It’s All NaNo’s Eve (by sarah)

It be that time of year again when all the nut balls come out of hiding! That's right it's NaNoWriMo time again - at the witching hour on this All Hallows Eve a bizar and eclectic ritual will take place - writers will begin typing, scrawling or dictating in ernest in the hope that this year they will make that word goal. That they will be the Nanoer of the finished first draft - I put it to all fellow nanofanatics new and old - lets get writing the madness has begun.

For those of you who are interested I'm 5affy on the forum (that's Saffy but with a five instead of the ess). Or @TheMonsterBlogs on Twitter and the blog I will be blogging upon is Purple Monster - and of course I'll be doing the picture book ideas as well which can be found on Orange Monster.

Jeany is also joining me in this this year! (She has the last two years - first with dictating stuff to me and then last year with her Nano note book in which she stuck stickers, wrote stuff, drew pictures and made collages from mags.)

September Challenges/To-Do’s (by sarah)

September has snuck up on me and sees me papier mache-ing like a mad thing - my aim? To create a piece of textural science art for the visually impaired and the blind.

This piece of art work does not just involve papier mache though - it involves knitting, sewing, clay sculpting, sugru, polymer clay, wire work, metal casting, wood carving, stone carving, geology and acrylic paints not too mention lots of recycled pots and tubs and our mountain of graze boxes.

This all needs to be ready for the 24th of September for the Centre Arts Exhibition in Braille. And yes I am panicking - it is a play on the tree of life but I have gone for a more coral/byozoan feel and hope to have life in various forms sitting in the polyp tubes (what I have instead of branches). A relief of the scientific creation of life will hopefully be feelable along the base along with an audio poem/story of life.

Apart from that I am researching stuff for my Punk in Pink series and generally trying to take the musical me forward.

April’s Challenges (by sarah)

April starts off busy with the Cheltenham Poetry Festival which I am/have been performing several things for. Then there is Script Frenzy - this is a writing challenge along the lines of NaNoWriMo but the idea is that within a month I write a 100 page script - I am reattempting last years project of a graphic novel script which chronicals the Punks life from the fall of Babel - it's all on Purple Monster for those interested.

Then there is a yet another poetry challenge NaPoWriMo - I am going to be using this as an excuess to work on songs. I will spend at least one hour a day on song writing and polishing. Bar however long it takes me to do the Little Book of Easter Poetry for Jean and Mary.

I am also launching my Science-Art Website on the 4th which I hope people will like 🙂

This Months Challenges (by sarah)

I'm going for easy challenges this Month due to a) having killed my wrist with the Nanowrimo and my 72, 000 words b) having that whole Christmas thingy! and c) now being very pregnant!

So I am taking the easy options of doing a blog post every day and an hour of art/craft a day.

I am putting up links to past and present christmas crafts and cooking on Rachel Cotterill as part of her fun Craft Christmas Count Down! I'm aiming for a link a day 🙂

I'm quiet chuffed that my Fimo Christmas Tree Vase was picked as a highlight 🙂

Keeping Positive (by sarah)

It is 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday and I am up and awake and in alot of pain. I haven't slept and am feeling down right grotty. Last night before sleep was attempted I got angry with everyone as I fought the pain and then when I tried to leave the room found that my walking had got so bad I had to use my arms on the furniture to get to the stairs where I promtly burst into what were supposed to be quiet tears.

I've been using crutches outside and attempting to keep walking but have been ok on the short distances needed for shuffling round the house but then a few days ago I slipped on something Jean had left on the floor resulting in a painful crunch from my pelvis. Alaric found me clinging to the door frame of her room. Pelvis didn't really settle much after that - and it felt like when you sprain your ankle. Then last night I went out to a poetry ready and music event (which was fantastic) but the step up to the stage was so high that it hurt getting up there too read and I ended reading my poems shaking - I wasn't sure how much was nerves and how much was pain.

Then tonight we went out for mums birthday - it was postponed from Friday due to her having to have a biopsy for another breast lump 🙁 She gets the results next Friday. When we got home I went upstairs to change and as I tried to change into trousers I cried out in pain. My pelvis again - since then I have not even really been able to hobble - I thought it would settle down but hasn't.

The tears were because the pain is so bad but also because though it has been slow going I have been able to move about with the crutches and in the house with out them - getting little bits of say house work done here and there. This last week when Al went to London were iffy anyway as I found I couldn't do anything really - I managed to feed, wash and cloth me and Jean and feed animals and that is it. Mum and Dad arrived to a house where Jean had unmade the setee, there was three days worth of washing up in the kitchen, the fire no lit and rug covered in crumbs.

Things are seeming quiet bad - and suddenly the third trimester of this pregnancy seems to stretch to infinity. Especially when it was seriously suggested that I might like to cut up some fire wood for Barbara as it would be good exercise for me :/ I was sort of hoping that now we have a car that we could go swimming which is about the only thing I'm supposed to do :/

But I am trying to keep positive.

Mum's biopsy will hopefully be fine fingers crossed

And I am getting a replacement string from my guitar and two books of guitar music - Nursery Rhymes and Christmas Carols so I can play and me and Jeany can sing together. I am also focusing on my writing - I am obviously doing Nanowrimo and PiBoIdMo and am now able to get to some of the nano write-ins. I am going to these reguardless of pain other wise all I have is the pain. It is the same with the poetry reading and stuff - besides I really wanted to see the music and probably more importantly talk to my friends (even if they were distracted as they were running the event!).

The main thing I fear at the moment is losing the use of my hands again - but even then I am trying to remember that the hands don't forget the muscle memory I give them they just don't work for a while and yes it takes a while to get full functionality back but what I learn stays lernt. This is important for me with things like the guitar.

I can't say I'm not feeling down because I am = I have lost the freedom I fought to get by no longer being able to get to the bus stop under my own steam and with the way my pelvis is now being I don't think I can even get out of our little bit of valley 🙁

But I got accosted by people who liked my poetry one Friday - including in the girls toilets! And I am going to a Prize Giving as one of my poems has been short listed on Wednesday. This things I am holding dear.

I am writing draft two of the novel I hope to submit to the Pratchette Prize as well which seems like an achievement in itself.

And lastly - this pregnancy is still much much MUCH better than Jeany's plus unlike last time I can see this bueatiful little girl who is being like my best friend most of the time and I think yes it was hard - so hard last time but look what I got! I have my Jeany and I'm going to have another one 🙂

Jean's been asking me to go through the songs I used to sing to her as a small baby - some of which are the same as now and some of which are different. The first song I sang to her was a sung grace saying thankyou I learnt in Kenya. I thought I was going to die with her and then with the miscarriage and infection we were worried that there wasn't a hope for another baby and yet here I am in the third trimester. This makes me happy - honest - even though I cry in pain I am happy.