baby steps
A strange week, this one just ending.
I went back to the gym on Monday, and had a nice gentle leg workout, then an arms and shoulders set that was a nightmare: I had to drop weights repeatedly, couldn’t keep the form right, straiiiiiinnnned at each rep, and was convinced that I’d be unable to lift my arms come Monday morning.
You know how this story turns out, right? The arms didn’t have so much as an ache, whilst, by Tuesday night, the legs were tired and sore. Weird.
I worked from Home Wednesday - a combination of being fed up schlepping in to the office only to have not much to do, and of wanting the opportunity to sort out the house - the clutter and post-Christmas tidying up of which has been getting me way down.
Again, you know how this one ends up: I cleared a lot of clutter up; physical clutter as well as mental - the shredder got a full workout, and the box file filled, nay, stuffed with disorganised and chaotic paperwork was thinned out. I still want to scan a years worth of payslips so they can be shredded and I can get a step nearer to being paperless, but just tidying things up and knowing, for instance, that my home insurance, and car insurance come up for renewal in Feb, that my home alarm is due for a service before March, and that I don’t actually have that much in the way of stuff going on, seemed to lift a huge weight off my shoulders. I feel like I’m a little more in control of my life.
And of course, work got, well, busy. On the day I don’t go in ‘cos there’s not much happening, the queries and issues and ‘can you write this up?’ and ‘We should talk to so-and-so and ask them to explain this’ came mushrooming out of the ether. Which is all good, ‘cos I’ve got some stuff to get my teeth into.
But what I feel like I haven’t been getting my teeth into is the writing. We’re halfway through the month now, and not a lot has been written. I’ve got an already written novel that exists on paper form - half of the e-copy having long been lost on some hard drive somewhere - and I want to transfer the missing part to my computer so that I can do a final draft and properly save it for once and for all. That’s not so much writing as typing, as Vidal once said of Capote (That’s Gore, not Sassoon, and Truman, not Al. Oh wait….), but it would be an achievement.
The new novel - the gay cosy mystery - is coming along nicely on the plotting front. I know who my killer is; I know who my first, second and third victims will be, and the rationale behind their deaths; My detective, his sidekick and several of the subsidiary characters are all nicely sketched, as are some of the secondary villains (the ‘mystery’ killer being the principal one, but the secondary ones being a bit more obvious, and designed to help me add pressure to my nice detective) ; I have my ‘pressure points’ (the bits where the pressure is added), and I have an idea for two secondary plot story arcs, which are sort of romantic arcs, and are, consequently, causing me some problems, and I know the general theme behind the story, which should help me to fill in some plot holes as I progress. And I’m sort of ready - with a sketchy little roradmap - to just sit down and start the thing off!
Which, I guess, means that the writing isn’t coming along too badly - just that it’s in danger (as always happens) of turning into all Prep and very little writing. So this weekend, I need to finish the ‘Typing’ exercise, tidy the manuscript of what’s being referred to as “Suzy,” round our house, then sketch out enough of a roadmap to allow me to start just bloody writing “Diva.”
A second trip to the gym on Wednesday for a crazily intense Boxercise class has left me creaking like an old man today - and Oy! My Abs hurt soooo much.
I finished the Agatha Christie, read a few non-fiction (read: Writing) bits and pieces, and am now (after two days) halfway through Mark Gatiss’ Black Butterfly (on which I will withhold judgement until I’ve finished).
This weeks meals - still working on TFP approach - have included a glossy and tasty beef Guinness and red wine stew, some leftover creamy and intensely smoky-paprika’d Pork Stroganoff (which I will make again, and serve with really creamy mashed potato for a cream-laden overload), a Taramasalata and Pitta Lunch Salad, a Pasta with creamy Home made Walnut sauce and sliced ham, and toasted sausage sandwiches with Onion and Mustard sausages and a slick of hot Dijon and sweet Heinz Ketchup.
And you know what? I don’t think I need to go to the supermarket for much more than bread, milk and a couple of vegetables this week - we still have flesh in the freezer, eggs and chesses in the fridge, pasta, rice, so much good stuff (not counting the contents of the amazing basket that C+S came with last week), so paying that Home and Motor Insurance premiums may just be doable.
Yay!!!
Have a good one y’all