June and finished first drafts

How is it June already? The last few weeks have disappeared, and dare I say it, summer is here.

I mentioned a while ago I was working on a new project, and if you follow me on twitter you will have seen me tweet an awful lot about it. But I finally finished typing up the first draft from my very messy handwriting, which was a great relief. The lovely Laura,my wonderful CP, has been reading it as I type it up and has been an amazing encouragment and has been super supportive and just generally awesome! So thanks Laura! And now it's all typed up, I'm going to start reading it through again, make some editing notes, notes of scenes and details and all of that to add, as the first draft is at points rather skeleton. Phew! Lots to do! But I'm still rather in love with this story and its characters, which I reckon is a good sign and I'm looking forward to doing lots more work on it.

And I'm looking forward to the summer, with hopefully lots of swimming, tennis, reading and writing. And Queens starts next week - followed by Eastbourne, then Wimbledon! The best two weeks of the year. So excited!

Anyway, I'm off to go read and make some notes in the sunshine. Got to make the most of it!

Return

A return to normal blogging, a return to Exeter, and a return to... Spring! Yes, Spring is seems is finally here, which means summer is around the corner and as these are my favourite two seasons I am in heaven.

 And utterly obsessed with daffodils.

Although, my favourites are the bluebells and I am eagerly anticipating them coming out, and going to find a bluebell wood somewhere in Devon, as I am not at home for them this year (if anyone has any suggestions PLEASE let me know! Cheers!)

I love the longer evenings, now that it doesn't get dark until 8.30 or so.

I love that the sun is shining and it's warm enough to sit outside (when it's not windy) and that we can shed the winter layers (I do feel like I've come out of hibernation!).

I love that I can go outside in BARE FEET.

I love that there are so many summer plans and it is nearly tennis season in the UK and that the French Open and Wimbledon are around the corner.

I could go on, but today I won't.  Am busy at the minute writing and finishing off assignments due for the beginning of May, and then I'm free! Until September! But I am looking forward to starting many more projects over the summer (I have a couple I've been planning on focusing on) and getting them written, and my mind is buzzing with ideas at the minute, which is exciting. One character strolled into my mind this morning, making me want to write her story down, so I scribbled some notes, but now it's back to focusing on this essay!

Tennis and Monday Blues

Disappointing tennis result yesterday. Poor Murray. But then it wasn’t as excruciating as matches were a couple of years ago, because he can do it, and he fought so well yesterday. It was a fantastic match, and they’re both brilliant players. And I like Djokovic. If he hadn’t been playing Murray I would have been rooting for him! The commentators were saying that the big rivalry is now between these two, now that Federer is waning a bit, and Nadal has still not made his return (sorry, Nadal who?). 

It made me feel very summery though, all this tennis. I love it. Makes me long for the summer even more though. Warm days, bare feet, Wimbledon, swimming, reading outside... *sigh*. I watched the Wimbledon film afterwards which I adore, but probably didn’t help. Although it did make me feel better. Strange how dated that film is (it’s nearly ten years old, gosh?! Really?!) what with no hawk eye, no roof on centre court and the fact that then a British guy int he final was wistful thinking. HA. Not so anymore. This has to be Murray’s year!

I seem to get a lot of ideas too from tennis which is excellent. Lots of notes made. 

Feeling rather flat today though. Delayed case of Sunday night blues I think (going back to school syndrome) which I haven’t had in ages, normally because I’m busy on a Monday. And this week I’m not, which is rather odd. I don’t like it. 

And what doesn’t help either is that I FINISHED my draft (third?) of Love-All yesterday, which being tennis themed was fantastic to be writing yesterday, I think the matches being on helped a lot! Helped me get in the mood. I love listening to the commentaries, even if I’m not that bothered about the match. So I finished that off. I was giving myself until the end of January so I’ve been left with a few spare days now. What?! I feel a bit lost without it, I just want to open it up and do stuff, but I know I should leave it for a few weeks so that I can look at it again with a fresh eye. It’s difficult though. I made so many big changes to it, it was quite a challenge and i don’t think I realised quite how much it was affecting me. I feel much lighter now, but at the same time I don’t.... because I feel lost. And I guess that isn’t helping my feeling today. 

Technically I have lots of other stuff to be working on, like an assignment for this week, but I just don’t feel motivated at all. I am also wondering what project to work on next. I hate inbetween projects. I have something to type up I wrote last summer, so I will do that and I had a new idea the other day so might see what comes of that, but still.

Hmph. 

After such a great few days (especially writing wise) and a lovely quiet weekend hiding at home I just feel sad now and I have no idea why. 

But I am going to London this weekend, which is exciting because JOHN GREEN IN SIX – SIX – DAYS!!! Eeek. Very excited!

Murray Final.... eeek!

Sorry about the moaning post last week. This week has been much better. I got that story done (yay) and as I guess often happens when you are so immersed in something and hate it, I was surprised to receive nice comments from my class and very helpful feedback. Looking at it in a different way now!

I also managed to get to grips with the story I was editing and suddenly got it. Suddenly realised what I needed to do in some chapters I wasn't sure about, which made me very happy.

It's been a busy week, so I'm glad to have a very quiet weekend with nothing on so I just can just focus on lots of writing and reading (yay!). I am currently listening to the women's singles finals of the Australian Open on the radio. I am not that bothered about the women's matches, but I like having the commentry on in the background and it is an interesting match! Listening to tennis makes me feel very summery. Of course the most exciting news is that Murray is through to the FINAL! EEEEEK! Best news ever! It was such a tense match. I couldn't properly watch it as I was at work, but work was so quiet I was able to keep up with it, which was good, just a little nerve wracking! So elated though. Can't wait to watch the final tomorrow morning, going to be VERY exciting, and VERY tense. Eeek. I don't know if I'll cope, ha! Anyway, I'm excited about that. I like that it is timed so that it is perfectly acceptable to be able to watch it in the morning live and not in the middle of the night like the US Open was. Yay!

What else?

So editing is going well. I am working on the next exercise for class, which is going well so far. And an exciting story idea just occured to me too. Yay! I have a huge stack of library books too, and I went book shopping yesterday (shhh... totally for my course, of course.....). Lots of reading to do! Right, I guess I better get on, rather than rambling away here! Have a wonderfully creative weekend everyone.

P.S EIGHT DAYS TILL JOHN GREEN. EEEEEK.

August Madness

The Olympics have absoutely flown by; I can't believe it's the last day tomorrow! I have got so into it, I have become totally absorbed by it all and have loved every minute, particuarly the tennis, sailing, swimming, diving... and so much more! So over the moon that Murray won a gold, and a silver. That was amazing!

And it's August, how did that happen? The last few weeks seem to have gone incredibly quickly, and I haven't been blogging as much as I would have liked. Oh well, life happens. I have been busy reading, writing and making lots of braclets (fantastic while watching olympics). Writing has been going well; I wrote most of a short story yesterday, which I was pleased with, and most of a chapter of something else. I really need to do some editing however, and I am clearly putting that off. I will get down to it. I will.

I am also trying to sort out all the details for my MA starting next month (next month?! That's awful scary really). I need to choose my modules and everything, and I'm also beginning to work out when to move back and all of that stuff. Where did the last few weeks go?

I'm excited, but things are becoming very real and I'm relucant to let go of the summer yet. I know I still have a month or so to go but still.

Also, over the summer I have been making lots of bracelets and I'm thinking of trying to sell them. Any ideas/tips?

Olympic Fever!

I don't know where the last few weeks has gone, but it seems to have absoutely flown by, and I was very surprised to see how long ago my lost blog post was! It's been a busy time though, and I have been making the most of the wonderful weather the UK has been enjoying, until now that is, because it is a rare thing here, and so I didn't relaly switch my laptop on, which was probably a good thing! But now I'm back.

Over the last few weeks I have enjoyed the brilliant weather, had my graduation (which was terrifying and stressful, but actually went very well!), had a brief trip to Cornwall, watched the Olympic opening and lots of Olympics on the TV and got very excited, and have been watching lots of tennis, swimming and diving, and trying out some other things with entertaining results (seriously some sports are just so.... well bizarre!). I was very excited to see JK Rowling in the opening ceremony, and the wonderful tribute to children's literature. Oh yes! I also had to deal with a bee swarm (terrifying, bees have been haunting me for days now) and got to enjoy some amazing weather. (I was going to post some pictures here, but I will add them later). I sat outside all day every day (mostly) in the gazebo, which I made my makeshift office, and did lots of reading, writing and bracelet making (and lots of swimming too). Very productive week I was very pleased.

I managed to do an edit of one of my stories, on paper, reading most of it out loud (very tiring!). I still need to type up the edits, and probably go through it again and do a more detailed edit, but now it's all good. I also started the first story in my new series, which I'm very excited about and so far seems to be going well. I made so many notes and things over the last few weeks however it is being a little bit of a nightmare trying to work out what I meant when I put a star by a name or something silly like that.

What else can I tell you?

I think that's all for now. Looking forward to watching some more swimming later, and lots of tennis (come on Murray!) and some windsurfing!

MURRAY FINAL!

A brief post to say MURRAY IN THE FINAL!

First British man in the final since Bunny Austin, in 1938? Crazy.

So excited! Finally! Tomorrow is going to be a BIG match!

Come on Murray!

(Except he's playing Federer, and Federer is well.... Federer)

Tennis, Strawberries, Sunshine and Pimms!

Phew. Well I can't believe that I've been home for nearly a couple of weeks now! It's flown by, which is probably why I've only just realised I haven't blogged in a while. Which is why I'm sittting here now writing this, having just watched the Federer match on the BBC. What a tense one! I didn't really mind who won, but another upset this early on in Wimbledon would have been quite something! It's been a brilliant week already of tennis - the Wimbledon two weeks is one of my favourites of the year, and the only two weeks of the year I pay any attention to the sport pages of the newspaper! I even fill in the chart with who wins what match. Yes, I'm obsessed. Even more so this year - one of my friends is now living near Wimbledon and so I went up with another friend last weekend and we queued for the first day. It was an amazing day! I loved it so much. We didn't want to leave. We saw lots of great tennis, both live and on the big screen sitting on Henman Hill. It was great because we got to know a lot of players we wouldn't have known about otherwise and we now have many more favourites! It's a great atmosphere too, and as tennis is the one sport I enjoy playing too, I just really love it all. Of course we enjoyed a wonderful picnic, strawberries and pimms - and even amazing weather! I also downloaded the offical app for my new fancy phone which meant we were able to find out easily what was on when, get live scores and even little bios about all the players, which is fantastic when you don't know anything about the players you're watching and you want to - it really helps you to get into the match even more and understand perhaps who is meant to be the better player, and how experienced they are and all of that.

I didn't mean this post to be about tennis - sorry! I have also been enjoying the odd nice days of weather that we've had, reading and writing outside, and particuarly since finishing Camp NaNo (which I did successfully last Saturday, which was such a relief, glad to leave that story for now and focus on something else) I have tried to spend less time on the computer and outside where possible, reading, writing, swimming and playing tennis (oh I really adore the summer). I have been reading a lot as well which is great, really getting through stuff! Yay! I should be doing some editing, but yet again I'm pushing that aside in order to write a story I told myself I would write this summer. I wrote the first one of this series by hand, and so I am doing the same with the sequel because somehow it seems to work better this way for these particualar stories - odd that, but there is something so satifying abou toding it by hand, and particuarly in fountain pen, which I love writing with. I can see why Neil Gaiman writes his stories like this (I'm sure he's written stuff about this before), and particuarly in the summer it makes things so much easier! I have also been planning another series of stories which I unexpectedly have created pages and pages of white a4 sheets of notes... for me that is tonnes of brainstorming and planning, and I'm really excited to write this series, after some editing of course. These are both series aimed at younger children rather than YA fiction which I love to write - I'm going to say more on that later I think, as this has already become rather too long, and I jotted down some stuff I wanted to say and I need to dig that out....