Going Round Again

We're all at different stages of being sick again in my house.

The little one has never really gotten over her cold from weeks ago. The lad is just about over a bout of tonsillitis. The better half has been crook-as-a-dog for the past week and is slowly coming out of it thanks to antibiotics, and now I'm starting to come down with something. It's a never ending bloody cycle!

I'll be glad when winter is gone and I can bake in 35C+ heat. I love summer!

On the writing front: as many of you alluded to (are you all writers or something?), I have had a plot twist/subplot smack me in the head. I was driving down to watch the lad play footy on the weekend and a thought occurred to me. It will require making a minor character's role a little bigger, and probably give me an extra chapter between the big climax and the resolution - one of those 'so now he thinks he's safe, we'll throw the minor loose end at him to pump up the adrenaline one last time' - but the difference here will be the unexpected resolution of that loose end - which, of course, will allow for further expansion of another character in the next book.

I've got a bit of writing done this week (a little over 3.6k at this point, final count sometime tomorrow in the WIP report), but gaming has side tracked me somewhat. For those of you who need to know, Australia won the second test at Lord's by an innings and 20-odd runs for a 2-0 series lead. At the end of the first session on day one in the third test (after being sent in to bat) Australia are 1-477 (good decision Strauss - not). Yes, I think I've sorted out this game and need to bump up the difficulty level but it is fun hitting Broad all around the ground...moving on.

I need to set aside some time to read. I'm finding the motivation a little hard at the moment because my current book for review is in PDF format. As e-readers are not plentiful within Australia, I'm stuck with reading on the laptop. Not a pleasant duty and with everyone sick at the moment, I'm lacking sleep. Reading off a screen has an almost ironclad guarantee to make me doze. Don't worry, Joan. I promised I'd have it read and reviewed during September, and so I shall.

Best part about work at the moment is the slight slowing down. Unfortunately everyone but me seems to be on holidays or attending conferences, or interstate for one reason or another, but this week is one of taking a breath before getting stuck into my major projects - which means I can get a little bit of writing done. Writing at work leaves more time for gaming at home...reading, I meant reading at home. ;c)

That's enough of an update from me at the moment. This blog is pretty much doubling as my journal at the moment, cataloguing my journey as a writer and not giving out a lot in the way of advice or tips. I haven't done a link salad in, like, forever. But this too will change. When I've finished the first draft of Inner Voices (IV), I will begin bringing together all the advice I was given while working with Gill Ainsworth of Apex fame. I will also be pulling out all the tucked away advice from my hero Pharo. The plan is to let IV (how's that for a cool shortening of a book title?) sit while I learn the technical bits behind writing that I've only got a loose grasp on at the moment. I intend to post the lessons and tips as I go, so we'll get back more towards the help in writing I was once more known for (by my hundreds of adoring fans).

Oh, one last thing, I've updated the links in my sidebar to show all the writer's blogs I frequent. Blogger has allowed me to easily import everything from my Google Reader which was nice - so go have a look at the names of the writers I read the blogs of, and if you're one of them, some reciprocated blog linkage love would be appreciated. Of course, if you're not listed and would like to swap links, I'm happy to sort that out as well - just drop me an email or leave a comment.

Peace Out (I don't know why I had a sudden urge to write that - sorry)