This week has been... well, I was going to say "totally shite", but in reality it's been average on the whole. Like most weeks. Just with more ups and downs.

( A rollercoaster day-by-day account of the last week )

I am SO COLD. It's hard to believe that three weeks ago I thought I was going to die of dehydration in the middle of Berlin. Partly due to ill-judged clothing choices, mostly because for the end of September it was BOILING ( Read more... )

Been at the bottom of the pit recently. Slowly surfacing. Particularly as I've found my copy of 101 German Verbs, which was hiding under a TV guide dating from the second of January. January! That should show you how often we clean in this house. Well, at least I can swot up on verbs in this grammatical beast of a language. What you can do with it ( Read more... )

Yes, finished novel on time. 72,500 words. Percentage that make sense... ooh, at least 75%. Number of ridiculous typos: 3 (including the infamous "peeing over my shoulder" instead of "peering"). Inches of snow since last week: ten. Ten inches. This is England. It's not meant to snow this much! Our plantpots look like they are wearing UshankasI ( Read more... )

St. Cecilia's Day. Patron saint of music. Cecilia is my confirmation name. Benjamin Britten's 97th birthday, if he hadn't so thoughtlessly died in 1976; also the birthday of at least two other composers, Joaquin Rodrigo and W.F. Bach, who have also both joined the choir eternal. Incidentally, it's also Charles de Gaulle's birthday (but he's also ( Read more... )

I think my subject is getting on top of me ( Read more... )

I'm at that stage in NaNo. That very special stage when you've just reached 50,000 words (in my case 50,021 by 11.50pm GMT) and you're thinking "Technically I've finished, but OMG I'm in the middle of a birth scene and also France is about to get invaded and I've got to read Occupation: the Ordeal of France in order to get in a good 2,000 words per ( Read more... )

I meant to update every day, but... well, what's there to write? "Wrote 658677 words today!" I suppose I could have written about my research issues, or setting, or creating characters, but instead, today, I'm going to talk about the wondrously useless spellcheck function on OpenOffice. It cheerfully inserts asinine suggestions for any letter ( Read more... )

Word count for yesterday = 9,303. Bit of a disappointment, as I wanted to make it to 10,000.

Today = 12,010! Cheer me! I'm pretty good. That's how much you have to write in a week, and I've done it in four days.

Currently watching Freak Like Me, a programme about people with odd habits. They've just had a girly-looking nineteen-year-old man who ( Read more... )

OK, OK, this is a little premature. I have written less than 1000 words so far today. The last sentence was largely about the importance of Brylcreem, or the 1939 German equivalent, or whatever substitute they used. (I'm leaving little points of research until after I've finished - otherwise how would I know what questions I need to ask, what I ( Read more... )