Five weeks in to the holiday already. I know you don't really want to know where I've been, or how my injuries have healed since the last post, or even what cakes I'm sampled. You only really want to know if I've been writing...
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Not where I am but where I'd like to be:
can't manage to load any new pictures on to the blog for
some reason so this lovely one from last year's Road Trip
will have to suffice!
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I have. 23,000 words since July 30th taking me to a total of about 73,000 words of the first draft. It's all over the place at the moment though: I've left out a big section in the middle and gone to the final third, which is really unusual for me because I usually write more or less chronologically. However, no two books are the same - techniques which worked for one, refuse to work for others and this one, because of the amount of time I've taken to write it (it's been simmering for two whole years!), has been especially awkward. I've spent so long in the past three years writing academic essays that fiction feels really strange. However, we're on a bit of a roll at the moment so I'm pressing on while I can to try and get at least 80, 000 done by the time I return to work in a little over ten days time. Hamish is currently in a rather tight spot at present but I think he'll probably have to stay there until at least Saturday as the 'day job' needs attending to for the rest of this week. Good job he's the understanding type...
In between writing, I've managed my annual trip up to the Edinburgh Book Festival, a fabulous visit to London to see The Crucible and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (strange bedfellows but both magnificent) and a stunning week in Suffolk where the weather was lovely and the cake was seriously good. On the injury front, I'm almost back to normal - three of the four teeth have been repaired, I have new glasses and apart from some continuing pain issues with my left shoulder and wrist, I'm otherwise fine. (One alarming side effect, though, is that I've started to look at other people's teeth with a kind of macabre fascination. In the case of Davina McCall, for example, I'm starting to suspect that I actually have celebrity tooth envy! )
Cake? Well, it'll have to be a Betty's of York 'Fat Rascal' - they are utterly unique and wonderful served buttered with hot tea. (I had to cut mine up into small bits of course, because I still can't bite! Ah well.) To sample them yourself by post (but regretfully only if you live in the UK) visit http://www.bettys.co.uk/product/Yorkshire-Fat-Rascal-Scones-Box-of-4,19172,255.aspx
