Hello May

I'm sorry. Is it just me? or did the Month of May become a non-event in the writing area of my life. There was a total lack of any blogs anyone would want to read. (So I didn't publish them)

Apart from having my precious writing time interrupted by family I just couldn't seem to get the words to flow. I have read all the pieces on how to carve out a time and place for writing. And I have more or less done that. However as Chuck Wendig says over on Terribleminds if you don't take it seriously then no one else will.

But.
I just don't know how to make something that hovers between hobby (everyone elses perspective) and desirable career (my perspective) become important.
Hubster has taken the view that every time I take out my laptop that he bought (big mistake) I am about to do some web browsing or software analysis for him. Or his company which becomes our company when it suits him. Its gotten so bad that I can't even take the laptop out myself now. I feel like a kid sneaking in to the teachers office expecting to get caught.
I hate this.
And the kids who are old enough to have opinions and go to school unchaperoned want their mother to help with "study" for their summer exams. So I silently fume and resent them wanting my time. This is quickly followed by guilt (so quickly in fact that I think they shared the ride here).
And what is making me nauseated is I know I am the person responsible for creating this circle of demands around myself.
How do I break this cycle of demand - resentment - guilt - fear.
Arrgh!
Help!

Womens Christmas.

Nollaig na mBan!
We celebrated women's Christmas on Friday.
Its also called Little Christmas or the Feast of the Epiphany.
Its the 6th of January.
2012 will always remain special for me because it was the first time I had
a group of great women to go on the tear with!
(translation on the tear means out of the house having a good time eating
and drinking and being merry)
(but because we were all driving ourselves home no one was drinking)
(but being sober didn't stop a sing song erupting in my local pub)
It was great!
And I am still feeling buoyed up because of it.

And I survived Christmas.
I don't mean to denigrate people with real troubles and stresses to
survive.
However
Money is tight, tighter than its ever been but we had a feast on the big
day, bought and got presents and managed to do everything we wanted to do.
The kids were content with their gifts.
It means a lot to be able to achieve all that.
So the relief is palpable.

Also there is a real Spring feel about the place.
The days are getting longer, its a wonderful time of the year.
Better than Christmas in my opinion,
(no pressure)

On the writing front:
I've had a bit of a wake up call.
If I don't assign time to it every week and treat it like a real job its
going to be a haphazard jumble of ideas that never goes anywhere.
Other bloggers talk about word count and reaching targets each week.
Some people ask for time to dream and plan plots and story lines.
So what do I need.
1) time to plot
2) time to write
3) time to edit
Lets say I spend 3 hours a day doing all this and I do this 4 days a week
thats 12 hours.
Its not nearly enough is it?
If I could make that 20 hours I think then something serious would develop.

OK. Some Calculations.
How do I up my hours?
there are 24 hours in any day
minus 8 hours for sleep
that leaves 16 hours.
Of thoses 16 I spend 8 hours working (paid work that is) and commuting
that leave me with 8 hours
Minus 1 hour for walking the dog (I love this so it has to stay!)
minus about 2 hours for cooking and eating
so I should have 5 hours a day Mon to Friday for writing shouldn't I?
Shouldn't I?

Ah I forgot
-washing clothes,
-washing myself,
-badgering about home work,
-helping with home work,
-turning off TV and arguing with boy child and girl child about TV,
-meeting friends
-visiting relatives.
-trips to the cinema

All that has to stop.
Who says you cant wear 3 day old socks?
And I wear my hair like this cause lank and greasy is the new hmmmmm shiny
and glossy (?)
And washing it just takes so much time.

Clawing Back Time.

Sorry for not blogging on Friday last. It was a bit hectic getting both kids to the dentist, meeting Hubster after for some junk food and then shopping for a kindle with boy child. Needles to say it was very late when we got home and we were barely in the door when the Late Late Toy show started.
I know girl child and boy child are a little old for it all but they still get all excited about the prospect of watching it with us and maybe spotting the one good item which will really make Christmas this year (and give me a head ache cause its only sold in Dublin in a shop that is only open from noon til three and won’t accept any cards just cold hard cash but that’s another story).
So apologies but blogging was not on the list of things to do.

While I was at the dentist I was leafing through a magazine and an article caught my eye. Really the gist of it was how to get everything done that needs to be done in the day. Simple enough theory but how to go about putting it into practice is the thorny question. Basically what this author was saying is there are ways to shave time off and stack it up for when you want to do something (in my case write a best seller and retire on the profits).

No 1) you want a tidy house? Pick up after yourself. Sounds easy enough but it means you don’t have to make special trips around the kitchen putting things away after yourself. If you do this then you can (bully) cajole the kids (and Hubster?) into doing the same. Simple isn’t it?

No 2) be organised. Have clothes laid out the night before. Heard that a million times already, do I do it? No. Will I do it from now on? Well I’m willing to give it a go. Always have enough fuel in the car to get to work and back. No last minute trips to fill up (often very busy in the morning with long queues here)

No 3) Cook the same dinners. Yuk. Not every day, have a rotation of meals you can do in your sleep. There are 2 spin off advantages of this 1 shopping is very easy and 2 your budget doesn’t sky rocket because you decided to do lobster this Wednesday. Your rotation can be for 2 or 3 weeks and only counts for work days – non work days you can knock your self out.

No 4) When you are doing some mundane task like cleaning the grout give it a time limit. Bathroom clean 25 minutes, can’t be done? Well do as much as you can and then Gasp! Horror! leave it. The world won’t end and it still looks better than when you started. Can’t resist just finishing off this corner? You’ll end up spending another 25 minutes at that and that’s your Saturday morning gone down the drain. Literally. To cure you of not sticking to your time table you must arrange to meet your friend for coffee. This has a twofold advantage, it gets you out of the house and away from the bathroom and it gets in the way of her finishing her housework and having a gleaming house for your mother to berate you over once again!

Now that you have clawed back all that time from housework and the kids and the telly and anything else that steals your time you will have loads of time to spend on plot, dialogue, character development. . .
Won’t you?

All hail NaNo. NaNo is Dead.

Well for another year anyway.
The eleven months until the next NaNo is our opportunity to polish off the work we have on hand.

I am glad that I found my way into NaNo. I didn't win. But I didn't loose either.
I learned that
1) I need a routine. (Daawh!)
2) I need a computer that isn't used for surfing youtube and google translate by boy and girl child.
3) I need a place to write where my Hubster can't glance at the screen and shout from accross the room. 'Is that a monologue?'

I got stuck in and now I have an idea for a novel.
I have the beginning down on paper. I have the skeleton for the whole story in my head. Its just a matter of getting it all on paper.
Then I need to polish it up a bit. Make sure the characters are interesting enough to catch peoples interest (how do I do that?)
Its only a simple love story with a few twists and turns. I have my photo's of my leading men and my leading lady. So far so good.
I have to admit its the furthest I have gone yet with a story.
I have no where near the 50k word count. But I don't feel like a failure.
So go me.
Until next year.

Smug Writer before Fall.

Well I am feeling very smug about my WIP.
I have got an idea of how I want the story to pan out.
My Megan Fox character is broken hearted because of her ill treatment by her husband (he doesn't beat her or anything...)
BUT
I didn't want people to not like her husband he couldn't help himself really so I wanted some inspiration for someone very likeable and then I found this pic of Ryan Reynolds.

Who could hold a grudge against some one as cute at that!
You'd have to be made of stone.

I just look at him and all I want to do is sigh.

Writing: Just how do other people make it work (paid work)

I have been trying to write something each day.
This a new experience for me.
Just something to get in the habit of producing a word count of maybe 500
or so.
Nothing too frightening, but a solid bit of something all the same.
Instead of just talking about it.
Just get down to it and do it rather than talk all around.
The kind of thing people, published people otherwise known as authors tell
you to do.
It makes sense.
Eventually with lots of practise you see your mistakes as they appear on
the page and can jump on top of them and crush them like cockroaches.
Eventually you get in the habit of having a time assigned to your writing
that your husband, children, extended family and friends respect.
Eventually a few of the pieces you get out on to paper are good enough to
sew together to make a something.
Something that you might enter as a short story for a competition or
actually create a novel with?
I don't know the how BUT I am willing to try.
However I need routine to do this and for the next two weeks I am on
holidays with no access to PC's e-mail etc.
So to keep it up I am going to try and write long hand and see what
happens.
Wish me luck!