Today I’m over there

Just when I was about to Unleash the Gloom, I’ve discovered my next blog post is up on the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook website! In it I talk about OARS (Over-Active Research Syndrome). If you have time do pop over and leave me a comment – be great to hear your thoughts.

Click here to read about Over-Active Research Syndrome/

As for the Gloom… oh dear. There are a few reasons for the Gloom, mainly circling around living arrangements that need to be better arranged, not winning the lottery (which would greatly help the first reason), commuting in hot weather and general work / life balance doing its best Jedi mind trick - ‘There is no balance. Move along.’

But it’s cool (well, apart from if you are a commuter. Then it’s freakin’ hot.) I just have to keep focused on The Grand Plan. There is a new Grand Plan, y’see, and this one supersedes the other grand plan, which turned out not to be as grand as once thought. This new one rocks socks, it really does.

And because I have just heard from the vet that my Ginger boy is recovering nicely after having some dental work done, here’s a picture of him enjoying the sunshine.



Ps. Have changed my blog template slightly in the hope that it will sort out the annoying backlink problem. Here's hoping!

Proof that redrafting has taken over my life

On the way to work today my mind idled upon whether or not to be seduced by the chain-store coffee shop as I changed from Delayed Train One to Stupidly Delayed Tube Two. I had been fooled by the promise of good coffee from this place before, when what I got was a few squirts of brown boiling steam. And you know what I thought to myself? I thought:

Do not be tempted by the offer of ‘good coffee’. Good coffee is a bad literary device...

And then I blinked and wondered what on earth I was thinking! Is this proof that redrafting has finally sent me bonkers?

Good news is that I have finished the edits from the final print out (or rather, draft eight). Since then I have been tackling four pages of ‘anomalies’ (pictured below) – these are general queries and questions about the story for me to answer / sort out / ponder upon.



For example – some of these anomalies were changing character names. A lot of the time I will think a name goes really well together and sounds really good in my head, only to discover that it’s the name of a 1980s TV presenter, or my old junior school teacher, or a friend’s ex-boyfriend. I remember once an old novel idea of mine that had the name ‘Andy McNab’ in it, as I thought the name sounded good, and then I realised I’d obviously seen it in a book shop / newspaper somewhere! (Andy McNab being a best-selling action author.) So I have to doubly check the names I have used. There’ll be more on the topic of anomalies later!

Another thing I have been doing is recording an audio version of my story. Oh my. There are a couple of reasons for this – one being to speak the words aloud and see how true they sound, the other to listen and gauge if it all hangs together and works well on the ear. Sadly I have to also listen to my voice! Who is that girl with the odd accent? I feel I need to do some vocal warm ups, whatever they are. My dodgy voice aside, this was a really excellent idea. I cannot stress it enough. There were a lot of superfluous words creeping in the body of my text – even in the beginning chapters – which I hadn’t spotted before, but after listening I could safely take out them out without compromising the story. Managed to prune 800 words from the first three chapters – and I was thinking those puppies were done and dusted! Just goes to show I must never get that complacent. I have only recorded the beginning chapters for now, but will go over the whole book in time.

You'll be pleased to hear that my furry writing coaches have been hard at work keeping me focused by snoozing on all my important papers. Even better than that, Ginger kindly let himself be an additional work surface when I was running out of room.

I just cannot go wrong with writing coaches like that! Helpful, cuddly, and always sitting on the thing I want to find. Like homing beacons. Although I am starting to get paranoid that my eventual queries will be sent out with bonus cat hair.

Design change

Last night, some point between 'should have been asleep' and 'about to go to bed', I decided to have a little change on my blog layout. Always the best time to fiddle with settings! But here we are. What do you think?

I would love to customise this blog, as I'd like the header to be the full width of this writing panel, but it doesn't seem possible in standard settings. Also the colours - still not totally happy. But I like the width, and I like the font. There seems room to play - one day I shall do this blogging malarky properly!

My ginger cat is sitting beside me purring. He is like a lion in the mornings, so sure of his rightful place (on my lap), so sure of his rightful portion (of my porridge) and so happy with his lot in life! Here he is settling down for a snooze.

Blow me Internet down, sport

Whenever the wind blows, my Internet falls over. So I apologise for not updating for over a whole week – it has been slightly gusty outside the window. Slightly gusty is Three Mobile Broadband code for ‘quick, stop working’. So while it stops, I continue – working from home this week, so no mystery city visits. The best thing about working from home is that you are in your little world, cat on lap, own coffee, and own sneaky biscuit. The worst thing about working from home is that you don’t leave your little world, need extra long arms to work around the cat on your lap, no Starbucks, and the biscuits are usually the ones me and mum rejected now forlorn and soft at the bottom of the barrel.

The cat on my lap is called Ginger, as…um… well, I think you can guess. He likes to keep me alert and active while home-working by digging his claws into my leg at regular intervals. This would be fine if it was my light-pawed Tabby-girl, but Ginger’s second name is Mr Big Paws. Ouch is all I say about that, and I know I could push him off but he purrs away happily and so I leave him slowly turning my thigh into a pin cushion.

Book stuff – well, I haven’t done much over the last week or so. My lovely author friend T got in touch, and I am sending her the first three chapters to look through – it will be so great to get her opinion! So I am hopeful to do that at some stage this week, but I did a very light edit on the beginning pages so I have to read that through to see if it all still makes sense. Sometimes I dive in the middle of chapters and add a word, only to realise that I repeat the same word a paragraph backwards. It’s like my brain knows that word should be there, and forgets to read (yes my brain forgets to read, it’s all its fault) what I had written previously. In the real edit I am still swooshing away at chapters 4 – 7. There is, as ever, a long way to go.

And now I am determined to go for a walk before starting my day, and get a feel for life outside the window. I am going to stride into the brave new world and get a posh coffee.