Monday 23 April 2012

Ahead of schedule and but pruning

I've finished all the alterations on my list, so I'm two days ahead of plan. Yay! Tomorrow I've got to do some but pruning. Although that might sound like some kind of drastic form of male grooming, it's actually down to my extreme overuse of the word 'but' at the start of chapter one. I don't know how I managed to miss that until now.

Saturday 21 April 2012

Another update

I didn't get much done this week, but that was in my plan - I've had a busy week both in my day job and preparing for a visit from a cousin and his family. Now that's over, I've gone through my first three chapters and made notes on all the things that need changing.

I'm encouraged that there's nothing too major on the list. I've already made a start - I rewrote the all-important opening paragraphs this morning and it's a big improvement.

I've got to get the changes done by Wednesday - I'm off on another holiday after that. This time to sunny Pembrokeshire. I don't want to have unfinished work hanging over me whilst I'm away.

Sunday 15 April 2012

I'm back!

I said in my last post that I would confess up to how much work I had done on my ms whilst I was in Prague, so here goes...

Well, I like to look upon all new experiences as research. For instance, I now know what it's like to look after a toddler with a death wish, I've learned all about jelly-floods (courtesy of endless episodes of Ben and Holly) and I got whipped on Easter Monday (didn't manage to avoid that after all). So while I didn't actually work on my ms itself, I've built up a store of experiences that I'm sure will come in useful in my future writing.

Wow - that almost convinced me! Back to work tomorrow...

Monday 2 April 2012

Holiday time and an arcane Czech tradition

I'm off to Prague tomorrow for the best part of a fortnight. I've been looking forward to this for ages - Prague is such a beautiful city. My brother lives out there so I've been there loads of times, but I never get tired of it.

It's especially beautiful at Easter. They hang ribbons and painted eggs in the trees in the Old Town Square which looks charming, although all the pastel colours do give me cravings for Cadbury's mini eggs :)

It's not all fun, though. Not for women, anyway. On Easter Monday, it's traditional for the men to whip the women to keep them fertile. To add insult to injury, the women are supposed to weave and decorate the whips themselves! The men go around the neighbourhood, whipping all the women and drinking a glass of slivovice (a potent mixture of plums and TNT) at each household. The  next day the poor women have to nurse their menfolk through their hangovers. Something tells me that this particular tradition wasn't thought up by a woman.

I think I'll try to stay out of the way on Monday. I've sent the latest version of my first three chapters to my Kindle, so I hope to be able to read it through and make notes. I'll own up to how much I did or didn't do when I get back.

Happy Easter!