It's raining

I should be writing (I did do a few words this morning) but it's Sunday so I'm cooking a big family roast...in August. It's so dark we're having to put lights on, the rain on the conservatory roof is deafening and it's actually quite cold. As if by design, I've packed a few days with more excitement than I can handle. A lot of visitors on the 11-19th, the deadline for the editors contemplating buying my book - the consequence being that I will have a career as a writer...or not is the 16th. My daughter is moving house the same day - and her Dad can't go and help because he's here helping me with the above visitors and ready to congratulate/commiserate if necessary. At least her eldest brother is going to be there to help, and Sophie's moved so many times she's an expert. 


I need some quiet time on the 21st August, and usually the run up to it is painful. My daughter died that day and years later, my husband had a massive pulmonary embolism and nearly died, also on the 21st (he made an amazing and complete recovery. Hooray for warfarin). I have booked a few days gibbering and being hand-fed chunks of Galaxy chocolate when our visitors depart. Meanwhile, I need to get ahead on the final chapters.


I decided to change the order of the historical strand/contemporary strand and this means all the careful clues I laid down like breadcrumbs are now arse-about-face. So I'm rewriting them and writing a brand new first chapter to keep the sequence making some sense, but my feeling is it will need a lot of jiggling about. I'm hoping to get one good week's work in, then friends are coming for the weekend, then I have a couple of days before family arrive. I just need to focus. It would be easier if it wasn't raining, I'm more productive when I can see the keys and hear myself think...