Mea culpa

Hi.

My name is Rachel.

I am a blogger.

One who fully intended the title of her blog to reflect its content. Not been so good at that. I am fully aware I could be sued for false advertising.

But this will change. First step is my new goal: to post a tidbit about nineteenth century France each week (or as close to that as I can get.)

Stay tuned ..

November Rain

My Life in Itunes

OK. I was tagged for this a while ago by Jen and Claire. To answer each question, one is supposed to put the old ITunes on shuffle, and click to get the answer. Let's see what happens ...

IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OK?' YOU SAY ... High Havoc (Corduroy). Too true!

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF? You've got to hide your love away (The Beatles) Aw, poor me!

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? In Between Days (The Cure). Shemales, I'm thinking?Cough. Not quite my cup of tea. (g)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Hey Ya! (Outkast) It's Sunday, so that's pretty accurate!

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? We Believe (Red Hot Chilli Peppers). In what? God? Santa? In my constitutional right to use the computer without being interrupted by children? Grumble ...

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO? Song for Guy (Elton John). I give up. No idea what that means.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Someday we'll know (New Radicals) ... 'what planet she's from',  is the ending most friends would choose, I think. (g)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? You and Me Song (The Wannadies). Kinda creepy, that.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? The Bucket (Kings of Leon). Very existentialist thinker, I am! (g)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Crumbs from Your Table (U2). LOL! My poor husband. 

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Black Dog (Led Zeppelin). Oh. Boy. At least it's not Winston Churchill's 'black dog'; well, most of the time.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Window in the Skies (U2). Hmmm, remind me to check that it was sugar I put in my coffee this morning ...

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Rio (Duran Duran). LOL! That'd be awesome. And so much better than 'Ding Dong, the Witch is dead.' (g)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? Feel (Robbie Williams). Yup, that's me on the bus, brushing up against you in a most inappropriate way. Eeew!

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR? Robinson Crusoe (The Art of Noise). Aaaargh! Not a shaggy, shipwrecked man! Anything but that!!

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? Mannish Boy (Jimmi Hendrix) Oh God. I knew I should have shaved this morning.

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW? Son of a Preacher Man. (Dusty Springfield) Oh lordy (fanning herself and reaching for her mint julip).

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Scar (Missy Higgins). Did I mention I am a trifle anti-social?

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS? November Rain (Guns n' Roses) WTF is that crap doing on my Itunes?! 

Ending on that note ...

Dig deep

I'm shocked at the horror that has engulfed Victoria. 130 people killed in firestorms, with talk that that number could climb as high as 230. Families burned to death in cars, trying in vain to outrun 100 metre high fire fronts. Hundreds of people injured. Thousands without homes. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and loss of my fellow Australians, just across the border.

The Australian Red Cross has set up a special donations appeal. Here's the link. '

It's the only way we can help.

Oh, enough already!

Tomorrow's max has been upgraded from 40C to 43C (110F). 

That means more power failures, plus the guaranteed failure of my aircon by midday.

No writing will be done. Nothing will be done, except for sweating like a Scandinavian in a sauna.

A 12 hour long sauna.

Sheesh.

Some like it hot ... but not this little black duck

Seeing as my manuscript, and my blog, purport to be somewhat connected with nineteenth century Paris, I'd planned to blog along those lines this week; then  ... BA-BAHM. Nope. I'm sitting on my butt in the middle of an antipodean heatwave, and try as I might, I just cannot transport myself from my sweltering,  43C (110F) bastard of a day, to nineteenth century, autumnal Paris. We have at least another, whole, goddam week of this shite, saddled with an aircon that only works until around midday, then goes on strike. Little Aussie bleeder that it is. 

Insanely hot weather is really weird. I jumped in the shower three times today (all ablutions done under three minutes, as per our drought-breaker shower timer). I turned on the cold tap only, and it ran hot for half my shower. My shampoo and conditioner were reduced to a molten slick. And when I jumped out, I kid you not, I air-dried in under three minutes. No towel required.

Then there's the bugs. The usually reclusive spiders that descend from pergola beams by their webs en masse, to catch any puff of air -  I have to navigate through this icky mine-field to get to the garden hose, and when I water the plants, the bees and wasps swarm about the hot stream of water from the hose, trying to get any drip of moisture they can. 

At least we haven't had a snake under the front door, like we did last year.

And thank goodness the kids think its a hoot. Money in their pockets to buy iceblocks from the school canteen; dinner at the local cafe, since the temp in our kitchen was 35C today. Going to bed soaking wet from the bath ...

Writing? Ha. I'm amazed the lap top hasn't melted. But while words on the page have been beyond me the last couple of days (and probably will remain so until the heatwave is over) I did manage a little bit of plotting. A silver lining to the cloud.

 Now, if only it was a rain cloud ...

Pre-loved scenes

A question for those of the writerly persuasion ...

A couple of days ago I came to a spot in my MS where I'd already written the next scene I needed. I wrote the scene a long while ago (maybe a year), and much about my characters and plot has changed since then. But being lazy, I thought I'd re-hash the existing scene instead of starting afresh,  and see how it went.

Not well, is how.  There were bits of the old scene I liked, but I found it a chore to tweak and change it to reflect all the changes that have happened. And once it was done, it was forced, flat, not right.

So I left it, mulled over it - and decided to scrap it. Yesterday, I started with a blank page, came back at the scene at a 180 degree angle, and it was much better. Much, much, better.

I can't help but be a bit dismayed by the time and words I lost in this process (and my writing time at present is very limited indeed!). But I guess it's like baking - if you add plain flour when you really need self-raising, if you only put in two eggs when you need three, no amount of tweaking the recipe is going to save that cake. Better to lick the beaters and start afresh; but maybe that's just me? What do you do? Recycle the scene, or start from scratch? 

Writing like a speed dater

Ten minutes on the keyboard here, another ten minutes there ... my writing experience at present is much like speed dating. I sit down, smile, spew out as many words as possible, then  - ding!  - it's time to move on, to the other things that are taking up 99.9% of my time - driving kids to their friends', to doctors appointments, to the pool, to the beach, to the movies, to get their hair cut, to get the new school shoes; doing the never-ending, god-awful loads of washing; doing the never-ending, god-awful grocery shopping; dishing up three meals plus snacks every day, then cleaning up after the little barbarians that pass for my kids. 

Sigh.

I CANNOT wait to have some serious time with my book. An evening of getting reacquainted - slowly, no rushing -  is much needed!