Sunday 31 January 2010

Birthday greetings, life in general

Hello all!

First of all i would like to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Knut André! A giant hug is being sent your way big bro! (",)

So... another week gone by. Actually quite a bit has happened this week. On Monday I went to have dinner with some very dear friends of mine, Tor and Louise. They are two of the sweetest people I know. Louise’s sister, Phillipa and her boyfriend Wayne were there. That gang is one of the main reasons why I like South Africans so much! When Tor and Louise’s kids were asleep we just sat and chatted for hours, it was my favourite evening this week.

It’s funny actually... every time we meet we say that it’s been too long and we need to meet up sooner, then life kicks in and we don’t see each other for a month or two. But somehow it never matters. My dad always says that the mark of a good friend is that you can not talk to them for ages and then when you see them again you’re right back where you were last time, talking like you’d never been apart. I’m lucky, I have friends like that!

When I came back from their house I found out that my washing machine had decided to say “so long and thanks for all the fish”, so I spent about 40 minutes wringing out all the clothes that had been in it. I must admit it was good exercise for my arms! The next day I bought a new one. It was a rather painful experience for my bank account but at least the new one arrived yesterday and it’s great! I know, it’s very geeky to be excited about a washing machine... but hey, we all need a bit of geekidity in our lives! And yes – I do think I just made up a word there. (“,)

Other than this I have decided to do the Windsor half marathon in September. All tips on surviving are most welcome (“,) but I’m hoping that since I start this early I’ll have plenty of practice time. One of my friends from work is a really good runner and he’s very kind in helping me get in shape for it. Actually he’s a South African too, I sometimes feel like I’m surrounded by them. I must be a lucky girl!

My victory of the week however was with my writing. As many of you know I’m writing a book. It’s been going slowly because when I started I didn’t have a plan, I just wrote the story as I went. I got up to 34,000 words and I got stuck, because of the lack of plan.

Then I decided to try and plot out the story in advance and it went even more slowly, possibly because I wasn’t used to that method of writing. Happily, I was reading a forum the other day and someone suggested starting at the end and working backwards instead so I went outside in the park at work on Friday lunchtime and sat down and started at the end.

I put on some music and wrote a brainstorming bubblechart, starting with the baddie, listing his attributes and alliances and then went on to how he could be defeated. I spent such a happy hour being creative, it was a shame to have to go back in again. I’m sure the result looks a complete mess to anyone else but at least I feel like I am getting somewhere! It’s such a relief after about a year of not having a clue. I think that every lunchtime I’m not running I’ll be re-visiting that spot with my pencil and notebook, having some creative time. Sounds like bliss!

This is getting long now so I’ll leave it here for today. I’ll try to update the blog at least once a week or so, unless absolutely nothing happens of course and then I won’t bore you. Also when I get stuck for random names for characters I may give a shout here for help, I’m not so good at thinking of those.

Hope you all have a wonderful week. Love you all!

3 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday to your brother!

    What was the reason of "getting stuck" with writing? Did you have too much "real-life-happenings" =>not to be able to concentrate on creating stories last year? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Heya P :) Well partly it was lots of real life (not that I'm complaining about that!) but partly it's that I didn't know where I wanted to go with the story so whenever I finished one scene I would get stuck... unless I'd had a bolt of inspiration while writing.
    I had a bad guy (or dragon in this case) but I'd made him incredibly powerful so I had no idea how he'd be defeated. I had lots of ideas for little things in the story but no red thread to tie it all into a coherent piece. I think I'll have to rewrite a lot when I get the plot together as well!
    I figure that if I know where I'm going I'll be able make the scenes flow better. Do you have suggestions for anything else that might work? :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. It seems you are busy nowadays. No new posts to entertain the readers, hm? :-)

    ReplyDelete