On to the finish line

So, I was away for a while. I made some long-held dreams come true, and I gained confidence in getting out in the world on my own.

Here's some evidence of my travels:



Now I'm in the home stretch on my second draft, deep in the the third act. I'm very conscious of not ruining things as I rearrange, edit and polish the final pages. It's a struggle between not rushing through scenes, while keeping up the pace. I feel as though I can see the finish line... at least the 'send it out for beta readings' line. I can't wait to get this baby out into the world, whether that's traditionally (which I'll attempt first) or via self-publishing. It's also nerve-wracking as my heart and soul is in those words, but I'll save stressing about that for another day.

Here's a song inspiring me at the moment - what's inspiring you?
(unfortunate freeze-frame)

I'm Just Upside Down

In a digital world, the distinctions between the northern and southern hemispheres are brought into focus. Back when I was growing up, I'd never been overseas, and I could happily watch television series three years old without worrying about spoilers. Having British grandparents I learned some Northern cultural traditions (like tartan and reels), but I never really had to pay attention to the seasonal timings of life on the other side of the world.

It was only when I began to write stories set in England that I had to shift my mindset, particularly around the seasons, and also having to think about plants and animals that don't exist in my part of the world. It's a constant effort to remember whether it will be hot or cold, and it was a surprise to learn that the Season was actually in late spring rather than winter.

It was only when I was in Europe this year, ending a few weeks before Easter, that the penny dropped regarding the significance of the timing of some festivals in the northern hemisphere. It's autumn for Easter here. Seeing early spring in Europe, I finally connected new life = spring = Easter. Previously having eggs for Easter didn't make any sense, but too yummy to question. Now it makes sense to me, with the whole spring/new life thing.

It also occurred to me that Christmas breaks up the cold season nicely in the north. For us it's the beginning of the summer holidays (meaning time off, although I always try to work as much as possible in order to have a holiday when the kids are back at school in late January/February). We have a few other public holidays over the coming months, and we just had Queen's birthday... and now we have no more free days until Labour Day at the end of October. That means the whole winter without any national time off or festivals of any kind.... nothing to look forward to. If you can afford to, you either indulge in snow sports or a holiday to the sun in Australia or the Pacific Islands. Otherwise you just hunker down and wait for the cold to pass. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD, how ironic) is common.

Anyway, I just thought I would share some observations about living down under. And who's to say we are upside down... maybe the earth is the other way around!

The title of this blog was inspired by this song... enjoy!

European Holiday Snaps

Here are the promised photos from our recent European adventure. We took over 5,000 shots, so I've just pulled a few out to give you a taste.

Beginning with travelling down the Romantic Road...

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Landsberg am Lech

Neuschwanstein Castle

Zugspitze, the top of Germany

Then skiing in the Dolomites...

Selva di Val Gardena

Alpe di Siusi

Then touring through Italy.

Bellagio, Lake Como

Varenna, Lake Como

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan

Portofino

Views from the Via dell'Amore, Cinque Terre

Replica of The David at Piazzale Michelangelo, Florence 

Up the top of the Duomo, Florence

Views over Tuscany from San Gimignano

Duomo, Siena

Amalfi Coast

Marina Grande, Capri
(our wedding anniversary)

The Faraglioni of Capri

Grotto, Capri

The Colosseum

St Peter's Basilica ,Rome
(note the light hitting the cross in the centre)

The Dome of St Peters

The Vatican

And then we flew home! Hope you liked the photos :-)

Back to Reality

Well, we've been back from our holiday for a week and I thought I should really update the blog. I'm only just back into my regular sleep pattern, and taking stock of what a wonderful time we had. We saw so many beautiful, amazing places and things. And now... back to normal life.

Incidentally that subject line puts this song in my head:




It was sort of a reverse culture-shock as we were driven home to our suburb of single-level houses and little gardens - just so different from the European cities and landscapes we'd come from. It's also a little strange seeing all the leaves turning red here, when we'd been immersed in new bright green growth and cherry blossoms. It's been a relief to catch up on sleep after the long journey, not having to worry about where each meal is coming from, or how much money we have left (NZ is basically a cashless society - I can't remember the last time I had actual money in my wallet).

I do feel invigorated... high on the fantastic experiences and memories. I hope the feeling lasts a long time. I can however feel the stress of (work) life creeping in to erode my satisfaction.

I'm excited to get back to writing, inspired to pen some articles as well as carry on with the final push on my novel's first draft. Early one morning at a ski resort the muse randomly showed up and I wrote 971 words before breakfast.

I have chosen some photos to post here, but I think that will be a long entry in itself, so I'll do that in a few days.

During our stopover at Heathrow we bought a few cheap CDs duty free. One of them was a collection of "essential" Doris Day tracks. Here are a couple of my favourites so far - the first is about being happy with the simple things, and the second encourages us not to put off living our dreams. It's my intention to keep both of these philosophies top of mind.

Off into the Sunset

In a few short hours, my husband and I will be boarding a plane which, after nearly 30 hours of exhausting travel, will deliver us into a winter wonderland in Europe. This holiday is the result of nearly 9 months of intensive planning, so suffice to say I'm very excited! Even just having 4 weeks off work is spectacular... the last time I had more than 2 weeks holiday was my last trip to Europe, 11 years ago. Time for a decent break!

So the blog will be somewhat dormat while I'm gone. I thought about scheduling posts in advance, but... I didn't. There might be a few cobwebs around when I get back.
The frantic planning has also meant writing has taken a back seat, pretty much since my last post about it. I now have just over 62,000 words, and I'm looking forward to the final push (towards about 80) when I return. I think I could write 5,000 words based on outlined scenes and ideas, and then I need some more inspiration to see me through to the end (metaphorically speaking - I wrote the actual end a long time ago). As some of my lovely commenters said, the time away will probably do me good.

Time to finish packing... Arrivederci!

Pushing Through

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So... long time, no blog. What with working through, and spending the statutory holidays with family or spring-cleaning, there hasn't been much writing going on either. But those excuses aren't really true. What I am experiencing amounts to a serious case of...

WRITER'S BLOCK

There, I admitted it.

Generally I've had no problem filling a first draft with potential scenes. I get almost to the goal word count, then have to fill in some stuff, which gets me past the word count, and then I trim some stuff.

This time it's different. My muse left the building sometime around November 25th, and it hasn't come back, except for a few small spurts. I'm writing a historical romance. I have the romantic plot down, basically. But my characters don't exist in a vacuum, and their world needs serious fleshing out. This is not supposed to be a category romance. I already have one sub-plot which seriously impacts the main one, but I was hoping for another (which will mainly affect my hero's journey). I know what type of thing I want it to be, but I don't know what it is. I have spent many hours wracking my brain. I have expected solutions to start dropping in my head the way they usually do (i.e. when I'm not at my computer), but nothing.

My brain has also been crammed full of travel research and planning, as we are off on a big trip in just over six weeks. That's real life - it must take priority. The fantasy world seems to have fallen off the margins of my brain.

This is why I only have 46,000 words, when I had intended to have 60,000 by the end of 2011. I am still striving to finish the first draft before we leave for our trip at the end of February. That's 5,000/week, including this one.

And how do I plan to get there? Purely by writing something... anything. I finished NaNo with just over 40k, and I have inched my way up to 46k a few hundred words at a time - fleshing out existing scenes, adding bits and pieces and occasionally thinking of whole new scenes. There are a couple of scenes I have scant notes for that I can expand on, but beyond that, it's all unknown territory.

I have to have faith in the process. Even just by working through some early scenes where we meet key minor characters, I have learned more about these people and gained some inklings as to what role they could play. No major insights yet, but I just have to keep going, keep pushing, until I can literally not squeeze out any more words.

I could just give up, but that would be heart-breaking. I know I've only devoted a few months to writing this project, but it's been an idea in some form for years, and I just adore some of the scenes I've written. Plus I think the hero and heroine I've created are pretty special (my humble opinion!). I really really want someone else to get to know them and root for them as I do.

Even just writing this blog has made me feel a bit better. Onwards!

Happy New Year, by the way. I have a good feeling about this one.

Bits and Bobs: NaNo Numbers, My Scene Layout and a Kiwi Christmas

First, I forgot to comment last time on the NaNoWriMo wrap up stats. It was a boost to my confidence to find out that the average word count per writer was only 12,000, and only 14% of participants got to 50,000. Suddenly my 40,000 seems pretty good. So take heart, fellow NaNa-not-quite-winners, we still did well!

It's interesting looking at their map - it's mainly only English speaking countries, with basically no-one from Asia, Africa or South America. It would be cool to see NaNoWriMo grow into other languages in the future, don't you think?

***

After my last post about writing on my scenes on notecards, I laid them out on the floor to see how many scenes are in each act. And here's how it's playing out so far...

So Act 3 needs a little work! And Act 1 is only supposed to be 1/4 of the total, so that speaks my need to build in more plot complications in the middle. It will be interesting (for me anyway!) to see how this looks when I'm done.

***

And for my followers in the northern hemisphere, here's a fun little video which illustrates what it's like to enjoy Christmas in this part of the world.

Surf and sand by day... Christmas lights by night!



The only downside is that you have to be seen in your swimming attire after eating all the yummy seasonal food!

I will probably take a break from posting over this period, so Merry Christmas everyone! Remember the things that matter.

Sunshine Snapshots

Hello everyone! It's been a while since my last post so I wanted to pop in with some evidence of our lovely holiday in the Sunshine Coast last week. I was sick again for the first 3 days or so, but it was still amazing being in balmy climes and enjoying a beachfront apartment. All too soon we were back to reality.

Kings Beach, Caloundra

Rays from Heaven

Terri, Bindi and Robert Irwin at Australia Zoo

Keeping the Balance in our Lives

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I push myself hard. I always have a to-do list (both in my head and written down). I have a demanding full-time job, and I have a long list of things I want to accomplish in the other hours. There's being social: email, phone calls, Skype, Twitter, blogs. There's writing stuff: drafting, editing, querying, critiquing, learning. There's life stuff: paying bills, planning travel, researching purchases.And of course there's the every day tasks that need to be done - cooking, cleaning, exercise, etc, which could nearly consume all free time if I was conscientious enough (don't look closely at my kitchen appliances, okay?). Even if the TV's on I'll always be doing something else. Down-time has become a stranger, and the stress of everything means I don't ever sleep through the night.

This will be a familiar story to many people. I've come to realise recently that I can't keep this up. First my brain started to give way - I got headaches, dizzy spells and I couldn't think straight. Then my body gave up - I've been sick for the last two weeks, with a cold that turned into a chest infection. I put back my back out as well. No energy. Nights of being up for hours on end coughing and blowing my nose sapped all my strength. I had reached the end of myself. I needed to recharge (and I also needed drugs and lots of them!)

On the weekend my husband sent me outside to sit in the sun. I was still - delightfully still - as I admired the bright spring bulbs and let the strengthening sun penetrate my skin. And I thought for a moment, "I could just let go and be." I mean I could stop striving to achieve goals, stop working to make things better, stop opening myself up to other people and opportunities. Maybe it would be nice to just rest in where I am in life, and stop giving myself a huge list of things to do.

Just as suddenly a contradiction overtook me. No, there are things in my life (in our lives) that aren't right. There are struggles that could be smoothed out; passions that need fulfilment. The "work hard, play hard" philosophy ensures I experience the world (e.g. by earning enough to travel, and then spending a huge amount of time scouring for the best deals) and open myself up to the possibility of making my dreams come true (by pushing myself to taking writing seriously). The thing is, I can't be "on" all the time. I need to recharge. Being present in the here and now also needs to make it on to my lists. Taking time to breathe, I will ensure I have enough breath to accomplish all I need to.

I'm also taking a real holiday - we're off to the Sunshine Coast (Queensland, Australia) on Saturday, with my sister-in-law's wedding the following week. We've never been there so I'm looking forward to Australia Zoo, Fraser Island, whale watching and beach-strolling.

I don't think this post is very coherent, but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at. Have you ever reached the end of yourself? How do you ensure you don't burn out?

The Best and Worst of Times

I spent last Friday hiking and then climbing up a peak in the Grampian mountains of Victoria, then gazing at kangaroos grazing in the evening warmth. Reminders of the January floods were everywhere - Halls Gap is the only town you can get to in the entire region, after 194 landslides have made the rest of the state park out of bounds. But Halls Gap was flooded too - luckily it was only the businesses nearest the river and they are all open again. We ate dinner at one of the cafes there. Upon returning to our rented cottage, I flicked on the TV to see those horrible pictures of the tsunami tearing through Japan. And you just feel like, "OMG, what next?" We try to go on with our lives, trying to find joy in experiences and with those close to us... but sometimes, it just feels like there's no way you can avoid feeling depressed. Do you know what I mean? Now I am more relieved than ever about New Zealand's nuclear free stance.

Anyway, we had a fabulous time on our holiday, so much so that the post-holiday blues really took hold on Sunday night. It was our first time to Melbourne, but we felt right at home straight away. Our trip was split between city exploring, airshow attending and driving around the Mornington Peninsula and Great Southern Touring Route.

On our return I discovered that the lovely Sierra had nominated me for the Write Hard blog award. Thanks Sierra! I'd like to nominate my other original followers, Writergal24 and Brooke.

I'm getting settled into my new job, and now I'm looking forward to having time to catch up with friends, tidy up the garden, plan our trip to my sister-in-law's wedding later this year, and of course, work on the second draft of my WIP. I want to give my beta readers the first couple of chapters yesterday!

And now, the shameless parade of holiday photos - enjoy!

Melbourne City