Butt-glue failure

181 new words today. That's all. Sigh.

But it was Sunday, and the parents dropping in with cake, donuts and other bribes was a trifle hard to ignore. And it was 35 C , and the steam-cleaning I'd promised the winter mud-smeared carpet on the stairs was well overdue.

There's always tomorrow ...

A new venture

It's been pretty quite round here. It's all good - I'm still busy typing my fingers to the bone, getting closer to the end of my first draft. Yay!

And a really cool new venture has also been keeping me busy - a shiny new blog that three of my writing buddies and I have just launched, All the World's Our Page. I'm super excited about hanging out with three exceptionally talented writers - Jennifer Hendren, Kristen Callihan and Claire Gregory - who love to yak about all things writing as much as I do. I'll still be blogging here, by the way; but in the meantime, come over and say g'day (or bonjour!) at All the World's Our Page.

I'd love to catch up with you there!

P.S. Did I mention we're giving away books? Lots of them, for the next few weeks. I do love a book giveaway ... pity I can't enter!

Throwing salt over my shoulder

I've been pretty slack about blogging of late - ok, please don't choke laughing at that understatement - and my role as forum goals mistress has been executed with an appalling lack of application.

I'd like to say why I've been so lax; but call me nuts, I don't want to jinx myself. So, let me just frame this all in the negative - so that karma doesn't up and bite me on the arse - and I'll leave you to read between the lines ...

My writing is NOT going well. [g]

In fact, I did NOT just write 3000 words today that I'm pretty damned pleased with. [bg]

At the rate I'm writing, I will NOT finish this book by the end of the year. [vbg]

So, please excuse my silence. I'm just busy NOT writing a book.

Got my groove back

Oh, yeah.

3000 words down today, in two hours that simply flew by. And on re-reading, I'm actually happy with most of them ...

I love those days when the writing just flows.

They're rare, but they're gold.

Writing when life has you by the short and curlys ...

Hi. If anyone is still here to read this blog, I'm just going to get this out of the way ...

I'mabadbloggerandhavesadlyneglectedthisblogbutIhavemyreasonswithwhichIwillnotboreyoubut IwilldobetterIpromise ...

So, I'm still plugging away at this book. It, like this blog, has been sadly neglected these past few weeks. So, I'm wondering, how do you all write when you just don't have the time? And I don't mean no time as in "oh gee, I'd like to write but I have my nails to do, the fridge magnets to re-arrange, the cat's hair to plait" kind of no time. I'm talking about the really hard stuff, the days when you don't know how the heck you're going to come out the other end without going mad or forgetting something vitally important. Like picking your child up from soccer. Cough.

Do you get up at 3am and tap away while slugging down the caffeine? Write like a demon in the spare five minutes you find between those jobs on the "to do" list? Or, like Tess Gerritson, do you simply put the writing aside, do the other things that Must Be Done, and come back later?

Help a struggling (and frustrated!) gal out!

14th of July

Happy Bastille Day!

Good news

My dad's OK.

There were a couple of days where his blood pressure was seriously, scarily, low, but it came back up and, after the docs ran every test possible on his ticker, he was declared fit to come home from hospital.

I saw him yesterday. He's not one to complain, not one to talk much about his health, but yesterday, when I asked how he was, he took a sip of his tea, looked down at his hands and quietly said "I thought my time was up."

I'm beyond glad that it was not.