General musings and a bit of an update....

Sorry for the un-inventive title, but my brain is a bit frazzled!!

Anyway, this blog post really is just a general catch-up, so feel free not to read any further if you don't want to ;).

So, I'm still in China - woo! Trust me, this is quite a big achievement for me - only two weeks ago I was *this* close to booking my plane ticket home. I missed the Other half, I missed my family, I missed my friends and, dear God, how I've missed the food back in England!! I am doing my very best to try and fit into the culture here and I'm determined to see this through to end, but I'm not gonna lie - I think this is going to be very tough for me, especially in December when it's my birthday and Christmas. But I have cheered up over the past few days - mainly because the Other Half came to visit me in Beijing! He was in China on business, so I saw him for a few days before he flew down South, and we had a lovely weekend together before he flew back home to England this morning. After he left, I found this amazing bookshop/cafe in the centre of town - I literally spent the whole day in there, and I'm not joking when I say I think that's where I'll be spending a majority of my Sundays from now on!!

But getting out of the flat this weekend really made me realise that I don't want to sit around moping and counting down the hours/minutes til I can go home. I have 13 weeks left of teaching time - I may have mentioned before that I only actually teach for an hour and a half a day, which means I have A LOT of free time on my hands (to be honest, I think this is part of the problem - I don't know about you, but when I have free time and nothing to do, my mind starts to wander, and then I start to worry about, well, everything....). So I have decided to do something constructive with my time. Once again, I am going to attempt to finish a first draft of my novel.

I know I've said this before. I know I'll probably fail again. But luckily for me, NaNoWriMo is coming up too, and I am hoping that that, combined with the fact that I now know an awesome place where I can get out of my flat/head for a bit and do some serious writing (see the aforemetioned book shop), means that I will be able tog et some serious writing done, and do something constructive, during my time here. I'm going to find a timeline to put on this blog RIGHT NOW, to motivate me!!

So how about you? What are your writing goals for the rest of the year? And does anyone know that if you've been kicked out of IWSG once, if you can join again...? I want to be properly serious about joining this time! Any info would be greatly appreciated!