Lilli

A quick post about our pup Lilli.

Lilli continues to grow and is now getting close to adult size.One of her favourite things is the time almost everyday when we take her down to a local cricket ground so she can play with other dogs and chase her balls.

A lab running with a ball, the epitome of happy?

As you know Labradors have really floppy ears.

A bit more dignified.

But then Lilli's latest trick trying to catch the ball when Lu throws it straight up.

Dang Missed!

And again!

By the way the train in the background is the one I do my writing on to and from work.

A Milestone (of Sorts)

My progress on my WIP continues to move along, although not as quickly as I would like. As you may know I have been working long hours recently tidying up to leave my previous job in good order and now trying to get on top of my new job as quickly as possible.

At the moment I am up at 5:30am and on the train as soon as I can get to the station. Then I am usually home late and hit the sack about an hour or two after I stagger in the door. This doesn't leave much time for anything during the week.

This has meant some things have had to slip a bit. First I have become really slack at responding to your comments on my blog, I promise I will fix this as soon as things ease up a bit.
Second I am not visiting as many of your blogs as I would like and even when I do I tend to lurk without commenting.

Part of my long day is a commute of over an hour at each end. This is normally a blessing in disguise because it gives me time to write. I'm still managing an hour of writing time most mornings. Unfortunately things haven't been as good in the evenings, with long days I have tended to sit vacantly staring at my PC screen through sheer exhaustion, plus if I leave late the train is usually crowded so I often don't get a seat for the first half of the trip.

Now that is my whining for tonight. Because despite all that I have still reached a milestone. I am provisionally saying I have finished writing my first draft of my WIP.

Relaxing Photo Break

Freycinet Penninsula (Tasmania) in evening light

Why provisionally? Well I'm cheating a bit, as I have said before I am writing each stream of POV separately with the aim of weaving them together afterwards. Well I have reached the 'afterwards' bit. Most of my narrators have finished their stories. The ones that haven't are waiting impatiently on me. If the text I have slides together nicely some of my narrators will add a few comments and I'll move on to thinking about a second draft.

But, and this is a big but, I suspect that as I go I will likely have to adjust some strands to get them to even vaguely fit. And there is some background material for some characters that I don't think I will have to flesh out if the piece sits nicely as a whole.

I hope all this is making sense. Any way apart from some frustration about hours in the day it is going well.

So what about you? Have you ever had times when your life felt like it wasn't your own?

Gratuitous Rainforest Fungi Shot

The Wonders of Commuting.

Well I am still going into the city by train everyday.

An hour on the train each way seemed pretty daunting at the start. But if you remember I got myself a Netbook and now I write on the train.
Now to be sure Melbourne’s train system is old and falling apart at the seams. Last week my 1 hour trip turned into 2½ hours on the train due to a signal fault. Normally I’d be steamed about such a delay but I just took it in my stride and thought “More writing time.”

All this time on the train is doing wonders for my WIP Veiled in Storms. As well as the sections I have posted about Valentina and Ronnie I have written tens of thousands of other words.

I am now past 80,000 words on my first draft which is about two thirds of my target. Most days I am adding 600 – 1,000 words. If I keep steaming at my current rate I will finish my first draft in another month or two!

Now a first draft is a long way from a finished novel, but this feels amazing. I’m working full time, getting out and about on the weekends and blogging (although I must say I don’t spend nearly enough time visiting other blogs) and the book is progressing!

The only hole in all of this is I have been largely neglecting promotion of my first novel Veiled in Shadows, and with me being my marketing campaign nothing is happening. Ah well you can’t have it all.

SO how about you. How is your writing going? How do you manage to fit it all in?


Now a photo from my archive: Wilson's Promontory after the 2009 bush fires

Emma, India, and Dawn Starts

You are going to have to excuse me but I am in a rambling mood tonight.

One of the things that is nice about the work I do is that there are early starts. And no before you all say “is he mad?” I do not enjoy getting up at 5:00am any more than the next person (except of course this has the big plus that my commute time is less than half what it would be if I was going in at more normal hours).

The nice thing is the early finish and time in the afternoon and evening, this gives me the opportunity for all sorts of pursuits.

Often they are mundane, like hanging out a load of washing or mowing the lawn.
But as often as not I am able to use the time more creatively. Last week for example I went exploring with my youngest.

Yesterday, I worked on formatting my book before the house got busy in the evening.
Tonight I am in a culinary frame of mind. I am putting the time to cooking a decent curry. Oddly (or perhaps not oddly in this day and age) although I am an Aussie I also have a large chunk of Indian Heritage . My father’s family took a rather long (over 150 years) detour via India on the way to Australia.

As a total by-the-by, if you ever walk through Russell Chowk in Jabalpur a city in Madhya Pradesh India, you are close to some of my family history. If you do a Google you might discover that the Chowk (square) is named after Bertrand Russell, but in fact it isn’t. It was named for one of my ancestors considerably before Bertrand was famous. But that is another story, one I might put into a book… someday.

In the spirit of rambling I am going to jump to an entirely different topic. On Saturday as is our wont we went for a drive. This time we struck out along a road we haven’t used before though Arthur’s Creek. Up on a hill before you reach the village is an old cemetery.
I love cemeteries, they are such a vivid store of the culture of their time. Such a prompt for imagination.

This grave for example speaks of a tragedy, a young woman burying a much loved husband. Clearly at the time Emma, no doubt in love and grief stricken at the loss of her Harry could not imagine resting anywhere else. She has bought a double plot so one day she could sleep alongside her dear one.
Yet a hundred years later there is no sign that she was laid here. No headstone for Emma here.
What happened, the writer in me wonders. As her grief passed did she come to love another? Does she now rest alongside a second husband?
Who knows, but my mind races away across the valley below, thinking of other stories that perhaps one day I could write.Too many books not enough years.

Bless you Emma, I hope the rest of your years were joy filled.