The year's going great so far

Now, I do know that I've changed this blog's photo for a new ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE one.  But it's a good picture!  I don't know how to resize it for the blog.  Some people have nice long, narrow photos that fit absolutely perfectly.  They know something about photo-trickery that I don't.  I've not the patience to try and find out, so you're stuck with a massive photo.  Hey, it's it good one though :D

So, as I said, the year's going great so far.  I'm not watching any TV at all really, unless I happen to accidentally go downstairs for something and notice that Kev's watching 'Have I Got News For You' and get sucked into the telly.  But mostly I am sitting in my 'office' and reading and doing a little bit of writing.  I am just enjoying the productive vibe that's going on.  I have lots to do, and not enough time to do it all.  That's okay though, I'm just doing which bits I can.  I've got very lovely business cards now, which I need to distribute properly.  So far I have only sent some to Preston Uni via my friend Sara, and I have posted some on the Whale Tail noticeboard - this is clearly not going to make me rich.  I must do more.  I had intended to go to the Guardian office and give them one of my cards, but I've chickened out so far - this is exactly the wrong thing to do.  See, what I've done there, is I've imagined that I'll make a tit of myself, and I've made the Guardian office a scary place to go.  Now, it's very unlikely that I will actually make a tit of myself, because all I have to do is ask if they have any vacancies for a proofreader.  They will either say no, or they will say maybe.  It's very unlikely that they'll just say yes, and give me a job.  But all I want to do is give them my card and let them see that I'm enterprising.  Then I have to go to the university and distribute some cards there - that's also easy, but I've allowed it to grow into a task of Herculean proportions simply by putting it off.  All I have to do there is go into the library and ask if I can put my card on the noticeboard.  It's not difficult.  I've no need to fear rejection, because I already know what that feels like.

My pretty little business cards.  Apologies if you think they're a bit trite (I said 'trite'), but they're very me,
and I'm not about to pretend to be someone I'm not :)

I'll try to do these things on Friday morning - that is my only window, and I must use it wisely.

I have been writing, as I said.  Writing my mammoth Faerie novel - that is, my novel-of-mammoth-proportions that is entitled 'Faerie', not a novel about mammoth Faeries, or Faerie mammoths.  It was very nice to get back into it, and to move the story along a good bit.  I'm getting right into the action now, and it's starting to become exciting again.  And writing that stuff also inspired some ideas for hubs.  Hubs are great, and I've missed writing them - I did see them as a bit of a procrastination exercise, but actually, they're not, because they keep me writing and keep that creative bit of my brain in shape.  I've neglected the hubs, and probably as a consequence, I've neglected all of my writing for the past few months.  It's refreshing to be writing just anything again.  I hope I don't have another break like that for a very long time.  Writing makes me feel like I'm on holiday.

So, I have much to say, and lots of places and platforms to say it on and in and at.  Wednesday morning feels like just exactly the right morning to make some headway - if I don't get ill again.

Honestly (just a little moan) - has anyone else been ill for the past month?  This year's coldy-fluey thing is a horrible one, that just doesn't seem to want to eff off.  That's all I'm saying about that - people have worse things than colds!

Lx.


Addendum 1:  I'm so brainless.  I've already written about some of the things I've just mentioned here.  How is it that I can completely forget that I've written in this blog since New Year?  What is bloody wrong with me?  I think I need to go back to Barbados for a week.

Addendum 2:  I have just been looking at my statistics for this blog, and it hardly gets read at all!  Lots of posts have been read less than once.  Less.  Than.  Once.  Hmph!  But I did notice that posts that were tagged with a famous person, or a topical issue, got a lot more views than other ordinary posts.  So I've tagged this post with a handful of famous people to see what effect that has.  Just a little game, you understand.  No doubt the people who drop by to see what I'm writing about Rhod Gilbert will pop right off again once they realise they've been had.  (I love Rhod Gilbert though - he's a very sexy man.)

Headache

It's hard work looking for jobs online, there's so much rubbish.  I have actually got an actual headache, and my eyes hurt, and I think I will have to take something evil to get rid of these little afflictions.

At the beginning of the week I thought I was going to find some jobs by the end of the week.  Now I think I might never find any.  All I need is one person to give me a good break, and then I'll be able to get more jobs.  I've applied for lots, but I'm competing with people who say they have decades of experience - of course, they could be lying; I'm not going to lie.

I've still got to take my business cards to the University and the college though, and to the Guardian office.  But, you never know, the lady that received my CV at the beginning of the week might suddenly come through with a job that I could do.  I might really impress her and she might send me work regularly.  Or the test that I mucked up a couple of weeks ago might not have bothered the person who was doing the hiring, and he might hire me anyway.  (If I hadn't mucked up that test I would probably be up to my neck in jobs by now!  What a golden opportunity to throw away!  Maybe I should write to that bloke and tell him that I've got my final mark back - he might be impressed and give me a chance.)

:(

I just got phoned by a man claiming to be from Facebook.  He wanted me to give him £99 to pay for a month's advertising!  I hung up on him when it became clear that he wasn't going to shut up - god, I'd hate his job.

So, plodding on, plodding on.  Looking for jobs, looking for jobs.  Hope I can find some, hope I can find some.  It's hard to find jobs when you don't know where you're supposed to be looking though.  Maybe I'll just go and work in the Spar.

Or maybe I'll stop moaning, and get on and finish my bestselling novel.  Aha!  That's a good plan.

Oh, that oDesk job did not turn out to be the start of anything amazing.  The jobs on there are all rubbish, and the pay is stupid.  I'm not going to waste my time on it.  That is not the place to find good proofreading jobs.

oDesk - could this be the start of a bit of cash coming my way, or is it a waste of time?

oDesk.  I've started using this huge virtual office type of network.  People advertise jobs that contractors can do online, or just on their computer; contractors bid for the jobs, and someone gets hired.  Pay ranges from virtually nothing, to quite a decent hourly rate, depending on experience and skills.  I'm a beginner, so the first job I've been hired for pays pretty much nothing.  I'm writing articles - 150-170 words is all - on a topic that this woman sends me.  I'm a BMR writer this week!  I write articles for her, and her ratings are boosted!  Whatever that means.  I don't really want to be doing it, but I discovered that it's actually quite good writing practice - she tells me to write, say ten articles on the same topic, and I have to come up with new ways of writing about the same thing over and over again.  It's sort of boring, but it's sort of interesting at the same time.  The way I seem to be doing this is by hearing different voices, different characters talking about the topic from their point of view; so I'm a lady of 60, new to the internet, finding out that it's not as scary as it seems; I'm a man of 24 who thought he'd decided to do one thing with his life, but has found that he's taken a completely different path; and so on.  It's very bizarre, because I'm essentially writing about absolutely nothing, and yet I have to include very specific keywords.  The keywords have to be in the right sort of place in the text, and the subject of the article has to be loosely related to the keyword.  I don't really understand what it's all about at all, but I can make a miniscule amount of money from it, so it's worth a go.  I suppose I will continue to work with this lady until I find another job on oDesk that pays properly, and that is more interesting.  That could be tomorrow, or it could be next week, I don't really know.  Actually, I don't think I'm allowed to just tell this lady that I've found another job and abandon her - I think I have to do a certain amount of work for her (I think she mentioned a hundred of these little pieces) before I can move on.  That's absolutely fine - it's boring, but at least it's getting my brain to work.  It's actually a lot easier than I thought it would be when I looked at the topics and had an initial panic!  Always pay to have a go, you see.

I could see how this sort of work could become completely soul destroying if a person did it for too long though.  I wouldn't want to do this for the rest of the year - I'd go mad.   Although, having said that, I suppose if you intersperse it with your own writing it might be more bearable.

So what I did was, I spent an hour on my Faerie book this morning.  I moved the plot along just a nudge and introduced another character, and felt quite good about myself.  Actually, I just generally feel quite good about myself today, because I have successfully ignored the stinking cold I've got :)  It has not prevented me from doing anything - although I think I'm a bit feverish this evening, and might be struck down tomorrow!  But it's just a cold - I know people who have worse things than a cold today :(

So, all in all, a good start to the year.  I may have seriously messed up my chance of getting a lovely little proofreading job, because I'm an idiot and should not have done the test piece when I was tired.  But at least I'm being productive, and at least I haven't curled up in a corner and cried and said something like 'oh nooooooo, I'm so stupid, how could I be so stupid?' and 'I'll never be a proofreader now!'  Because I still will be a proofreader; I just won't have my first job with the very nice and patient Liam Bennett.

Well, and that's all for now.  I'm going to get Lord of the Rings, and I'm going to start reading it, because I need to find out how to write battles - I'll be coming up to a small skirmish in my book soon, and I need some ideas on how to put down the right words for that.

Eragon, by Christopher Paolini, as you can see.
Another book with really good battles in it - battles with dragons: stupendous!

New stuff, as per tradition

I suppose it might seem that there are New Year things going on around here, but I do new things all the time, at any time of year, so it's just coincidence.  But, right, there are some new things that I'll just quickly share with you.

I've finished my proofreading course, and I'm looking for jobs *smiley face*!  Fancy me, looking for jobs.  It's very exciting.  I hope I find some - because it might eventually become less exciting if I don't.  To this end I have applied for work with an academic proofreading company, and am waiting to find out if I passed their test.  It was a bit tricky, because it was using Word track changes facility, which I haven't used before.  But once I got into it - i.e. once I'd made roughly ... two corrections - it was easy to use.  I hope I get one of those jobs - the company is looking for a few proofreaders for the coming year - because it seems to be a lovely way of working.  Editing on the efile is very nice; I'm surprised a little, as I thought I would have an aversion to it, having just done my course on hard copies.  But it was great, and I think I could be very good at it.

I've also registered with oDesk, which seems to be a virtual huge office.  There are all kinds of online jobs to apply for there and it seems a very professional place.  I don't know how easy it will be to find jobs without experience, but there are a lot to rake through.  Most of them require more specialist knowledge and experience than I have, but there are plenty of writing jobs to have a look at and apply for.  There are skills tests to take to demonstrate what kind of knowledge you have before you've managed to get any jobs.  Anyway, I'll see what comes of that.  I've applied for one job already, but so have quite a few other people!

Something else is new, but I've temporarily forgotten what it is.  Gah!  My brain just doesn't work properly at the moment, it's very frustrating.  I can't remember what I had for my tea.  But long-forgotten childhood memories are not coming back to me yet, so that's a good sign.

So I might be working soon.  And then all kinds of things might change and be new.  Don't know what, but I think it'll be an exciting year for me *another smiley face*.

I'm doing well to feel positive today, because I have a head full of snot, and there's often a feeling that if we don't start off the very first bit of a new year in a positive and productive way that the rest of the year might be a disaster.  Well, I say that, but I never feel that way!  I'm always excited in January, always looking forward to the spring, and finding out what I'm going to be up to in the next year.  But seriously, I think this will be a good year - it'll have some bad stuff in it, as all years do, but let's not despair, eh?  Let's look at the good stuff a bit more gratefully, eh?  There's a lot more of it about than many people realise.

A picture ... a picture should be inserted here.  But what of?  I've nothing new - I seem to have forgotten that I own a camera this year.  Ooh, ooh, perhaps with my earnings - if I earn enough - I might buy a new camera, a DSLR!

But a picture.  I'll just find one ...

This is my oDesk profile picture; perhaps a tad too informal, but at least it's presentable, and at least my writing is professional. 

Right then, I'll be off to bed.  Got to make sure the kids have uniform ready for Wednesday - I've put away not a single piece of clean laundry over Christmas!  Shock, horror, what a terrible, lazy woman!

:)

And there we have it ...

... things achieved, Christmas shopping all done, house tidy, ready to be decorated with the kiddy-winks over the next few days (white paper snowflakes, anyone?), proofreading assignment finished and sent, getting back into reading properly (Dickens at the moment, a bit of festive grotesqueness with The Old Curiosity Shop).  And relax.  I don't know what I felt so blue about last week - I do annoy myself sometimes.

There's a massive pile of clean washing on the couch opposite me (we have two couches), and it's not bothering me in the slightest.  I know I'll get around to dealing with it eventually, hopefully before Christmas Day.  I am calmness, I am chilledness.  Probably because I gave myself an actual slap across the face the other day, and told myself to stop being so moody and useless.

That is all I have to say really.  I have my mojo, and I will use it tomorrow to help me to do a small cycle, of perhaps 40 or 50 miles.  Funny how I now consider this to be a short distance.  Hmm.

If I don't see you before, have a lovely Christmas.  I personally cannot wait for it to be all over, and for January the 1st to be here (one of my favourite days of the year) - I'm getting very bored of it, and would like to do something different at this time of year.

X.

Time - could I have a little more please?

An abundance of time is what I actually have.  But I squander it, all the time.  One would think that I might be a little more careful of the ways in which I spend my time, since I am acutely aware of how quickly it can run out.  But, as I've said before, I am inherently lazy (if I use that word, 'inherently', it allows me to take no responsibility for my laziness, do you see?) and find it difficult to resist a sit on the couch, a nice brew, and a biscuit.

I've have achieved pretty much ... nothing this week.  I have started to do the pre-Christmas clean-up, but the house is a bombsight.  Actually, it's a bin.  Actually, a giant skip.  But I can see light somewhere, and it'll be alright.  This is the first year I have not allowed the state of the house to stress me out - and it's telling, because I've passed the stress on to Kev who cannot believe how stupidly messy every room is!  Ha ha!  :D  And I just can't get up the energy to care; 'it'll get done', I keep saying.  I suppose one day soon I might have a burst of energy and finish it all off.

I'm not writing anything, not even the new cycling blog.  I'm writing neither hubs, nor Goodreads book reviews.  I'm not even writing in a diary.  Nothing.  I'm watching telly and crocheting.  No novel-writing is going on at all.  I have an assignment to get finished for my proofreading course, my very last assignment, and I'm just not doing it.

I'm shopping online, and I'm eating, and I'm sitting about.  Oh, and learning Russian.  I suppose that's something - but it's not something useful, it's just something I like doing.

BUCK YER IDEAS UP, LINDA!

Yeah, yeah, I will.  Just let me finish this brew and this biscuit.

One thing I really would like to do, once I've got that assignment out of the way, and written some cycling articles, and some hubs, and some chapters of my novel, is to catch up on reading the work of my favourite hubber, Twilight Lawns.  He's my friend, and he always reads my hubs, even when no one else does.  He deserves the same special treatment back.  That's one of the very important things that I have to do.  It's on the List.

I think I'm not enjoying winter this year - I think it's sapping my energy, which it's never done before.  I don't like it.  I'm looking forward to spring.  But spring's not coming for ages, so I'd better find a way to be friends with winter.  I will.  Maybe when my house is tidy.  Maybe when the kids have finished school for Christmas and we can spend time making decorations and Christmas bakes.  That'll be lovely.  We can have carols on, and cover the place with tinsel and snowflakes.  I think we'll have a very tiny tree this year, as I am not in the mood for a big one.

What's up with me, I wonder?  My inner core of blissful happiness is still intact, but I've got a crusty, snappy shell that's doing my head in.  I think it should bugger off.

Hell, yeah!

Me and my brother Noomski have decided to write a blog together.  Actually, it was all my idea, because I'm clever like that.  And Tezmondi is new to the world of blogging, though he's been thinking of having a pop for ages.

http://cyclingtitans.blogspot.com

That's it, right there.  You wanna check it out, because it's going to be quite exciting, and quite funny, and just generally quite interesting.  We're going to try, once we've written a couple more entries, to get it featured on a newspaper website, or something like that.  We're quite eager to get our little project noticed and followed, because we'd like to be local celebrities.  Yeah.

You don't have to read it if you don't want to, but I do think it's going to be good.  We're going to write articles together, write sort of journal entries about our training, useful info and bits of advice (tongue in cheek, absolutely no doubt) to do with chafing and fibre, tyres and Lycra.  We might interview people (probably just each other, actually), pop on photos of our adventures, do cartoons of things we didn't manage to photograph.  I'm hoping it'll be like a sort of magazine style of blog.  Jam-packed full of information and stories and interesting things, written by two people who are not professional cyclists and who do not take themselves at all seriously.  You might as well just read it, because if you don't, everyone else will be talking about it, and you'll start to feel left out.

Enjoy :)

CYCLING!

Quick post, if I can manage it; got to type up my book synopsis to send to my mum for approval :)

Just wanted to record the fact that I cycled 55 miles with my brother on Saturday.  It was an important milestone to reach.  I've been so bummed out about cycling (what am I, suddenly American?  When do I ever say 'bummed out'?!) lately, because, let's face it, it's pretty hard work.  It's difficult to get up the motivation to go out and do two hours of solid exercise after tea (especially when you're inherently lazy, as I am).  So I'm very, very proud of myself for breaking the 50 marker.  Not only breaking it, but doing 5 miles extra as well :)  Terry asked if I could've done five more and made it to 60; instinctively, I said 'no way'.  But when I thought about it, and forced the panic to die down, I supposed that I could've managed five more.  What's five miles when you've already done 50?  Not much, less than half an hour.

So, cycling is going quite well.  I'm realising that I still have plenty of my week left even if I cycle three times.  And three times is what I need to do to make those bigger rides possible - I found this week that tackling that 50 miler was made easier (not easy) because I'd already done seventy miles over the week.  I suppose I might say that I can feel myself getting fitter!  Never thought this would happen, did not think that I had it in me to get fit at all.  But now I'm eager to do more, to do bigger distances, and to push myself as much as I possibly can.  I'm determined to do the big challenge now, the coast-to-coast-to-coast in just two days.  I will have to be fit enough to do 170 miles followed by 170 miles!  I can do it.  I now know that I can.  I'm not sure why, but breaking the back of the 50 miler also broke down a psychological barrier, I think.  I'm sure I'll hit walls again, but it's good to know that I can get over them now.  I hit a small wall at the weekend, and started off the ride in a bad mood and expecting to have a bad ride.  I got over it.  Now I know that I can, hopefully I always will be able to.

And my goodness, it feels amazing: to look down at the bike computer (which Terry has just given me as an early Christmas present - I don't like getting early Christmas presents, but I like this one) and see that I'm doing 23mph on the flat, and keeping up 16/17/18mph going uphill, and over 30mph downhill.  It's brilliant!  Very, very exhilerating.  And then there's the added bonus of being outside in such glorious surroundings - we really do live in a very beautiful place.  Soon I'll be cycling to the Lake District, and that will just be a joy.  This weekend I suppose I did cycle to the edge of the Lakes - Kendal, is kind of the gateway to the Lakes.  I'd like to get to Windermere next, and have my lunch overlooking the lake at Bowness.  This is living!

And you know what else is living?  Writing my book.  So I'd best crack on :)

Have a nice day, whatever you're doing.  I'm spending the rest of my day being smug at my awesomeness!  ;P

Sandside, which we cycled through last week, on a beautiful frosty morning.
It was stunning.  I needed a panoramic lens; didn't have one.

This is when I'm the happiest :)

Every now and again this happens.  It's brilliant.  And each time I think 'I'm keeping hold of this, this is forever this time'.  It's my motivation.  I'm rather tired at the moment, on account of it being term-time and busy and backwards-and-forwardsy, cycling as much as I can, and taking on new crafty projects.  And it always seems that the more things I add to my day the more motivated I feel.  It's an odd thing.

This is what I am doing (you know I like bulleted lists, and I have now learned that, generally, they do not have closing punctuation!):

• Writing some new chapters for Faerie, which are coming along very nicely, and which I am pleased with
• Writing some outlines and snippets for The Death of Tom Rawlinson, which has come to a little impasse, and which I am trying to work through
• Reading, and enjoying the freedom of having more than one book on the go at once!  Reading 'A Shabby Genteel Story' by Thackeray, rereading Twilight, and trying to finish The Gormenghast Trilogy, which has become a bit boring on account of its being published posthumously despite never having been finished by the author (I'm being kind there - it's actually boring because the story's moved away from the castle, and it was the castle and its inhabitants that I loved - without them the story is very flat)
• Cycling - this week I have done 60 miles already, with another 20 planned for this evening, and 50 tomorrow; I will have done 130 miles by the end of the week, which is a little ridiculous, but bloody brilliant: very, very proud of myself (haven't done it yet though)
• Crocheting, beading, cross-stitching and knitting: four projects on the go: crocheting a blanket for my bed, and to go over my legs to make me look like an old lady when I'm sitting in front of the telly of an evening, working on ... the scarf that I am also knitting for myself, with wool that I could not resist; cross-stitching a simply gorgeous new Christmas and wintry kit, all Victorian and stunning (quite a big and complicated one); beading new jewellery things, which I will probably never really wear, but which I make anyway because I love making beady things
• Diarying and blogging: I have now set up my desk with my printers ready to go and my computer in an easy-to-use position, and all my reference books and inspirational books to hand; my cutey little Polaroid printers are brilliant for getting pictures off the computer and into a diary right quick - digital camera we love, do we not?  But wasn't it good when we had actual photographs to look at and thumb through?  I miss that.  Printing photos is a bit of a pain in the bum, but it's the way it is now, and I'd like to get on with it

This is the Polaroid Pogo, with Z(ero)Ink.  Love it.  I have a black one and a red one.  Why do I need two?  Well, I don't really, but my excuse is that if I'm doing a lot of printing, it's good to use two because they do heat up A LOT.

I think there are some other things that I'm doing as well, but I can't remember what they are.  And there's playing with the kids as well, and homework and all those fun things.  (Actually, homework is good fun at the moment, because Thomas and James are both very motivated just now - James has discovered that he's good at drawing and he now loves it, though he hated it a few weeks ago.  Thomas has been spurred on to practise drawing as much as possible so that James can't catch up to him and be better!  Thomas is enjoying life in Mr Hendra's class VERY much, and is learning maths properly for the first time.  Both boys are getting very good at writing and reading, and I just could not be prouder mummy right now.  They're amazing.  I'm so excited about their futures.  Mind you, at the same time I'm desperately trying to encourage them to play with as many of their toys as possible and as often as possible because, bloody hell, already Thomas is saying that he doesn't really want to play as much as he used to and that if he doesn't get any toys for Christmas he's not really bothered!  Nooooo!  Not yet, I'm not ready for them to start getting serious and mature yet!

So that's a little update of me.  I'm enjoying life this week, whilst at the same time, wallowing in a little self-loathing for being rather a lazy sod.  I've written here this list of things that I'm doing in my spare time, but I don't actually achieve very much, and do duck out of actually getting down to some hard graft with the writing in particular, in favour of ... writing a blog entry!  I'm such a slacker, really I am.

Now I'm off to collect Matthew from playschool.  What shall I do with him this afternoon?  I did promise that we'd bake some bread (in the bread-maker - didn't I say I was lazy?), so maybe we'll go and get ingredients for that.  Banana and walnut bread anyone?

Oops

So, it's probably about time I blogged again.

So right, let me summarise the last two months, since we were on holiday, in easy to read bullet points:

• did some proofreading assignments
• did a little bit of rubbish writing
• did some good cycling - some longish distances, and one very difficult climb
• spent a lot of nice time with the boys, including doing some really good homework
• experienced single-mumming and rather liked it
• spent a lot of time procrastinating, yet again

So nothing out of the ordinary, all the usual stuff, with the added extra of cycling.  I actually haven't done as much cycling as I should have done, on account of two bad colds and a bad back.  Can't cycle with either of those.  Bit of a bummer, as I'm getting a little behind with my training.  I'm supposed to have done a 50-miler by the end of October, which is in six days.  Fortunately, I have a beautiful new trainer for use in the home - phew!  I plan to stick the kids in bed early on Saturday night and cycle my way through two or three films and get my 50 miles done that way.  I stick my bike on this thing that lifts up my back wheel, pop my front wheel on a stationary stand, whack a DVD in my laptop and off I go, cycling in my kitchen, with snacks and drinks on hand :)  I don't have to stop, can cycle on and on.  It's brilliant.  But I have only used it once so far.  Really I need to get using it, to keep my fitness up when babysitters are scarce and the weather is rubbish.  It's all very well braving the gales and the torrents, but if they just serve to get us wet and cold without becoming any fitter, then I think we may as well cycle indoors!  There's a goal in sight - albeit eight or nine months away - and I haven't got time to enjoy the scenery, I just have to get mega fit.

This is interesting, as I'm the fattest I've ever been in my life, and had never imagined that there might come a time in my fat life when I might actually feel like getting fit - never mind mega fit.  But I'm quite enjoying it, and am already fitter than I was when I did my first cycle.  I can now sustain a speed of 18mph for quite some time on the flat.  I am now only ten or twenty seconds behind Terry on the bigger hills, rather than thirty or forty as I was at the beginning of my training.  It's like Rocky!  Getting stronger... 

Ah, thought I might be tempted to go on about cycling.  Didn't really want to as I suspect that it might be quite boring to read about.  But it's going to be a big part of my life next year.  I just hope I've still got time for writing as well - I do love cycling, but I hate that it needs to take up so much time.  It's not just the cycle itself, it's the fact that you have to warm down when you get home, have a shower and then eat because you're starving afterwards.  Then you get really sleepy and don't feel like doing anything for the rest of the day or the evening.  I'm very often tired the day afterwards as well.  Maybe I'm doing something wrong though, because I thought exercise was supposed to energise one, no?  Perhaps that happens when you get much fitter.  Perhaps that will happen when I get rid of my jelly belly.

I am also now working on a different novel.  I was switching between two projects, alternately hating and loving each one.  My mum asked me to look at the one I started in January again, the one that I did for the NaNoWriMo January project.  I did look at it, and I loved it.  I'd put it aside thinking that I'd never look at it again, it had gone very bad and I thought it had no potential at all.  But when I reread the first 20-30,000 words I saw that it was good :)  There's a lot to work with, lots of possible threads to follow, lots of really good characters, already quite well drawn and easy to visualise.  I've decided to work on that for a while.  It's not like anything I've ever written - but mind you, everything I try is new because I've not been writing for all that long.  But anyway, this new project is going to be good fun, as the story's just ridiculous.  It's quite funny, quite farcical, a bit like a Carry On story, a bit like a St. Trinian's, a bit like Terry Pratchett, and a bit like Thackeray (I'm now reading some Thackeray, because I bought quite a lot of his work when we were in Alnwick - see my hub on the subject of Secondhand Book Shops) which author I love more than any, ever; he is my definite favourite.  I am now a collector, of a particular set of Thackeray's works - very beautiful they are, and possibly a little bit rare (I don't really know whether they are, but I've just done a little search about for them and could only find a couple on ebay that were in dreadful condition - mine are in beautiful condition, especially considering that they're nearly a hundred years old :) )

Well, I think that'll do.  I've no pictures to share with you, because I haven't used my camera since we were in Alnwick.  I must start taking photos again.  There are lots of things that I must start doing again, lazy so-and-so that I am.

Night.

P.S. Forgot - we have two new cats, Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy; surprising how many people don't know where those names come from.  My girls :)  They're gorgeous.  I have no photos of them, because my phone camera is rubbish and the cats won't keep still enough, and Bellatrix is completely black which seems to make her invisible on photos.