NaNo Diaries - Day Twenty Four

Freya, a proper softie...

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6.43 am - very dark and grey!

Word Count: 1800 (Total - 44,636)

Treats: A 2016 Calendar - doesn't take much to make me happy

Other Activity: Proofing my book with my lovely husband, by the fire

Word of the Day: SPLENDIFEROUS adjective 1. splendid; magnificent; fine.

We share our lives with several animals, as I've probably mentioned before. The picture above is Freya, our four year old Italian Sheepdog. Yes, she's only four years old and is a mighty giant of a beast who thinks she's a lap dog! This is her on our bed, and remember we have another dog like Freya, Bertie who is not as big and the Naughty Nell to keep us company. Freya likes to make her entrance about 5am (having slept on the sofa until then). She paws at my side of the bed until I make room for her by my feet. Nell usually ends up in the middle of us! And I won't mention the kitties... No wonder I wake with a crick in my neck.

My lovely husband and soul mate, Simon has been helping with the final polish of The Good{Expat}Life today. He's gone through it with a fine tooth comb and it's amazing after three edits how many errors have slipped in unintentionally! We've had quite a laugh sat by the fire with him and his red pen, me and the laptop and a fire burning in the corner... cosy editing. 

Ciao for Now

WRITING STRATEGY

Keep the Home Fires Burning
At the beginning of the week made some plans about some works in progress which I have had in my 'action' pile for some time. I was horrified to see that I'd actually left one out of the game. Was that deliberate I ask myself? The project is a fusion of fiction and fact about how I (and my Man Friday) ended up living here in Italy and for that reason it is quite special. We wrote it together and much of it has been based on real life experiences with characters who could be based loosely on ourselves but with some differences. At the moment it really reads like an account and much as we've tried to distance ourselves from the reality it's a difficult balance to make. However, I have written a couple of additional 'short stories' based on the characters and some of it more fiction than fact. So this piece of work, with a working title of 'La Dolce Vita' (not very inspiring I know, but bear with me) is going to be reviewed as a series of short stories and each one revisited in that vain. So that's my major projects dealt with. In terms of new stuff I've now written my 'Writing Strategy' which includes the following:

• To write and edit at least 2 new short stories per month (probably based on the Monday Muses I submit to Writers Abroad)
• Submit at least 4 short stories per month to competitions or appropriate markets. If I don't get them out there how can they be considered for publication? In 2010 I made 33 submissions, had 5 short-listed and 3 published, so need to up the anti a little.
• Write a fantasy based story for young adults - this is the 'out of the comfort zone' project which will hopefully test my writing skills on a number of levels, the genre, the readership and therefore the storytelling. There are a couple of members at Writers Abroad who I'm counting on to see me through this!

So, my fire has been laid, all I need to do now is keep it alight and fuelled and hopefully my writing muscle will  be kept warm enough to deliver! 
One must dare to dream...