Writers Block.

Ouch, I've got writers block, and it really, really hurts. It's not something that I normally have a problem with. I'm a Capricorn you see. Generally I set myself a goal, say five hundred words in an evening, and happily tap away until I get there. (We Capricorns are very goal oriented, which combined with our stubborness means we tend to get what we want or go mad trying).


But today I'm not sure where my story goes next, and can go no further until I decide. Do my hero and heroine have a fight and end up kissing, skip the fight and end up kissing, have a fight and he storms off, shake hands and make significant eye contact? Oh I don't know.

Speaking of significant eye contact, we went on a tour of the local fire-station today, and Bugalugs and I were given a private tour by a very dishy fireman. Hubby, who was stuck outside with a cranky and tearful Beanie-baby was not impressed! It was very interesting actually, they had their own gym and bedrooms and widescreen TV, but no firemans pole, they have stairs instead! I think my next hero is going to be a fireman, then I can go back and ask lots more questions!!

Anyway, back to my most recent dilemma.

So hero and heroine are standing on the end of a jetty. He's been smoking a cigarette and she's telling him he is being juvenile and rebelling against his mother. Not surprisingly he doesn't appreciate this (mostly because its true), so a fight is the next logical move, but they've spent a lot of the book so far arguing, and really they can't continue if lurve is going to blossom. They can't kiss becuase it'd be all cigaretty and gross. They can't get down to some hot, nekkid, jetty-love because Jenny Crusie already went there in Welcome to Temptation. So what next?


AH HA! I have it. Rotten boards, jetty collapses, somebody falls in! Broad scope for removal of clothes and scenes involving towels and little else! Hurrah!


You guys have all the answers!

22,891 / 80,000 (27.0%)

High Speed

25% there! High Speed is coming along very nicely.

This is my heroine. Crystal, or Chris to most people. She has one burning desire, to be a Formula One driver, and she is prepared to do anything to get it.

And this is my confused and beleagured hero. Rob Dryden. Former CEO of a lingerie company, he gives up his career to come home and save the floundering family toy company. Now he spends his days surrounded by children, and living in the family mansion, with his mother.

He'd always thought his father's passion for Formula One racing a trifle uncharacteristic. But now he understands exactly why his father so loved the testosterone fuelled sport. Some days he's afraid of drowning in femininity, but screaming engines and the smell of petrol in the air always helps to set the balance right. That is until he meets the team's new driver. Her name is Chris, and she's a girl.

20,670 / 80,000 (25.8%)

I saw an Owl.

In between showers of rain, Ella and I had a quick walk. There was a storm over at Avalon and the sky was lit up with the most amazing light-show. Apart from the distant rumble of thunder it was quiet, not a car or person to be seen.

Pottering along, thinking up spectacular car crashes for Chapter 5 of High Speed, I glanced upward and there, peering down at me was an Owl. Now in my neck of the woods Owls are extremely rare, so I was quite thrilled. However, I once had an Irish lecturer who was scared to death of Owls, she reckoned they were the harbringers of doom. Though I have to add that she was unreasonably proud of the fact that more Irish women go mad than any other group in the world, so perhaps that might be telling me something!

Anyhoo, I saw an Owl, doom has not, as yet, eventuated. Though if it does, you shall all be the first to know!

High Speed

18,108 / 80,000 (21.0%)

Oh heaven!

If it were not for you
It seems that every day would be
A life unfulfilled.
Winter then forever and no smile of spring.

Yes, you guessed right!

BIG BROTHER IS BACK!

Life complete. Might even be able to give up cookie-dough ice cream.

High Speed

Writing again...

17,347 / 80,000 (20.0%)

Myspace

I've ventured into myspace. I hadn't really investigated exactly what myspace was. As far as I could tell it was the domain of teenage American girls and a rich hunting ground for internet predators.

How wrong I was.

For me it is a good tool to network with other writers, and a few readers. Agents, reviewers, publishers, they all have spots in myspace. I had no idea it was so vast. I'm diving right into the Mum&bubs groups, dispensing stories of green mucous and sleepless nights with those who truly appreciate them (instead of those who are bored rigid by my endless ramblings! Sorry all my friends without kids!!).

So far I have twelve friends. Twelve! Who'd have thought I was so popular!

http://www.myspace.com/caitlynnicholas

Am I Really Making Any Difference At All?

"It's not the Howard Government's fault in itself, I mean Mr Howard can't make it rain, I understand that," [Mr Rudd] said.

Ah, such wise words from the leader of the opposition.

Still, it is devastaing news that one of the largest rivers in Australia has run dry. They said they take 75% of the water from it every year. 75%. Well, it's not surprising that it ran dry. Cotton is farmed around the Murray, a crop that is one of the most water hungry known to man. WHY? why are they allowed to do it? Surely the Australian economy will not collapse if they forbid cotton farming on the Murray?

It's all so overwhelming this climate change stuff. Most of the time I sadly wonder what sort of world we shall be leaving to my children and their children. But I also get angry. It seems to me that there is a huge amount of pressure being put on everyday people to save water, be environmental, save energy, that sort of thing.

But, for example, they slip into their reports the fact that households only make up 10% of total energy consumed. Its not that I feel there should be less pressure on households to be frugal with natural resources, its just that I want to know what industry is doing to conserve the 90% of energy they are consuming. Maybe stuff is being done. But I know I'd feel so much more secure if we could see some evidence of the changes they are making.

sigh.

Banished from the Bedroom

Anyone who reads this blog regularly may have noticed that I get sick a lot. The kids bring something that involves sore throats and endless runny noses home, and after a week of them being up in the night and rushing off to the doctor, and sometimes the hospital, I go down like a ton of bricks.

It happened again. But this time I did things differently.

Instead of keeping on going (last time I was so ill I could barely stand up, but there I was, cooking dinner) I gave up. Removed myself from the family, down to the spare room, set myself up with eleven Mills&Boon's, and re arranged the furniture so I could see the TV, and there I have stayed. We've had take-away five times in the last ten days. But I don't care. The cleaners were due and you couldn't see the floor for toys, so instead of rushing about tidying up, I cancelled them. The cats ran out of cat food, they are temporarily eating dog food. Do. Not. Care.

And it's worked.

Hubby isn't sure who this reasonable, coherent, well-rested person is, but he kind of likes her and thinks he vaguely remembers her from when they first met. The kids have chilled out, thrilled to have a mum who is calm, enthusiastic and willing to spend an hour making playdough pizza, and so on. I just wish I'd figured this out earlier.

You have to look after yourself before you look after everyone else.

What happened to the archives...

I've had a clear out and got rid of all the guff from the last year of blogging! So the archives are looking a bit thin at the moment. When I get a chance I'll go through my backup version and put up a few of my favourite entries.

Ten reasons why I am an outstanding parent

1. When beanie-baby couldn't get the toy phone to work she said, "fuck it," and kicked it across the kitchen.
2. Six out of the ten Choice worst foods for kids were found in my cupboard/fridge.
3. When hubby opened the car door and beanie-baby had to walk around it to get in the car, she muttered, "oh fucking hell."
4. I am daily tempted to ram idiot drivers, usually with the children in the back of the car.
5. I do not feed my family organic meat or vegetables.
6. Numbergetti does cover all the major food groups (sugar, salt, fat and carbohydrate) and can be fed to children on a daily basis.
7. Colours and preservatives allow children to explore new sides to their personalities.
8. Eating the children's easter eggs after they have gone to bed is merely another example of my parental concern for their well-being.
9. If you want to listen to the radio and they want to listen to the sodding Banana-phone song for the billionth time, it is okay to tell them the cd is broken.
10. Bribery is merely another word for negotiation.

Should not be blogging.

Oh I uterly shoulnt be blogging today. "ve tonsilitus you see, and it is very paoinful, so I took all these painkillers and they were rather strong and now, well, I just feel rather hazy and content, ut can't type properly.

My mother will not be surprised. She always said it'd come to this.

On the upside hubby has taken the kids to the mall and has promised to come home with cake. I might consider living for cake.

sigh.

Sick

Sick, sick, sick. We are all sick at my house. Practically every form of virus or bacteria known to man, is currently lurking around here somewhere (okay well maybe not anthrax). Though I have considered painting a yellow cross on the door like they did during the plague.

Hubby has made himself scarce, citing busy at work. (Yeah right, you spend most of your day in the cafe downstairs). He reads this blog, usually to find out how his marriage is going! NOT VERY WELL TODAY MATE.

Not that I'm cross. Of course not. He has to work, and just because I'm sick, the kids are sick and more unbelievable than usual, and I am supposed to be at work and have about a thousand desperate students waiting for their scholarships which I should be dealing with, but instead am parked in the lounge, counting calmly to ten and think of reasons not to strangle the little darlings who won't bloody sleep er... where was I. Yes. He has to work, and he earns more than me and that's that really.

Anyway. So, I must apologise for not blogging much of late. Sick kids slow me down, but when I get sick as well I tend to grind to a complete halt, and the blog suffers. Though mostly because I'd just rant on and on about how foul I feel, and how I am persecuted by the entire medical profession who don't understand how sick I am, and don't understand I want PILLS, and refuse to prescribe a nanny and a housekeeper. I tell you if they were part of the medical benefits scheme I reckon the birth-rate would triple.

sigh.

Greetings Fellow Writers.

Wanted to say a big howdy to my fellow writers in Linda's author group. (Linda is my Samhain editor for the rest of you). We're a varied bunch it seems, Sci Fi, a bit of Urban fantasy and a touch of Romantic Suspense. I'm a romantic suspenser (suspender? hmm). Although as I endeavour to keep gory deaths out of my writing (how can anyone fall in love at a murder scene?), I think I'm light romantic suspense.

This is rather amusing.

Especially given the amount of chocolate I ate yesterday.

Happy Easter

It has been a long Easter Sunday here in the Nicholas household. The rug-rats were up at 5.30am. Bugalugs has had a cold and isn't sleeping well, which meant the rest of us had to be up as well. sigh. Luckily they're not clued in about the easter bunny so we managed to hold off the chocolate until after breakfast.

Then, despite the rain (yay rain), we went down to Brooklyn to look at the boats and do some serious puddle-jumping. Just as we got to the furthest point from the car, and I was wondering if I should have brought the Umbrellas, the heavens opened. We were all drenched. Even those of us who had been mature enough not to jump in puddles!

I am now contemplating my annual white chocolate lindt gold bunny. Do I start at the ears and work my way down, or the tail and work my way up? Awww, who cares!

It is amazing though, that somehow bunny shaped chocolate tastes so much yummier than plain bar shaped chocolate.

The kids have had a chocolate frenzy. I rather foolishly decided that I'd let them eat their fill, let them LEARN when to stop. Taking the eggs away from them just teaches them not to trust their own judgement. Ha, hahahahahaha. sigh.

Okay, so I've been reading all these psyco-babble books about kids, and they're getting to me! Needless to say, just as they both started looking really green around the gills we had to remove remaining eggs and hide in the fridge. You can imagine the scene that followed. Everybody crying, everybody running around hyperactive.

Well, they might not have learned anything (except mummy is a big mean chocolate stealing monster), but I have!

sigh.