Where has the year gone?

Read my post from January 23. I hang my head in shame. What have I done this year? Nothing of note. I diverted back into education and relied on that for my income. Read and marked 500 hopeful essays from GCSE students --all of whom appeared to write with more verve than I was doing at the time. Made money but nearly lost my eyesight by the end.

Finished my maths coursework which hovered over my head like a paraplegic dinosaur until late September. Now in October I feel at last full of energy. Only two and a half months to go into which to fit 12 months writing...hmm...

To improve my self-discipline, I started two new projects.The Writing as a Home Business column is meant to focus my mind on practising what I preach --four new articles written and marketed per week while Visit Bulgaria is my happy language learning blog which I'm hoping will provide ideas for future travel articles.

This sudden spurt of autumnal energy has been sparked by interviewing author Margaret Gaskin about her wonderful book "Blitz." When I transcribe the interview, recorded on minidisc for broadcast on Angel Radio IOW next week, I shall rewrite it as an article for use here and elsewhere. It will be well worth checking back to read it.

The other spur is, of course, the Nano challenge beloved of procrastinating writers all over the world. Join in the fun here and write a 50,000 word novel on any topic you like between November 1 and November 30.

Great fun, a real incentive and I made a really great cyberwriting buddy through it last year. Hi Alexis --waves madly.

She has finished her book, edited it and has it ready to go. I of course have not quite finished, nowhere near edited. To be honest, I have not even reread it.

But will do better next time.

Diversion

You are an earth Dragon! You have a knack for
Nature or animals, and are peaceful, careful,
chariming, and optimistic. You can throw a
tantrum now or then, but who doesnt? You value
simple things in life, such as friends,
familly, and Nature.


What elemental dragon are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Oh dear, just clocked on the next blog which was really interesting and ending up taking the same personality quiz. Silly but fun. Now I MUST go and write. Really pleased that my romantic characters have started to feel better now that I have offered them more secure lifestyles in different locations. I found the heroine a lovely if aged friend and hopefully she will cheer up instead of being so whiny.
I also have a learning profile to finish for my maths Level 4. Hate typing out bibliographies and references. I read it, I said it. What more do you want to know?

Time passing

Two weeks and little to show though gradually achieving new focus through doing. Have restarted my travels through the Artist's Way (Julia Cameron) and just writng the 3 morning pages each day helps clear my mind of useless trivia.

I then rush to switch on my computer and read my emails so that I can clutter myself up again -- a vicious circle.

Snow forecast here for the weekend so I surfed the five day forecasts for home (the South of England) and Edinburgh where my brother has just started renovating his new home. As I write the snow will probably be drifting dreamily into his drawing room. Like all men, I expect he has demolished outside walls first in preparations for the extension.

Check Bulgaria too, wondering about the pipes freezing in my chalet in the snow clad mountains. To my joy, the weather by day is warmer than here. They even have less snow. Perhaps I should rush over. Wednesday's icon is a blazing golden sun. Would like to see that. Ours is multiple gray bars with gloomy grey snowflakes.

Have had visitors --two teenage boys preparing for their Duke of Edinburgh award, camping out overnight. I of course was more excited than they were but very careful to sound laid back and bored.

Offered a choice of sites, they chose the one beside the house . I did not realise until too late that I would have to keep curtains closed until we were all uppped, dressed and abluted. Fortunately they did not get up too early.

The camping seemed interestingly to be an end in itself. DH surly because they took the last tin of the dog's baked beans. Well I couldn't leave them to starve, could I? Amazingly polite. Well-trained offers of help. Sadly they disappeared so early this morning, no time to take them up on that.

Camp fire very successful after they borrowed paper, wood and demolished one of the old cupboards in the caravan aided and abetted by DH who has always wanted to gut and burn the whole thing. They had to break in as the door had jammed and is now in two pieces. Vandals the lot of them. Felt very sad about the caravan --an old Eccles, lovely rounded shape and crooked chimney. Homed loads of our visitors in the early years here and previous owners of the property before that.

Is it my imagination or do men always need to demolish and rebuild while women feel the need to preserve and restore? Or am I just feeling jaundiced?

On rereading this blog, I see it was to be an exploration of my writing --hmmm. Nothing much to write there. Two months almost gone and not a query in sight. I have signed up for Mindu Khuller's free ecourse on writing query letters this week. So that's all right then.

Computer explorer

I am one of those sad people who find romance in computer glitches. All my writing time today was diverted into exploring the hidden entrails of my computer files -- a romantic journey indeed through mysterious and previously unknown folders.

My free AVG antivirus software is sadly off colour and has been for a couple of days now. The happy red green and yellow logo is now a gloomy black and grey square hunched on my taskbar. I would do anything to cheer it up.

I visited the AVG website and downloaded the priority updates available. But the little square was still inconsolable. Its alt message tells me crossly it will update itself tomorrow. But I know better. It has been saying that for days.

I have now juggled some files around, copied and pasted file folders into various places in the hope that too much is better than too little. I suspect I may be mistaken, having crashed catastrophically earlier today.

Still procrastinating

Certainly in the mood to stand and stare at the moment --fascinated by the gauzy clouds lacing the unexpectedly blue sky. Anything to take my mind off the fact that my printer is playing up again, making life very difficult indeed when it comes to producing student handouts.

Diverse notes

Having spent ages failing to find the pushbutton to ease my photoblogging, I have had to give up and start writing. Procrastination is the keyword I need to eradicate from my vocabulary. But years of bad habits stack up against me.

So far today, I have been to the dentist (that smacks of desperation), gone book shopping ( a treat for my past birthday), looked wistfully round the sales, and eaten and eaten and eaten to avoid putting fingers to keyboard.

I have patiently persevered through AOL cutting off my dial up connections in order to read every email in my box --all of it pretty irrelevant to life --and have just remembered some outside chores I should be getting on with.

Romantic journeys through today include investigating Feng Shui (OK I'm well behind the trend), succeeding in attaching photos to my blogging and starting to read the Jane Austen Book Club...mf.....

Romantic journeys

Romantic journeys will detail thoughts and learning curves of an aspiring writer determined to produce at least one completed contemporary romance in 2005.

It will also record all writing done in the year, whether factual articles or fiction, and efforts to boost income from sales. Writing courses are burgeoning all over the net, classes are held in Adult Education centres everywhere.

Can we all find success as writers? And if not, why not?