Writing, wibbling and what next....

One other thing I did yesterday was to run through the final edits of my LHNB story .....my beta reader's are lovely wonderful people .... and one is from henceforth going to be known as the queen of punctuation.....Anyway, all them assure me that the story is good.......... though one does think that Roger the cat should have had a bigger role, and a percentage of any profits I ever make from any writings in future....... I feel she may be applying to be Roger's agent.... I didn't want to break it to her that he was fictional.  

Then after much wibbling... well me having put the e-mail together and attached the document, then letting my finger hover over the send button... I submitted it........ early... well, 3 days before the deadline is early for me.  I now just have to wait for the editing/proofing team to come back to me with queries, comments, and "what the hell is this" comments...

Now normally when I've finished writing something that's it, done finished, and for a while ... sometimes a very long while indeed... I don't want to write anything else...... Which meant it came as rather a surprise yesterday evening, having read for quite a lot of the day, that when I contemplated doing something different I didn't actually want to go through to the lounge with my knitting and chill out in front of the TV... no instead I wanted to write some more... I mean.. what!!

Now Rupert (plot bunny from hell and all round pain in the arse) bless him, his little grey ears pricked up at that and automatically ran through the list of potential stories that he's carefully filed in the various sections of my brain.... There are two adult M/M - one fantasy, one contemporary crime, an adult F/F historical, 2 YA LGBT stories - one a result of the short from April I did, the other involving a comment from my sister that she wondered if her cat (who isn't fat, she has a small head........ and hasn't been given the nick name Samosa because's currently triangular in shape) could have a staring roll as a shifter (her human counterpart also being somewhat larger than average).....and then there is rather a lot of pressure from certain quarters for me to get on with the 2nd book in the YA mainstream series I am writing......

After some argument with the bunny......... really, it wasn't worth it I don't know why I didn't let him just pick for me........ it was between three for now...... the contemporary crime (which needs research), the YA about my sister's cat, and the F/F historical.... which is based upon an old family story about one of my great aunts during the war........ 

Now I never thought much about writing adult F/F before - I mean, it's a big close to home... and well, people might think I actually do or have done some of the things I might write about...... but this one is really kind of grabbing me at the moment........ I need to do some general research and dig a bit into the family side of things, but I think that might be the first thing I do.... maybe... unless Rupert has other ideas and thumps his bloody great big bunny feet down..........

See if it wasn't bad enough, my physical life is run by the dogs and cats, and now my brain is at least partially controlled by a rabbit....... whatever next..........

Sometimes it's best to be graceful about things....

Right about now I should be at my mother's house, enjoying a Sunday evening meal with her, my sister and my sister's partner......... I'm not though, I'm at home waiting for the water to boil so I can cook myself some pasta.

The reason for this is because sometimes it's just better, certainly where family are involved, to admit that staying away is the better option..... My sister and her partner have been moving him into her house this weekend... which is to say last week on top of them both working full time they finished rearranging, cleaning and decorating the study and attic room in her house - the study is to become the guest bedroom and the attic her partner's home office - although he works as a librarian in his spare time he's a racing/equine journalist.... then yesterday they hired a van and did the heavy moving out of his flat.  Today they've unpacked the van and organised the house.

Now part of this meant me inheriting a book case - hurrah - you can never have too many book cases, well, I can't anyway.... at about midday I was told I'd inherited two book cases if I wanted as the one they were going to put in the attic was too tall.  Okay, good, more bookcases, yay!

When they dropped them around they were both snappy and obviously tired.  They took upstairs the made up bookcase but left the other at the bottom of the stairs (it's flat pack) for me to take up and set up (though they forgot to bring the bits and pieces to enable me to do this!).

I mentioned that I'd see them later for tea....... to which my sister snapped rather stroppily "You're coming?" which rather pissed me off, as it was said in a "what right have you to come, mum's cooking for us" kind of way.  Now I know that's not true, but I didn't say anything.   When they'd gone I phoned mum and told her I wasn't coming because my sister was obviously overtired and if I went we'd probably end up bickering all through the meal at each other - I love my sister dearly but we can seriously get on each other's nerves and wind each other up on occasion.

I hope they are all enjoying their meal........ I've been productive in the meantime.... Hugo and I have put the book case in place and filled it with my children's books.... Hugo made a very good book end at times... I think he sat on every shelf as I was doing it..... I just wish he didn't have to jump on and off my shoulder because that got quite painful after a while......... I suspect it's part of the revenge for me terrorising him and Gina by hoovering upstairs earlier on!

Little things........a round up post....

Well my LHNB story is finished.... and has gone off to my kind and wonderful beta readers who volunteered to read for me and comment (and in the case of my friend and non m/m reading beta reader - she's open minded, she can do smut, she once had a chastity cat - to get the highlighters out and turn it into a hallucinagenic rainbow with snarky comments - though I have assured her this year, there are no comparisons to vegetables this year).

I am having a night off from the story tonight and heading out for a well deserved break from the computer!

Which translates as.... I'm off to my mother's to use the washing machine......... which brings me to Hugo the Evil Naked Cat's latest bad behaviour..... When I was sorting out the laundry tonight he was watching me closely, giving me that "there is a cat staring at me, oh Goddess what's it going to do now"......... to discover that in fact it wasn't what he wanted to do, it was what he'd done....... the little sod had pee'd in the laundry basket!  So now I've have to wash absolutely everything tonight.  When I told him I wasn't impressed he just looked at me with that "yes and" expression, flicked his tail, headed to his food bowl and cried........... git.........

I decided to have a couple of crackers with cheese before I went out as my lunch had been uninspiring enough to end up in the bin......... okay, word of advice....... if you decide to sneak a little corner of cheese off the block, don't eat it from the sharp side of the small sharp knife.......... cuts on the tongue hurt like hell and don't stop bleeding for ages.......... ahem.... yes, well, you learn by experience apparently........

For a short week this one appears to have gone on for quite a while.... work is completely dead at present, well there is plenty of work to do, but no fraught e-mails and phone calls making unreasonable demands... I even got a thank you e-mail... I nearly fell of the chair!  Anyway, roll on 5 pm tomorrow and the weekend....... when I have a new book case being delivered..... well I say new, my sister is rearranging the entire house for the other half to move in (which also happens this weekend) and I inherited a new bookshelf... Hopefully the children's books will get a much shelf that the cats can't throw the books off!

More neurotic wittering.......

If I had to do it by hand we'd be here till next year....

I am still writing........... there is now less than a week to go before the submission deadline for the Love Has
No Boundries story and I am not finished!

I think I am starting to drive my wonderful support group to distraction with my rather disjointed paranoid mumbling about it.... but they are to nice and supportive to admit this.

The story itself went over 15,000 words this evening........ and the final couple of paragraphs are done.  I actually only have probably another 2000 words to get it to the end (it will be very slightly longer than last years effort).

I have some very generous victims, I mean volunteers, who have agreed to beta read for me.... brave and wonderful souls!  Hopefully the weekend will see the final edits and I can turn it in at the 11th hour, just making the deadline....... which is kind of par for the course for me!

I have to admit, unlike last year where the characters came easily, this year has been more difficult.  I don't know whether that is because this is the first attempt I've made at a contemporary piece.  My YA playground is usually fantasy - well fantasy ish anyway, and I love writing historical pieces - mainly because I get to do research first and build myself a world from that.

Having said that, as the story has gone on I've become very fond of my characters and their fight for a happy ending .... I'm quite amused that in the snippets I posted I've been accused of creating angst.... yeah, me! angst!! Who knew I could do it!

There has been some research involved in the writing - I've learnt about five aside football, how to treat a dislocated shoulder and the role of a banksman.......

Welcome to the "hypothetical basement".....

it's a small peaceful room you will find adjacent to the gutters... no amount of bleach, polish and a feather duster will make it completely clean... but hey, no spiders..... 

The "hypothetical basement" came about this morning as my sister was telling me how her own basement (a real one under the house) was now sparkly clean, dry and ready to have her other half's extra stuff placed in it when he moves in next week........... Now when I suggested that if I had a basement it would be just a sparkly clean, she laughed!

Now admittedly the conversation just before this had centred on my writing, and specifically my LHNB story  which she had been helping me with by answering stupid questions like... what is my character's cat called? and what is the name of the Italian restaurant they are eating at?  She knows there is some smut involved, but chooses not to get involved in that.

However, for some reason she found it hysterically funny that I've had to work through my "no sex, I'm British" moment over the last few days....... Now I can talk smut, personal preferences and just about any form of kink to my friends (overshare? never! no such thing!!) ... but I was having some problems putting it in writing.......... last year my LiAW story prompter asked for story, not sex, and if there was non graphic or fade to black was fine.  Normally if I am writing I write YA.  This year though my prompter had specifically said the climax of the story shouldn't be the sex scene...... which meant there had to be some action during the story......

It just didn't seem right to be writing these things during the hours of daylight.......... smutty scenes are written at night, in the dark, with the curtains shut so the neighbours can't see......... Well that was Thursday.........since when I seem to have overcome my natural inclinations and embraced the smutty side.......so when I had finished telling my sister, she decreed that I whilst my body might be sitting in the kitchen writing, my mind was obviously lurking in the hypothetical basement where it's never quite completely clean .... I'm just wondering if I wander around my basement I'll discover the link to the wine cellar.........

Erm, well... ouch....

Okay, so, as anyone that has read this blog knows, I am a little accident prone......... and sometimes this combines with me being a little stupid.....

So anyway, you'll remember last weekend I posted about the large mixing bowl smashing into a million pieces on the kitchen floor yes?  Well, given the dogs are in the kitchen most of the time, as am I when I am home, I carefully swept the floor and then mopped it so no one would get cut paws (okay, feet in my case, I really don't have paws.. honest).  

So, almost a week passes without incident and then yesterday morning as I was pottering around I felt a sharp pain in the sole of my foot (yes, I know, I'm meant to have socks or slippers on, but it was early and I hadn't got round to it yet)..... I carefully brushed off the bottom of my foot and a teeny, tiny flake of glass came off in my hand.  Okay, cool no problem.  I carried on as usual, pottering about the kitchen, reading and suchlike (yes, I'm strange, I live in my kitchen most of the time...).  A short while later I went and let the dogs out into the run, in preparation for going upstairs and getting ready to go out, turned around, and noticed there was a trail of blood all across the kitchen floor.

Cue panic checking over of the dogs... all their paws were inspected, all the girls bits (although everyone finished seasons fairly recently).... not a thing, but there was definitely fresh, wet blood on the floor coming from somewhere.  I followed the dogs around for a bit........... then realised that in fact the blood was coming from the bottom of my foot....... oops......I'd obviously cut it when I stepped on the glass earlier.  So I cleaned up both my foot and the floor, got the bleeding to stop and put a plaster on.

It was a bit painful to walk on, but hey, it was cut, this was normal right.... well in my mind anyway.... so roll on about 24 hours to this morning.  My foot is still painful to walk on, but the tiny cut there was as healed, so it must be just sore.... well no.... I wondered off and had my shower and got dressed, to the point of putting on my socks......... when I dried the bottom of my foot and realised there was something sticking out...... so i pulled.......

Well it was a hell of a lot more painful coming out than going in........ a piece of glass, thin, but about 1/2 a cm long........ and I sliced my finger tip pulling it out........ the foot is now covered in antiseptic cream and a very large padded plaster..... the glass is safely in the bin and the kitchen floor has been re-swept and washed again.......... and we won't be mentioning to anyone outside of this blog that I am a muppet and should be more careful now will we.....

Spring Sunshine ...

Apple blossom & blue skies

I seem to have picked a good couple of days to have off work and relax.... well I say relax, the idea is to write like I am possessed..... not sure what I am possessed by, but just, yeah, generally possessed....

Very funky looking tulips

Anyway, today I had to nip out to have lunch with friends... such hardship... and on the way back my knitting and I stopped off at the park to sit on a bench in the sunshine and find inspiration.... as you do.... since then though I've come back and managed to get on with a fair bit of writing.

I've also banned myself from buying or reading any new books till my story is finished......which had better be before Monday as I have a basket full of books I want from the first part of the Dreamspinner sale..... and I am sure from a lot of the other parts too....

Pretty purple flowers

Tomorrow there will be nothing to do except writing........ well that's the plan, I am sure that I shall probably find some other things to do when I should be writing.  I've posted another snippet and am hoping for some feedback... though it appears I may have got the concept of angst.... it turns out I like torturing my characters and this is in fact angst... who knew!

Daisies in the old chimney

I took a few photographs whilst I was out and about which seem to prove that spring has made it to this part of the world ..... though I can tell by the state of my own lawn, which is suffering defeat in the war against the dandelions.......I know I joke that I am creating my own wildflower meadow, but really I have to find a gardener at some point to come sort it out!