So here I am...

...in rural South Lanarkshire, in bleak mid winter - only this winter is not feeling quite so bleak. January has scooted by with the odd glorious blue skied day and some lovely snow. And my book is taking shape. Which is making me feel far less antsy so am more likely to be at my desk, clattering away, than pacing the house, poking at the contents of the fridge or swinging idly in my swivel chair.

(Favourite fridge-pokery: cheese - esp Laughing Cow soft stuff - salami, cold chicken and humous).

I think the half-way point is the hardest bit of a book and I'm past that now. But I could do with some kind of laugh-o-meter to tell me if what I'm writing is funny or not!

Another strange development, after being completely swamped by children for almost 12 years (in a nice way of course) is that they are hardly ever here now - they're out on their bikes, or up in their rooms with friends - and suddenly there is so much more time to write. Even - yikes - with children in the house. It's probably still less than a 'normal' working day but feels vast to me.

I have also noticed that my children scuttle ahead with their mates on the pavement, all laughing and yacking away, and if I try to join in I get a really withering look.

How long till they announce that they need a few hundred quid to hop off to Ibiza with their mates?

back to school

Our kids are back at school which has its good and bad points. Good: I have missed writing and need to get torn into the current book, which should be finished by now but, er, isn't. I don't know how I ever think I'm going to keep a book rattling along during the summer hols. It's never happened until now, so I should just accept that - even though plenty of people manage to write huge tomes while holding down other jobs. One guy I know wrote his first novel by getting up at 5 am before his three young children woke up and started charging around the house. Such willpower! My first novel, Babyface, was written at night, as I had to keep the day job going - but I was younger then, not so addled, and I can't imagine being able to do that ever again.

Other good things about the start of school term: seeing people again. Yes: adult-sized people. I mean those casual school gate encounters which don't sound like much but are a bit of a lifeline when you spend most of your time holed up in a teeny workroom, bashing a keyboard, and slurping coffee. Oh, and running and getting out on my bike again, after two months of inactivity and the midriff to prove it.

One bad thing about term time: lunchboxes. Agh. These start with such good intentions but, alas, I fear we'll be back to the tedious cheese sandwich and tragic, bashed-up apple by friday...

So long since I've posted here.... and the summer holidays (here in Scotland at least) are nearly over. It's a mixed blessing really - great not to be lashed to the PC every day, yet I'm looking forward to cracking on with some magazine features (for red and Marie Claire) and my next book. I've had no childcare over the 7 weeks, due to one of my sons breaking an arm at the start of the hols - and my plans to get up at 6.30 every morning (haha) to write have come to nothing. I think most writers just snatch fragments of time when they can, so term time's a lot easier - but heck, I'll miss the blighters.

Of course, some people click into work mode at night, and I used to do this, hammering away until 2, 3 in the morning, when I had buckets of stamina - but these days I tend to write gobbledigook and erase it all in the morning.

What has been helpful, though, is scribbling in a notebook while I've been at the park with the kids, when usually I'd have just sat there, drumming my fingers, or staring into space. Kids can also be helpful. My eight year old daughter thought of a book title while we were hols in France which I'm so excited about and itching to get started on.

Mummy Said the F-word started with a title but no plot, no characters, no nothing, so maybe this one will take on a life of its own, with daughter demanding a cut of the proceeds...

'It fell off in my hand!' says one of my sons, bringing our floor brush to me in two bits ('Erm, I'd sort of been leaning on it, and I was really comfy, then it kind of broke and I nearly fell on my BAD ARM....'

'It just broke!' my kids chorus when I open the case of my (admittedly old and knackered) sax and find it lying there in a billion pieces.

Things 'just break' around here. It's amazing - as if there's some other force at work. One time, J's favourite jeans SHREDDED THEMSELVES with a pair of scissors. It's amazing what they can do with denim these days.

xx

Agh.... so I FORCE one of my sons out for a cycle even though he'd rather stay home and be glued to Runescape on the PC. And next thing, I'm being summonsed back from the park by J, announcing that our boy fell off his bike and is about to be taken by ambulance to hospital.

You know what? There are far worse things than a broken arm but I never imagined quite how the accident would alter the family dynamics. On a practical level, injured son is spending vast amounts of time at home, and therefore so are his brother and sis, unless J is home at the time. Which makes everyone feel very trapped and a bit grrrr....

I also suspect that they are a tad jealous over all the attention he's getting. One evening I took to waggling his x-ray print-outs in their faces and shrieking, 'Look! Look what happened to your brother! How would YOU feel if your bone had popped out?' Am not proud of that. Have probably mentally scarred them. Anyway, fingers crossed the cast comes off on Monday, just in time for our hols in France. Cast is now a grubby, manky old thing and not the 'badge of honour' people said it would be. My son hates it.

AND SO TO WORK...
I have (ha!) three days to finish a draft of new book before our school summer hols start here in Scotland. Which is obviously not going to happen unless I come over all Barbara Cartland and dictate it to a 'secretary'. Self-imposed deadlines can be great booster and motivator but can also send you into despair, so I think I'll conveniently forget about this one and blame my son for breaking his arm!

It never would have happened if he'd stayed in and played on the computer, like I said he should.

xx

Electrifying bank hol...

With Jimmy away on a highly cultural (pfff) jaunt to London and Kent with his pals, the kids and I had four days to fill. I was determined not to resort to mega-swanky days out - the kind of all-singing, all-dancing excursions which they love of course, but which I try to keep for 'special'. Weather was brilliant - it's been amazingly hot for most of May - so lots of picnics, playing in Skirling Woods, spotting oyster catcher chicks near the river in Coulter... all v Famous Five-ish and dampened only by daughter receiving a shock from an electrified fence. Yow!

Have to admit, I do get ranty when the kids lose things. A trail of possessions is forever left in our wake. So when Son One casually said, 'Um, can we go back to the river today? It was great...' I was a tad suspicious. A dazzling light shone directly into his eyes soon revealed the truth: 'I... um... think I left my er, Swiss Army knife there... ummm...' We returned and it was STILL THERE. It did not join the billion Swiss Army Knives Lost.

And so to work....
New mummy lit novel is coming along at a sprightlier pace now. I took part in a reading last night along with members of two groups - the Biggar Writers and Writers' Bloc (a highly entertaining and diverse Edinburgh-based group) and came away feeling inspired by an excellent mix of poetry and prose, all highly inventive stuff. Poets amaze me! I feel ridiculously self conscious if I even try.

Thought I'd end with my fave things about bank hols...
- no packed lunches to, um, pack
- no cajoling children out of bed
- not being googly-eyed after a day spent lashed to the PC
- fresh air!
- no haring up the street at 8.55 am with homework/gym shoes/glasses forgotten
- not having to cram all the must-do jobs in at the end of the day

When the sun shines...

...it's SO hard to keep a book flowing along. A writer friend says he hates the hot weather, but I don't, and right now the blazing sunshine is temping me away from the keyboard and out into the garden. Some strategies I'm currently toying with:
- Lowering my daily target word count so I feel less pressurised. Actually, this has nothing to do with the sunny weather. It's something I've decided to do due to stressing out over ridiculous self-imposed deadlines. After all, writing is supposed to be fun... isn't it? My thinking is that, if you achieve MORE that you'd planned, you feel happy and mighty chuffed with yourself - rather than cross, scratchy and a dismal failure. So: less is more... (am aiming for 1000 words a day at the mo).
- Writing in a notebook in the garden. I normally write straight onto the screen, but have found that some pen-and-paper scrawling can help to unravel plot problems.
- I had an idea about getting up and starting work at 6 am so I can knock off early and enjoy the sun. Needless to say this hasn't happened. I am enjoying writing this book though. And I'd rather have it finished, and be pleased with it, than be pottering in the sunshine. Honest.
F x