We were at a wedding the day of the Gloucestershire NaNoWriMo Thank Goodness It Is All Over Party. But Sunday Alaric finished everything he could on the leaky workshop, we'd done a bit of house decorating with the kids and it was raining - we needed to go to Costco which is in Bristol so we thought - hey! We can make it to their NaNo finishing party and so we did 🙂
Jeany decided that she would have her own party at home with Ferfer (my dad) and watch films, Alaric who did not reach 50 K was desperate to get a chance at more noveling and so sat at the party writing 🙂
I think we both are struggling with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) being over as is my Dad and Jean. Sunday I got up early to get my pre-kid writing in so as to boost my word count and it was only once I'd opened the laptop and sat down with tea in hand that I realised 'Damn! NaNo's over isn't it? This is December!', Dad and Jean can both be found scribbling in notebooks when ever the chance arises and Alaric too has been glued to his laptop - this is not unusual but every time I ask him what he is doing he is working on his novel 🙂
Of course this is exactly what I was hoping for - I use NaNo and the other writing challenges to help me keep up momentum on project which I struggle with.
We also got to catch up with some friends and I may have ended up singing light opera in the pub :/
Today marks the end of a month of madness where me and Alaric attempted to write a novel each in a month. I broke the 70, 000 barrier and am on the last part of the novel, Alaric who was using it to get back into writing has about 16, 000 words - well short of the 50K you need to win but considering how hectic this month has been for him plus the leaking roof in his workshop/writing space this is an amazing achievement. We have raised a bit of money for charity in doing so and Jeany has produced her very own illustrated story, for which she has won a hello kitty writing necklace.
She was inspired by the note book which our friend Ulrike sent her and the story is called The Castle of Animals (which turns out to be a series but this is just the first story!). It is no where near as many words as she wrote last year but there was lots of behind the scenes stuff like character development and plot this time - her hand writing is not at it's best but this is a fun project and not school and she is going to be typing it up later on anyway so I decided not to push that one!
Next year we are roping my dad in as well - he came to the Bristol write-in with me yesterday where he did a whole page of his satire that he's been writing and he is a slow writer and we were all chatting so this was an incredible feat for him! Of course he also managed to get friended by a very friendly drunk actor who was excited about the concept of writers which was really very funny 🙂
Yesterday I went to my first ever writers retreat, a one day affair run by Writing Space Stroud. It was held at the Stroud Valley Artspace which is a little tucked away set of studios and performance space. I arrive about 10 minutes early in the fear of not being able to locate it but it turned out to be the place I had performed poetry for the Stroud Site Festival.
The lady who was running it was setting out books in a smallish room set out with tables including the lovely refreshments in the photos. There were home baked cookies and cakes as well including a dairy and gluten free one which made me very happy.
After being made welcome I made a bee line for a purple table and set up my laptop. Others began arriving and we had a brief bout of introductions and hot drink pouring before we settled down to write. Before hand we had been sent forms to fill in, what we were looking to get out of the retreat and goal setting etc... as I am doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) my goals were simply to boost my word count and maybe to start planning the third novel of The Godex Trilogy. Now I broke the 50, 000 word barrier a while ago but am looking to do 90, 000 words before the end of November so I set myself a minimum of 5000 words and maybe a good stab at getting 10, 000 which is what I think is actually my physical limit for day.
I managed 8627 words at the retreat, got to chat to other local writers and had constant tea and coffee. There was impromptu stretching during the lunch hour which was very relaxing. I got to look at lots of different books on writing styles and methods. There was no reading out of work or anything like that we all just got on with our projects without the distractions of children and the internet. I even put my phone in the special phone box so that I wouldn't be tempted. I was so energised by the friendly atmosphere that when I got home Alaric cooked me dinner, put a film on for the kids and banned them from talking to me so that I could finish off the 10, 000 before I eat.
A really good thing is that there is a section on the forms to help keep the momentum up after the retreat which I shall be attempting 🙂
The retreat cost £20 which was basically cost price. I thought it was great and am hoping to do another one or send Al on one for his novel - people were writing a complete mix from poetry to PhD proposals. I personally am now on over 70, 000 words for my novel and am excited at the prospect of being this close to a target I thought pretty much impossible at the beginning of the month with all the other things I had booked to do!
Mary had a Children In Need thing at nursery on Monday and Jean had a spotty day today at school so my mum run up these cute little matching outfits for them 🙂
In other news I am about to break the 50K barrier on my NaNoWriMo novel! I am so pleased with myself 🙂 Alaric is at about 11K and we both had a productive time at the Bristol write-in last night! Unfortunatly I am going to have to swap my focus over to making christmas presents and stuff like getting The Little Book of Festive Poetry ready to raise money for Jean's school library - on the plus side I have been enjoying the spotty mug I got last year whilst writing!
Don't forget you can sponsor us for the writing 🙂
Tuesday Morning we went for a stroll around various bits of London on the way to Paul A. Youngs Fine Chocolates in The Royal Exchange. I have to say that a) I was surprised the Royal Exchange was a shopping centre and not a bank or something and also it was quiet boring as shopping districts go but there was lots of pretty buildings and statues around it to photograph.
The Chocolate Shop itself was something else! I was could have just spent all afternoon photographing the chocolates to be honest! Plus the shops were obviously designed with me in mind - see even the bags are purple and the boxes tied up with little purple ribbons - tell me why there is not one of these in Cheltenham? Next to the Cheese Works would be best - just saying.
I may have ended up with a book on cooking with and making chocolate etc....
Alaric is going to try and get it signed for me at some point 🙂 I'd really wanted to go and look in the kitchens or do the tempering course but when we looked they seemed to only be for Chocolate Week 🙁 But I have coffee beans covered in chocolate - t my mind there is slightly too much chocolate on the bean but it is a lovely roast! Alaric got a Marmite bar. The chocolate still contains soya lectin unfortunatly so I can't exactly eat a tonne of it - but then shouldn't really anyway 🙂
I then took more pictures of London 🙂
We headed over to the Institute of Contemporary Arts to have lunch and meet a friend. This statue was on the way and is of Uri the first man in Orbit!
I didn't even know the ICA existed!
Lunch was veggi curry of butternut squash and chick peas for Al and tarragon chicken with mushrooms for me 🙂
It was really tasty!
We looked around some of the exhibits the main one was The House to Die In which had a large narcotices theme running through it though I thought the structures looked like space ships. We found the perfect present for mum but had fortunatly had already gotten her a sketch pad as the blanket was £450!
We mainly sat in the coffee shop with all our stuff and wrote things and drew things and designed things and made things.
We had tea and ginger bread men and chatted lots to Dez who I some how failed to get a photo of :/ Though I took this sequence...
Alaric kept moving his eyes about which was funny 🙂
We then headed over to Padington Station to make our journy home - I filled up my dragon note book mostly on this four day adventure 🙂 And I haven't arted Alaric out - I think he almost Artied me out and I've ended up with a set of Tech/Net/Web/Geek tarot cards from the ICA which I love and am going to write so many stories from. Al broke the 10K barrier on his novel and me the 40K barrier which is just fantastic
Polyps Together the Colony Unitied 🙂
Alaric, NaNoWriMo, Sarah | sarah | 
Mon 3rd Dec 2012 10:06 am | 
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