So... apparently the contract is on its way so I can delay no longer. I have set myself a 1,000 word a day target this week, rising to 2,000 next week. It was slowish going because I have to think myself back into the world.
I enjoyed doing it- so good to be putting words on the page again. My son doesn't think the way I'm writing the story is cool enough. He has a point. It could end up like a cross between Alavna and Hunted, but then that is how I write and think and the publisher seems to want me to write something that is more of the same but different. I can't worry about that now in any case - I have to make a story happen. Changeling was different and they didn't want that.

I am still marking - I don't know why I am making such a meal of it. Generally I am really quick at reading things and making judgements, but there is something about filling in a form, however simple, that freaks me out and makes me procrastinate. Anyway I have a deadline I have to meet tomorrow which can only be done if I work late or get up early and I think I will go for the get up early.

I have been listening to Gorecki symphony no 3 all day - it is beautiful and hypnotic and I don't want it to stop...

Done the biggest marking task - more or less. I have to make sure I've been consistent and said something positive about each piece. I am sooooo much better at being critical and I have to remind myself how hard it is to accept criticism and take it on board if it is not accompanied by some praise.

I now need to read something quick and fun to cleanse my palate ( I so nearly wrote palette ) ready for another lot tomorrow.

My get fit campaign was a bit stalled yesterday after my Monday night dance session. If I hadn't realised how unfit I was before, all doubts that I am over the hill and knacked would have been removed by my attempts to 'Zumba'. Walking proved a little difficult yesterday but today I took the dog for a longish walk through Richmond Park with a friend - exercise and gossip - perfect.

My turn over at http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/
I suppose it sounded a bit like a whinge but it wasn't. I fully intended getting on with the book next week I was just idly posting about the first thing that came into my head.
It just seems ironic that the more stuff I do as a writer the less I write and I think that undermines my status as a writer. Maybe I should have said that instead!

Um I didn't do my marking. I had a nice school visit on Friday: I was welcomed enthusiastically which is great for the ego. I had a sandwich lunch with a the year 7 book club who had heard of me and my books. A very nice sixth former professed himself to be a fan and then I did one session with all of year seven. It was in Birmingham and the school had 'won me so it was organised by my publisher and Emma the children's publiscist came with.I was well looked after. I've done several events with her before so it was fine for me to read on the train - I read and enjoyed 'JUliet Naked' by Nick Hormby a perfect train read He is very good at obsessed men if slightly less good at women. Yesterday I watched O play ruby and in he evening read ' The Little Stranger' Sarah Waters. It was great on the time period - she is wonderful at evoking the atmosphere of a time but although I enjoyed it the plot was not quite as gripping as some of her other books. Tomorrow.

I returned my library books - which doesn't sound much, but was a triumph of realism over hope. I am not going to do much academic work this term and having books around the house acruing fines and giving me a regular daily injection of guilt is just not sensible.
I also did various other housekeeping things for work which culminated in me losing all my writing files. I don't know what I did but they disappeared and then when, after a certain amount of obscentiy generating panic, I found them again the nice computer told me I couldn't access them. I am obviously not supposed to be organised.

I think it is OK and I've backed everything up to an external hard drive now and
I don't know if losing all that stuff would have mattered anyway - half baked ideas are just that and old work has either been published or abandonned. Maybe starting from scratch without the burden of all that crap might have been a good thing.

I have just taken delivery of an IMac - so that the kids and husband can have my not very old and rather good computer. Maybe I should not import all that stuff onto it and allow myself to make a fresh start.

Oh dear I really haven't achieved that much today and even that non achievement took a while.

I have decided that jet lag is no longer an excuse for sloth and I have to get going. I haven't done any work as such but have spent the day doing jobs and sorting things out (which seems to equate with spending money.) I really do need to earn some this year.
I am not quite on top of things yet, but I have at least attacked some of the piles of paperwork cluttering my desk and hope to do my marking tomorrow.
I taught two courses last term and so I am going to give up the rest of the week to asessment.
I have to do an ( unpaid) school visit in Birmingham on Friday and go in to Uni tomorrow to collect some scripts but apart from that I should be able to get my head down.
I would like to get my novel underway on Monday and have it finished by the end of March.I'm not sure if this is feasible however I would like to aim for that at least.

I think those people who say a writer is someone who writes are spot on - when I'm not writing I really don't feel like a writer at all. I haven't written anything of consequence for the best part of a year so I am not sure if I can still do it. It's not self doubt exactly more a kind of failure of imagination; do I really just sit down and write stuff every day? I have done so in the past but can I still? Will whatever goes on in my head still go on after all this time? Watch this space.

Great time. Very jet lagged. My car has a flat, my central heating boiler is broken and for most of the day my notebook has refused to connect to the internet, but I met up with writer friends for lunch in town so it wasn't all bad. I slept last night but missed two night's sleep as our flight was delayed by ten hours. I think we got off lightly given the chaos but I'm not going to attempt to do any work until my brain comes back on line - whenever that is.

Oh and Happy New Year!

Boys have just gone to the beach. I'm about to wrap my presents after breakfast on the verandah... it's a tough life.

V exciting game. Cambridge played better on the day and closed Oxford down. Will didn't really get any ball, but he did well with what he got and although he was disappointed by the result I think he's happy to have got his blazer and played at Twickenham with the big screens, the TV cameras and a crowd of 30,000.

Took me all day more or less. I have got two black bags of rubbish and about eight to go to the charity shop. I haven't changed size since I was about nineteen apart from when I was pregnant and this makes it quite hard to chuck things out especially as styles come back into fashion increasingy quickly. Luckily my daughter was on hand to point out that I looked rubbish in quite a lot of the stuff. The good news is that she can wear some of it. She looks great in a very expensive blazer I bought in the eighties when I did a proper job - I don't know how I ever pulled off the massive padded shoulders - it is possible I never did.

I have hit the age where I have no idea what looks OK anymore and have yet to grasp that because you can wear something, it doesn't mean that you should : )
I can at least now find the things I want to wear and I dug out my summer clothes for Australia - a more motley collection of garments I have rarely seen. I don't like summer clothes; they never cover up enough, I don't like pale colours and I never know what shoes to wear. The idea of wearing swimwear is rather horrifying...

Not writing much but busy.
My turn to blog http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/

Nice mention in Saturday's Times http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article6933357.ece

Still waiting confirmation on the contract. I had intended to write a short for a competition but rather failed on that one.
I am really enjoying the teaching but it eats more time than it should and it is hard to work on other stuff. This is something I need to bear in mind for the future.

'The Swordmark'has gone to Bloomsbury,'Changeling' is with another publisher, I meet my supervisor on Tuesday and I start teaching prep next week.So in the brief moment when i don't have to write anything in particular, I have enjoyed myself reading four YA novels today. They were all good and it is sooooo much easier to read than to write.
I read the 'Hunger Games' (Suzanne Collins) Fantastic and ' Uglies' (Scott Westerfield) earlier in the week. Yesterday I read 'Pretties' and today I read 'Specials' to complete the trilogy there is a fourth too which I may read later. I also read 'I Coriander' (Sally Gardner) good, but I thought the ending a cop out, 'How I live Now' (Meg Rosoff) a bit fuzzy on the war that lies in the background which might have been the point but I found unsatisfatory, and 'The book of Dead Days' ( Marcus Sedgewick) a bit disappointing in plot terms. All were excellent in some way and very readable. I suppose I ought to have made notes but I will leave that for later, for now I'm just catching up on some good stuff I've missed.
I rejoined the library after a hiatus of many years - wow free books! How great is that!
I have had a bit of a cold/fluey thing so haven't even walked the dog today though I did make it to the library to get more books.
I gave a talk last year on how I was the little girl who loved reading - how could I have forgotten that I still am? (just less little and a bit too wrinkly to be a girl)
From now on I may have to work harder than usual so today was a kind of innoculation of pleasure against too much serious work : )

In case you are interested.

http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/

I didn't get my chapters and synopsis off today mainly because my Mum's eye appointment which we thought might take an hour took nearly three as they were short staffed. It wasn't anyone's fault but my whole week has been like this; real life not fiction.
Anyway I could post the whole thing on homeplanet for feedback as there is now no point in sending it before Tuesday.
I am not going to be cross about my lack of progress this week as the whole reason for my being self employed is so that I can be around for my family.

I have found it hard to work this week - there is just too much going on. Anyway in between times I have done the second chapter.

How do would you describe the behaviour of terrified horses? I'm not sure I know the right words and I'm not sure I've ever seen a terrified horse except in Westerns and in the stage version of War horse'.

I managed the synopsis of 'The Girl with Four names' and then, trawling through old files, found the first two chapters of 'Swordmark' and came up with a synopsis for that. All good.
My husband like GWFN and didn't like the opening chapters of Swordmark. Homeplanet response to Swordmark was OK but less so for GWFN. So I think that tomorrow I need to rework both. In each case the second chapter worked better than the first and in both cases my attempt to write something different probably displaced my normal intuiteve sense of what works. GWFN is first person but deliberately archaic/elegaic - a memory of a golden childhood time. In Swordmark the tone is also distanced. I think I am trying too hard not to write Alavna again. This 'historic' book cannot be default twenty first century action, but it still has to have those qualities that make you read on.
I am mildly pissed off that I haven't got there yet.I was hoping to get stuff out tomorrow but yanno if it isn't good enough, it isn't good enough and I'm actually genuinely grateful when people let me know. It was the plot that was causing me problems now at least I have the plot and the time and the place. I don't usually rewrite first chapters but I am happy enough to adapt my approach to necessity. At least I know what I'll be working on tomorrow : )

'A' level results today.My son did well but between taking him and his friends back to Reading ( a round trip of four hours in traffic) where they are all working after coming home to get their results, walking the dog , going out to dinner and drinking with other mothers of 'a' level students - no work at all has been done. I have had slightly too much to drink tonight and I had a too little sleep last night so I am not really able to catch up with the work I've missed. I'm very proud of M and a little disappointed in me. Tomorrow is another day!

I sent off my tax return stuff yesterday and have made some progress with the story today.
I finished reading the helpful book and have written about 1k - not great but something.
I also have a bit more of a plot - almost enough to make an arc. I had hoped to have finished this yesterday, but sorting out the car put pay to that. I may get this done tonight but it isn't that likely as M is home for the night so that he can pick up his results tomorrow.
I am trying not to think about results... very hard.

I've more or less done my tax and I've read a great book that is really helping me with my plot. I would have achieved much more but for the need to take O to training. I don't mind working in random fields and club houses my problem was the journey.
My stress levels were sky high as I had a dental appointment which meant that I was pushing my luck in London traffic to get him there on time but then I discovered I had a slow puncture and had to find a working pump. I followed 'tom tom' which took me some lunatic way that had me at the wrong side of the Hangar lane gyratory - with four lanes of speeding traffic to get across. I got him there but I think I said some bad words.
I managed to read a bit in between the necessary rugby chat but then coming back again at that bastard roundabout a very large artic took out my wing mirror in its entirety and dented my passenger door. My son was sitting next to me so we were lucky it wasn't worse. The lorry did not see me. I was in the correct lane, but I must have been in its blind spot. The driver did not stop and neither could I. You just can't in rush hour traffic. I then had to drive for a further two hours to find a garage that could deal with the damage - body shop required. The part has to be ordered - ironically I had just had a new wing mirror case for the same wing mirror but this contact pulled the whole thing off and took some of the door with it.
I'm going to have to claim on my insurance as it promises to be very expensive but I didn't get the reg or even the type of lorry.
It could so easily have been so much worse - the noise was incredible - those things are huge and it could, if it were just a centimetre closer, have ripped off the door and killed my son. It could have been a full blown accident and although it wasn't and we were both OK my hands were shaking a bit on the wheel for the rest of the journey and I felt stupidly tearful, particularly as there was just no place to pull over.

I'll have to waste an hour or so on the phone tomorrow and I have a banging headache but
it's OK. A near miss is still a miss.

Had a wonderful time in the Cotswolds - the hotel was really good, the weather was fantastic.The kids went wake boarding - I bottled because I hate falling in, going fast, being out of control etc etc but W managed a circuit of the lake and P went round a couple of times of water skis. The following day we had stupid rowing races, played rugby water polo ( in rowing boats) and went out on canoes. The hotel had a pool and a gym and very nice food. We dropped M off in Reading, visted my Mum on her birthday in Wales and spent last night in Oxford. It feels like we have been away for a week at least. Strangely enough the work is still here waiting for me : )