Revelation!

I've been rather frustrated over the last few weeks about my lack of progress on my embryonic novel, which I admit has been partly (OK, mainly) due to my crazy busy-ness at work. Still, I've been mulling around certain ideas, thinking that it's the right thing to happen for the story, but it just doesn't feel right. The main reason for the not feeling right is that the story happens at a particular stage of the main character's life and career, and the ideas I was having just weren't really relevant for her at that moment, and I didn't think the stakes would be high enough. But do you know what I've just realised? (And this is after, ooh, a month! They don't call me 'Lightning' for nothing, you know...) I don't have to keep my character at that age just because that's what my first idea was. The whole story is just what I'm making up. I'm in charge. So this weekend I'm going to be going back to the drawing board (or more accurately, Scrivener cork board), and adjusting things. And crossing my fingers that it will help.

Writer's Bricks

I don't think I ever have time to develop writer's block. When I'm writing, it happens in little snatches of stolen time, when I should doing something different or should be somewhere else. I do have a lot of problems getting things finished, but it's always because I have too many ideas, rather than too few. Unfortunately, I find it very difficult to set my brain to just one channel, so I've got notes on a hundred different exciting plots, interesting characters and speculative 'what if's, and I carry round a stripy Paperchase pad for this purpose (though unlike Helen it doesn't have a band to keep it closed, so its pages are rather squashed in places...). I've been trying very hard recently to concentrate on one particular idea, and have got over 5000 words, spanning about two-thirds of the plot, though of course it will need an awful lot of expansion. But I'm beginning to think that trying to limit myself is a bad idea. If I'm not in the mood to think of Phoebe and her complexities, maybe having something completely different on standby would help me in the long-run? But I do feel terribly disloyal having opened a Google Notebook on two other projects today, even if they've both been doing laps of my skull for over a year.

Bliss

Last week I didn't post due to having scarpered to the countryside to stay with my parents. They have a beautiful garden but no broadband, so I was confined to sunning myself and watching out for the frog in the newly-cleared pond (it's beneath an apple tree which regularly sheds its fruit with a 'plop', resulting in a pond more like cider than water...). We read a lot, spent as many daylight hours as possible outside, ate a variety of cake and occasionally pottered off for a walk (to a pub). We visited the marvellous Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in Singleton, following a superb picnic on the top of the Downs looking out towards the Isle of Wight. We ate extraordinarily well at both The Brewer's Arms, Vines Cross and The Star, Waldron. My long-suffering brothers tried (and failed) to teach me how to bowl during the family games of cricket, which lost balls into undergrowth, trees and neighbouring gardens. I sometimes won at pool (usually on a technicality), but more usually lost dismally. I was (falsely) accused of cheating at Scrabble, due to a spectacular win. We visited my 98 year old grandfather, who gave us windfall apples, walnuts and some seeds between stories about cars and hitch-hiking nurses. I also snoozed, dozed and napped. A fabulous time was had by all. I can't believe that 10 years ago I was so entirely desperate to leave home that I felt like my mind was melting with every extra minute I had to stay. I am currently thanking the gods that I never have to go back to being a teenager...

It don't mean a thing (if it ain't got that swing)

I come from a musical family with an enormous repertoire of musical jokes. Ones sure to get a laugh seem to include saxophones (What's the difference between an onion and a sax? People cry when you chop up an onion. What's the difference between a lawnmower and a sax? You can tune a lawnmower. etc ad infinitum). The main reason for this is the suffering my parents have endured at the hands of many a youthful saxophonist. They have both accompanied a multitude of budding musicians through exams, and have come to the conclusion that the saxophone in the wrong hands is the most dangerous of all instruments. Not only is it incredibly loud and persistent, it also is unbelievably difficult to make it sound better than a particularly irritating car horn. Very few 12 year olds tackling their Grade 3 manage it, but vast numbers try. I had always had some sympathy for the saxophonists-in-training, from the safe distance of several miles away. Not any more. I now live opposite one.

The saxophonist in question is definitely dedicated, but unfortunately unmusical. They squeak through scales, parp in the wrong places and have not mastered the delicate art of playing pianissimo, or indeed anything softer than fortissimo. I find it particularly difficult to bear as Mr/Ms Sax always tends to reach for their instrument at the exact moment on a Sunday afternoon when I think 'Ooh I could really do with a nice snooze'. Bad enough though this may seem, the worst occurred this weekend. During an attempt to play jazz classic 'I got rhythm', they consistently got the rhythm wrong. ARGH.

Ouch!

On my way to work this morning I walked past a building site which had made the pavement around it rather muddy. It was drizzling (of course!) and I was wearing my lovely new black boots. They are flat-heeled, but have quite slippy soles, so it was probably slightly my own fault when I ended up slightly shocked flat on the pavement. My right knee and umbrella took the brunt of the fall, and I pulled myself back upright slightly shakily. I was a bit surprised that no-one on this busy Mancunian street even asked if I was OK, though this may have had something to do with the fact that I sounded like Hugh Grant in the first few minutes of 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'...

Being busy and a brilliant birthday

I've been rather slack with my blogging, reading and writing over the last few weeks, but this hasn't been due to a lack of motivation. I've had lots I've wanted to write but work has got in the way rather. Not that I used to blog etc during office hours (unless things were really slack), but because of the way my workload has increased I just have had no juice left at the end of the day. Back in May, I was working on 3 accounts, I knew the data well, and there wasn't all that much on. Now I've got 6. And the 3 new ones have come with tight deadlines and tricky projects so I've been trying to get my head around it all. Several other writers have left recently, so I've inherited a few manuscripts, and it's always harder to pick something up from somebody else rather than start from scratch, but I've just had to get on with it. This isn't a problem exactly - I enjoy work so much more when I'm so stressed my brain is melting (I don't handle boredom particularly well...), but the rest of my life does tend to suffer until I get back on an even keel.

Yesterday was my birthday, and although I spent the day at work, it was rather fun. I finally got my head around one of my new accounts, which was very satisfying. Also, S had promised to make me a cake. How exciting! When I got home there were several lovely birthday cards in my postbox, and a package from my fabulous friends A&S containing a book I HAD to start reading as soon as I had opened it - 'Reading like a Writer' by Francine Prose. I've only read the first 2 chapters so far, but it really is fascinating, looking at the precise way words are chosen by a huge range of wonderful writers, not just the usual wide thematic and political breakdowns. I would have read more, but S arrived home with bulging shopping bags, and threw himself into making a gourmet meal, topped off with a delicious banana loaf. I just had another slice, and I think I'll be encouraging him to make it again very soon!

Temptation

On my way to work, I often walk past a woman walking away from the station while engrossed in the fiddly business of making a roll-up. Every time I see her, I have to suppress the urge to sidle up to her and shout

'BOO!'