April has been a mixed month for me, writingwise. The Easter holidays and a whole lot of personal stuff smashed into me, to the point where I stopped, reassessed, and changed my plan. Instead of getting stressed of my week of no writing, I counted out how many weekdays I had left of April, and bumped up my daily goal to 1200 words. Sorted!

As predicted, though (and not properly prepared for) I’ve been finding it hard to get back into the swing of my book. What I really need is a spare fortnight or so to read through the thing and think my way into it slowly, but, you know, I took a month off. I have so little available writing time (and less each week, the baby is tapering off on naps, damn it!) that I have to have precise, small, achievable goals and keep them up regularly or the whole thing will fall apart.

That said, today is the first day this week that I didn’t make my word count. I spent the morning at Pilates (which I am loving in a freaky sell-the-concept-to-your-friends kind of way), came back to deal with the baby, and when I finally sat down to write, I struggled to get any words down. I gave up just short of 400, utterly bored with my book and myself. And you know, that was it, my one chance for the day. School pick up and parenting took over.

But you know, no excuses I need to prepare more for Thursdays, obviously. Need to do more of that ‘pre-scening’ our Richard talks about, so that when I get my single hour at the computer I can actually produce the goods.

I’m starting to suspect that this book will in fact be looooonger than the other two, and that’s going to affect my scheduling too.

So tomorrow is a day of write-write-write. It’s a very long time since I’ve managed 2000 words in a day, but it’s well past time I kicked myself up a gear or two. If I write hard and fast enough, I might even be able to reward myself with a battle scene. A sex scene might be more enticing, but you take what you can get!

The week has brought me lots of other good ‘pretend you’re a real writer’y goodness. I was finally able to release the cover art from Power and Majesty to the internet, and was asked for suggestions for the cover of book two (eeee book TWO). I had to come up with a last minute revision to deal with a possible glitch (or at least annoyingly unexplained detail) from my early chapters, which required getting my head inside that book again, while holding a baby on my hip. I was asked to contemplate alternate titles for the last two books – heh I really didn’t think I was going to get away with my Doctor Who homage with ‘Cabaret of Monsters’ but it was so worth a try.

The edits for book 2 will be heading my way at some point in the next couple of months. Time to get book 3 WRITTEN so I can get on with, you know, making it better. One step at a time.

I should be jubilant, but I’m too busy being sad about the result of the last Arsenal game – we beat Stoke 3-1, but it was poor compensation for the horrific injury that Aaron Ramsey received. He’s a nineteen year old Welsh player who has been doing so well for the first half of our season, and had (hopefully still has) a brilliant football career ahead of him, and one nasty tackle has left him with a leg so badly broken that it could be a year or longer before he’s back. Devastating for him, for the players, and for the fans.

I wasn’t around for the Eduardo smash, which happened before I became a rabid Gooner, but I’ve seen how important his return and recovery was to the other fans and players. Having this happen again, and to the adorable baby-faced Welsh one, is gutting. I feel particularly bad that I’ve been joking too much lately about the Arsenal tendency towards injuries. Really not funny this morning. Here’s hoping it’s not as bad as it looked (it um, looked pretty bad, apparently… I couldn’t bear to watch the video, but apparently there were no replays on the feeds because it was so awful). The poor kid has a long road of recovery ahead.

For less depressing sports news, how awesome is Kelly Kulick? This is the first woman to win a men’s Professional Bowlers Association Tour title in the US. Women making it at the pro men’s level of sports is a rare and wonderful thing, and Kelly has been all but ignored in the sporting media. Is it because she’s female? Is it because bowling isn’t regarded as a legitimate sport?

It’s worth reading the whole article, because these questions are asked and some answers are found, particularly when it comes to gender bias. Particularly charming is the sportswriter who says: “Rule No. 1 in determining whether an activity is a sport: If the best female in the world can beat the best male in the world, it doesn’t qualify.”

Niiiiice. So Kelly Kulick is singlehandedly responsible for ensuring bowling doesn’t count as a sport? Or maybe, just maybe, there’s something else going on there.

In other news, I am totally buying my daughter soccer boots this week. She’s 21 days too young to be allowed to play school soccer, damn it, damn it, but we’re going to do the best we can to keep up her interest until she is allowed to play. One long year away. Hopefully the soccer boot shop has pink ones – if it’s good enough for Nicky Bendtner, it’s good enough for Raeli!

I got halfway through the ms in a few solid hours, but was struck by the desperate need to move around and be active – this, coupled with the incursion of ANTS ANTS into the dining room which I usually work in, led to a mass tidying of over and under the dining room table, in order to clear space for Robie the Robot to do his vacuuming thing.

The good news is that my cleaning frenzy did throw up the copy of Power of the Daleks (I am so obsessed with old Doctor Who right now, I know my everyday state is ‘mildly obsessed’ but I’m in an active state right now, I suppose the obsessive bookbuying had to go somewhere) I had borrowed from the library and promptly lost. Still haven’t found our much-renewed library copy of Maisie Eats Lunch or whatever the hell it’s called, though.

I took advantage of the lack of sunshine to play soccer with Raeli! As part of my plan to incorporate more activity into my daily life, I promised her blithely that I would play soccer with her “every evening” which, I’m sorry to say, has led to far more “but you promised!” moments this week than is healthy for our relationship. Though you know, I *did* promise, and when she says that, I do haul myself outside to kick some goals with her. I love sporty Raeli! She’s so gung ho! She didn’t even blink when I accidentally kicked her in the face with the ball (I’m not good at this! I’m trying!) but then sadly came a cropper, tripping flat on her face. I had told her pink gumboots weren’t the most appropriate footwear, but she insisted. Possibly the fact that my own soccer kit is bright pink pyjamas and black leather boots compromised my believability.

Anyway. Only halfway through the manuscript. I was hoping to finish today! But on the bright side I do have a tidy dining room, a tired daughter and sore feet. Hooray!

I’m happy with the book. I’ve addressed all the things that I thought were a problem from the first draft, and it’s basically as good as I can get it on my own, which is exactly where you want to be when it comes to submitting an ms to the publisher. Hopefully my editor (please let them give me Nicola again!) will find a whole bunch of new things, and I’ll have a nice break between then and now so as to be open to the needs of the structural edit.

Not yet, though. Not yet!

This is a big deal for me. Looking back over old posts, I wrote 90K of the book during the latter half of my pregnancy, and hit the 100K mark before Jem was two months old. I finished the draft somewhere between her being 10 and 12 weeks old. (seriously?? I wrote a comment on Lauren McLaughlin’s guest post the other day claiming that I hadn’t done much in the way of writing for the first 3 months of my baby’s life – how can I have forgotten this so soon??)

This is the first time I have written anything with a 0-6 month old baby to take care of, let alone a novel with a real publisher deadline! When Raeli was a baby, I retired my novel for most of the year, and only started back on my thesis when she was 6 (cough, 9) months old.

My life has changed and changed and changed again over the last six months. Jem sleeps through the night (from midnight to six, anyway, meaning I get a decent chunk of sleep), Raeli is back at school (FIVE days a week), and Jem has two half days in daycare a week. Working has gone from a struggle to being something that is – possible, simply possible, most days.

So yes, I can do it, apparently. The Mama Writer thing. Now I get a whole blissful month to catch up on my life. I want to work on long-neglected projects, hang out with my baby, read, throw as much crap out of the house as possible (I gave two bags of baby clothes to the Salvos today!), get myself organised for regular exercise, and of course let Book #3 percolate merrily in the background of my brain.

I never used to be the kind of writer who had ‘book writing’ months and ‘fallow’ months – but then I never used to be the kind of writer who could produce 20-50K a month, either. This way is better for my life now: working months and slightly less working months. I look forward not only to my month “off” in March, but also to returning to the writing routine I have found sanest when I go back to the Creature Court in April – 20,000 words a month, and no writing on weekends. Oh, luxury!

I’ve been planning out my year a bit, too. Grants to apply for, a trilogy to finish, and proposals for The Next Thing to work out (Nancy Napoleon novels? Shakespearian necromancers? Emo-goth fairy godmothers?).

Interesting times, in the best possible way.

Nine scenes to edit, one document to collate, eleventy zillion chapter headings to create, one novel to proof, four days to go.

I can totally do this.

Also, so far, staving off stomach bug. Wobbly, but not beaten.

I’m up to the last few scenes, the ones I was most worried about, the ones that have been quite deliberately left until last. And I’m finding that leaving them until last was the best possible decision, as it is allowing me to seed earlier a pretty major revelation that only came upon me when I wrote the final scene of the first draft.

Themes, themes!

I’m starting to get enthusiastic about Book 3. There is obviously no hope for me at all!

While I am picking up my darling 6 month old from daycare, check out this great post by Lauren McLaughlin about the combination of babies and novel-writing, and how being a mother made her change her writing priorities.

All I can hope is that the insane numbers of antibiotics I am taking for the recurring throat infection from hell will be enough to keep the stomach bug at bay…

And oh yes, vomiting baby means one less daycare session this week than planned, possibly both if she’s still throwing up tomorrow.

I have 26 scenes left to edit, half of one to write from scratch, and then it’s hitting the export button on Scrivener to turn the ms into a real girl again, and reading through to check that it all makes a vague kind of sense. It should be doable in the time. If I don’t get struck down and spend the next week throwing up…

The doctor, on my second visit to see about the recurring throat infection (which is, we have since figured out, more in the way of a vicious but sneaky throat infection that laughs in the face of antibiotics) asked me if I was working harder than usual, or over-tiring myself. I just sort of looked at him with my head tilted on one side. Honestly, how would I tell?

Nearly there, nearly there. March is a month of milk and honey, of podcasts and blueberries and novel-reading and quilting and resting my brain in preparation for the novel to come: the dread Book Three, which I will be attacking in April.

All I have to do is survive to the end of the week, and everything’s going to be Fine.

Raeli and I are constructing a paper theatre, themed around the Nutcracker Ballet. I have been taking pics for photoblogging later, but for right now it’s a fun activity that we have been doing in fits and starts all week. Her glueing skills are truly impressive – I have the answer to what they’ve been doing at that school! Despite Kaaron and Margo’s fears, we have not yet been eaten by the demon that lives inside the Nutcracker doll. Possibly because we haven’t cut him out yet. Actually I’m not sure where he is…

The dread school holidays are at an end, and we have entered a new era: Raeli the school girl. No longer flirting with two days a week of kindergarten, she is now doing it hardcore, 5 days a week. She started in her new class yesterday and as we hoped, took to it like a duck to water. Ask me again how awesome it is to have a daughter who thrives in social and structured settings. Believe me, I don’t take this windfall lightly.

Meanwhile Jem is likewise thriving on her two half days a week of daycare. The main carer is lovely and genuinely fond of our girl (she is so the best behaved baby in the group – high five! baby five!) and Jem not only loves the playtime she gets there with other babies, but also sleeps and feeds well there.

Yep. Not taking that one for granted either. My working mother’s guilt has been halved if not quartered by the fact that my kids obviously benefit from having time in structured surroundings that have nothing to do with me. Hooray!

For the first time since Jem was born and the whole ‘oh that’s right, babies are hard work’ bubble burst directly over our heads, it feels like we are approaching sustainable normality.

Of course, once she starts crawling, it’s going to be a whole different kettle of fish. And then there’s the stress that sets in every time she readjusts to needing one less nap per day… but for right now, work can be achieved during short, frequent bursts of activity between the hours of 8:30 and 2:30. I’ll take it.

(oh and in case anyone missed it, Arsenal beat Liverpool in a long, unpretty but successful game this morning. After a truly awful week of football, this was a very cheering thing. Man U’s draw and the losses of Chelsea and Spurs only make it the sweeter… when I announced, 70 torturous minutes into the game, that we finally had a goal, Raeli replied “hooray, you and me have a goal!” She’s such a fair weather fan. When we’re losing, she barracks for the ref)

(I ate an entire schnitzel lunch one-handed today, because Jem wanted joggling. This is what the second parent is for!!)

Meanwhile, Edit Boot Camp brought me 46 scenes edited in 3 days (yes, the 46 shortest scenes, that’s not the point) as well as several new ones written. The total so far for Get Book Finished month is:

Not bad at all.

I read a chunk of Siren Beat at the Republic Bar today. It went well, though it was a smaller crowd than usual – the poets spurned us for a fancier gig! The girls held up remarkably well – Raeli had just got in from a four hour drive from her Nanna and Poppa’s house on the north west coast, and Jem is, well, a six month old baby. There were no screaming fits from either of them. Bonus.

I enjoyed reading the story – I’ve tried before (for a podcast) but felt overly selfconscious trying to find Nancy Napoleon’s voice. And then, you know, three weeks of throat infections. Today it just seemed to work, the right amount of deadpan, sarcasm and pathos. I managed to stop reading before I got to any of the smutty parts, which was a good call because blushing is embarrassing. Still, it was fun – maybe I can have another go at that podcast.

My favourite part was, after all my loving detail of teenage corpses, kraken invasion and character deaths, when I walked away from the microphone, Raeli announced in a loud clear voice: “That was a lovely story, Mummy.”

Yeah, it’s probably time I stopped assuming she’s not paying attention to grown up stuff, isn’t it…

We couldn’t stay for the second half of readings at the Republic, because my well-behaved baby was on the verge of falling apart, and there’s only so much luck-pushing one can, well, push. But it was a good afternoon.

2. The hardest thing about revising this manuscript (Book 2 of the Creature Court, Cabaret of Monsters, for those of you who have lost track) has been that although I knew generally that there was lots to be done, there was no real way of marking my progress for several months. This is no longer true. I am at the flat out working stage, I have 180 scenes in the book, and I have to revise 7 each day in order to meet my deadline. It’s a struggle, but it really helps to have a quota to hit each day instead of just stabbing in the dark.

3. I saw the first glimpse of my cover yesterday. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m very happy with the direction it’s going in. The most important frock in the book is being pictured!!!

4. We had a map drama today – do you have any idea how hard it is to proof a map? There is just so much information going on in it! Today I realised in horror that one of those details I’d been taking for granted (and thus not checked on recent versions) was now in the wrong place, and had a major panic attack until my honey fixed it with magical computer handwaviness. He is still juggling a new computer’s quirks (he’s had it less than 24 hours) and ended up having to redo the correction several times after the application kept closing down unexpectedly! Much deep breathing on my part.

5. I had to open my Nano doc for the first time since November and realised when I saw it that – HEY I have 50,000 words of my next novel already written. How awesome is that?

6. I’m still reading at the Republic Bar in North Hobart this Sunday from 3pm. Come, listen to me talking about tentacles, buy a copy of Siren Beat. You may even have a beer if you are very good. I am taking antibiotics for my re-occurring throat infection so let’s hope I don’t sound too much like Marlene Dietrich… oh, wait. That would be a good thing, right?

7. My honey is taking Raeli off on a grandparently visitation for TWO NIGHTS starting tomorrow. Yes that means I’m at home by myself with the baby, but more importantly it meants EDIT BOOT CAMP.

Watch this space. I’m going to be busy.

There had better be nothing imaginary about my February productivity. I’m setting myself up for success the best way I can. When I haven’t been able to work, I’ve been building up anti-guilt points, playing with Raeli and setting up activities for her so I don’t feel so bad about disappearing into my laptop in the coming month. My honey is taking off the last week of the school holidays, which means he can entertain her and do the quality time thing while I indulge in reckless abandonment.

And of course there was the other work, the stuff with more immediate deadlines – proofs on proofs, and the last stages of correcting and redoing the maps. Not that I was actually doing the maps, but the last couple of weeks meant several meetings with Mum – the maps themselves were gorgeous but we’ve been juggling the sizing of text and my honey had to come to the party with electronic support and corrections too, managing to save Mum a lot of re-drawing time!

Meanwhile I’ve been reading my book 2 and notetaking and playing with Scrivener, and essentially pre-rewriting. The big work is all going to be done in the last month, though. I’ve worked through the fear and the paralysis stage (don’t know where to start! so much to do! make write better aargh!) and now there’s just the good stuff to do. I’m actually looking forward to it. I can see the shape of the book it’s going to be, and it helps that I’ve spent chunks of January immersed in the minutiae of book 1 – it’s amazing what themes and quirks you can slip into a book without realising it, and it’s only by being forced to read it line by line that you find those clever bits that really need to be elaborated on in later books.

It’s a trilogy I’m writing here, not three books, and it really is the first time I’ve done that – Mocklore was three standalone books, only becoming a trilogy of sorts in the final hour (and besides the wench is dead). I always wanted each book to expand on the previous one, making the story bigger and wider and sometimes changing the way you read the early books – but I’ve lived with Book One for so long now that it’s hard to let it go.

Final proofs are final. It’s gone. No changing it now. Further in, further in!

I finished On Joanna Russ, which is wonderful and crunchy. I’m not going to do a proper review because it’s all academic and what is there to say but – it’s good, really good. My favourite articles were the ones by Gary Wolfe and Helen Merrick and Samuel Delaney, but I got something valuable out of each of them. Getting in touch with that critical, historical part of my brain is marvellous after so long – the end of my PhD left such a bad taste in my mouth that it feels awfully good to dip my toe into academic books again. The history of women’s science fiction was always my guilty pleasure at uni – I would borrow books on it when I was supposed to be reading Pliny or Catullus! I now have The Secret Feminist Cabal, Boneshaker and Lifelode vying for my full attention. (must not turn to Gossip Girl book…)

Anyone who may or may not have been hanging out for more ‘those crazy romans’ posts – I have a stack of DVDs waiting for me to tackle, but haven’t managed to watch any yet because of said school holidays. Somehow when it comes to Waybolu or Mister Maker vs. Demetrius and the Gladiators, I keep losing the vote. Funny that.

It’s  aifin‘s birthday tomorrow – we were going to go out to fancy dinner because we still had $100 voucher they gave us in hospital as part of the bribery package to make us leave early, so we sent Raeli away on a sleepover to Glammer’s house, but then decided it was far too fancy to drag a baby in with us. Jem is just a touch too old to be easy to manage in a restaurant, but we haven’t done the evening babysitting thing with her yet, so we’ll save the fancy dinner for another few weeks/months.

Instead I took the opportunity to duck into town (the luxury!) and buy some fabric, hunt down the special edition Watchmen DVD for my honey (not a spoiler, I gave it to him early so he could watch it tonight) and then swung by the docks to pick up fresh ingredients for Awesome Soup. Tonight’s awesome soup contained a chowder base, a fresh tail of tuna, chopped, plus scallops, prawns, and – those little clamlike things that start with V and were featured on Masterchef. Gah, vocabularyfail. (they are delicious)

Anyway, we ate it up with lots of bread and butter and champagne, and also ate our way through a carton of fresh pickled octopus. I then proved my love by creating an on-the-spot apricot crumble with fresh fruit friends have given us lately (it’s love-proving cos I hate apricots) and it turned out spectacular, if so sweet that we both gritted our teeth a bit towards the end (tooo much sugggar)

All this and I can spend tomorrow morning working! Or sleeping. Either are good choices! I think I will let Arsenal v. Man United decide. If they beat us, I am so having a sleep in. If we win, I will channel my joyous energy into an awesome battle scene.

COME ON GUNNERS

[EDIT: apparently the game is in fact not tonight at all, but tomorrow night. Which means I have to make a moral choice about the sleep in. Hmm. That's a tricky one.]