I haven't posted for a while but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. In fact, life has been a bit of roller coaster ride - as ever.
In February of this year, my eldest son left home to join the army. It wasn't something I was particularly comfortable with, considering the current unrest in the world, but you have to let them make their own way in the world don't you?
Ten weeks later he was back at home after having decided that army life was not for him. But at least he tried and got it out of his system, and to be fair to him, he soon sorted himself out with work and has now found himself a job close to home which he seems to be enjoying.
We've also had the highs and lows of A Levels this year, very stressful at times (understatement!) for both my youngest son and myself. He's now studying history at the University of Huddersfield. It's taking a while for him to settle in but I hope he'll find his feet soon. He's coming home for reading week in November so I'm looking forward to seeing him then.
So what with all the comings and goings, I've found it difficult to establish a writing routine. I'm notoriously bad at putting my writing before the family and household tasks, and this is something I'm determined to become better at.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, I've been working on a romance novel which has previously been through the RNA New Writers' Scheme. I finally got it to a place I was happy with and submitted it to various agents, with no success. I'd always had the thought that my novel would be suited to Choc Lit - a dedicated publisher of romance, so I took the bull by the horns and sent it off in early September. The selection process takes several months, so to take my mind off the outcome, I've been working on redrafting a novel which I started to write during NaNoWriMo a few years ago. I set myself a target of writing 500 words a day on days I was working and 1,000 words a day when I wasn't doing the day job. It was a target I found I was able to sustain and I was enjoying the process until I ran out of plot. I literally don't know where I'm going with this book so I need to go back to the beginning and do some serious plotting and restructuring.
To take a break from this and hopefully gain some perspective in the interim, Ive been editing some short stories which have been languishing on my hard drive. I'm aiming to develop these into short story anthologies which I will self-publish. At the same time, I'm working on developing my own author website.
As ever I'm trying to do a lot, and do it all at once, and I often get the dreaded feeling of overwhelm. But I'm determined to keep going. To help me along the way, I ask the question:
"How do you eat an elephant?'
The answer of which is:
"One bite at at time."
Not that I would want to eat an elephant, but you get my drift.
How do you cope when there seems to be more to do than time to do it in?
