10st 6lbs, 0 fags, 0.54 miles, 10 lengths

Well well well. It's been a funny old week this end. It was, all of a sudden, the last week before school, and then much as I intended to get done, it was over. Time, eh. Still can't get my head around it after 37+ years of the stuff.

So hubby went off gallivanting with his mates. Sends me regular pics of the latest mountain he's just climbed. For example:



It does, admittedly, look rather lush, but also looks a bit terrifying to me, so not at all upset at missing out on that one! (Although I've never been to Italy)

Back here in Blighty, it's been a case of ironing school uniforms, learning to tie a tie (hmm - and with no man in the house - how brilliant am I?!), writing names in tiny black pumps, and erm... not really doing any writing at all. Oh dear.

Riding is going well though ;-) Have now progressed to the point where the horse is getting a nice outline, is tracking under well, and does the paces I want when I want them. (And I know what these things are which is even more progress!) Still got miles to go, but at least I'm still loving it.

What else? The costochondritis (or Tietze's disease - 'cos it gets on your tits?! ha ha!) is back with a vengeance. All that running. Ouch and ouch again. Last night it was full on - elephant sitting on chest, short of breath, pain to touch the sternum, agony on coughing... the works really. And the old anti-inflammatories worked after a day so going back to quacks to find out more (as opposed to self-doctoring using the internet which probably isn't the best, I know).

So all's well after a fashion. Not writing a bean though which is bad. Very Bad. I am bad bad bad.

I am reading. Does that count?

I am getting ready to go on a research trip. Does that count?

I am letting the ideas fester like that expensive cheese with the dodgy blue veins. Does that count?

Does anyone even give a toss?!!!

10st 9lbs, 0 fags, 5kg nuts, 0.54 mile, 52 words

Please not the shoes are skateboarding alone, and never with me in them!

You see what happens? Swim 40 lengths and it takes until Sunday to recover enough to blog again!

Actually, seeing as I've turned into such a fat b**t**d, I'm going to subject you to what I've been doing about it. I feel like Bridget Jones except of course I have 2 children and have married my Mr Darcy already, and am so content that the big knickers have invaded the lingerie draw and chocolates have infested the kitchen. (And crisps. Salt & Vinegar ones).

So on Wednesday I had a riding lesson and it damn near killed me. No really. What effort. I snorted and huffed and puffed all the way around our 20 metre circle, cursing the bloke at the health club who insists riding is NOT a CV (that's cardio vascular, or OUT OF PUFF to you and me). I was at the VERY OUT OF PUFF stage after only 15 mins riding. Hacking is so much easier!

So I went and swam another 40 lengths on Thursday, and bought running shoes (oh dear). So I had to justify the purchase by actually running.

Running. What a shite activity. Okay, I get out of puff in a riding lesson, but it is fun. Running is crap. I ran around the block. I got half way and collapsed - chest heaving, boobs killing me (must invest in a sports bra), eye-balls popping, bent double. I had a stitch and wanted to throw up. The men sitting in the pub garden were shouting things like, "Way hey - what have we got here then?" I don't know what we've got here - a fat bastard who's trying to get fit and would rather other fat bastards left her alone, perhaps? (I don't know if they were fat but I could smell their fags and wanted one so I staggered on by and didn't look).

A friend rang the other day and said she runs for an hour. An hour?!!!! Is she taking the piss? I ran for 3 minutes and nearly had a heart attack. The following day I got three quarters of the way around the block, and went early before the pub opened (HA!). Same side effects but did make progress, only today my calves are like rocks and not very cheery at all. I'll keep you posted as to how I get on, and for your info (yeah - like you care but hey...) it's half a mile around my block. I measured it on Google Earth cos you can do clever stuff like that.

In fact I spent a good couple of writing hours measuring distances on Google. My old apartment in Spain, for example, was 0.16 miles from the beach on foot. I used to walk a minimum of 5 miles a day, and was so skint I ate very little. Hence I was lovely and slender when I lived there. Unlike here where I am the product of having a car, a husband who provides for me, a job of my own, and am not smoking so have an appetite.

I think I have bored you enough. Can't remember where the writing is up to but am writing again! Hurrah! This novel will get finished if it bloody kills me. But am determined to get fit too!

Curse the purchase of running shoes... and Jon - how the hell did you run a marathon?!!!!!

Fat, fed up, and fundless!

I've been waiting by the letter box for ages. Months in fact. I've been waiting, and eating - but not smoking - so I'm now half a stone heavier than I was and feel enormous.

But I was waiting in the hope that a letter would arrive from the AHRC (that's the Arts and Humanities Research Council) and that (hoping beyond all hope) it wouldn't matter that I'm getting old and fat because I'd get funding for my PhD and everything would be then be hunky dory.

Except (you guessed it and I knowed it) I got the letter and the letter was crap.

Boo bloody Hoo.

Apparently my application that had to squish 5,000 words into the space of 500 (with references) was not good enough. The letter said, "The standard was, as ever, extremely high and many good candidates have been disappointed." It went on to say that I had scored, "Good application, priority for an award, Grade 4." So a pat on the back but no cigar. Not that I'd want a cigar, you understand, cos I don't bloody smoke anymore (and so can't even drown my sorrows in tobacco (or alcohol cos booze makes me ill)). Jeezuz ah needz a vice!

So am a tiny but fed up. Take a moment to savour the depths of my understatement there. No funding. No £12,000 a year to do my PhD. Nope. Nada. Zilch. No money. Ni una puta duro.

On the plus side I suppose it means that I can stay part time for my PhD which given the current rate of progress can only be a good thing, and it also means that the pile of crap I wrote on the application about hybrid novel forms and short story sequences, can go to hell in a paperback shredder for all I care. I am now free to write whatever comes out. So there.

And while I'm trying to look on the bright side, I am still going to have two glorious weeks in Spain in which to do some serious research for the novel I am determined to finish now that I've got this far (and sod the funding). And even better than that, on Thursday I went out on a hack to the beach.

To the beach! And oh it was soooo wonderful I can't tell you. It was the most superb thing I've ever done, galloping along the sands at the water's edge, the wind and the sea spray. And the speed. Oh lord. I'm an atheist I know, but I was shouting Oh My God in head, and was thanking the great whatever for being alive all the way back to the yard.

So thank the great white spirit for horses, and beaches, and Spain, and f*** being fed up, fat and fundless.

Apologies...

... for the appalling lack of posts at the moment, not to mention the word counter that appears to be frozen in time. Call this a writing blog? I hear you cry, and again, I heartily apologise.

But it is summer don't you know, and there are children who want to do things/go places/see people. I am exhausted from sliding down water filled pipes, running up and down sand dunes, and today was particularly good - getting lost and walking for 5 miles across scrub land with 3 kids - 2 of which weren't even mine! But it's all good fun, eh!

This week is fun filled and packed with adventure. Tomorrow is more swimming, and Wednesday is visiting, and Thursday is hacking out on horseback, and Friday is thinking of something to do with the sproglets again again again. Hmm.

So the writing is thin on the ground, and to be honest I think I needed the break because the words just weren't there for a while. And I was a bit worried, but then now I have stopped worrying they're coming back again. *sighs with relief*

And the best bit is that I get to go to Spain for a research trip and I am soooo excited, and so nervous, and I feel so guilty because I'm going all by my ownsome...

And I only have to write the whole novel (first draft) for October. Hmm. That's what I'll be doing on the beach in September then, eh!

P.S. In a fit of madness have been to hair dresser and gone EVEN blonder. Argh!!!!

write and be damned - or at the very least - a bit fed up - Oh and Shopping!

Creativity. It can be such a slippery rascal. We speak in metaphors about muses. About ideas 'coming to us from elsewhere' like butterflies to be captured in our nets of ink, lest they should escape and become the muse of someone else. That's a nice thought. That ideas float by us all the time, and all we have to do is reach out and grab one, and pin it down beneath the glass for all the world to marvel at.

But.

It takes me hours of sitting to get anywhere at all, and even then it is more like mining. I have to descend into the pits of despair and grapple in the darkness for as long as it takes to feel the sharp sting of something. I have to crawl along the narrow passage-ways of my own making, skinning my knees and ripping the flesh from my aching fingers as they tear at the rock face in search of a single gemstone.

And.

Even when I find one (which I occasionally do), then it is so raw, so filthy that I have to then try to clean it up. Polish it. Cut it so that it catches the light just right. And taking great care not to smash it to smithereens by accident.

Writing is a bit hard methinks. I think Joseph Conrad puts it beautifully in one of his letters, reproduced here from Tillie Olsen's Silences.

I sit down religiously every morning, I sit down for eight hours, and the sitting down is all. In the course of that working day of eight hours I write three sentences which I will erase before leaving the table in despair. Sometimes it takes all of my resolution and power of self control to refrain from butting my head against the wall. After such crises of despair I doze for hours, still held conscious that there is that story that I am unable to write. Then I wake up, try again, and at last go to bed completely done up. So the days pass and nothing is done. At night I sleep. In the morning I get up with that horror of that powerlessness I must face through a day of vain efforts...

Conrad goes on about how the story haunts his every waking moment. That he can hear it narrated to him but he cannot get it down on paper. I get that a lot. It's like some cruel bloody creative joke - the kind of - here it is but bet you can't get it down in time! Conrad writes;

They [the ideas and words] creep about in my head and have got to be caught and tortured into some kind of shape.

So today I sat in front of the pc for a few hours watching the thoughts go by with respect to my novel. Eventually I was able to begin writing and got a few hundred words down. And then the teenager walked in and stood behind me. (Oh God I Hate That!). And read over my shoulder at which the ideas and the words fled like terrified mice. And then she said, "Please can I have a lift to X's house?" and that was that. Pinning down of words over for the day, because after the lift it was time to get the little one from Nan's house, so I gave up.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So I went shopping with Chilli instead, and we bought lots of pants. Because pants are good.

We also got changed in the corridor outside of the changing rooms so that we could compare notes, and bottoms, as you do. We remember the days of the Communal Changing Room you see, when there was space to move about no matter how big your bum got!

Chilli also made cinnamon and apple muffins which were absolutely gorgeous - so scrumptious I ate three and am now much heavier. But happily so. Cinnamon is my favouritist flavour in the whole world!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I just shared Conrad's thoughts on writing with my husband who now thinks I am mad. "It's not a very good advert for the job, is it?" he said. What could I say? I didn't choose writing, I said. Writing chose me.

If I cease blogging it's because he's called the men/women/people in white coats for me.

P.S.

Still Smoke free :) *Smug - Very Smug!*

Friday YAY!

Tis Friday! In the world of normal this is a good thing, but in the world of the hourly paid/student/mother/housewife/wouldbenovelist it is not all it's cracked up to be because...

Friday is the day before Saturday



and Saturday

is

the day when I have to

wash the school uniforms do the shopping and the rest of the washing clean the house sort out the kids' homework sort out my own homework mark the assignments I collected today plan next week's teaching do the evaluations on this week's teaching and...

breathe

write a conference paper and read the books I need to read to write the conference paper and have the thoughts I need to have to write the conference paper and

breathe

and make hubby happy and children happy and

breathe

and there's only 2 More Fridays before Conference Oh NO!

Ahhhh!

Had an idea. I'm going to be talking about writer's block so...

I think I will give everyone a handout with NOTHING on it and say



this is what writer's block looks like

and look back at them for 20 minutes and show them this and say

this is how writer's block feels...

Sunday

I used to hate Sundays. Sunday was the day that;

- i had to go to mass even though i didn't believe a word of it
- my parents fell asleep on the couch after Sunday lunch and snored!
- we had to visit ancient relatives who smelled funny and slobbered on your cheek
- i had to do finish my homework and prepare myself for another week of school

Now Sundays are much better!

- sometimes I go for a nice walk on the beach
- or I visit friends
- i get my marking and planning done for the week ahead
- i check the kids have done their homework
- still have to wash uniforms, clean house, and fret about how much I haven't written BUT will NEVER fall asleep on the couch after Sunday dinner and that's a promise!

And the eagle eyes amongst you will see that my word count has budged. Not a lot. But it has budged!

back to work

Oh dear - and I was having such a lovely week off! But back in now for 6 weeks full on teaching. So far it's all going swimmingly, as they say, but one does wonder when one will get one's novel written!

My supervisor collared me in the corridor yesterday and suggested we meet. We only just met, thought I. Is your memory so short that you've forgotten my most recent tears and tantrums?! She says, this would be a more formal meeting. Ah! So no tears then, I guess. I'll probably need to show her some work too. Hmm. Now is the time to start taking one's own advice; don't let work pile up; do a little each day; don't procrastinate; stay off the Internet unless researching; avoid the TV thingy; do not listen to Radio 4 listen again!!! I've given some dates for the week after next so that I can type up the drivel I've been working on in the midnight hours!

Just discovered that writing conference papers can be most beneficial. Some people, apparently, get all expenses paid to go off to foreign climes and deliver them! Bloody hell. If that isn't incentive I don't know what is! Best get thinking cap on.

What time is it?! Heading towards 11pm. Just got a few more essays to mark to hand back tomorrow, so better go and do it, and then will produce a little more drivel and increase word count by a smidgen. Fab!

Can't wait for Caroline's launch!

Some pics because, well, brightens the old blog up a bit! I took horsey ones on my way to work this morning!

Look who's been eating all my flowers!


Poppy - and to think I nearly ripped it up thinking it was a nettle!


On my way to work I see... this little grey

That's all folks! Off to mark essays!

P.S.

4 weeks without smoking! Hurrah! Hurray! I have survived! I can breathe after an hour of riding!

odd little meme

Just been trawling the blogs - following links from Caroline actually, and ended up at Badger's site where I saw the Google meme, and given the mood I find myself in this week, I thought I'd give it a go. You type in your blogger name followed by 'needs', to Google. So in my case it was "Hesitant Scribe needs" and this is what I need!

Hesitant Scribe needs Tea Stains
Hesitant Scribe needs Tipperary Institute
Hesitant Scribe needs Scribe's Notes
Hesitant Scribe needs Organised Chaos

Hmmm. I think Hesitant Scribe needs to get a life!

Hourly Paid - Okay - Not giving up just yet!

Colleagues have been very supportive since my last post - telling me to hang on in there. Also, looking around at other jobs and having a reality check. For example, I could work in a meat packing plant, or on some other conveyor belt for minimum wage and then I really would have something to complain about.

I love teaching. No really, I do. I just want some job security more than anything but realistically, there's no job security in anything these days. My hourly rate is very good (okay - just forget the extra time spent - it's par for the course I guess), and my summers are free (well August at least) to spend with my kids...

My supervisor caught up with me today too. I apologised for (accidentally on purpose) missing the deadline for abstracts for the conference in July but she said, no problem, there's loads of time! So am going to do the conference paper after all despite the stage fright etc. Bugger. Bugger. Damn.

So, off to complete the marking (which is a joy when I get a good essay, or even one that's an improvement on a student's previous work). My mind is itching to get stuck into the novel but the marking has to be done first. Let it itch. Let it stew. By the time the marking's done I'll be raring to go.

On a lighter, note - I'd just like to share with you one of the sights I see on my way to work. Even in the rain I love it - miles of fields and farmland, and of course those gorgeous (semi) wild coloured horses. Makes everything worth while!

trampolines, conferences and canter

I have been a tad ill. Missed the conferences I wanted to go to - caught the first one (CTLR) about teaching and learning, which was good - am on the right track when it comes to assessment and feedback at least. Missed the one on e-learning - instead being tied up at home with stomach ache which still hasn't altogether gone away.

Marking furiously - or rather I should be - but the kids are bored and hubby is away climbing mountains, so am going to take today out for entertaining them. The little one has just mastered handstand over into bridge on the trampoline, so am incredibly pleased for her and jealous in equal measures! I am, after all, just the coach, and much less bendy than I used to be! So spent a couple of hours today coaching on the trampoline with little miss 'won't be told'. On Tuesday I had a go on the asymmetric bars and did an upward circle with a bit of help, a flat back off the spring board, a cartwheel, and a fair attempt at the splits for a 37 year old!

Trampoline has been fun. No garden left but hey - who cares - we have 13ft of pure pleasure! Bouncing is much more fun than sunbathing, and when totally knackered, it's quite good to sunbathe on too! Am making a determined effort to get fit. Ha ha.

Riding going well too. I had a different teacher who talked me through my canter transition issues. Turns out no had thought to teach me the correct leg aids before so no bloody wonder I was struggling! Once I knew where to put the old legs we were away!

Writing - ah... well. Hmm. What can I say? It is coming along in dribs and drabs and really am at the point where I need a trip to Spain so am working on combining a research trip with a riding trip to Andalucia. Plan is to hack out/school all day, and then go out and gather research in the evenings. Then to write it all up.

Reading Horse & Hound and wanting a horse sooo much. Wonder if anyone local has a horse they need a hand with, from an inexperienced but willing hand?!

Hope everyone is well and writing a damn site more than me!

Writing? What Writing?!

It is nearly the end of the semester for the undergrads. I'm looking at my frozen word count in despair. The novel limps along a sentence at a time in long hand. On one side of my desk - hell, what am I talking about - I can't see my desk anymore, having piled all the marking up, and the admin tasks from the research department etc., etc.

Here's my To Do List for the coming weeks:

1. Marking - lots of this - essays, dissertations, short stories, exams.
2. Interviewing students for summer courses.
3. End of module admin - collate feedback, attendance, evaluations etc.
4. Prepare final week's teaching - mostly essay/exam surgeries but also revision for grammar and phonetics.
5. Attend a writing workshop with Toby Litt - looking forward to this one!
6. Attend a 2 day teaching conference.
7. Prepare teaching for summer access courses.
8. Squeeze in riding lessons!
9. Housework.
10. Arrange childcare for when I'm working - school pick ups etc.
11. Squeeze in gymnastics coaching - thankfully only once a week.
12. Complete PhD 'what I've done this year' admin stuff for research dept.
13. Attempt to remain calm.
14. And sane.
15. Second marking and deliberations.
16. Prepare mission statement for new journal with colleague who has a to do list similar to mine, minus the riding.
17. Prepare am abstract and write a conference paper for June - not sure this will actually get done though...
18. Write the novel first draft.
19. Keep reading for PhD, fiction as well as the heavy stuff.
20. Make sure everyone has clean clothes, healthy diet, and that homework (7 year old) and revision (14 year old) is done on time.

There's more I'm sure. Better get started!

Home Again :(

The Lachat

Well, I'm back in Blighty again, after ten glorious days of sunshine and snow in the French Alps. It is difficult to get back into the swing of things, but then you probably already know that! It was lovely to spend time away from the computer - I was forbidden to log on in the local tourist office - and be outside all day...


Arrrrrgh! J'ai peur! You want me to go down that?!

On the first day, the eldest boarded off into the distance at the rate of a small avalanche, following hubby who looked equally cool dressed in sleek black and trendy sunglasses. I weaved my way down at a more leisurely pace looking most elegant with backside stuck out, poles gripped for dear life, and snow plough even on the green runs! But by the end of the week, I finally cracked the skiing thing, hurtling down the slope with parallel turns, no poles, and not a hint of a snow plough anywhere! The little one earned her Premier Etoile (first star) in ski-school, so we were both feeling most proud of ourselves! We even went over a jump or two (very small ones!).


Ski School

Mid-week we went out and met the locals, drank far too much Genepi and regretted it the next morning - as you do.


Oh Yay! These things are the best!
On the last day I went riding and learned how to say "walk on" (marche), "trot" (trot), and "canter" (petit de galop). We went cantering through a snowy forest, crossed small rushing rivers, and crossed bridges I wouldn't have crossed on foot! Fantastic. Oh to play! I needed so much to play!


Simply Gorgeous
I have much more to say - about language and culture, being in a different environment, but do you know what? The sun is shining and I want to sort my garden out before the demands of study and academia chain me to my desk again. So I'll write about all that stuff later!


Chaine D'Aravis
Hope everyone else had a cracking Easter (gettit?!) - What did you get up to, and more importantly, have you been writing?! I certainly have not done a tap and proud of it... back to the grindstone on Monday eh!

novel racing - limping along

I'm still hanging in there with the novel race although I did hit a brick wall this week. I think it was the whole proposal thing. I couldn't think straight for days and then got side-tracked into reading lots of text books, and writing poetics instead of fiction. I have managed to get back on track, but am only just limping along.

It's strange how it goes like this, this writing process. That sometimes it flows and flows and I can't write fast enough to get it all down, and then it stops. Abruptly. The ideas are all there but I can't make any decisions as to how to tell the story. Where to start? At which point in the scene? Whose perspective? What am I trying to show/say here? Etc., etc., etc.

I'm working on three chapters concurrently at the moment, unable to decide which bit of the 'big' story should go in each of the 'little' ones. It's a bit of a juggling act only I keep losing track of the clubs. Still, one we go, and the word count has shifted at last. I keep having to repeat, "You have permission to write crap now and fix it later," the mantra of the desperate.

I look at the novel racers and am half inspired and half reduced to tears. Their word counts rise swiftly, some have books out there on shelves already. It all seems so far away for me, at a quarter of the way through, especially with some of you - you know who you are! - mocking up book sleeves so beautifully! I'm still grappling with how to write a novel, let alone what I want it to look like - although you've got me thinking now...

But hang on! A quarter of the way through - well almost. That's good isn't it?! There's a long way to go, but there's also a nice fat pile of words on my desk (mostly crap admittedly - but I will fix that later!). I'm going to put the kettle on and celebrate!

A busy week, and a bit on drafting and editing

Thank God last week is finally over I can get back to just being run off my feet!

I submitted my proposal/bid for funding on Thursday, which felt good, but rather scary too - a bit like handing a child over to someone you've never met. I just hope it manages to get through the long list of stages on time, and reaches its destination with all the boxes ticked, not to mention looking as pristine as it did on Thursday morning!

Teaching on Thursday and Friday ranged from inspirational and fun, to dentistry i.e. pulling teeth - my own! Was this due to my own exhaution, or it being the end of the week for them too? Whatever it was, there seems to be a general unwillingness by students to enter into discussions these days. They seem to want more and more teaching and less and less thinking, debating, chewing the fat. In response to "What do you think?" there are sighs and shrugs, indignatious looks of, "Aren't you supposed to tell us that?!" My favourite lecturer/teacher ever, was Pam Jackson. She never told us the answers. She gave us the text and discussed it with us. She was/is brilliant. She knew her stuff, but she encouraged us to find out for ourselves. She explained difficult concepts but she did not read the text for us - that was our job - and I loved her for it. She allowed long pauses, patiently waiting for someone to speak up, and we always did. I've been trying to do the same - leave long pauses - but how long do I wait? An hour? Two?? Until the seminar is over?!

Today I've been putting together a handout on drafting and editing for my writing students. It's taken me all day, but it's been a worthwhile process, as it's made me break down what it is we actually do when we move on to the second draft and beyond. I've been re-reading The Creative Writing Coursebook by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs, particularly the sections by James Friel and Paul Magrs.

Here's a summary of some of the points I thought important.

Magrs
1. You’ve got to be quite brutal with yourself at times.
2. If something isn’t working, get rid of it.
3. If it’s too opaque, too obscure, get rid of it.
4. If it’s too explicit, too expository, get rid of it.
5. Get rid of lines that are not meant for the reader, but notes to ourselves.
6. Readers like to be told just enough to work it out for themselves.
7. Readers do not like to be told everything, making them patronised and redundant.
8. Revision can go on forever. Part of the skill is knowing when to stop.
9. Take out all the material that anyone could have written so that you are left with something that only you could have written.
10. Show your work and listen to feedback. Some will be useful or surprising , at other times it will be spurious and partisan. Utilize or jettison it at will but listen to it all before you make up your mind.
11. Dialogue: is this how the character really talks? Is that what they’d really say?
12. Ask how each component connects to the broader theme.
13. Is the plot twist necessary or does it seem contrived?
14. Have you shown where you should have told, or vice-versa? (Lindsay Clarke)
15. Are we being dragged through the story too quickly in one part?

Friel
1. Be Kind – Don’t judge your first draft too harshly.
2. Be Patient – Put it aside for a while and let it brew.
3. Be Calm – Type up your first draft without changes, even though you may be itching to. Just see what is there in black and white first.
4. Be Colourful – “Once you have read it, read it again. This time attack it with red pen, pencil, scissors, glue, cut it, cross things out, tick the good bits.” Or like Tony Warren, get a set of markers and go through it making a line in the margin; one colour for plot, another for dialogue, for subplots, character development, style policing etc.
5. Be Versatile – John Steinbeck says be 3 people; one to speculate, one to criticise, and one to correlate. It usually turns out to be a fight! (And Dorothea Brande says 2: Creative, and Editor – it amounts the same.)
6. Be Curious – Ask questions. All the time. Is this what I want? What is it I want?
7. Be Heard – Read your work aloud. Note where you stumble over your own prose.
8. Be Flexible – Sometimes great changes must be made. Salman Rushdie wrote Midnight’s Children, all 900 pages, in the 3rd person, and then decided to tell it in the first person. That meant every sentence had to be changed.
9. Be Meticulous – Sentence level.
10. Be Dependent – Check for punctuation/spellings/grammar. Get help if you need it.
11. Be Independent – Use readers but don’t abuse them. Know your own anxieties, worries, fears.
12. Be Stealthy – Most drafts are either under written or over written, or a mixture of the two.

After all of this I'm giving them a first draft of something to play with. I wonder what they'll do with it?!

Ticking along

The word count is trickling at the moment, but the counter really helps to monitor progress, especially when you feel like you're not making any! The funding application really helped me though, to keep fixed on the themes and issues I want to explore, and it's quite satisfying to see that the chapter outlines I've done so far are in keeping with the general premise of the whole thing. A small sigh of relief before the panic sets in again at the gargantuan task that lies ahead (or that I'm in the middle of, even).

It's another one of those mad days today though. Horse riding lesson - last week Touchee was totally spooked by the top half of the school, for some reason, and no matter what I, or my instructor did, we couldn't get him past the half way mark for more than a few seconds before he turned around and headed back down the school. He is a funny one. Last week I discovered he doesn't like the hoof-pick with the yellow handle, and even after I let him mouth it and sniff it, he kept his ears back and stamped his feet - not to mention reaching right around with his head so that his teeth hovered unsettlingly next to my rear end! Let's hope he's gotten over whatever it was for today's ride!

This morning, and all of last night, I marked essays, but the good news is that they're out of the way, hence the slight increase in my word count today. I've not done the shopping yet (Bad Housewife), or the cleaning (Bad, Bad Housewife), but I have arranged childcare, ferrying to gymnastics of children, and my mother is feeding them all, husband included (Good organiser).

After that there's a rather exciting event which goes on all evening I think - but I'll tell you about tomorrow!

Hope everyone is well and that the novel racers are hanging on in there... looking at everyone's blogs you all seem to be careering along despite the odd hiccup along the way!

If you're a teacher and you hate the old adage, "Those who can do, those who can't teach!" then check out the Taylor Mali video on Rob's blog - it's truly wonderful - and what's more, may lead you to check out some more Slam Poetry.

A Little Light Reading for The Weekend, Madam?

The interested out there will note that my word count has not budged this week - but all is not lost. You see I've been working on an application for PhD funding which means I've had to condense around 6,000 words into the space of 500. And I'm tired. Really tired.

I started it a couple of weeks ago and by Friday evening was in tears, surrounded by over 30 books and the same number of Journal Articles. By Saturday I'd narrowed it down to the texts in the pic, plus half of the articles, and gone through half a forest scrawling the words, "My research project will..." followed by lots of gobbledegook and ending with expletives. So instead of taking the kids out (like I promised) and doing the shopping, housework etc., I sat in the office screaming at the walls and writing lots more rubbish until 2 am, and then started again at 8 am Sunday. I finally finished it by 4 pm. Hurrah! It's probably crap. Argh!

The good thing about this exercise is that it's made me have to think about my novel in a gargantuan amount of depth. I know what the novel is about, and I know how I'm going to put it together, but how do you explain it in a few lines? I've also had to think about how my novel is original, and how it fits in with the rest of the literary genre I'm writing in, not to mention show the research I've done so far. It was like trying to fit a giraffe into a tea-pot.

But it's done now, and I can finish my marking and get on with some writing again. Hopefully the kids will forgive me for working all weekend, again.

The Books

- I don't know why Morrison's Beloved is in there - must have got scraped up! It should be Erdrich's Love Medicine

- Dictionary and Thesaurus for double checking and word reduction.

- Derrida and Kristeva are heavy going but fascinating if you want to tie your brain in knots.

- Same for the Postmodernism.

- Allende is wonderful - I recommend her autobiography to anyone who is suffering from cultural plurality!

- Cuentos Andaluces is a recent acquisition and most enjoyable despite the fact I have to keep looking words up. Mind you, I have to look words up for Kristeva and Derrida too, and they're in English!

- Cixous is a must for anyone interested in writing processes and languages.

Feel free to ask about any of the others! I expect to be inundated... not!

On writing - again!

I had such high hopes for this blog! I still have loads of things I want to blog about - more sciency stuff to try at home, interesting newsy items, and so on, but at the moment the novel is all consuming. Perhaps that's a good thing though!

I had a major re-think last week, about the novel. After the first 10,000 words I started working on a section near the middle of the book, and realised that not only do I work best that way, in a non-linear fashion, but that the novel itself might work that way too. My writing tends to be multiplicitous in terms of narration, and I like to piece bits together to make a whole, so I've chucked the rule book out of the window and am following my heart. It seems to be working, and the latest bits feel much better than my first tentative pages. I now have a very strong 'vision' of what the finished project will look like - the fiction part of it at least.

The other part of it is the thesis that will accompany the novel - that's the bit I get the PhD for, and it's some 50,000 word on top of the fiction! It is also very daunting and means I'm trying to read as much theory and philosophy on writing as I can - all in the name of research. I also have to produce a conference paper at some point - but more on that nearer the time.

So the themes for the novel/thesis are language, culture and identity. The novel is about being linguistically and cultural displaced and is based on experience (write what you know, eh!). I've been spending hours checking Spanish vocab and researching traditional festivals, filling in the blanks in the notes I made in my diaries. What a journey! It's been interesting trying to render Spanish into English and vice-versa, and I'll be fascinated to see how the Fiction Research Group responds to what I've done!

Now it's that time again - kids home from school, dinner to cook, life to live - so better go and get on with it.

Workspace Challenge (and Exhausted!)

Novel racer Nichola has set us a challenge to share our workspace, so here goes! I have taken over the front room with wall to wall cabinets overflowing with books and files, so I'm only showing you the neat looking bit in the corner where I sit! A friend brought me some daffs yesterday - you can see them on the window sill. They really cheered me up, especially as we had to take my little one's daftodils into school!



I have dozens of little bits and bobs around me, each one full of memories and ideas, from my totem pole, to my tiny little dragon a student gave me many years ago. They keep me sane!

The novel writing is going well. I've realised that the first 10,000 words are not going to be used in their current format, so the first page is no longer the first page. Argh. But all is not lost. At least I know where I'm going now - what I want to create, and it isn't a straight-forward narrative at all. I'm beginning to wonder what I've taken on, what a challenge I've set myself, but I am equally inspired and excited.

I promised my husband that I would get an early night and not sit up writing until 2 am every morning. I think I might just listen to him for once, because I am shattered! I don't know - I wanted it all - kids, husband, career, studies - and now I find I'm a one woman juggling act!

So, as the word count trickles along, I'm switching the pc off, and heading for bed. A pile of marking awaits me in the morning, planning and preparation for next week's teaching. I can hardly wait!

Spam in your Inbox?!

I keep getting Spam at work despite all the promise of filters. Today's top subject lines read as follows:

1. Thoroughly Review Upon Hoped (This isn't even English as we know it! What review? Hoped for what exactly?)
2. You have the experience but lack the University Degree (Er... no)
3. Var loc United (Excuse me?)
4. Your thoughts please (On what? Spammers?!)
5. Hot sex with Viagra Pills (But pills are so tiny - they'd get lost surely!)

Hotmail and Yahoo are doing well though, and I haven't had offers to enlarge my penis for absolutely ages!

Right. I'm off to work on my word count, just as soon as I finish some marking...