Sunny Cumbria and Feelin' Happy...

Happy Friday, everyone!

It's hard to believe that this time last week it was my last day at work. This week has absolutely flown by, but I've loved every minute of it. Last Saturday, I drove back home to Cumbria with a car full of clothes and I officially moved back in with my parents. All this week I've been helping dad on the farm (there's not much to do now that we only have five cows to milk and we let all the stirks – teenage calves – out in the fields on Wednesday, so there's only seven calves to feed now too), writing out and sending my wedding invitations, applying for jobs and generally helping out my parents. It's been bliss.

I don't know if it's the fact that I'm finally home after eight years away, or the unseasonably good weather, or the beauty of the Lakes or the fact that I'm back with my family, but I just feel so...happy.

Who wouldn't feel happy waking up to this every day?

It's like a balm has been applied to my soul – I can feel something deep inside me healing, something that I didn't know needed to be healed until now. I feel like, for once, I'm exactly where I should be at this moment in time.

Bringing in our small herd for milking

Every time I wake up in the morning, I'm filled with a sense of wonder and excitement and gratitude (the gratitude is for my parents for letting me and the Engineer stay with them for a while until we find our feet – thank you mother bear and father bear!). Every time I go for the cows, or check the stock, or walk the dog, I look around in amazement – I found myself simply staring at the fells this morning when I went to check on the cows – it's almost as if I'm trying to drink in as much as possible, like I'm afraid one day I'll wake up the fells and lakes won't be there anymore (which is understandable, seeing as how I've lived away from home for the past eight years).

The stirks we let out in the fields this week

Like I said, this week I've managed to send out all my wedding invitations, which feels like a good job done, and I've managed to pick up a couple of shifts in the local cafe, which means I don't have to worry quite so much about money. I may not have found a full time job yet – but far from the crippling anxiety and fear I was feeling in Norfolk over this prospect, now I feel much calmer – what will be, will be, and I know something will come along eventually. In fact, I was just reflecting on this as I walked Bess around the village this morning; when I came back I got the post from the post box, and there was a letter inviting me for an interview for a job I applied for last week. So you see, the power of positive thinking :).

Also spending my time looking after this little menace!

The parents are away this weekend in London, so it's up to me to look after the farm while they're gone. Hopefully the good weather will last, so me and The Engineer can do some exploring when we're not milking!

Have a great weekend, folks!

Have you ever felt like things are gradually falling into place, or that you're exactly where you should be in life? Have you ever been to the Lakes? How's the weather with you?

Rewriting, rewriting, rewriting...

So since it's a Sunday night and I'm sleepy and all I want to do is curl up with my book in bed, I've decided just to do a short post while I remember.

Following on from my IWSG post on Weds, I stumbled across this post by Nova Ren Suma, and it could not explain more accurately how I feel about my writing right now. All I've been dreaming of the last few weeks is having a glorious block of time where I can blissfully write - no job to worry about, no chores to do, the house would somehow miraculously cleans itself, and I'd magically have the inspiration necessary to power on through my rewrites.

Unfortunately, the lesson that this novel seems to be teaching me at the minute is that I can dream all I want - but this book is never going to get written without me actually, y'know, writing.

It's hard. It's so hard trying to juggle this little thing called life with writing a novel, but ultimately I believe it's worth it. If I didn't, I wouldn't be blogging right now. I wouldn't have spent my Sunday afternoon rewriting a single scene. I wouldn't spend my car journeys to work thinking up pieces of dialogues between my characters. I wouldn't be scribbling almost illegible notes while I'm half asleep in bed, because it appears inspiration likes to come along and knock REALLY LOUDLY when you're on the verge of sleep.

The piece of advice I'm going to take away from Nova's post for this month is the idea of momentum. I'm still going to try and finish my rewrites during November and this week, I'm going to be trying out a couple of new things that I hope will mean less distractions and more writing i.e. not coming home straight after work, listening to music (but not having a huge playlist that means I spend more time changing the song than I do writing), keeping my novel open on my laptop. But most of all, no matter how many, or how few, words I write, I will try to write every day. Because the only way I am going to get through this is to keep going, one word at a time.

How about you? What methods have you got to keep yourself writing?

Just keep swimming...I mean, writing...

So it's week 3 of NaNoWriMo - where has the time gone?!

I was actually fully expecting that I'd give up again this year, and that I'd only make it to 1,000 words again - but to my surprise, I'm still so enthusiastic about writing my novel! I'm currently on just over 30,000 words, which I have to admit, I'm quite proud of! If this was a normal November, I wouldn't be so far ahead, by the way - my sister is coming to visit me next Friday for a week, which means essentially, I've only got this week to get to 50,000 words!

I'm aiming to get at least another 5,000 written today - although I'm feeling a tiny bit worse for wear today, as I went out with my colleagues last night! I guess that's spirit of NaNoWriMo - writing when you'd really rather just laze around watching films and sleeping!

I do still have some major insecurities about my novel - but NaNoWriMo has made me seriously think about how I write, and I've had some revelations over the past few weeks.

When I used to start writing a novel before (note: start and never finish), everything I wrote had to be perfect, first time. But now, I'm slowly beginning to accept that nothing I write will be 'perfect' the first time I write it - whereas before NaNoWriMo I would've spent hours choosing the perfect word for a sentence, or desperately trying to think up of a new scene, or feel like crying over the thought of finishing my novel, only to have to go back and revise and write yet ANOTHER draft - now, none of that seems to bother me so much. If anything, I'm actually looking forward to December when I can edit and rewrite my novel!

Although I have the main plot points in my novel planned out, there are still large portions of it where I have no idea how the characters are going to get to A to B, or how one plot point will lead to the next. But for once, I'm not that worried. I know I'll figure it all out in the end, and I'm so looking forward to discovering new things about my novel as I write. For once, I can actually imagine my novel as a complete, shiny, finished product - and I can't wait to get there! All I have to have is a little patience and determination (and tea...let's not forget the tea).

So here's to the next 20,000 words! Roll on next week - and December!

How about you? How's your writing coming on this month :)?

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!

Ah, sunny Sundays...

I feel like what with the weather getting warmer, I should be outside doing something active...instead I've spent all day inside in my hole, reading and watching TV.... occasionally taking breaks to see what's happening on Twitter/the blogosphere/shutting the curtains so the light doesn't interfere with the TV screen....

I've also added a few more notes to the story idea I wrote about yesterday...it seems as though I can go ages without thinking about it, but then I'll randomly start wondering how the story is going to unfold, and what this character will look like and what that other character will say in this particular scene etc etc...I actually have to force myself to STOP thinking about it, because I don't want to get too distracted from my other stories/coursework! I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out though...it might, just might be the beginning of a brand new series...but we'll have to wait and see...

What about you? Have you ever thought of a story idea and had to actually stop thinking about it, because you've got too much to think about already??

Also, I have an exciting announcement to make this evening...tune in later when I'll be revealing the author for my first ever Authonomy interview :)! Eek, so excited to be saying this :)!! I shall reveal all later....

xx