More Notes!

Writing is a little samey at the moment as I continue with the typing up of the various notebooks I have made so far for my non fiction self help book. We're getting there though. I hope. I've felt I had to force myself to carry on for longer than I really wanted to today. This could be just tiredness (late night last night - rather fabulous fancy dress party to attend!) or it could just be a bit of burnout after working at it solidly yesterday.

Either way. I've been at it since early morning so I'm giving myself permission to take a break. In truth I'd like to think this was to go off and do something fun and delightful. In actuality, it's to go and hang the rest of the washing out and then make a start of the European Ironing Mountain which has built up in my lounge having been laid low all week with a stinker of a cold. Not exactly fun but there we are. If anyone has any ironing fairies they're not currently using, please do send them my way!

Have fun in the sunshine (at last!) and happy writing!

Reality Blogging

The lovely Carol has kindly nominated me for the Reality Blog award.

She actually did it a couple of weeks ago but I've been trying to think of answers to the questions that accompany it! They are the type of questions that could have a myriad of answers, depending on your mood but I'm reluctant to leave it any longer so here goes!


If you could change one thing, what would it be?

I'd love to be the kind of person who never worries about anything. I, on the other hand, worry about everything, so being able to change that would probably have a lot of good repercussions.


If you could repeat an age, what would it be?

This is a tricky one. I'm going to cheat and mention two: First I'd like to repeat the time I left school and take a different job to the one I chose to take, and also have the confidence to believe that writing could actually be a real possibility. I'd also like to repeat the few years which encompass our wedding day and just after because I'd love to live that over again, aswell as the fabulous travelling we got to do with the company my husband was working for at the time.


What one thing really scares you?

One? You want me to narrow it down to one? Ugh. Ok, well, serious illness for me or those I love.


If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be?

I think it would be fun to be some sort of extremely highly paid actor for a day. I think a job that pays horrendous amounts of money to play dress up all day can't be too bad.


Thank you so much, Carol for the nomination. It really does make a difference when people do interact on a blog and prove you're not just talking to the air!

And now it's my turn! (mwah ahh ahh!) So, the bloggers I nominate for this are:

Dean H
Kristah
Laura

I'm now off back to the oodles of notes I'm in the process of typing up for the non fiction book I'm working on. Seeming like a rather never ending task at the moment! Wish me luck and enjoy the weekend sunshine (at last!)

Catching up...

It was quite a busy week for me, with one thing and another. I took a walk on Monday morning, taking advantage of a dry day which made me feel good at getting some exercise, provided the opportunity for people watching and inspiration, and just helped get the brain unclogged, as a good walk can.

Getting some fresh air

 

I finally got the contract back this week, so we are back up and running on the research front so that's taking up some time, but in a good way. I'm still fairly nervous about the book, but I don't think that's an unusual thing - I've yet to meet a writer who isn't worrying about their current/past/future project! I'm making notes aplenty, and although I was going to put the notes directly onto the computer, and did in fact start that way, it's turned out to be easier to write them in a notebook which will get transcribed in with the rest as and when. This way I can just grab the research info, notebook and pencil and go. Like anything, it's finding what works best at a certain time for you.

 

I keep thinking about my novels. I miss them, and really want to get back to them. I've also come up with another couple of ideas over the past few weeks which are just bubbling about and fermenting in my brain at present. They're not ready to be written down, even in note form at the moment, but are firm enough not to be forgotten. They're well and truly stuck there now which is good. I'm not sure how they're going to progress but that's all part of the brewing-in-the-brain stage. And that's fine for now. I really want to get a long completed one edited and ready for submission. It's just finding the time to do everything at the moment. I don't think my brain will cope with working on both projects at the same time right at the moment. Perhaps when it gets to the actual writing bit, I might be able to switch between. Has anyone else had any experience of this - do you find it easy to switch between different forms of writing?

 

Unfortunately I had a fibromyalgia flare up on Wednesday which lasted a few days and put a bit of a spanner in the works, but it's something I just have to accept and work around as and when I can.

 

Back to the research now...

Researching Tip

I'm in the process of researching for a project and I've been trying to think of the best way - for me - to collate all the info. Whilst reading up, I might come across something that should go in one chapter, and then immediately something else that should go in a different one. I had thought about one of those tabbed Project Notebook type things that places like Smiths sell, but I didn't really want to be handwriting all my notes.

So I've come up with a solution that I hope is going to work for me. For the moment, I'm just bunging various sentences, copies of report findings, and all the other goodies in a Word document, with a small gap between each item. When I'm done with each source, I will then print out the document in draft, and go through it, and slicing it into the separate bits of info. Then, with the aid of a trusty glue stick, I'll paste these onto some loose leaf papers I have and put them into a binder which is already separated into the chapter headings.

Well, that's the idea anyway. I'll report back later to let you know how (or if!) it's working.

Any thoughts?

Happy writing!