rflong

Saturday afternoon was lovely - chat and hot chocolate and even a glass of wine (or two for me) with ceindreadh , wyvernfriend ,
sciamanna and E. Afterwards went to Yellow Brick Road to get a crystal so I could make the Boy Wonder an Atlantean pendant (he has this book...)

Yesterday was mainly filled with food shopping and organising this week ase_w_h  is on a work trip. :(

I bought a number of ready meals (healthy ones) so I won't have to cook in the evenings and should therefore get some writing done. Allegedly. That said last night I watched 3 eps of Supernatural, edited the novella, sucknopsized it and then submitted it, so that was fairly constructive. Today the Boy is on another half day from school so I will have to scoot out early to mind him. I am so lucky I work where I do.

Hopefully I can hole up on the sofa and do a bit of writing today too. Fingers crossed...

In between "finishing" Moy Tura Echoes, dealing with the alter-ego's continuing demands for custody of the brain for her writing, plotting The Wolf's Destiny (book 3, which will have to be, well, book-length), crits, betas, oh! and everday life, I saw a piece of graffiti in Dublin yesterday which handed me the entire plot for a YA novel - okay, I figured out the main gist on the bus on the way home.

So now I have something else to write. Yay me!

Actually I am trying to be sensible about this. I have wrote a summary last night and broke it down scene by scene this morning. Now I am going to try to leave it alone until I have finished Moy Tura. Lee has promised to "enable" me about it, which means of course she has to "enable" me to finish the other book first. I got a good 1300 on Moy Tura today and turned a small corner (of Grafton Street as it turns out). I also did some research yesterday which involved lots of walking around places where scenes are/will be set and taking photos. So here is Dublin, yesterday.( Cut for f-pages... )

(And realised I misspelled Cuchulainn - or maybe I can pretend it's a variant spelling. Yeah... that's it.. variant spelling...)

Well, that was a busy weekend.

P-Con was wonderful. Great fun, lovely people and lots of interesting stuff going on. Paul Cornell paulcornell2 ) was guest of honour, and other guests included C.E. Murphy (mizkit ) the newly dubbed "Queen of P-Con", Charlie Stross (autopope ), Chaz Brenchley (desperance ), Juliet McKenna, Leah Moore and John Reppion (and many many more - I have had little sleep this weekend and lots of running around. I'm tired...)

Highlights included lunch with Juliet, Mizkit, Chaz and others (me looking somewhat surprised to be at that particular table) in Fallon & Byrnes, hot chocolate (a large number of hot chocolates) with irishkate and wyvernfriend , and being able to talk to Paul Cornell about Family of Blood. :D The final Mutiny of the Phoenix panel, a free for all Q&A of some of the guests, was a scream, as was the guest of honour interview where slovobooks interviewed Paul and reduced some of us to tears of laughter. And as a plus, I got to put faces and actual people to a lot of people I've met on here (or heard rumours about *j*) like peadarog ! And I met lots of new peoplw too! All in all I had a wonderful time. I have some pictures, but they are kind of blurry so I am waiting to see if I can nab some from irishkate .

Saturday night was also e_w_h  's birthday party which was wonderful. We had a fab time and it is not often we get to stay out until 4am anymore (the clocks went forward so we had help).

The cat, on the other hand, did officially NOT have a good weekend. He spent Saturday night and part of Sunday at my parents, which would have been fine had he not decided that stitches were not for him. So now, adding to the indignity of being knocked out, shaved, stitched, acting like a drunk on getting home so everyone laughed at him (Laughed!) he now has to wear a fairly unflattering large white conical collar because he kept trying to unstitch himself as only cats can.

The reaction to this worked out as follows:
1) walk backwards to see if escape is possible.
2) hide.
3) scape it off everything in sight.
4) sulk and plot revenge.

Oh really. Yes. Look.

This is the face that I left behind when I went to P-Con on Sunday morning.

So e_w_h  took him home. In order to do this he had to take the collar off to get him in the basket, which was FINE by the cat. Unfortunately he then had to get it back on him at home. The cat responded to this travesty of proper behaviour by enacting his masterplan of vengeance: peeing everywhere and knocking over plantpots like a teenager in a tantrum.

So, the cat hates us all and clearly has other revenges in store. I take him back to the vet this evening and please God she'll tell me he doesn't have to wear the instument of torture anymore because he is clearly miserable and cranky. Not only must he stay indoors but he has to look like an alien too.

And I don't want that face up there looking at me again!

Bit tired today as last night, after a heavy day of Christmas shopping, having retired to bed realtively early, we were woken by our neighbours because our backgarden fence was on fire.

No really.

Our lovely neighbour got it under control, the fire brigade came and investigated. They had to get through the roses too. One of the firemen accused my garden of trying to rip his clothes off. M'kay?

Turns out they thought it was malicious - given that it was the back of the fence that went up and in the current cold weather some form of accellerant had to have been used. So the gardai came too.

The cat nearly went ballistic - combination of "I want to go out and investigate" and "OMG there are many large men with waterhoses in my garden"

But seriously - how freaky was that. We back on to overgrown woodland, preserved woodland - oaks and beeches, chestnuts and all sorts of other indigenous trees. It doesn't bear thinking about what might have happened if it had gone up. There are ten or so houses on our side of the road alone, a very old church on the far side of the woods, another estate to the south and several other houses beyond that - all of which back on to the woods. Not to mention wildlife.

And the massive oak tree over the fence - it that had gone up and fallen towards us, it would definitely take out our house and our other neighbours' too.

Fire brigade call out charges are steep but most of it should be reclaimable from our insurance company. I'd still rather see them than not. The other scary thought is we were in bed. I was asleep. We heard nothing at all until the doorbell started ringing.

Thank heavens for good neighbours.

I have to finish the novel I am writing, and the two novellas that follow The Wolf's Sister BEFORE I can start something new.

Out, out damn plotbunnies!!!!!!!!!!!

Just because I have just written out the entire plot of an Urban Fantasy does NOT mean I can write it yet. Aarrggghhhhh!!!

 As in "In the horns of a"

There are too many things pulling me in too many directions at the moment. I'm not entirely sure what to do. The main thing is the new novel is spewing out of me at great speed. (Hmmm, hopefully that image doesn't reflect what is turning up on the page). And I am able to read again! Bliss! New books! On the other hand it is all driving out other things. Add health (or lack there of) into the equation and you can see why things are starting to go a bit belly up around here.

My own fault I suppose, but also I am the person who will have to deal with it.

I am tossing between going and not going to fencing. I need to cut back on my extra-curricula, but as it only amounts to one hour of writing time (if that, when you take into account home stuff), it isn't all that much. There are only five more classes (including tonight). AND I AM SO TIRED!!! On the other hand it always cheers me up. It is intimidating though, as I suppose a martial art should be (he! That came out as marital art the first time I typed it!)

So time management. Not my strong point. My other concern is when this thing is finished I will have to EDIT it. And there is still Moy Tura to get back to. And don't get me started on crits.

Anyway! It's lunchtime. Not only am I whingey today, I am hungry! Never a good combination.

Oh, and no responses to submissions. At all. Nada. Still. 

Grrr....

to let you know that I started fencing lessons last night. It was great fun.

My legs hurt!

(Yes, I am a wimp!)

This evening I have to work out how to make the Hogwarts Express from a swiss roll, some madeira cake, icing and assorted sweets for Friday. (Yes, it's birthday time again. Both of them in the next week and a collective "We can't ask both families over two weekends running). I think I've found a good chocolate cake recipe for Saturday. Who knows what I will do for my daughter next week. Fork out the dosh and buy an extortionate ready made/decorated one - or make Dougal from a swiss roll again! :D

Ah motherhood...

On a bit of a learning curve this evening, but in a good way.

Good things -    

1. bought a new laptop today (online, so awaiting delivery). The plan is that this is mine and I will be no longer hounded off the computer by either small children or a husband. Therefore I will write more... or surf the web more. One or the other anyway. Possibly both.

2. Found out that my mobile phone company will give me another SIM free of charge and I can keep my mobile number. Yes, though I have lost all numbers I ever stored on the phone, I will still have mine.

3. Learning how to use autostitch on photos from the UK.

4. Learning how to load photos to Picasso.

5. Bought new shoes and a handbag - as we all know one can never have too many shoes or handbags to quote a certain somebody.

Bad things -

Nothing major. Watched the last Dr. Who of the series. That's bad. And Picassa is taking a long time to load up my lovely Hampton Court photos so I cannot show them to you yet.

Still haven't finished my story for the Liberty Hall challenge, but nearing the end. 2 more sections. Hopefully it will all be sorted soon.

And I haven't received the confirmation email for the laptop yet, which is more of a worry, but maybe it has to wait until tomorrow.

So anyway, lots on tomorrow. My son is going to my sister's Art camp for a fortnight. We need to ring about insurance on the mobile etc and see if we can get something for it.

Hmmm. Should Picassa take this long?

There are a lot of thumps and banging coming from upstairs. Better put on my best girl detective hat and investigate...

R

So this should be a super fast entry - allegedly.

I have crits to do, a novel to edit, a short story to write, another novel to write (oh no, wait that's two) and we're "planning" a family trip out to see the model of the James Webb telescope in Kilmainham. No seriously... here... here

Who says I over-extend myself.

So, very quickly, because I want to and I have no self control. I had a great idea last night of what to write for the Liberty Hall Story challenge - sketched out 3 pages so far. I prefer to write longhand initially, mainly the act itself forces me to think more about what I am writing. As this isn't really a draft, even though it could be the same as what I eventually type, I've started referring to it as a sketch. It's more than an outline. There again, outlines are generally only in my head (bad writer, bad writer). I just never get round to writing them down and when I do I immediatelystart changing them. So yes, I outline, but not in hard copy! :D And yes, sometimes I forget things, but if I do they probably weren't worth remembering in the first place. They'll come back if they are meant to. Can't give you a word count, and couldn't really be bothered working out an approximate at the moment. No time!

So off to crit D's chapters for the crit group. I thought I had done about half, but now I can't find it. See, even my computer (when I can get to it) follows my approach!

Sorry for the splurge.

R