Not drowning but waving

Every morning the radio alarm shouts at me in Polish or Punjabi - I'm too uncultured to know the difference. Every morning I think I'll remember to set the bloody thing to Classic FM or anywhere the DJs aren't angry with me.

It's not that I hate mornings, I love mornings, I just can't wake up in them. I think I drown every night and lie like a wreck stuck in the grey sludge of the ocean floor. And that's where I want to stay, thank you. A worn out vessel with silver fish stretch marks across my broad side. Leave me be to grow barnacles on my bottom. But no, the morning tug boats dredge me up to ferry the grunting teenagers and growling husband to work. Bugger.

I didn't reply to any of my fellow bloggees comments last week. Because, I'm ashamed to admit, I put the edited bit back and not only that, I added more. So I have a 133k m/s to edit down to 100k and I've edited up to 137k. Ha.

Snip, snip...

I've just cut one of the bestest bits from my novel. Three thousand words from chapter one. Three thousand words I've poured over, changed round, added to, taken out, put back in and now - boof - they're gone forever. Their crime? They didn't move the plot forward. But they are saved in my brilliantly named 'Stuff cut out' folder, just in case.

So only thiry six more chapters to edit.

Feel a bit shaken up. I better have a cocoa.

Tell me how you edit. Can I copy you?

My room with a view

I sleep downstairs. My french windows open on to a neglected court yard with stone slabs embroidered with lichen and moss.
The courtyard walls would have collapsed if it wasn't for the vine. She's sewn them up and enslaved them. She makes me uneasy when her thin limbs flutter and grasp blindly at the air.
We are isolated here.
No houses nearby. We are alone and the sky is big. Just for me and the vine.
Above us geese groan, 'Fly, fly, fly.' Because they must. An African sun hauls them in.
I wonder, if I sat on the oak seat under the wall, would I be Odysseus to this silent siren?
Would she curl bracelets round my wrists and sweetly bind me to her?
I could just sit. My skin turn to pale marble and my heart to rock.
Green fingers stroke my neck and tighten, tighten, tighten until the vine and I are one.

I think I've got a thing about vines.

Feeling Tense

I've got my report back from Real Writers. If you haven't tried them I can't recommend them highly enough: www.real-writers.com
Following their editorial advice, I am strongly considering giving my three protagonists, who were originally all written in the first person present, different tenses. This would really help to give each women a different voice. The one I feel most empathy with, Lucy, a scatty mother of three - I have two children but often the pirate counts as another - so I will probably go for her being in first person present. Mel, the airforce wife, might be in first person past and Cassie, an ex-traveller, in the third person. So, I could write the whole book in three different ways which will keep me very quiet for a while.
Actually I have a fourth option which would be to give up and write a novel with one protagonist in the third person. This would be the most sensible one.

Oh, pass me a gin.

Goodbye Housie!

Well, nearly. We got our marching orders a couple of weeks ago. I suspected we might when the landlady starting her three month checks to make sure we weren't growing weed. Lots in the garden, of course, and if there was any of the other kind, I'd have had it with my Asda wine instead of crisps. Might of lost some weight then.

So, we have been offered a key worker house by the local earl or lord - landowner who owns thousands of acres of land with farms and farm cottages. Quite fancy being Lady Chatterley (sp?) but the pirate wouldn't make a good gamekeeper on account of his occasionally poaching.

Meanwhile, we have to have prospective tenants being shown around this house by She Who Must be Obeyed. I have decided that I am a nudist and will exercise my civil rights and be naked when prospects call. I'm trying to persuade the pirate and the thug - the Prince of Darkness being on holiday in Turkey. They are none too keen but I think it could be fun.
I need to know the form. Do I shave? Wear a pinny? I could be cooking and hot olive oil splashes worry me. Maybe there's a blog I could visit? Do let me know please.