Again with the whirl of activity

Monday, 29 September 2003

My writing life has spiralled out of control. I have been seized by the notion of doing NaNoWriMo, and it appears that nothing will stop me. I have a setting, a plot, many characters, a grand story arc - everything I need. And I've been writing notes in a copybook with purple ink, and brainstorming with Paradise, and it's all good.

In order to retain some semblance of a grip on myself, however, the deal is that as long as I race through to the end of my current novel draft by the end of October, I can take November off to write the other thing. Editing of the main novel (I'll have to differentiate them more neatly if I'm going to talk about them both here) will begin in December, and probably won't finish before Christmas, but I can live with that.

So last week I rattled out some 3,200 words - and achieved, for the first time, my target of five hours - more or less purely on the strength of this mad notion. My story is nearing its climax, and I begin to have genuine hopes that I may be in sight of the end. (Then, of course, I'll have to go back and rework it from start to finish - probably many times - but that's not so daunting. It's the quarrying of the raw material that I find so difficult.)

Last week was another busy one at work, and if I were not in the throes of this writing jag I would probably have been working late, taking work home and all that carry-on. This didn't happen. Worse: on Wednesday I woke up feeling headachey and throaty and wobbly of leg, and decided that I couldn't go through with the day. I phoned in sick and went back to sleep until early afternoon.

It was one of those borderline days: I wasn't actually sick enough to stay in bed, but the idea of doing anything useful was a pipe-dream. I picked up my dry cleaning, and I made some banana and walnut bread. More was not in me.

The weekend passed like a streak of flame.

On Saturday I rose with the lark to go down to this magnificent place, where the committee of the chamber choir I sing with has its planning weekend every autumn. I wrote five hundred words over breakfast, then drove all morning (stopping for a cheese and tomato sandwich and a cup of tea in one of the last outposts of pre-Celtic-Tiger Ireland: a coffee shop featuring leatherette chairs, formica tables, mismatched stripy crockery and Humorous Dishcloths on the walls). The meeting ran from one-ish until six-ish; we cooked from around half six until eight, ate from eight until half ten or so, then drank and sang and drank and talked and drank until (in my case) half three.

On Sunday I got up at nine (howl), ate and did a modicum of clearing up, drove home, showered (everything smelt of smoke). Then Paradise and I went to my parents' house for a lunch that also featured my aunt and uncle and grandmother, not to mention my brother, who's starting university this week. And that was lovely, and I managed not to fall asleep. We came home, via the supermarket, just before six, whereupon I made a large chocolate mousse, napped for half an hour, got up and went out with Paradise and Melusina to the Blue Voyager's birthday dinner, mousse in tow. And that was lovely, and I managed not to fall asleep.

So what with one thing and another, the whole Monday Experience was not enormously welcome in Radzer World this morning. I didn't get a chance to relax at all over the weekend. I've stumbled through the day, and haven't managed to do much on the writing front (more scribbling of purple notes, but nothing on the main novel).

If this is what it's like when I'm trying to be a hermit, I shudder to think what the party season holds in store...

Sufficient unto the day be the wild social whirls thereof. For now: bed.

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