Big edits!

Back to work meant back to The Secrets of Life and Death - which I haven't read since June. Looking at it, I was able to consolidate three pairs of chapters into single chapters, which works very well. I was also able to clarify the relationship between Edward Kelley and his mentor and master, Dee. Hopefully it will come across more consistently, now! It's strange that you can write and rewrite many times, and not see obvious mistakes...too close to it, I suspect. I've also ramped up a bit of the tension in a few places. I tend to throw away tense moments with a couple of terse lines. My narrator is possessed by a giant angel. Yeah yeah, one sentence. So I had to go back and imagine being possessed...yuk. Much more description now.

It's hard sitting down to work, but I'm making myself. It's strange, a month ago I was raring to go, but a break over solstice/Christmas has put me in a melancholy mood and I feel like I've lost the momentum that daily writing gives me. To get it back, I've set myself a word target on another book just to keep the imagination going and the fingers flying.

I did treat myself with Xmas money to a tablet. It's a 7" Google Nexus, and I'm having loads of fun with it. I have an assortment of notebooks I carry around with me, and scraps of paper all over the desk of bright ideas I had when travelling or away from home. Now I can put them all in one place, and it enables me to keep an eye on emails etc. as well as access to the internet when I'm away from the desk. I'm one of those restless people who can't just sit still and watch TV, I have to have a book as well, or be looking things up as ideas come to me. It must drive the husband mad, but I have turned the little clicks off... I need a Kindle as well, I'm suffering from shoulder ache from holding heavy books and folders all over December. Oh, well, back to work...