Cake and fighting

I just wanted to come and say a very big thank you for all the birthday wishes I got from you all. I had a lovely day and it was enhanced by 21st century communications 'writing on my wall' and 'blog comments.'

This is my birthday cake as made by Daughter yesterday. We're holed up in the apartment for the start of the holiday, and with nothing to decorate the cake with, she used jam! I love it.

Fighting broke out on my birthday on the Thai/Cambodian border over a land dispute. We were going to Cambodia next week - I am beginning to wonder at our travel plans being jinxed - but we've decided not to go. We've changed our plans to stay safe. We'll go to the beach, my three can scuba dive and I can write.

My writing is going well. I sent my first 10,000 words to my mentor yesterday along with a 'sort of synopsis' which was the first time I had managed to cobble together on paper what the plan was. I am really excited about getting some feedback.

Bits and Bobs

I didn’t have a very good writing day yesterday. I wrote about 300 words – which given that I had all day, isn’t so brilliant. (Alright, it’s 300 more than I had…) On Sunday I rewrote the 700 words that my editing had removed from my total of 12,000.

So I have now more than enough words to send my mentor … who has accepted me as her mentee (Hurrah. Having spoken to me, TLC select from their list suitable mentors and my words are sent to her – in this case - to see if she feels she can help me. This is because the mentor must both feel empathy for the work she is mentoring.) I’ve put aside those words – currently 2 ½ chapters and I’m categorically not going to look at them again until they come back from the mentor. NO MORE FIDDLING, I PROMISE, SCARY EMAIL WOMAN.

I’ve been in to school for a meeting (on the obscenely early 6.40am school bus which, OMG, I make my children do every single Mon-Fri) – and while there I had the brilliant idea that if I registered for the library I could get a couple of research books for my wip – except there were no books on Greek Drama. Now excuse me for being pompous for a minute, but how can you teach Drama without telling kids about Classical Drama? How? On my way back from school I stopped at the secondhand bookshop Dasa Books and picked up a couple of Greek plays … I will reread these to immerse myself in the subject and they had a great big book on Greeks and Greek homosexuality! I bought this because it’s roughly (not really at all) in the right area. Really, I thought it might be fun to read, but I’m a bit like that I’m afraid. It might make me a bit of a nerd.

Today, I am full of anxiety for … just about everything. Here’s my list. I’m hoping that writing it down will be cathartic:

• I have a headache and want a little lie down= no work
• Tomorrow is my birthday and Husband has taken the day off = no work.
• The kids break up for half term tomorrow for ten days= very little work
• Next week we got to Seam Reap in Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat = not much available energy for writing.
• The letter from TLC tells me that I will spend the next 9 months sending in my six lots of 10,000 words, and then I will finish the mss and it will go in to be read.

Anyway, there are only four things on my list of worries which isn’t so bad, is it? But my nail is now stumpy. See, I’m a reformed nail biter… which means I can never relax: relapse is just around the corner. The worse thing for me is if I have a jaggedy bit of nail and I don’t file or cut it, I just slip it in my mouth ‘to neaten it up’ and the next thing I know it’s gone!