Two Weeks Of This!

From having three weeks of mornings at school, including lunch, my son has now changed to two weeks of going to school in the afternoons. For two hours! He used to do three hours at preschool.

I don't even get two hours by the time I've walked home, then left the house again later to go collect them.

So today, I thought I'd get a blog post in and give an update on my writing progress so far. (I've been a bit slack lately). I'm not sure I've got enough time to get stuck into anything else... not without forgetting about the kids! (I usually set the kitchen timer as a reminder).

Where am I with The Wedding Favour then ... Well, I thought it was ready, but now I've got my two betas going through it chapter by chapter, I am seeing some faults in my writing.

I like to stage direct - a lot! And I like to speech tag too much.

I'm a good speech tagger in that I use the word 'said' and not try to avoid it at all costs with fancy alternatives. But there are places where I'm over tagging or putting in pieces of action/movements - beats as Self Editing For Fiction Writers call it - which are slowing down the pace of the story. Beats are good. Too many of them, however, are not. 

Once I thin those things out, generally, it is ready. I will be glad to see the back of it.

I can't do much until Kieran is in school full time with his brother. I'm happy to work my evenings. I'm used to do that; I gave up TV a long time ago. So I'm going to chip away, take my time and polish it before I send it out. (My aim is Christmas.) I really want to do my best with this story, and I always thought, it being my first novel, it would be my 'test' or 'practise run'.

Again, I get impatient. I want to get my writing career rolling, start earning some money from it. I know you shouldn't write to just earn money (read that somewhere). And I don't. I love writing, and if someone told me I'd never make money from it, then it will go back to being my little hobby... which takes over my life.

But writing has opened up so much to me. My life is not boring. I hear mums in the playground desperate to find a little job or something now that their kids are all at school. Not me! I love being a mum, a housewife and having the time to cook decent dinners, bake cakes etc. Okay - sometimes housework gets in the way when all I want to do is write!

It would be nice to make a career out of writing ... so I don't have to go do one of those dreaded day jobs, especially when the kids are older and don't need me at home, because they used to bore me senseless before. Been there, got that T-shirt. 

For the first time in my life I've found what I want to do - as well as be a mum.

And now, before I collect the kids, I'm off to Amazon. I need to spend my gift certificate I won from Talli Roland for participating in her Watching Willow Watts launch party with my blog post If I Could Be Anyone, I'd Be... Obviously, I've already purchased Talli's new book!