I Need To Write....

I need quiet to write. I can't write on the computer with the noise my family create and the interruptions they bring when they're around.

School summer holidays are frustrating and by the first week of September my fingers are itching to get the keyboard for extended sessions to let all the pent up creativity out.

And with the recent computer upgrades it has been even worse. My brood can access their favourite websites even quicker and their, 'I've just got to read this...'is annoying; the graphically gifted offspring can do so much more on this system that hours go by- I'm normally polite, but, friendly blog readers, you probably know I am silently swearing in frustration...

I have a deadline. A synopsis and first three chapters to get ready by the end of the month for one of the annual competitions at the writers' club I attend. So my current project- my WIP, work in progress, is going to take priority for the next few days.

Instead of trying to write at the computer- in quiet I can't get- I'm going the pen and paper first route-not my normal process, so it will be different.

I have the chapter outlines I'd worked out and the early (already printed) chapters I got down before school finished (so I'm not starting from scratch). I know it won't be perfect, but it will be as good as I can get it. I can type the hand written pages as I get time (before the deadline)...

(Then later in the year there may be a paraphrasing of the judge's comments- if I've not done really badly.)

But a writer has to do what a writer really has to do, so no Saturday or Monday blog posts. But there will be as soon as possible after then.

See you next week...

Too Many Books?

I was browsing the radio stations on the tv Sunday morning- one of the joys of digital you can listen to the radio without needing a radio-and I came across a half hour programme on Radio 4, Too Many Books.
It looked at the difficulties that people face when they decide to reduce the number of books they have as a result of downsizing, death of a partner, or not enough room for newer books.

Don't know if you're like me, but I am very very reluctant to dispose of any of the books on my shelves-I have bookshelves full of books of all sizes and assorted subjects. (Admittedly some of the books do belong to my other half.)

Recently I've been thinking about sorting through them- I'm meant to be on a reorganisation spell at home- and have decided that I must get rid of some of the books I have, dust all the books and the shelves and rearrange those I'm keeping.

I suspect it will take a long time and in the end I won't have got rid of that many.

There are still books on the shelf that I bought in my late teens and early twenties and am very attached to, M M Kaye's 'The Far Pavillions', 'Shadow of the Moon' and 'Trade Wind', plus a number of her shorter 'Murder In...' stories.  Also the Poldark books by Winston Graham that I worked my way through after the series appeared on tv all those years ago.

(Sadly Kaye died in 2004 and Graham in 2003, both authors were of the same generation, born a couple of months apart in 1908. (Their books left me wanting more every time.)

They're only paperbacks but I'm certain they will be staying with me to the end...