Fear of the blank page and other ongoing concerns...

Hello blog. Hello world. Hello handful of compassionate, kindly personages who read this as their good deed for the day/week/year...

It's been a while but let's not dwell on the past, let us look to the future...

...and the sword of Damocles which is the 50,000 words of NaNoWriMo threatening to crush me beneath the weight of failure.

Every October I consider whether or not NaNoWriMo is going to govern my existence for the following month and every year I succumb to its fiendish charms... Damn you NaNo, with your allure of domestic avoidance, ungoverned and wildly spirited words and the opportunity to put whatever I'm meant to be editing on hold and have a wild verbose affair with something exciting and new.

I normally love and equally curse you NaNo...
But... this year I am using you for my own ends; twisting you beneath the whip of my desires and I'm going to use your word count demands to crush my necessary novel re-write beneath your spreading chair bound arse! (Yes I said arse not ass... I know it sounds horribly English, but every time I write ass I feel like I'm doing a bad impression of an accent and implying I'm more hardass than I am... Damn...)

I realised about three months ago that the much ignored second draft of one of my first books no longer needed editing - it was way beyond that. I mean, it was kinda shapeless and its weight distribution was all over the place... if editing is cosmetic improvement then this draft needed to be taken to a lab powered by lightning, where my helpful assistant, (let's not say beautiful, he's kinda lumpen like the draft), Igor, would cut off every appendage and replace them with parts of better books. Levers would be thrown on a stormy night and "It's alive! IT'S ALIVE! WaaaHaaaHAAAHAAAARRR!" type thing would occur.

But rewrites are hard. And demoralising and they kinda make you feel like a teenager scuffing your Converse and groaning about it not being fair and but I've already done it once and why do you hate me so much! I wish I'd never written you in the first place!

*cough*

But it needs to be done.
So I'm trying to suck it up and get on with it and if I'm going to have to substantially rewrite this creature of mine, then I'm going to use one of the best motivation tools the internet and writing world has ever birthed and I'm going to have fun, (and alcohol and junk food and not shower or clean myself, the house, the cat or the husband), for thirty days whilst doing it!

YYYAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR! (Battle cry whilst holding a plastic sword in pajamas and over stimulated by tea).

So... she says looking sideways at the bloody misshaped manuscript lying wet on the operating/dinner table...

Wow, I'm really behind on Pretty Little Liars and it's kinda research and inspiring...
(Note to husband: please remove fuse from TV whilst out. x)

Writing cheques with my mouth that my mouse can't cash...

Have I experienced a blow to the head? Taken the wrong meds and am suffering from poor judgement? Who knows quite what made me decide to do it, but I've signed up for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month.

During November, despite having a full time job which will be effected by the approaching mania of the festive season; a husband who is, to be fair, fairly low-maintenance; a cat who delights in waking us between 2am and 6am at least once every night and a mildly interesting social life, I will attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days, approximately 1,666.6 words a day....

Admittedly I have two weeks off at the start of the month so there is the opportunity to bulk up the word count to save my own neck later in the month...

But the anniversary edition of Halo and the new Assassin's Creed: Revelations games come out on the 15th of November!!!

Forgot about that when I signed up.

Bugger...

Step away from the Xbox and put down the lipstick...

Right now I’m at home with the cat, Marla Singer, for company and I’m sitting around in mis-matched clothes contemplating making scrambled eggs and coffee for brunch, ignoring the dusting, the list of incomplete projects, the scripting/writing I should be doing and the large mouse like chunks of cat hair littering the house...and yet I feel like a domestic goddess... Why, you ask, when my house is clearly in a shambles and the How Clean Is Your House ladies would be freaking out in an OCD-like fit?

I feel like a domestic goddess because I’m wearing red lipstick.

You may be wondering if you’re reading the right blog, if some how the http links have frelled up somehow and instead of reading about writing, comics, books, cats and movies, you’ve stumbled upon some a blog about make up and domesticity... Well, you’re in the right place, I’m just feeling a little girlier than normal and I only have a book to blame.

I’ve just finished reading The Girls’ Guide To Homemaking (TG’GTH, amazing! It sounds orc-ish!) by Amy Bratley, a fiction title which is just positively endearing and not the kind of thing that I usually read at all. Tending towards fantasy and horror, I usually think I’m onto a winner if I pick up a book and there’s a map in the front. I mean seriously, if you write a fantasy title and there’s no Road to go ever on and on, or even worse no map to lead the way for both characters and reader...well, you might as well just start again or write a different genre...

**clears throat**

Sorry, distracted there. To come to the point, that’s what I usually read and every now and then I like a literary palate cleanser, something well written and girlie like Alice Hoffman or Sarah Addison Allen, or something completely trashy... I wasn’t sure where TG’GTH fell when I started reading it but quite soon I realised that it is a thing of beauty. Full of heartbreak, complicated relationships, moving house, ignoring housework, cupcakes and accidentally sleeping with the wrong people, this title raises the bar by being crafty and by that I mean it’s full of women who make things. Being a closet crafter myself (I probably have at least a hundred ongoing craft projects hidden in said closet, the spare room and under my desk) it was exhilarating to read a fiction book that shared the excitement of crafting, had craft groups and women who were making a living from making things that they themselves loved. But the icing on the cake was that a great deal of the domestic advice and craft ideas, recipes and cocktails sprinkled through out the book all came from titles published between 1951 and 1975, predominantly from the fifties. With that and a real love of vintage and retro in the story, it’s hardly surprising that the women keep donning bright red lipstick, vintage dresses and just looking wonderful.

At the end of the book, feeling uplifted by the story, the carry on carrying on attitude and the natural women making the most of what they had, I felt inspired to find the pillar box red lipstick I bought on a whim about two years ago...

And suddenly everything was all right in the world.

I may look more Robert Smith than Dita Von Teese, Tim Curry than Marilyn Monroe, but I feel like I could take on the world, whilst drinking cocktails! And best of all, everything seems suddenly more fun! It may be the two cups of coffee I’ve had, when I haven’t drunk coffee for ages; it may be listening to Nerina Pallot (the girliest music I own! And When Did I Become Such A Bitch is the best music for first thing in the morning!) VERY LOUDLY whilst dancing around the kitchen like I’m having a fit, but wearing red lipstick makes me feel like I can do what-ever I want. It makes me feel confident and gorgeous. It makes me feel like I CAN DO ANYTHING. It makes me want COCKTAILS! I know I would look amazing whilst washing up, but red lipstick makes it okay to ignore it! I am independent, I am fabulous, I am going to spend the afternoon playing Dragon Age and kicking ass!

Oh God. Red lipstick could end the world as we know it... Do they have a shade called Pandora’s Box?