‘Life is what happens when you’re making other plans’ – that’s what they say, anyway. And it would seem that ‘they’ are right, more often than not.

As clearly stated in my last blog entry, I had planned to finish the first draft of my YA novel by June 17th and decided to observe a self-imposed blog-ban (both writing my own and reading others) until then. All possible distractions and aids to procrastination were to be avoided – on pain of something slightly less drastic than dismemberment. I was determined, I was driven, I was definitely going to make it... I had no idea that the beginning of August would see me still several thousand words from achieving my goal, despite having stuck to my blog-fast with a fanaticism worthy of several great religions.

I have come to the conclusion that there are three main reasons for this state of affairs, each of which also comes with an upside.


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Hurrah, am feeling a bit better today - more like a woman with a cold and less like a walking disease with no human characteristics. I have even stopped grunting and wailing and begun forming actual words. Lord H is delighted. Only one-syllable ones though. I don't want to get overtired. We're really very delicate here in the south.

I've even managed to do another 500 words to Hallsfoot's Battle, thus reaching (so soon!) the magical number of 20,000. Only another 100,000 to go and I might even have the makings of another fantasy novel. Ye gods. I have to think of what the first of the planned four Gathandrian legends is going to be though. It'll have to be something to do with fortitude and lust, as that's my theme for the first quarter of the book ...


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Yesterday I discovered Wordle. This brilliant site lets you paste in a block of text and create a cloud that gives prominence to the most frequently used words. The genius of this as a form of procrastination is that it’s possible to convince yourself that you are actually doing something writing-related. The pics show the first chapters of Kill-Grief, (above) and Freaks (below)...

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Honestly, nothing much has happened today. It's one of those days in the universe which doesn't - at least here in cloudy Godalming - count for much. However, my stomach is less gripey than yesterday and I think that whatever I have is developing into a head cold with digestive accessories. (Would you like your head cold with digestive accessories, Ms Brooke, or without? Oh with, please doctor, it's so much more fun ...)

As a result, I didn't go for a day's birdwatching in Pulborough Brooks, but I encouraged Lord H to go anyway - there's nothing duller than being indoors with a sick wife. So one of us has had a nice day at least, hurrah, and he's come back loaded with Lemsips, Lucozades, the Saturday Torygraph (ah, here in Surrey, where would we be without it?) and - best of all! - a new cuddly bird, complete with appropriate song. What a superhusband. The bird in question is a cuddly songthrush, and my goodness but it's loud. Extra sensitive too - it's supposed to sing if you push its back but this one starts up if you so much as glance at it whilst passing. Perhaps it's trying to tell us something? So, a nice, if opinionated, addition to our cuddly bird collection ...


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Sid appears to be sniffing the air as he says this. “In another life I’d like to have my own place on Brick Lane. I’d be like Sam on Cheers.”

“I’d be your Norm.”

“I see you more as Cliff.”

“No one ever gets drunk on Cheers.”

We are two-thirds of the way through our third pints and we are both slowing down because we don’t want to leave.

Reluctantly, Sid brings us closer to the inevitable. “I’m happy to drive you home but we’ll have to leave after this.”

“I know.”

“We can stay but we’d have to get the tube…”

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Despite having fulminated more than once, here, on why I think rules are not what a beginner writer (or any writer) needs, I do think it can be useful, sometimes, to have a quick label for a concept you've understood in more detail already. The difference between showing and telling is subtle and complex, and 'don't' doesn't begin to describe the relationship between them, but among writers it's very useful to be able to say 'It's quite telly-y, this passage,' and know that the others understand the full implications and possibilities of what you mean. And it applies to less tidy things than rules. There is a place for aphorisms, for phrases that are short enough to linger in the brain, so you have a reasonable hope that they'll pipe up when you need one.

I was thinking about this recently, because for the first time in ages I've been reading how-to-write books.

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Waved goodbye to Lord H at our front door as he left for work today and then hurried to the bedroom window to wave him off down the path as usual. At which point a dark grey tabby strolled down the path and paused at the junction with the road - a distinctly unusual event that made me wonder if Lord H had turned into a cat and, if so, where he'd put his briefcase. However, a moment or so later, Lord H strolled out as usual, pointing at the cat and shaking his head and then pointing at himself and nodding. Always best to reassure wives that one is one's usual shape, I suppose. Anyway, I did know Lord H hadn't turned into the cat - if he had, the cat would have been taller ...


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Not much has happened today really. I have stepped neatly off the world for a day and spoken to no-one and not gone out of the flat at all. Bliss. Except I did nip quietly down to the shared hallway to pick up the post. It's all finances - groan. Honestly, I think the postman has seriously gone off us now and is obviously taking our exciting post to more deserving customers. Even the magazine was Accountancy Monthly - Lord H's, I hasten to add.

Apart from that, I have done another 1000 words to Hallsfoot's Battle, thus bringing me up to 18,000 of the little beggars. 2000 to go before my self-imposed holiday deadline then! But really, do I need a deadline? Or is it just something I take on in order to give me an imagined sense of control in a totally uncontrollable world? Hell, no, don't answer that ... As my Anglo-Saxon tutor once told me a long time ago: Anne, you are your own worst enemy, you know. Ye gods, but the old bugger might have been right ...


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I have been particularly grumpy over the past couple of days. Now most of you will be aware that I've had issues with one of my feet. Which was a pain. See, now what's happened is, because I've been putting weight and at the wrong angles on the other (previously good) foot to compensate, now that one's knackered, with the result being that, for the past few days, I've had two bad feet and have been walking like Richard III. I have to go for an X-ray at some point soon.

So I've not been able to do too much. Like leaving the house, or driving, or going to this do, which I really wanted to go to. Harrumph.

***

But it's not all been bad. I'm starting to put together my writing group's second anthology of stories and poems they've written since I've been with them, which is exciting.

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Oh Cadbury your Galaxy is just Heaven
beTwix Mars and the Milky Way –
Black Magic dreams come true;

Coffee Creams transport me, and
Turkish Delight insinuates itself into
my very soul, to Fry my intentions.


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