the washing up really shouldn't be left.
By the time I'd got in the car and driven towards the seafront and the few cafe's that I could think of that might have a good atmosphere, it was late afternoon and I couldn't find a parking space. And then when I found a parking space, I couldn't find a cafe with any space, and ended up in a pub with music that was too loud and staff that kept giving me dirty looks for sitting on my lap top.

I got a grand total of about 100 words down, before heading home with my tail between my legs.

And now, after today is finished (because lets face it, I'm not gonna get anything else done today now I'm back in front of the telly), there are now officially 4 days until NaNo starts. Big Fat Eep.

* By the way - You should all check out Chris Baty's book - it is utter genious. :)

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

2008-10-26T14:31:00.002Z

I guess it has been somewhat of a hectic weekend so far.

Worked my first shift in The Pub on friday night...it was a good evening, a nice little local pub with a good mix of people, relatively cheap drinks and a jukebox with music you would actually choose to listen to. Landlord seemed happy that I was able to count in my head and be nice to the customers, and so I now have the job every friday night. Extra pennies are always good!

And then there is Boyo. The last time we spoke, properly, he told me we couldn't be together and that 'we're not really anywhere, anymore, babe'. There have been a few conversations since, via text and the wonder of facebook, but nothing that would ever make me feel...better. Granted, its not the first time in the last seven years that we have broken up but...this is the most final its ever felt.

So, I spent a week crying, and then after I finish work on friday at The Pub, I somehow end up at Boyo's house, with him and his new housemates, drinking wine and dancing in the kitchen until 6am. And it was fun. We laughed, we drank lots, we snuggled down in bed like we used to and we moaned about our hangovers the next day. We visited his parents for chinese food on saturday, and then watched scary films and crap tv until we fell asleep. This morning we went for breakfast, we bickered like we used to, I dropped him home...and said goodbye.

And now I'm kind of torn between feeling happy - happy that I got to spend a weekend with him and wake up with him and feel normal again - and so desperately gutted that now its over, I've come home and have to start being alone, all over again!!

Also, on a slightly scarier note...there are are only 5 more daytimes until NaNo begins...am vaguely worried that my in depth, detailed plan has not managed to create itself and leave itself where I could see it when I got home from my emotionally draining weekend...uh oh, I think I may have to do this one myself? Eep.

NaNoWriMo...Uh Oh...

2008-10-23T17:22:00.007+01:00

Eep.
Looking at my little diary/work rota thingy here, it has just dawned on me that NaNo begins in a little over a week. As in, there are only 7 and a half days to go. Like, 174 and a half hours.
Oh dear. I don't even have something that resembles a plot outline yet.

For those of you that have absolutely no clue what I am twittering on about, NaNoWriMo is a yearly competition that starts on the 1st November and ends at midnight on the 30th November. If you're brave (or silly?) enough to enter, you have 30 days to write 50,000 words. It can be daunting stuff! The name of the game is to encourage all of those people who have ever had the put-off-til-another-time pipe dream of writing a novel, to just crack on and give it a whirl. Its fun, its scary, its stressful and its exhilarating...and I cannot wait!

This will be my fourth year, and I honestly cannot recommend it enough. You can check it out here.

So, now that I have counted how many hours there are (or aren't) left to go, I reeeeally need to get down to organising the plot outline...yes indeedy, I am a control freak, and I cannot go to war without my armour!

Now then...where did I put my brain this morning...