Update

Okay, I am slightly ashamed that it's now been almost three weeks since I last wrote anything here. But not too ashamed because I've been busily writing things for my masters instead! I'm up to 15,000 words on my novel, I've figured out what to do for my CX assignment and I've even started it. Feeling productive :) 

In other news I've applied for a job that I really, really want to do up here. It's a clerical assistant in a primary school, which may not sound that great, but it's perfect for me. Not only would I get to indulge my OCD by alphebetising and filing things, I'd also get to help out with putting up the wall displays. I've always wanted a go at that! Plus the job's 30 hours a week so I would have enough time to keep writing and having a social life, and it's enough money for me to stay here in Glasgow.

I also have an extra reason for wanting to stay in Scotland now. Namely that I've found that nice Scottish man I was searching for. We've been out a few times and I really like him, I'm actually a bit annoyed that I'm going home soon and won't get to see him for two weeks. But oh well, he'll still be here when I come back.

I'm so happy right now it's probably obnoxious :p

xXx

It's finally happened

After 7 months Scottish has finally battered its way through my English barrier and begun to take over. I can no longer say 'yes', it's always 'aye'. And the other day I actually came out with 'nae bothar' in the middle of a conversation. 

I'm going native!

xXx

I've noticed something

Male-led dancing is a thing of extremes. When it's bad it's boring, confusing, painful and sometimes downright disgusting (sweaty neck. That's all I'm saying).  

But when it's good it feels like flying.

I've never had a dance that was anywhere in between the two, it's always one or the other. 

xXx

Productivity

At the beginning of this year an assignment was due that included a synopsis and blurb of my novel. One result of doing this assignment was that the planned ending of my book was changed entirely, and since then I haven't written a single new word of it. 

But after a tutorial I realised the problem wasn't that I had changed the ending, it was the fact that I was thinking about the ending at all. I had figured out that it was over 60,000 words away and I had no idea how to fill that much writing space. So yesterday I sat down and spent a good two hours working out what could and should happen between the start and the end. Here's the result:

Isn't it pretty. The colours represent the importance of the event, so I made sure I had at least one amber or red event for each day. Friday looks a bit frantic doesn't it! 

 And this prettiful chart helps in two ways. Firstly I can start writing again because I know exactly what's going to happen next, and after that, and after that and so on. Secondly the entire 80,000ish words have been broken down into 16 little chunks. I can think about it as writing 16 short stories, which I already know I can do because I have around that number of short stories to my name. Even better is the fact that I've already written a few of the chunks so I only have 10 or 11 to go. 

Suddenly writing a whole novel doesn't seem like such an impossible task.

xXx

Beware the sniper within

When I was getting ready for the salsa club night yesterday, I looked in the mirror to see if my hair still looked okay and my brain went, "Well, it's not as bad as your face."

Ouch.

xXx

I'm a fraud

Well, I at least feel like one every time the words 'I'm a writer' come tripping out of my mouth. It takes my brain about a millisecond to point out that it can't actually remember the last time I sat down and just wrote something, and that I've only ever won one writing competition and that didn't have a prize, and that I can't even write in my blog regularly. Then this other voice chips in with something along the lines of "if you spent as much time writing as you did dancing you'd probably be published by now."  

 I don't actually think that voice is right, I would just be a lot further on with my novel, but it is making a good point about my priorities. I love salsa, it's the most fun I've had for a while and there are very few things that can make me smile as much as I do when dancing, but it's not what I want to be. I want to be a writer. A proper writer who wins competitions and has books published and actually earns a bit of money from it. But that's not going to happen unless I sort myself out and actually do some writing!

It's time to give myself a kick up the backside, stop faffing about on facebook and get on with it. Off I go!

Oh wait... I need to make some biscuits for housegroup tonight. But after that I will write like I've never written before!

xXx

Yikes

So yesterday I saw my backside for the first time, what an eye-opening experience. I mean I've kind of seen it before; glimpses of it as I walk past shop windows and I usually do some weird craning motion when I try new clothes on to see if it looks okay, but the positioning of my friend's bathroom mirror was absolutely perfect to give me a full, colour, HD view of it. My word. I'm still a wee bit traumatised. I always knew it was too big, I just didn't quite realise the exact proportion of big-ness.

 The only thing stopping me having a ginormous breakdown right now is the fact that I lost two pounds over the weekend. Not a huge amount I know, but it's more than I've managed to shift in the last month so I'm incredibly happy about it. Hopefully it'll be just the boost I need to get off my (incredibly large) backside, go to the gym and carry on losing weight.

  On another self-improvement note, I've become absolutely sick of listening to people reel off the list of languages they can speak before turning to me and going "so what can you speak?" and every single time I feel like the dumbest idiot ever when I have to go "only English."  So I've got myself some Spanish-learning software and I've already made a start. It's such a long time since I tried to learn any language so I'm not sure how well it's going to work, but I at least want to try. So far I can say; good morning; good evening; how are you?; I'm fine, and you?; and I'm sorry.

Anyway, my sister is coming for a visit quite early tomorrow so I'd better go to bed in a minute.  Look at that, a whole post without one mention of salsa! Oh wait....

xXx