Tuesday 12 May 2009

The pigeon that got its wish...

I decided to have a day off writing on Sunday, because I could feel a rebellion in the offing. Is it possible to refuse to do something you actually really want to do? Anyway, I felt I was headed in that direction so happily drove off to Northampton to visit friends, minus the usual word count guilt! I had a great day, even if there were a truly frightening number of children at the party... The journey back was uneventful until a couple of miles from home I encountered a pigeon with a death wish. 70 miles an hour on a dual carriageway, with a car on my inside didn't give me many options. It was coming straight at the windscreen, so shutting my eyes seemed the only sensible course! Fortunately it missed, there was a loud thump and lots of feathers. My car seemed fine, and I assumed it had gone underneath. Think again...




Yes, that is a whole pigeon. You can imagine how delighted my husband was when he had to pull it out...

Maybe that was a warning that I'm not supposed to be out frittering my weekends but back at home slogging it out with my laptop! Well, I don't care. I had a lovely day and felt much more enthusiastic on Monday, even if I am only on 35,000 words.

I have taken tomorrow off work to get a serious amount done. So I'm sure nothing will contrive to interfere with that at all...

Monday 4 May 2009

Bank holiday sitting on my bum days

It's astonishing the highs and lows you can get out of one weekend of writing. I've had the dizzy heights when I can't type fast enough to get the words out of my head, the blank eyed staring at the screen and the OCD tap of the word counter. All of which got me to 25,000 words and it's never enough is it! I found myself drifting into daydreams several times, where I was sitting here Monday night smugly admiring my 35,000 word count. Ah, well.

A little bit of life interuptus came along for the ride as well. An hour in to my peaceful 6 hours of free writing time on Saturday, one of my rabbits started sneezing. After 4 or 5 I looked up, by 20 I was frantically googling for what to do with her, then she stopped. She seemed fine until she fell asleep a few minutes later, and started snoring like an old man. Bad sign, trip to the emergency vet who diagnosed a respiratory infection. She's now fine after lots of drugs (£20) and seemed to like the on call vet (£120...) Unfortunately 4 hours vanished in the process, I'll just have to type quicker!

I have done a few sums though, used all my fingers and am fairly sure about these ones, and think I need 2000 words a day. This leaves me a month to edit the 1st draft into something better. However 10 days of this time will be spent in Washington DC, Niagara on the Lake (looks gorgeous, tips welcome if anyone has been!) and Toronto. Maybe I can get a lot of my editing done on aeroplanes...

Holiday planning will definitely have to be rationed. I can lose hours researching hotels, car hire, best routes to drive, places to visit. You get the idea, tripadvisor has a lot to answer for! If anyone can think of a job which pays me to obsessively research other people's holidays I'd be delighted! I fear travel agent neither pays well nor gets further than booking package holidays.

Anyway, I digress. 2000 words, half of which I can usually manage in my lunch break, and surely I can find at least an hour every evening. Surely...