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There are all kinds of stuff: journals, collections of sent emails, blog posts, anecdotal and biographical poetry that can be turned into prose. I sat in work last night and worked out a list of titles for the sections. Sometimes I feel as if I’m swimming in writings. I do need order in my life.

eyes down and out

One of the subjects in the Muse conference is World-building; I think that should naturally take me into the field of utopian and dystopian fiction. Oooh, now that’s exciting – I’ve always wanted to go there. So that’ll be an interesting tangent; I’ve got an idea in my head about people living in a fairytale castle, a kind of post-apocalyptic era where these people are living the dream but in a different time-zone, which would make it a nightmare. The conference begins on Monday. I’m doing sex and short stories too.

I finished a version of the debt poem I was working on and have entered it into the comp; it can take a couple of days before it’s posted; it’s called Spell-casting. Last night at work wasn’t particularly quiet but I got scribbles on three poems and knitted two bags between calls. The other poems are for greetings cards; I just remembered I had picked up submission details from an American company that pay pretty well, but I’ll have a look at UK companies too. I’m trying to pull things together and get some kind of production-line going that might bring future payments.

The Tale of the Last Wife is on my mind more now; I might spend Nano with it rather than The Kindness of Witches (which I started on Nano last year). It’s sitting at just over 20,000 wds. I’ll continue with TTLW until I feel I need a rest from it; I’d like to move it on at least 10,000 wds. There’s a lot of sex in it, so that’s something I’ll be working on during the conference – with a bit of luck I’ll crack it and bomb right through till I need more research; I’m planning a picnic in a cemetery, actually, which will be fun but essential for the characters in the book. I’ve got to find interesting things for my friends to wear, and eat, so I can photograph them around a table-headstone in the Necropolis.

I searched and found 23 instances of ‘felt’, which I managed to reduce to 8. That was in almost 15,000 words, so I suppose it could’ve been worse. I’m happy about the three-days-in-a-row; can’t do an awful lot right now because I’m going to work in a couple of hours – well that’s my excuse anyway. But, I’m doing a writing conference next week, taking four workshops – but, that’ll probably set me off on a new project and multiple tangents, but who’s counting?

There will be many demands on my company in the next week because we have a birth and a death in the family; the funeral is on Monday morning and the birth sometime today, hopefully. I will try to keep up the work I’ve begun, the good habit of turning to Word immediately after I do my morning email check, and going straight for a task. I still have to search ‘was’. Now that’ll be a task.

Think I can watch a bit of telly with a cup of coffee now.

Ho ho ho and it’s off to work I go! I’ve just spent the last 90 minutes reviewing The Tale of the Last Wife; it seems pretty action-packed. Maybe I need to slow it down a bit in some places. Need to do a search on words such as: felt, was etc. there are 14,997 words on three chapters; I think I’ll work them into four, and I found a little cut section that I might want to slip back in.

I want to work this up a little and make some notes. The file was a real mess; there were loads of sections saved that had already been included into the text. It’s all tidy now and I can see what is what. I should also separate the research for this book, add it to the file, spend some time on it and make notes. I’d forgotten that religion was one of the subjects here. Before I leave, I must attempt a synopsis; it’ll give me something to think about while I’m away working on something else.

Well, it was very interesting to read those other two WIPs; I haven’t as much as glanced at them for about a year and had forgotten what the first chapters held, especially The Tale of the Last Wife. I think this new tidying mode should include a review of these and a word count; I want to get a clearer overview of where I am. So, I have done a little work today.

I’ve been working on debt poems for a competition; the subject matter just stroked my interest seeing as I am in the middle of my debt solution. There’s no fee and anyone can post – it’s here; I’ve already got one in but thought I should write a real poem, for myself but I’ll enter it too. Deadline is the end of this month so I’ll use it to make sure I’m happy with it.

I’d count today as successful because I actually did some writing and a lot of musing. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get up early and write, begin the real new life.