Back to earth

After a month spent writing an average of 1700 words per day, you would think going back to 100 words a day would be easy. So why is it that after the exhilaration of completing NaNoWriMo yesterday, today finds me sat at my computer staring at the screen with a completely blank mind? For a month, I’ve been living in a little fantasy world of my own creation – today is the first day completely back in the real world and it seems a little colourless somehow. Or maybe that is just because everything is covered with a layer of snow...

NaNoWriMo - completing the challenge

The house might be a mess and we might still be surrounded by boxes but one challenge for November has definitely been met – 50,443 words have been written and the first draft of my novel is complete. The last time I managed to finish writing a novel was 14 years ago – there have been many unfinished attempts along the way but it has taken a challenge like NaNoWriMo to finally make me focus and keep writing even when it got tricky. Of course, there’s a lot of editing to be done, but it feels good to have finally completed something!

The day after...

I’m definitely feeling bruised and sore today but thankfully it is not as bad as I thought it might be. Michael seems to have come off a little better – he’s felt fine today, but I’m uncomfortably aware of nearly every movement and having to take things rather slowly at the moment. I’m not complaining though – this could all have been a lot worse – the main thing is that we are both fine apart from a bit of stiffness and bruising. Back to driving Michael’s tank to work – on the plus side, at least I still have access to a car.

Icy road -1, car - 0

The day seemed to be going well – had a productive day at the beading workshop and Michael and I had just left home on our way to the Showstoppers reunion ball. I was sat in the car, laptop on knee trying to write, Michael was driving and the next thing I know – bam! I felt Michael brake sharply, the car skidded and we collided with another car coming towards us. Fortunately, no-one was injured although am quite bruised and sore now and suspect it will be worse tomorrow. Unfortunately, I suspect that my car will have to be written off.

Back on target

After really struggling over the last week or so to keep on track with my writing, it’s been good to finally find some inspiration, get focused again and get back on target. The word count is now at 43,345 so just 6655 words left to go until I hit the 50,000 word target and I’m determined to do it! I’ve really rediscovered why I enjoy writing so much – getting lost in a world of my own imagination, seeing it all take shape and now the satisfaction of seeing the plot lines coming together with the ending now almost in sight.

Christmas crafts

We’ve started having regular craft sessions at church again. From next year, we’re planning to run craft afternoons twice a month on Thursday afternoons (this is where being able to be flexible with my diary really works for me!) plus there is also a craft group which meets every other Thursday evening. The sessions that have been running recently have been focusing on Christmas-themed crafts – gift boxes and cards – and we’ve also got another beading day planned for Saturday. I’ve managed to get a few of my Christmas cards done now – still got quite a few more to go though!

Return to rehearsals

I have to say that I haven’t really missed doing am-dram at all (have been too busy with other things to miss it!) It’s been good to have a break from it and whilst I haven’t missed doing rehearsals and learning lines, practising dance routines etc., I have missed the social side of it. I went back to rehearsal this evening to play the piano (the usual pianist was unavailable) – not sure there was much benefit from me being there as the music was incredibly difficult to sight-read but it was good to see people and catch up a little.

Hitting the wall

I’ve heard that when people run marathons, there comes a point when they hit what is known as the ‘wall’ – the point at which it suddenly becomes very difficult and the only thing really that is keeping them going is sheer determination. If NaNoWriMo is the writing equivalent of a marathon then I’ve now hit the wall. Writer’s block has hit, the plot seems flimsy, every word is a struggle and the only thing keeping me going is sheer stubbornness and the desire to complete the challenge no matter what. My word count has dropped – need to find inspiration fast!

Catching up with the family

Had a lovely day at home catching up with my family (gave my mum a lovely surprise as I hadn’t told her I was coming home). I managed to catch up with so many family members which was great – my mum, one of my brothers, my twin sister, three nephews, three nieces, one brother-in-law, one ‘nephew-in-law’ and one of my great nephew. It was so good to catch up with them – with all the decorating, I’ve felt a bit out of touch with family and friends and have missed them all – just need to catch up with some friends now!

End of an era

The decorating in the flat is finally finished and we have officially moved out. I felt a bit sad looking around the flat for the last time – it was my home for over five years (the longest I have lived anywhere as an adult) and the first place where Michael and I have lived in together. There are so many good memories – getting ready for my wedding there, Michael carrying me over the threshold on our return from honeymoon, lots of great evenings spent with friends. Now we just need to build up some lovely memories for our new house.

Going under

The busyness of the last couple of days have left me feeling very tired and a little run-down – despite a good night’s sleep, I’m still feeling like I’m running on half-empty batteries and feeling a little bit under the weather too which doesn’t really help. The novel has definitely been suffering as well – I’ve suddenly gone from being on target to being quite considerably under the target word count and thinking I might need to shut myself away at some point and do nothing but write for a bit to catch up! Hopefully I can still manage to get there!

Epic journeys

I love my job - spending time with women and their families in the antenatal and postnatal periods and the excitement of being called to welcome a new baby into the world. Sometimes they like to take their time in arriving – many hours pass, this labour feels endless, life has become confined to a small room and you’re existing on chocolate and Red Bull, trying to keep providing support and encouragement. But then the magic moment finally arrives, the baby takes its first cry and the exhaustion drops away momentarily, replaced by the wonder that a new birth always brings.

Chilly atmosphere

Until the pipe is fixed, there is no central heating in the flat and so it is rather cold, making the thought of continuing the decorating there even more unappealing (although once there, the only way to keep warm is to get to work and keep at it!). The heating has also stopped working in my car so at the moment I am going from freezing cold unheated car to equally cold unheated flat. Hopefully both problems will be fixed fairly soon – I’m having to wear so many layers that I’m in danger of being confused with the Michelin Man.

Past the halfway point

Just past the halfway point for NaNoWriMo and the word count stands at 28,746 so still keeping on target although there have been a few days when the writing process has ground to a standstill. I’m learning that the only way to keep going is just to sit down and write, even if I’m not sure what the next words are going to be. I’ve reached the end of what I’ve planned to write although I do still have an idea of what the ending is likely to be – now I just have to work out how to get there.

Just a minor problem...

Went over to the flat last night to continue decorating and found a note from downstairs neighbour informing us that yellow water had been dripping through the light fitting in his ceiling during the night. Discovered that during yesterday’s replacement of a broken floorboard, a previously-repaired pipe got a hole in it and most of the water in our central heating system has now made its way south. Bother. Said neighbour also took the opportunity to point out another leak coming from our balcony. Double bother. Pipe temporarily fixed, ceiling thankfully still intact – now just need to inform our landlord.

Office move

Working in the office recently has been challenging – half the equipment having been moved down to our birth centre and we were trying to manage without desks and cupboards and things (working on a computer perched on a cardboard box does not make for a very comfortable work environment). Today was the big move day – all the computers being moved down along with most of the boxes – spent the afternoon setting up all the computers again which should have been straightforward but took about three times longer than anticipated and still have some minor problems which need to be resolved.

New minister

Since our minister left in June, we have had to manage without a minister at our church. We have other local ministers and lay preachers come in to lead services (sometimes the worship planning team will lead a service as well) and an on-call rota of ministers should we need to call on one. It’s been challenging, but also good in some ways to work together as a church in the meantime. Yesterday, we met a prospective new minister (who was very nice) and it was great to get the news today that he will be joining us next September.

Church quiz night

When I agreed to help with a quiz night at church in mid-November, I thought I would have plenty of time available to sort out questions, get posters out and generally help organise. What I hadn’t anticipated was still being knee-deep in decorating, being surrounded by boxes, not having broadband set up at home and trying to write a 50,000 word novel all at the same time. But, as most of my friends know, I seem to like my life to be ridiculously busy and so end up juggling all these things anyway. Somehow it seems to work out okay!

And the decorating goes on...

The pressure is on to get the flat finished – hopefully we will be handing the keys over in the next week or so. We were hoping to have it finished at the weekend, but having to empty out more stuff than anticipated from the loft has set progress back a little bit. On the plus side, most of the walls and ceilings are now painted – just the awkward bits in the kitchen, bathroom and hallway left to do and all the skirting boards (joy of joys – feel like I have painted miles of skirting board over the last three months!)

Clearing out the junk

Clearing out the loft at the flat is proving to be a much bigger task than anticipated. We thought it was just our junk up there and a couple of boxes belonging to our landlord but there’s a whole load of stuff that has clearly been there for at least a couple of decades – old letters, photos, suitcases (unfortunately none of them were stuffed with banknotes – would have been nice if they were!) and the kind of clothes that taste clearly forgot (definitely from the 1980s/early 1990s). The amount of stuff going on the next tip run has suddenly increased.

Regaining a sense of optimism

Change doesn’t always have to be bad. For the last few weeks, I’ve been feeling in limbo, wondering where things were going to go and walking around feeling like I had a little black cloud hanging over my head most of the time. I now know where things are heading at work and it’s not such a huge change as I feared it was going to be. Suddenly a huge weight has been lifted off my mind – whilst everything may still be a little up and down for a while yet, things are looking more promising than they have done.

Wading through treacle

The lovely chilled out and relaxed feeling didn’t even last 24 hours thanks to an email that has left me feeling a little bit unsettled. The last year has been full of a lot of change – new house, moving offices at work, changing ways of working etc. and it looks like there is still more looming on the horizon. I feel like I am constantly in limbo, unsure about where things are heading and not feeling entirely settled either at home or at work. Some days I feel like I am just wading through treacle and not really getting anywhere.

Chillaxing

For our first wedding anniversary, Michael bought me a voucher for a spa day and we finally managed to take time out and use it today. We had a lovely day, completely chilling out, having a cocoon wrap and an Indian head massage, relaxing in the jacuzzi and then curling up in the quiet room for an afternoon nap. It was so good to take a day out from work and decorating and all the hecticness of daily life at the moment and be able to spend a day having time to ourselves to relax, unwind and recharge our batteries.

And yet another day of decorating...

Another busy day spent repainting the flat – have definitely got to the stage now when I am well and truly sick of decorating and am looking forward to finishing and putting down the paintbrushes for a while. We are about halfway through the decorating (which is good considering we’re at the halfway point time-wise as well!) – hopefully just a few more days to go and we can then hand the keys over and focus on settling into our new home and start unpacking some boxes as it feels a bit like we are living in cardboard city at the moment!

Just a relaxing evening...

After weeks of spending our evenings and weekends decorating, we decided it was high time we caught up with some friends. Unfortunately, it seemed most of our friends had already made plans for the weekend (being somewhat more organised that we were!) On the plus side, Michael and I went out for the evening anyway and had a lovely meal in a local pub. Just what we both needed to relax and unwind after all the decorating. Hopefully we will get to catch up with friends properly at some point soon, but it was good to take time out anyway.

A bit of a damp squib

I’m not a big fan of fireworks, I have to admit. The last two evenings of painting the flat have been accompanied by the sound of fireworks almost constantly which is beginning to drive me mad – hopefully tomorrow night will be the last of them for a while! There were some very loud bangs that seemed to be coming from a little too close to the flat for my liking – even Michael was a little alarmed and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the next door neighbour’s dog who I suspect was enjoying it even less than we were.

NaNoWriMo - day 4

Day 4 of NaNoWriMo and now up to 8,970 words which is the most I’ve written in a long, long time. I’m slightly ahead of target (need to average 1,667 words per day to finish on time) which is good although I suspect the first week is easiest thanks to inspiration and enthusiasm being at their peak. What amazes me is that I’m currently writing 2,000+ words per day without struggling too much yet the moment I sit down to write my 100 words, my brain shuts off. If this continues, I might have to resort to using 100-word extracts.

Back to the decorating...

Getting the house in order is taking a bit of a back seat at the moment and we are focusing on getting the flat repainted before we hand the keys back which means that we now spend our evenings getting covered in magnolia paint (hopefully some of it manages to get on the walls!). Fortunately this seems like it will be a quicker process than trying to get the house decorated – after two days, we have already painted the lounge and main bedroom – hopefully we will get it done soon and then we can settle in to our new home.

Social let-down

I love social events at work – catching up with previous clients and getting to cuddle lots of babies whilst having tea and cakes. So I was looking forward to today’s social. I was the first one to arrive so I sat down with a hot chocolate and waited for everyone else to appear. And waited... I know I got the date right – I made sure I let my clients know, but I guess none of them were able to make it and my colleagues were busy. On the plus side at least I managed to get some more writing done.

NaNoWriMo - let the challenge begin!

It’s the start of November and also the start of National Novel-Writing Month (otherwise known as NaNoWriMo) – an annual challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I found out about NaNoWriMo halfway through November last year from my friend Geri who has taken part for the last couple of years and agreed to take part this year, not anticipating that I would have just moved house at this point in the year! That said, I can be a bit crazy sometimes and so despite my very hectic life at the moment, have decided to rise to the challenge anyway.