That’s the thing about me I’m trying not to hear in my head!
This week the editing stalled. We had some house things to do – more curtains – who knew that curtains could take up time and be such a whopping investment? Most people, that aren’t me, I guess. This house has been curtain-less for 4 years now and prior to that the curtains had been the same ones our parents bought for us when we moved in as broke 23 yos 🙂
New curtains
We have all got used to living as if in a goldfish bowl; just as we got used to living between the furniture-less house and a mobile home. It’s not only because Christmas is looming that we have got into gear with soft furnishing and furniture – last year we couldn’t do more than hold our breaths as Mum was too poorly and the house was mearly a junction for NHS and Care staff as Mum, literally, felt her way around and found her feet again. Funnily enough, large empty, but underlaid and carpeted, rooms turned out to be safe exercise tracks for zimmer and walking sticks and a soft landing for the odd fall.
Fantastic 27
27, the mobile home, has been fantastic; it’s allowed everyone space and privacy while at the same time ensuring we are all close enough together to keep Mum safe. But the heating is as old as 27 – and the plumbing liable to freeze – enough is enough, really, and we need to move back in to the house – not that 27 is going anywhere – if we can stand it there is more to do to the house: I can work in here and should Mum need more care indoors, then we can spread out, again.
Long story short – I decided to start a writing group at the house on a Thursday morning – I am not getting any face to face time with other writers and I feel I am missing out making new friends and colleagues around me. But, once I started thinking around this I realised that there were issues for Mum and her carers in having folk in the house so I shelved the idea till something better comes along. And will carry on on-line.
Hence I had little interest in editing. I also got hit with a mixture of ‘is my story even relevant?’ It is an unfunny thought that when I started writing – what I then called – the Quest series – that the war the boys’ father was fighting in was in Kuwait – now I am going to have to refer to his activities off the page as ‘somewhere in Syria’. The role BREXIT will play is also bothering me as farming will change again – but more than that is the role of the climate change and emergence of ‘activists’ against livestock and dairy farming – in confrontational and direct action without necessarily having all the facts just because we all need to feel we are doing something to save the planet and it is easier than feeling there is nothing we can do – even if what we do do is not going to do anything useful at all except us feel morally superior and cause great pain and loss in the farming community and put their lives and lively hoods in danger.
I have to carry on I think with the series – now Luckshill Riders – perhaps not set now but a few years ago – the kids are 14 going 15 and Mat is 17 – there is scope for more than the fur books I have already written and I expect it would be more sense to write about BREXIT and the climate change issues in the later books rather than stop and panic and never get the books out there…
And the relevance of Jutoh? Given the book is not edited etc… Well I have had Vellum hanging in my sights – I got the second hand MAC this year with that in mind – but now I see Jutoh and it is – like Scrivener – buy once at affordable price – aprox £30 with ALLI discount and it works on the MAC and off a memstick. IN a working environment where I am not creating income I am still investing the fact that this last few weeks I have saved my self nearly £300 on renewing Drop Box ( see earlier posts) and now have saved myself the future cost of nearly £200 for Vellum I don’t mind nearly so much that I haven’t edited this week. I feel quite perky TBH. Long May That Last. 🙂