Life

There are stirrings of life within my dead-as-road-kill brain.

I'm reading. My lovely wife purchased a whole heap of books from Jodi Lee (of New Bedlam Project and Belfire Press fame) for my birthday. For those of you who know and follow Jodi, you'll all be aware of her different lifestyle to what many in the city and cloistered religions of the world would call the norm. Well, I'm interested in introducing a new character into Inner Voice with some of the same inclinations but with a great deal more internal conflict, and who, by her very nature, will also cause my other two main characters plenty of conflict.

In the words of Homer Simpson: mmmm...conflict!

So I'm researching and educating myself in the ways of older beliefs and interesting rituals and getting a really good grasp on this new character. No new writing yet, but I have a plan for that as well - so in the not-too-distant future, I'll be putting it into action and producing lots of lovely new words.

At the same time, I've decided I'm going to ween myself off the coffin nails (cigarettes for those not in the know). I've been smoking for 33 years so it's going to be a monumental task (especially without medicinal help), but I'd like to think my will power is strong enough to enable me to control my own body. We'll see. I'm on day two of my quest and have so far gone from smoking 25-30/day on Tuesday, to 10 on Wednesday and 9 yesterday. My promise didn't start until yesterday (hence only day two today), but I began cutting it down a day early anyway. Lunchtime has just commenced and I've only had two so far. Hopefully I'll be able to climb into bed at the end of the day having only consumed 8 or less. Wish me luck. The plan is not to cut down by one each day but it seems to be working out that way at this early stage. Whatever works...

The final title I'm reading is (I believe) a yet to be released manuscript also involving Jodi Lee (she has a lot to answer for). I promised I'd read it and review it for her some time ago and am only now actually getting around to it (sorry, Jodi).

So there is life in the old creative side of my grey matter. I was beginning to think I should sell all my jumpers and t-shirts which claimed I was a writer! I think organising some time off between now and November is the next step so I'm fully into the groove come NaNoWriMo, which is when I want to write the next book in the series. A big statement seeing how I haven't finished the first one. Best be getting a move on...