And So It Begins...

NaNoWriMo is just a day away, and I'm feeling the pre-nano nerves. It's the biggest project I think I've done, in terms of the most challenging. My coursework at Uni always involved lengthy planning and countless rewrites and edits (our guidelines were along the lines of 40 redrafts), so this is going to be a very different experience.

If I'm completely honest with you all, I don't feel even remotely prepared. So I've worked out some of the history and chunks of plot and named a fair few characters, but do I feel like a can turn it into a novel in a month? No. I do not.

But then that, ladies and gentlemen, is the point, I suppose. To launch into it and just keep going, letting just the process of writing inspire you. At least I hope that's how it will work anyway.

On the plus side, I've been in the 'Hands-on History Museum' today, and have been reading all about Victorian school ethics, which might come in handy. The places work takes me...

Rob and I have decided that it might help me to keep track of my plot and where I am to put timelines and reems of paper to scribble on all over the walls of the house. No desk yet, but I'm hopeful for this Saturday. I think, however, that most of my novel writing, as ever, will probably occur on my phone, on the bus, while a service user is sleeping, while waiting for dinner to cook, or while himself is playing/watching wrestling.

Well, I don't have much more to say tonight, and my dinner just went 'ping', after Halloween pumpkin soup proved too complicated at 9:00pm having just got in from work.

An average word count should be around 1700 words per day, although I'm guessing I'm going to go over the word count by a lot.  What are your Nano strategies? (Warning: I do not guarantee that I won't steal them. You have been warned.)

See you all on the other side.

Cake and Sloe Gin

So much for every Sunday... It just so happened that my last two Sundays have been the busiest ever. One of these was the Hubby's birthday, involving painstaking cake crafting, which was much more trouble than it was worth, I feel. It tasted good though, and Rob was suitably impressed. I had a crisis with the icing, and had to resort to butter icing, then ran out of butter. It worked out in the end though. 

My other latest project in the kitchen department is making Sloe Gin. I was introduced to Sloe gin a couple of years back and absolutely love the stuff. It's a very warming Winter and Christmas drink.

My father-in-law part owns a farm in Essex, on which he grew up, and we went to visit the farm in August. Whilst there, we noticed how many hundreds of Sloes and blackberries there were on the bushes, so we went picking crazy. It was wonderful - the four of us picking berries until it got dark and we couldn't see well enough to pick anymore. I came home with 2Kg of Sloes and 500g of blackberries.

I only realised later, however, that it was far too early to pick sloes. Oh well. So I put them in the freezer until I was ready to make the Sloe Gin - some people favour this method, some people say it's bad because it waters it down. Well, we shall see.

It's looking quite red at the moment, so I'm hopeful. Anyway, I'll keep you posted on how that one goes.

A post or two ago, I told you about a good friend of mine who is a textiles designer - well she now has her shop up and running. Please head over and take a look at 'Summertimehols' - she has some stunning work for sale.

News on the study - well, we've cleared it, so there's now room for a desk. However, we need to wait for my first paycheck before we can even consider getting one. I'm considering drawing one on the wall in the meantime. Maybe it would trick me into working... I don't know, though, I have to say it really is rather comfortable sat here lounged across the sofa with a blanket round my legs. I do have the house to myself, though, so himself isn't playing Xbox and shouting at the screen to distract me. Men.

As far as writing goes of late, well it's mostly been sermons. With the holiday months this quarter, we were quite short staffed, and so those of us still training and usually only allowed 3 services a quarter were given four. That alongside the assignments for the training and the new job and various other commitments, I'm afraid I've not been finding much time. And I know it;s the age-old excuse.

My problem is, I simply haven;t got used to it all yet, so I'm gradually starting to make the best use of my time...(very gradually). I find that even when I do have time to sit down and write, it;s the last thing I feel like doing, or I just don't have any ideas or anything to write. I fear this could be one of the big challenges for NaNoWriMo. But what's life without a good challenge?

So, does anyone have any words of wisdom about time management? How have you learned to focus when you have a short amount of time with which to work?