Forcing the words out

I've written 926 words today, in several goes. It's uphill at the moment, I can feel all the different distractions pulling at me. Kids at home, kids going back to university, putting Solstice/Christmas back in its boxes. I feel as if being patient/understanding/kind for a few weeks has left me with a backlog of selfishness backed up. I just want to jump up and down and shout 'but what about ME?'

My husband's got cancer, which is awful and scary and hopefully well on the way to being cured. He's got six incisions and has had to go back to the hospital twice, and I'm really sorry he's weak and tired. But there's a child in me that had a very hard holiday and worked extra hard to make it as good as it could be for everyone else. And yes, I really do know what a selfish cow that makes me sound like! But I put my life on hold once before for someone who was ill and it stretched out to eight years of uncertainty, false hope and eventual devastating loss. I've got baggage. 

So that's today. By tomorrow I hope to be back on my feet and serenely Zen about the fact that we are about to get THE RESULTS. We will be told whether the cancer has probably gone or not, and whether radiotherapy will help and when he will have to start having it. Again with the uncertainty... To make matters worse he wants to move house.

Excuse me while I jump and up down shrieking for a few moments.

The strange journey of research

I've solved the problem which was blocking me over book 3's historical strand. Not enough story, not enough reason to set out on an adventure that might very well kill my protagonist. So I looked up when John Dee met Emperor Rudolf II and stumbled across the Golem of Prague. Since my story is about the nature of life and the focus of book 3 is early Jewish mysticism... what a great find! This is why I do research, I'm not just ignoring the TV or the kids, I'm working on my book...

A golem is a clay figure brought to life by various rituals and the word of God, which only a few rabbis knew how to pronounce.

These creatures don't stay obedient and they have to be deactivated by the rabbi in most of the stories. There are fairy stories of children created from soil and even the gingerbread man, all with comical or disastrous consequences. Lots of opportunity for research and room for extra plot from me. I have to say, early Jewish mysticism is a vast subject and pretty fascinating.

Apart from that, life is starting to return to normal, with the kids starting to fly back to university. It would have been easier to write today had the electricity been on all day but the storms have created problems for the last few days. More storms are forecast. Apart from yesterday when I left the computer unplugged most of the day because the current was unreliable and lightning kept knocking it out, I'm managing my word counts. 1100 today, not massive but I have rewritten the whole of the first three chapters. More research coming up... 

Moving along with book 3

Well, getting back to writing is uphill but I managed more than 1300 new or recycled words yesterday. I love one of my characters, Marinello, a sea captain from Venice and a real wheeler dealer. I have a feeling my character Kelley has a crush on him - whenever I see him through Kelley's eyes he just seems larger than life, this time dallying with a nobleman's wife until she pierces one of his ears with a bodkin and puts one of her own earrings in it (causing some jealousy with her husband). Maybe we both have a bit of a crush... we certainly linger over his occasional nakedness. Those 1300 words required eight 'facts' from research though (thank the gods for the internet), no wonder it takes so long! It does make me realise how much detail could be tucked into book 2 to help with book 3. Jane Dee is coming to life as well, after being just a memory of Kelley's. Women are only casually referred to in his-tory, but Mrs Dee seems a remarkable lady. She married a man thirty years her senior and bore him seven children (one of them probably Kelley's despite being constantly loyal to Dee - long story. Read book 5.)  She was dragged all over Europe, with her husband spending every penny he earned on books and research, and ended up pretty well bankrupted and hanging on at the court of King James I. She was accounted 'a sweet and learned lady' - I think I would have become a complete nagging nightmare after being evicted (again) in debt from one country to another. I'm keen to show her as a resourceful and intelligent woman who was a great reader in her own right.

Old Year, New Year

The change feels like a really big thing this year. Behind - publication, fifth kid off to university, writing, Russ at Arvon on a sublime songwriting course, two cats dying, meeting new writers, cancer... Oh yes. I have hardly written a word since. So today I start again, finishing up a project (book 3) that I had really expected to finish months ago, and onwards and upwards with the ghost story. I'm having to go back to 'hobby writing' mode - fitting it around Russell's recovery somewhat. More importantly, it will clear the decks to write book 4 - a return to my archaeologist heroine, Sage, and a messing with the myths of Dartmoor.

So expect me to blog with word counts and a renewed focus on the writing. I realise I haven't blogged here for three weeks - I normally update my blog at least twice a week - and I need to be putting more stuff on my website too.

The publishing industry seems far away, which will help me write. If you are struggling with a project right now, finding it hard to focus, all I can suggest is what works for me. A static word count that I have to do, even if I suddenly remember I haven't done it at bedtime. Five hundred words minimum a day - aiming for a thousand. I have 30-35k words still to write on the historical strand so here I go. Day 0 - 924 words on setting out on a trip into one of the most colourful and vibrant and disputed parts of the world in 1586 - the eastern Mediterranean. Kelley and Dee are planning the journey from Prague to Venice - then off to Candia, Venetian Crete.

Sick and Tired

I've been reading a bit more, partly because I'm stalled on the writing. I stumbled across a delightful little book called The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier, and honestly, it cheered me up. I know it sounds a bit morbid, especially when you know I have a husband who's recovering from surgery for cancer, but it was rich, and funny and even - uplifting. It's about the end of human kind and more, the end of heaven as they know it. Uplifting? Funny?

From Amazon

Brockmeier tells two stories, one of a researcher (Laura) cut off in Antarctica and therefore safe from the pandemic killing off all the people and another narrative, of a sort of pre-heaven. People die, and then they go to this parallel world where they remain until everyone who remembers them has died. Then they move on... The problem is, everyone is dying, so the pre-heaven world starts to shrink to all the people that have at one time, touched this one woman's life.

The characters are so richly drawn, and the drama of Laura's struggles for life so compelling, it was hard to put down even to check an oozing dressing or watch Russell inject himself with heparin (how exciting our lives have become). I can recommend this little book wholeheartedly, even if it does predict the end of the natural world and mankind.

Meanwhile, I can't write because my brain is busy trying to organise Christmas, manage foods (not easy with two special diets to consider) parent children and look after an invalid. The hospital sent him home less than 24 hours after a 4 hour surgery, so he was very fragile at first. One of my cats is expiring on the chair in the kitchen... life has been a bit tricky. I'm looking forward to getting my brain back.  

Rollercoaster days

Things are changing fast here at Alexander Towers (my house is NOT called Alexander Towers but it so should be!). Cancerman will be cancer-free or close to it within the week (is it tasteless to call him Cancerman? I do think of him as a superhero), two people have recognised me *cringe* from a newspaper article in the Daily Mail, and both were really lovely about it, I got notes about book 2 from my editor, which were very helpful and positive, and I've been trying to organise the whole of Solstice/Christmas before the surgery. We've also fitted in a wedding, trips to the hospital and mastering eating out when one of us is gluten-free and one is vegan. We are also going for a cure for his cancer, and have a great team behind us.

Meanwhile I have barely written anything in two months, usually the time it takes to write half a book. It's depressing, and I've realised how much therapy writing is for me. Losing myself in someone else's much more immediate worries (if fictional) and if necessary playing god at the same time, is therapeutic. I always knew that but now I'm finding it works better than I thought. So I'm going to roll my sleeves up and write again, get back into my routine, because I feel like I'm blown about by hospital and kids and Christmas and not by the demands of the books. Not to mention cooking vegan every day - that's an hour extra most days, because the kids aren't vegan and there's a lot to do!

* It's OK to call him Cancerman providing I stop once he has the surgery. He's still going to be a superhero but with better health. I'll try really hard not to point out how much he glows in the dark during radiotherapy. Really hard.

Drowning or waving?

That's me, with the hands trying to reach the air. I may be waving.

By Sarah Thomo

I'm waiting for cancer to be scooped out of the man I love so he has a chance of living. A good chance, sure, but surgery is so savage. It's so aggressive. But so is the cancer, so we have to man up and cope with the whole thing and not let it affect our lives too much. Only it does. It's hard to think about anything without it creeping in.

I'm writing the end of book 3, in which a couple of characters die, and it's heart-breaking. I want to save them, I want to wave my god-like writer's hand and rescue them because I can't do it in real life. In real life some young woman surgeon gets to wave her less than god-like hand and attempt to get all the cancer cells that have inexplicably set up home inside an otherwise healthy man. No, we have to rely on human skill and radiotherapy and drugs.

So my writing and my life are melancholy at the moment, and I'm trying not to plan too much, or commit to anything beyond the needs of my large family and the books. I'm waiting to rewrite book 2 and knock it into shape for my editor, then finish book 3, late but better (hopefully) than the others.

Meanwhile we grieve for the old days, when we planned a long future and enjoyed our ignorance. I think I may be drowning after all.