Merry Christmas everyone!

Truth is stranger than fiction - it's a white Christmas downunder!

Summer? Ha!

El Nino makes its presence felt again.

Sending my baby off into the world

It’s a wild, fierce day. Even as I sit here in the office, the rain is bashing at the windows and the wind screams through any doors. The stairwell is dark, which only serves to increase my desire to get back to my bed and snooze. Apparently, the radio was warning this morning to remove anything from your backyard that could potentially be a missile. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s summer here in New Zealand? That’s slightly unfair; we haven’t had any real rain since December. I just wish it wouldn’t rain when I have to walk to work (from my car parked some distance away).

Now I’ll get to the real subject of this post. The ‘baby’ I speak of is my novel. On Sunday I worked on it fiercely, even foregoing a swim as it was then stiflingly hot. I made sure that I’d followed up on all my notes, and in between dinner at my parents’ I reconfigured the chapters. A final spell check, and after hitting the “ignore” button a hundred times I was finished. Then I emailed it off to a friend of mine who’s currently in England for a critique – a safe enough distance away that I won’t see him cringing through all of the sentimental passages. I’m really interested to hear what he has to say though, from an academic point of view.

Yesterday I printed it out, and late last night (après making cottage pie and banana cake) I managed to start reading it. I was shocked at the errors I found leaping off the page. Editing on screen is a world away from having all the pages side by side in front of you. In the early chapters, which granted I haven’t read in detail for quite some time, there were blatant inconsistencies and word repetition. How could this be? I wondered. How embarrassing. Just as well I did decide to do a hard copy check. Last night I also texted a local friend of mine who is an historical fiction fiend. She has also promised to give it the once over and comment. The copy she gets from me will be littered with edits and crossings-out, but oh well. I’m sure she’ll get the gist. I’m not going to print it out again until it’s the final copy.

I was very nervous about getting these people to read my story. No-one, not even my husband or mother, has even read a paragraph of it before. Being my first full-length work, I’m very wary of it being rubbish. I mean, how would I know? However, these two people have been so generous in assuring me they feel privileged to do the job, I feel a bit better about the whole thing. I just hope that I can take their feedback and criticism and use it to good effect. The outcome I’m dreading is that they highlight some weakness which I have no idea how to correct. Time will tell I suppose. For now I will continue my hard copy review and await the response of my first guinea pig. I’m also voraciously researching manuscript submission tips.

Oh yeah – my final word count was 102,500. So my original estimate a few years back of 100K wasn’t too far off.

Rant: Bits and pieces

*shiver* It seems that winter has arrived overnight. A few days ago everyone was at the beach, but for the first time this morning I woke up cold and in need of my slippers. In this temporate climate, we only seem to have two seasons, not four. It is a beautiful morning though. Blue, clear and crisp. Now bring on the snow so I can go skiing.

***

I saw on Campbell Live last night that workers are complaining about being tested for drugs while they're on the job. Nandor Tanczos was whining about violation of rights - that he only smokes in his spare time and that others should be allowed to do the same without being punished at work. Hello! It is illegal to smoke cannabis *anywhere*. Those who do it don't have any rights to protection. Whether they're found at home or work, it doesn't matter. They shouldn't be smoking drugs anywhere. I note with satisfaction that Mr Tanczos has slipped down the party ranking this morning.

***

It saddens me to think that people generally have no conscience. I was appalled to walk out to my car the other day and find yet another dent caused by someone else. Standard practice used to be to leave your details so that the afflicted person could claim on your insurance to fix their car. I cannot afford the bill or the insurance excess to fix my car, so it will stay dented. That makes the fourth time someone has done this to me - and I always park in perfectly respectable places! The first (and most major) time, I paid out to get it fixed. Now these three other dents will just have to stay on my car and decrease its value. I couldn't live with myself if I did that to someone else and just drove away. Where have all the decent people gone?

***

And now to end on a positive - it's a long weekend! YAY! And I would like to announce that I have now written 80,000 words for my novel. It's coming along nicely, and will continue to if I can just stop procrastinating and do the hard yards. Mmm, nice hot milo. Now I'm warming up.

A Pink Visitor

Today I looked outside and to my surprise, there on the doorstep was a pink leaf. It was very pretty, but it had me thinking one thing: Autumn. I looked over to the fence which is covered by the plant which spawns these leaves, and spotted several with a reddish tinge. How can this be? The days have been so hot and humid lately. I suppose the odd cooler night must have crept in. I have plans which mean that it must stay hot until the end of March. However, March is officially the beginning of Autumn, and I see that Nature has realised this and is getting a head start for tomorrow. *sigh* I had hoped that as Summer didn't even start until mid-January, it would extend itself a month or two. Another ominous sign is that I've had to put my slippers on today for the first time this year. Here's hoping it will stick around for a few weeks longer, with or without pink leaves.