My brain, let me show you it

You know, there's something about hitting the last third of a book, even a very first drafty draft of a book like this one, that makes my brain go a little crazy.

Normal people do not wander around the supermarket doing page count calculations in their heads much like this:

Crazy brain: 120 pages to go. If you write six pages a day that's only three weeks or so.
Me: Yes, I can do math.
Crazy brain: Oooh, oooh, if you write 10 pages a day, you could finish it in twelve days.
Me: Unlikely but also true.
Crazy brain: Or, how about fifteen pages a day...that's only (pauses for complicated mental arithmetic) eight days.
Me: Didn't I just say 10 pages a day was unlikely? I really don't quite know what happens yet.
Crazy brain: Irrelevant.
Me: I don't think pages a day count if all they contain is "I don't know what happens here" typed over and over.
Crazy brain: Says who - oh and look over there. Chocolate.
Me: We're avoiding sugar, remember?
Crazy brain: Then don't blame me for being crazy. How about twenty pages a day and you'd finish it this week?
Me: I have a day job. I pay your bills. Not gonna happen.
Crazy brain: So? Imagine, book all finished and shiny.
Me: Not gonna be pretty and shiny if I write it in six days.
Crazy brain: Pouts. We could do it if you fed us chocolate? Chocolate makes you write faster.
Me: What do I have to feed you to get you to stop with the calculations already?

Blitz me

I woke up with the slightly nutty idea that if I write 18 pages today I'll be at 60k. I don't know why, maybe it's because that's the length my short contemps are, but 60k feels much closer to done than being in the fifties.

I'm going to try doing some alphie blitzes, I always write faster on the alphie, and see how I go....hopefully the fact that I stayed up until after 1am watching North and South thanks to Keri lending me the DVDs will not come back to haunt me.

Lunch break update. Eight pages down....ten more seems do-able. Though it would be easier with diet coke and chocolate : ) Instead I shall have vegie soup and herbal tea. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it!

The final tally. I could maybe do a few more but I don't think my hands will thank me for it tomorrow. Damn, does this mean I have to do some housework after all?

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Nineteen
Intriguing things - Lurve
Annoyances - Nothing major
Music - Moby. Chris Isaak - Wicked Games. Scissor Sisters. iPod.
Linear/Non-linear - Linear.
Location - Alphie in bed
Taking care of Mel - Meditation.
Muse food - North and South last night and McDreamy tonight (yay)!

Ever onwards

Maybe it was the candles, maybe the cunning suggestions as to possible hero issues by the brilliant lulus but yay, I have pages.


Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Eight
Intriguing things - Potions
Annoyances - Figuring out how this might work
Music - Back to Moby. Definitely the mother song.
Linear/Non-linear - Non.
Location - Scrivener at the desk. Full screen mostly.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation. Pancakes : )
Muse food - Lulus. And still more Gilmore Girls

Earth Hour

I used to write with candles burning all the time...a habit I should resurrect.
Pretty candles courtesy of the VT.

Puzzling

Yesterday was mostly a sitting and thinking about the book day. Which is a necessary part of the process. I think I managed a whole one new page which isn't really worthy of progress update.

The result of my sitting and thinking, including trying to interview my hero on the train only to have him charm the interviewer and avoid talking about anything, is that I probably just need to keep writing. The thing that's stalling me is that while I know plotwise/structurally what needs to happen, I don't have any sense of how those things happen. Usually by this point in a book, I kind of have an idea about the key scenes in the second half of a book, or at least the feel of them, or a few key snippets of dialogue. This time, not so much. I know how I think it ends, I've known that all along, but I don't yet know what causes that ending. Particularly thanks to Mr-I'm-not-telling-you-nothing Hero. Frustrating.

But this is the point where I have to say, well, if the girls know how it ends, they know how to get there and just plunge into the darkness and see what comes up.

Today is lulus and critting (with added pancakes, not that added pancakes are exactly furthering my naturopath's instructions to try and avoid sugar but oh well) so we'll see what the how the writing brain is going after that. I'm gonna try for at least six pages. That would get me to 55k.

More later!

Every little bit...

My brain is officially calling it a day. Or night. More in the morning but at least there has been some pages added to the tally and some brainstorming with the VT. More of that in the morning too.

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Four
Intriguing things - Connections
Annoyances - Still requiring a fog lamp
Music - Robyn - With Every Heartbeat iPod
Linear/Non-linear - Non.
Location - Alphie on the couch.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation. Tomorrow the naturopath
Muse food - More Gilmore Girls. And soon, an early night

The fog thickens

It's gone straight from summer to winter here. The heater is on, the rain is falling and the girls apparently are suffering from a combination of a bad night's sleep (due to the brain going 'what is that weird noise' every time the downpour got heaver and me thinking 'oh no, what if it gets really heavy and floods again' every time the brain woke me up) and general lack of clues about what happens next in this darn book. They don't really want to produce pages. They want a nap.

Yesterday I tried the tried and true dump everything out on paper like the world's most pathetic and truncated synopsis from start to finish. The 200 odd pages currently written took up about 3/4 of a page. The 150 pages or so still to write is currently five lines. Ooops. I'm sure there's enough story in there somewhere but I haven't quite got it figured out yet. But I'm going to keep going and try to have faith in the Field of Dreams school of writing aka if you write it, plot will come.

Methinks I need alphie and the iPod. A few pages at least would be good and then the subconscious can work on it overnight. I'll be back with an update...

Clever friends

A big woooooohooooooooooooooooooooo!!! to my extra clever friends.

Kelly Hunter with a RITA final in short contemporary (or whatever they're calling that now) for Sleeping Partner (a fabulous book).

Anna Campbell with a DOUBLE RITA final for Untouched and Claiming the Courtesan.

Anne Gracie with another RITA final for The Perfect Kiss

Tracey O'Hara for a GH final in paranormal with Night's Cold Kiss.

And several of my fellow 07 finalists have been extra clever and finalled again so big yays to Kelly Ann Riley, Melissa James, Theresa Ragan (another double), Kristina McMorris (and her mom), Shelley Corriell and Kim Howe!!

Reporting in

Well, yay. I actually did write forty pages over Easter. Amazing what a couple of work free days can do. And somewhere back there I apparently passed 300 posts on this blog. Which means I've been chatty lately because I only hit 200 sometime later last year from memory. Anyway, the final score for today is:

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Nine. Apparently a bit here and a bit there still adds up. Plus I did research!
Intriguing things - Uncharacteristic behaviour
Annoyances - I've just about reached the point in my very vague plot outline where it basically says "um, stuff happens". Which means I have to figure out said stuff. Oh well, plotting is overrated. I just need a fog lamp.
Music - The whole soundtrack for once. Blasting away on the speakers. So apparently stitching requires more musical variety
Linear/Non-linear - Non.
Location - In my chair, at the desk, my trusty Scrivener. Scrivener is great for stitching. But normal mode mostly.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation.
Muse food - More Gilmore Girls.

A stitch in time

After a couple of big page days, I think today will be a 'go back and stitch things together' day. I'm not pushing the pages, I need to do some reading for crits as well but I do want to put in the bits I skipped, smooth out the raggedy edges a little, give the girls time to point me in the right direction for the next bit.

And there are some distinctly raggedy edges. One thing that I'm starting to realise about my first drafts when writing in first person, is that my transitions get clunky.

I have no idea why. I'm fine with transitions in third person but I think in first person I get so entrenched in the protag's head I have trouble remembering that I can just stop following them around every second and skip ahead to the next bit. So I get cranky with an endless scene that devolves into the boring bits.

And then I *do* remember and go "Oh. Right. Go to the next bit." and feel this dorky sense of relief. *headdesk*. I wonder how many wips in first I'll have to write before I don't forget? Or if I ever will? I'm pretty sure the talking head first draft thing is here to stay, I do that regardless of POV.

Hands up who else has a first draft bug-bear? Go on, we can form a support group.

Now, off to do some stitching. Back later with ze progress report.

PS All fingers crossed for everyone who entered the Golden Heart and the RITA this year. The calls start during our nighttime, so hopefully I can wake up to lots of good news for my friends in the morning!!

Fifty thousand

Yay! 200 pages. Hopefully that means a downhill slide to the end.

And then a honking big revision. I keep getting glimpses of what I want the book to be like. Odd times when I feel the weight of it or can almost smell it - like walking into the room a few hours after someone wearing perfume. But then it vanishes and it's back to talking heads and the mist. Which is part of the fun, I guess.

The Other Boleyn Girl was okay. I preferred the book which was meatier. But the costumes were glorious and, as with all films set around that time period, I came out feeling devoutly glad I am not living in a Tudor or Elizabethan royal court. Brutal.

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Fourteen
Intriguing things - Critters
Annoyances - Worldbuilding being coy
Music - Delerium - Faith (iPod) & Scissor Sisters Comfortably numb (headphones at the desk)
Linear/Non-linear - Non.
Location - Alphie on the bed for most of it. A bit on Scrivener. Full screen.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation. Naps. General relaxing.
Muse food - Gilmore girls. Tara Janzen who has replaced SEP on the must re-read now list. Not sure what either football and rom com or muscle cars and rom suspense have to do with my wip but the girls seem to think there's a connection.

Nice

Melbourne has turned on a lovely warm Easter Sunday (after three chilly days) and I have walked, napped, relaxed and just had a lovely 12 page scene fall out of my head onto the page. Which puts me offically over half way if this draft turns out to be my usual short 90k or so. It might even be less. Yay! Happy Easter!

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Twelve
Intriguing things - The right world feeling. Finally. Clues that the new idea for what happens is more like it.
Annoyances - Not sure where exactly this scene fits.
Music - Delerium - Lamentation (iPod) & Monuments of Deceit (headphones at the desk)
Linear/Non-linear - Non.
Location - Alphie on the bed for most of it. Then a bit att the desk. Scrivener. Full screen.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation. Walkies.
Muse food - Off to see The Other Boleyn Girl tonight.

Ever forward

Some progress. Still pondering the ultimate solution but writing in between stuff while that happens. So:


Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Five
Intriguing things - Chinks in denial
Annoyances - Really sure what I thought happened next isn't quite right and not really sure what does
Music - Scissor Sisters Comfortably Numb Headphones
Linear/Non-linear - Linear. Mostly.
Location - At the desk. Scrivener. Full screen.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation. Lemon meringue pie (hey, a gal needs treats). Also, I was good and did not make a huge batch of hot cross buns yesterday. Nor did I eat all the ones I did make.
Muse food - Swan Lake. The Graeme Murphy one which is kind of dark and the girls did likey. Coming up...maybe Gilmore Girls (from one extreme to another, never let it be said my girls aren't flexible.)

Pondering

It's official. The girls are saying nuh-uh to what I thought happened next. of course, they are not doing anything useful like saying "here. try this instead". Therefore I declared today and yesterday official days of pondering (aka trying to figure out what the heck does happen). Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone and we'll see.

Books are tricky. And this heroine is proving interesting. She doesn't seem to realise she's the heroine in an urban fantasy. She is pretty set on ignoring the woo-woo in her world due to her past. All that's about to change as she's just found out something that means she can't stick the head in the sand anymore but it's made it tricky to get that stuff into the story so far. Because she determinedly doesn't deal with that part of the world. Oh well, something to figure out in the revisions.

I have the next five days off, so would like to get 20-40 pages done. I guess we'll see if how that pans out. There also has to be hot cross bun baking, ballet attending and some exercising given not much cardio has occurred this week. But hey, no day job sucking up 10 hours or so a day, so all that should be do-able!

Now, I'm either going to watch Once (yay Quickflix) or go to bed. Decisions, decisions.

Finally

Hooray, it's finally cooled down. Last night the temp stayed around 27-28 degrees all night. Not good for sleeping. But now we have lovely cool evening with breeze. And it's meant to be nice for the rest of the week. Only two days of which are left before I have five days off for Easter. Yay.

I've even written in between everything else I've squeezed in today. None of which is exciting enough to mention here.

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Four
Intriguing things - Beguilement
Annoyances - Not sure what I thought happened next is quite right.
Music - Our pal Moby blasting the headphones
Linear/Non-linear - Non. Back and forth stitching stuff together. I think I've filled most of the gaps which means it's forward until I get stuck and skip around again.
Location - At the desk. Scrivener. Full screen.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation. Walking. Trying to do less caffeine (bah humbug)
Muse food - Hopefully a good bedtime book. The girls seem to be on a SEP re-reading kick. Which is fine by me.

Helping out

Today is my official writing day off. Just as well because I am mostly brain dead from the heat.

So I have no metrics but I do have this - Terry Pratchett has donated $1 million to Alzheimers research and there's a campaign for the fans to match his donation.

Terry is one of my all time favourite authors and Alzheimers is a horrible disease, so if you can spare a $1 or 2, think about donating.

Read about it here.

Trust the girls

You know, writing and the way your brain puts together a story can be endlessly intriguing. Like today. I came back to a scene that was stalling a few days ago, to tweak it because I tweaked an earlier scene. And this is a scene I wrote the start of maybe three or four years ago, when I first had the idea for these characters. A scene and a character I actually thought would start book 2. But now, even though I've tweaked the premise and story a fair bit, this scene still works, not just works but is necessary to the story. And today, the direction it went kind of gave me my key to how I can make this a series. All from a snippet written years ago, when I only had the vaguest idea about this book and in fact had only written the opening scene and a love scene both of which were largely experiments in trying out first person POV.

It's days like this that I feel like maybe I (or at least my subconscious) know what I'm doing with this writing thing. Days like this feel right. And I'm starting to suspect that the fact that I'm having a pretty good writing week after getting back into meditation is not necessarily a coincidence. Writer brain works better when rest of brain is not hyper virgo brain, I think. Taking care of yourself is probably as important to creativity as actually doing the creative stuff.

But that's enough deep thoughts for now. This is the lunchtime update. I have stuff to do this afternoon but hopefully I may be able to edit this page count later on.


Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Six. So far Ten
Intriguing things - Wise witches. Bigger things.
Annoyances - Not annoying.
Music - Moby again. I think Moby is the mother song. Headphones.
Linear/Non-linear - Non
Location - At the desk. Scrivener. Full screen.
Taking care of Mel - Slept in. Planning meditation and exercise. Yes to meditation. No to exercise
Muse food - Some couch time with a book or two. Patrick later on. Maybe some iTunes playtime. I did all of this but no Patrick. Dopey TV programmers have stolen my Grey's!!! I protest.

Focus

I may have mentioned before that my girls in the basement can be slightly contrary. They want to play all over the place and don't necessarily care about my views or plans.

Like today. Today I'm standing in the shower (a frequent book-puzzling-out location for most writers I'd guess) trying to figure out some stuff for the book when the girls started playing the song which I know goes with the last scene of Wolf 3 very loudly in my head (it's still playing), and start my h/h from those books talking. Gah.

No! I have taken notes but I'm not writing Wolf 3 now. Though I'm thinking that my plan that next I'd revise Wolf 2 might be altering to write Wolf 3 and revise Wolf 2 at the same time. Because 3 is becoming more and more insistent in my head.

But no more werewolves until we sort out the witch and her boy and the demon. Into the fog once more for me. Maybe if I go back to Moby I can drown out this other song.

Speedy

Well, today has been a good writing day. Which you can see from the below. But this book is weird. Even though it's coming fast, it's not like Wolf where I knew where things were going and kind of had the book playing in the back of my brain at all times and could feel scenes rising up in front of me as I wrote. No, this still feels like I'm driving in heavy fog and my headlights are showing maybe a foot in front of me. It's very first drafty but hey, I'm not arguing at this point. I can figure out what it's all about when I get to the end. At this point, I'm hoping to hit 40k by the end of tomorrow. And maybe fifty k by the end of Easter. We'll see.

Now it's time for grocery shopping and going out for dinner.

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Fifteen (don't ask me how)
Intriguing things - Demons. Finally. Kissing. Finally.
Annoyances - Not annoying. Apart from having no idea what it's all about of course.
Music - Oxygene Part 11 and Wicked Games. No idea why this single song repeat thing is what this book wants but one does not argue with the girls. Headphones.
Linear/Non-linear - Back and forth. So non.
Location - At the desk. Scrivener. Full screen.
Taking care of Mel - Walking (hell must be freezing over even if Melbourne if melting. Meditation and naps.
Muse food - They definitely liked Robert. Today they wanted lolcats. They found this and this especially hilarious. What can I say. The girls are SF and fantasy nerds. Tonight fun with friends.

Phew

The work week is over. I know it was still only a four day week but working a Friday throws me right out. Though today it was so hot that being in the office in the airconditioning was not so bad. My air con at home is harder to get to a comfortable balance. I usually wind up wearing a windcheater or something because the lounge gets cold, even at a moderate temp on the air con while the other rooms are still warm. The solution would be another aircon in the bedroom I suppose but that isn't in the budget at the moment.

Because of the working all week, and several early mornings (including 5.45am this morning thanks to a wrong number (note to the universe, I'm not a fax machine) which jolted me out of sleep in the inevitable if-someone-is-calling-me-at-this-hour-it-can't-be-good panic/adrenalin rush that meant I didn't really get back to sleep before the alarm went off, there is nothing very exciting to report. But I did the meditating thing when I got home. Or at least quasi-meditation except for the part where I fell asleep : ). So I'm relatively awake and have written! Yay. I'm about to calling it quits to watch Robert Downey Jr in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which I've heard good things about but never managed to catch before now. Thanks, Quickflix.

So...

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - Eight
Intriguing things - She hates green sludge
Annoyances - Nothing major. Still land of the talking heads but that seems to be the way this draft wishes to be and there is stuff on the near horizon
Music - No more Moby. Now it's Scissor Sisters - Comfortably Numb. Until my ears are numb.
Linear/Non-linear - Linear
Location - At the desk. Scrivener.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation and naps. Must do exercise tomorrow when it will be temporarily cooler (if you call 32 cooler)
Muse food - they're still on a diet. Apart from being very interested in Burn Notice. Maybe they'll like Robert.

Snoozing needed

Ugh. Slept terribly last night thanks to the orange cat and the very loud cicadas and loud people driving in my street and traffic noise and general mugginess. Finally fell asleep about six I think, then woke up at 9. As in when I'm meant to start work. Oops. Hopefully tonight will be better because the rest of the week is meant to be hot, hot, hot (ick). I think I'll be sleeping on my couch with the aircon. But at least I'm not in Adelaide where they've already had a few weeks of this with another one coming. And even hotter than here. 38 and 40ish which is Mel code for "I think you should move" : )

But still, I have written. Therefore:

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - 4 (good enough given aforementioned sleep-needing)
Intriguing things - sore heads
Annoyances - a rapidly expanding cast list
Music - Back to Moby. Headphones.
Linear/non-linear - Non. Skipped back to the scene I'd skipped ahead from a few days ago.
Location - Desk. Scrivener (full screen mode if you're interested)
Taking care of Mel - Meditation. Healthy cooking. Planning an early night.
Muse food - no soup today for them

Go forth and be awesome

Today is the International Day of Awesomeness so we should all go out and be awesome. Or stay in and be awesome if it's as hot as it is here.

So a big AWESOME to talented Aussie writer Alison Stuart who won a EPPIE for her historical romance By the Sword. Yay!

Edited to add

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - 2 (not really awesome but Monday is usually my day off writing...the girls didn't want to play even if I am working on Friday)
Intriguing things - demon info
Annoyances - still talky talky
Music - Brain Sync High Focus on the iPod
Linear/Non linear - Linear or, at least continuing on from where I'd jumped too yesterday
Location - Alphie on the bed
Looking after Mel - General chilling and organisation for the week
Muse food - Temeraire

The metric system

Let's see if this works.

Progress - Witch 1

New pages - 9 pages
Other additions - 5 pages when Mel realises a character she thought appears in the next book is needed in this one. Information which may have been useful earlier.
Intriguing things - Stubborn and secretive heroines. World formatting.
Annoyances - talk talk talk
Linear/non-linear - non. very.
Music - Moby "Why does my heart feel so bad" ad infinitum. Via headphones.
Location - The desk. Scrivener then Word.
Taking care of Mel - Meditation. Not so much on the exercise (it's hot!)
Muse food - There will be Grey's Anatomy and the ever inspiring Patrick later. La internets. Red toenails. Staring at the collage.

Fits and starts

If I can do more three more pages today, I'll be at 30k. Yay. Not quite as much as I hoped for this week but better nothing given the general tiredness factor.

I've been trying to write this book mostly linearly but haven't quite got the feel of the world right or something. Lot's of talky-talky and not so much on the cool demons and magic factor. So today I've been doing the tried and true 'just skip ahead and write an interesting bit'. Which has worked. So I'm thinking this might just be a patchwork book.

I'm also thinking I might try keeping some writing metrics here on the blog a la Elizabeth Bear. See if it helps keep me on track at all. And also would be an interesting way to look at my process for the book.

More on that later once I have the final tally for the day. But first a break and some more reading of Carolyn's wip. Swashbuckling and magic as a change from reluctant demons.

Girl power

Happy International Women's Day!



Hope all the fabulous, creative, talented, wise women out there (and the good men who support them and occasionally exasperate them ; ) ) have a fabulous day.

And to my particular bunches of cool goddesses who laugh with me, whine with me, party with me, grow with me, cry with me and support me, I say thanks.

I'm not



None of us are. But together we can do anything.

Here's to us!

Clever

Congrats to my Aunt Pam, who is one of the five HarperCollins Varuna Awards for Manuscript Development recipients! Yay!

Interesting this hereditary stuff...though we write very different things, there are obviously scribes and scribblers in the family somewhere. I have no idea who they are though. I'm the grandaughter of a baker who loves bread and baking generally. And from the other grandfather, the sea captain, I get my love of water and oceans. A love I don't indulge often enough. One day I want to live, at least some of the time, near the sea. And I have a plethora of Scots/Irish/British ancestry and felt weirdly at home as soon as I stepped onto British soil. Unlike the US, which feels strange to me, even though I like it there and have been there more often.

I wonder which of my other loves and interests come down through the blood? How about you? Anything you love that is bred into you?

Circa part deux

And here's another tweak.



I decided the cute angel/demon covers really were too thin and I don't really need two letter sized notebooks at the moment. So I just trimmed the A4 angel/demon covers to letter height and slipped them inside the clear Circa covers. Instant decoration. The yellow discs can wait for another project.

And that's enough stationery geekage for now. I have to do pages. Not easy when I stayed up reading Anne Bishop's Tangled Webs last night. Back to one of my all time favourite fantasy worlds. Happy sigh. But sleepiness. I think an alphie session might be called for. I seem to clock up the words faster on the alphie when I'm tired.

Circa-us maximus

In which, thanks to the Goddess Alyson (as she is henceforth dubbed), I babble on about stationery. So if that doesn't interest you...move along, nothing to see here.

Anyway, today my box of Circa goodies arrived. I bought the punch (figuring there was no point to pay for paper to be posted to me when I can do the one-off punch purchase and convert any paper I want).

This is the punch.



It's hefty. Burglars beware. I can do damage with this!

I also bought the sampling kit and a junior starter kit. And scored a free gift card but more on that later.

Here's the junior made up (the letter size is the same, only bigger).



My only quibble with these is they don't have a band to hold them together but a quick trip to Smiggle for a couple of their giant rubber band/notebook holder things took care of that.

Here's my first attempt at pretty-ing up the cover. I just punched a greeting card. In future, I think I'd find a pic the right size (or cut one down) and laminate it before punching but this is the quick fix so whatever's on the paper in the notebook front page doesn't show through.



Then I decided to experiment. I had this notebook which I've been using as my carry around in the handbag sized writing goals and longhand scribbling book.



The cover is heavy plastic and it was wider than A5 though pretty much A5 height. Some hybrid of 1/2-US letter and A5 I guess. Because I love the cover, I decided to see whether I could Circa-ize it. I'd trawled Officeworks to see if they had any disc bound products at all and came up with two types of presentation (plastic pocket filled) folders. (an Officeworks quick release display book and a Marbig Kwikzip display book respectively). The Officeworks one had black 3/4 inch discs that looked the same as the Circa ones (and nice heavy plastic covers, so that will be a good source of covers (other than expensive paperchase notebooks) and extra 3/4 discs for archiving (not to mention plastic pockets) if I can find more).

So I decided to try those with the cover. I'd also bought a guillotine and rotary cutter set that Officeworks (yay, we loves Officeworks) had on sale. So I detached the covers, trimmed them and punched them. The plastic is a bit heavier than the Circa ones and I don't think I'd try punching anything thicker with the punch. But it worked...voila!



I'm going to use this day to day and it will also replace my filofax (yay to carrying one notebook not two) as it's got the monthly planner (levenger's but in future years I might look for something on DIYPlanner), some name and address pages I whipped up in Excel, and then lined sections for goals, daily to-do's and writing. I just trimmed and punched the pages left in the notebook for now. Waste now want not.

Then, in the spirit of further experimentation, I decided to see what I could do with the Marbig discs (which are 1/2 inch and acid yellow). Officeworks also had various stationery on sale so I picked up a $2 pack of what looked like plastic sheets but are actually plastic pockets with a cute cartoon angel/demon pattern. This is the result.



Cute! But the plastic is very thin, so it might need some reinforcement of some sort (another layer of thicker plastic perhaps). It's just got pages ripped from one of my spirax notebooks at the moment (trimmed and punched). They're pretty thin too and I doubt they'd stand up to much moving around but should be fine for scribbling. More letter/A4 experiments shall be forthcoming to figure out the best compromise between paper quality and expense. I can just print lines on blank paper of course, but want to see what else is around as well (I'm thinking tear-off, un-binder punched lined notepads might work well, if such things exist in decent paper weights).

So there you go. I am Circa'd up. All that took me maybe an hour or maybe two if you count oohing and aahing and putting the two circa books together and transferring info from the filofax. I still have four black discs left, so could even try making myself a HipsterPDA if I can figure out a cover. (If you haven't heard of the Hipster PDA, go here.) Or can keep them to add to the stash.

And then there's the gift card to consider. I'm thinking more discs (bigger ones) for archiving. And maybe the bookcloth cover...luckily the Goddess Jo is off to Boston and Washington shortly. After that I shall have to make do. At least until July when I might be able to implore the Goddess Alyson for another delivery at Nationals : )

Now for some actual writing....

Tired

Am having a 'can I go back to bed yet?' day. In fact, I've been having a few of those lately. More than can be blamed on changeable weather and lack of maids. However I've been poked and prodded by the doctors and am declared healthy or at least not having anything obvious that would make one tired. Which leaves the not obvious or the general go go go of the last eight months or so has caught up with me.

So I guess it's time for plan B. Which I think is a naturopath, Freya having recommended one who isn't quite as extreme as the one I saw when I had glandular fever (who yes, helped the energy level at the time but was a leetle too fond of "high protein, high protein, high protein, here drink a mucho disgusting protein shake" for my comfort). I don't eat terribly so there has to be a happy medium somewhere.

If that doesn't work, we'll figure out plan C, though I have no idea what that is given I still haven't located the rich husband store so can't really afford to do nothing but lie on a beach for twelve months typing and reading and lazing and admiring said rich husband while lackeys do everything else....short pause while I convince myself that I really can't afford it...okay, I'm back.

In the meantime, it's time to get back to meditating and exercising and loading up on the healthy food (the latter two being not so easy to execute consistently when one is feeling exhausted).

And I can be tired and not write or tired and still writing. Given not writing doesn't help the stress levels any, I'm planning on the latter. After all, you can write lying down! Barbara Cartland apparently dictated her novels. That sounds like the ultimate low energy way to write. Though I'm not sure I could do it that way.

So the plan is general taking it easy, writing and relaxing. And in the next ten minutes or so...bedtime!

Back from Tassie

Yesterday my toes were here:




With some friends:




Or here's the non-toe view.




Today I'm back. I had a great time and my gorgeous cousin is safely married to her gorgeous boy. It didn't rain so they got their beach wedding, though the wind made for some extra glamourous veil-streaming-in-wind shots. I got a little bit of writing done but not much, so time to get back to work!