After the rain comes sun again.

The illness of doom™ is finally abating, however I'm still left with that ol' chestnut the tickly chest cough. I've finally managed to overcome the inertia that the illness brought on and start working on new writing projects. Some of you who have followed my work may remember the novella 'The long summer of war' that was serialised in six parts on the internet last year. Much the same way that BHTS started out as a long short story, this one too showed a lot of potential in my mind.

In the latter days of writing BHTS2, I was thinking a lot about expanding this into a book of its own. I had originally tried to keep the story brief, but it grew from a short story into a novella. Today I have finally sat down and begun work on expanding it to something better. I don't like short stories, or even novellas. They are the banana republic of literature, making me - the reader - feel short changed so often. I'm not sure how long this will take; I'm more likely to dip in and out of it over several months. I haven't heared back from the agent. I'll work on LSOW until I get around to revisiting BHTS2 and doing a second draft.

I find that leaving a project to one side for a while is the best thing to do after completing any written project. It gives time for the writer to dissasociate a little from the creative process and see it in a new and objective light. That's the theory at least. I feel guilty for what would otherwise be a month off, so LSOW will provide something productive to do. I've also got some plans on magazine articles too. Incidentally, the last article I wrote is now scheduled for a May issue of the magazine (watch this space) which should be out towards the end of April.

I'm sure I had something meaningful to type. The feeling will probably pass. I've had cabin fever for the last week or so, not really being able to do an awful lot because of illness. Being ill sucks big time.

Finally something worth watching.

The illness has finally decided to show me the light at the end of the tunnel. I lost my voice yesterday (no bad thing some people might say) and got a really lousy night's sleep last night. However, cutting my losses I got up at 5:00am ready for the Australian F1 Grand Prix. I actually began to feel better pretty quickly once I was moving around. No longer did it feel like I was trying to swallow red hot sand whilst being choked with nose plugs in. I can breathe again!

The Grand Prix was far better than expected. After Bahrain two weeks ago, the new rules were looking somewhat rubbish. However they have tweaked them a little, with a lower pit lane speed limit. The rain, however, really shook things up. I have to say that I was beginning to despair at Button's driving, but his early change of tyres onto slicks really was a great move. Perhaps a lap too soon, but it did pay off. Why Hamilton was brought into the pits for a second tyre stop mystified me as well as him, if the radio broadcasts were anything to go by. That cost him the race.

However, when Hamilton came up upon Alonso's car at nearly three seconds per lap, it showed up the overtaking problems that F1 still has. There was a lot being discussed about adjustable rear wings, and if that tussle was anything to go by, something needs to change. I hope that they make any changes in time for the next race. There was plenty of overtaking elsewhere though, but I think there is room for improvement to make sure that F1 doesn't become the boring procession that it has descended to so much over the last few years.

Today I really need to get reading that novella I'm supposed to be working on. I've lost a week because of this horrible illness, and I feel bad about it. I really wanted to keep the momentum that I had up. Hopefully I'll be able to motivate myself to knuckle down and read it today to refamiliarise myself with the plot and charectors before writing away on it.

There's been no news from the agent over BHTS. I suppose I should drop him an email to check up on how things are going.

Man-flu? *pfffft* I have WOMAN-flu!

It isn't often that I get ill. Overall, I'd say that I had a pretty good immune system. Of course, Fate just loves it when I come out with comments like that. That way, he can get some severe joy by casting me down with the illness of doom.

Which I have now got. I picked it up at a party in Preston, and it has had me cowering under the duvet all week. It started with a sore throat and has moved on to a bad flu-like cold. I went out yesterday morning, and it wiped me for six. I didn't even have to drive, but I was feeling really rotten by the time we got back.

I feel glad that I got BHTS2 finished last Friday; at least I don't have that hanging over me. I do, however, have the next project to do. Turning a novella into a book should be easy(ish) but the reality has been that my illness has robbed me of all motivation. It also makes sleeping difficult, so I appear to have a lot of time on my hands and no energy or inclination to do anything with it.

Hopefully next week normal service will be resumed. Hopefully.

When writing becomes a chore, it is time to finish the draft and move on.

I hate writing the ends of books almost as much as I hate writing the beginnings too. There comes a point in the writing where I, as the author, get bored. I've worked the plot out over and over in my head until, quite frankly, I'm sick of it. I've been at that stage with BHTS2 for around the last 15,000 words at least. In the last two days writing has felt like an immense chore. I've hammered away at the keyboard at the treadmill, desperate to get it done. So much so that I have written in excess of 10,000 words in the space of only two days - that's not bad going. I am totally sick of the sight of this book and the characters therein.

Don't ask me to write a third book in this series, because I won't. At least, you cannot afford the amount of money that it would take to make me write another. I am now going to go off and write the book that I've been idly longing after for at least the last two weeks. I already have the next book plananed, and I would have rather been writing it than this for the last few days. Now I'll get that chance I suppose.

That doesn't mean that that is finished and thankyou-very-much. Far from it. That's just the first draft. In around a month's time I'll come back to it and do a second draft. That isn't quite so much of a chore. It will probably reach a fourth draft before I'm happy with it. Still, the first draft is always the hardest I find for any book.

I'm going to reward myself with a weekend off. I have typed something every single day on this book for around five weeks. I didn't truly have a proper day off, because I felt guilty for not working. Now I'm done, I shall totally enjoy the party that I have been invited to in Preston on Saturday night. Roll on the good times, and here's to the next book project: may I get sick of you less quickly than I got sick of this one!

Clear the roads!

Here at Jenny towers, excitement has ruled for the last couple of days. In a bizarre quirk of events when I renewed my car insurance, the new insurer (I always shop around) gave me a discount if I insured my partner, despite the fact that she only has a provisional licence. That means that we went shopping on Tuesday for 'L' plates, and Zoë got to drive the car on Wednesday afternoon for the first time.

We've been out today too. She's getting better, though she did stall three times in a row (just as I predicted she would!). The more she drives the more confident she gets, though her magnetic attraction to the kerb still needs some work and nextdoor's wheelie bin needs moth-to-mouth after getting clobbered.

It's scary sitting in the passenger seat as some-one else drives my car perilously close to the kerb. Hopefully in a short space of time she will be good enough to take her test. I still find it hard to believe that the insurer offered a sizeable discount to insure a learner driver on a 170bhp monster.

Can somebody please tell me who the fool is?

Out of idle curiosity, I started looking up certain vinyl albums on Amazon. What scares me is the price that some of the LPs that I own now alledgedly are worth, if the ones listed were anything to go by. 'Brave new world' by Iron Maiden (gatefold double picture disk) scored scarily high, as did my seven 10" disk boxed set of Oasis' 'Masterplan'. Several other LPs I have including Röyksopp, Charlatons, Blur and Kate Bush also seem prett y overpriced these days. However, taking the piss as so far the most expensive is 'Mechanical Animals' by Marilyn Manson on double LP at just shy of a wopping £102.

Just who are the idiots paying that kind of money? Alternatively, should my collection of over 1,000 LPs ranging from the 1960s through to the present day be insured for a little more than they currently are?

A day in the life.

My fingers feel very tired today. You see, they've done an awful lot of typing. It didn't start out that way. I slept in late, partly on account of having only got to bed last night at 4:00am, and partly because it is Sunday (would it be bad to admit that I am still wearing the cami and knicker set I went to bed last night in?).

I was looking forward to the first race of the Formula 1 season today. F1 is a sport that I like to watch, and always have done. For the last five years I don't think I have missed a single race; I have most of them recorded to DVD so I can rewatch any of them at leisure. (Okay, I'll admit I'm weird, but you aren't supposed to say that to my face). I had high hopes for the radical change in rules this year. I was hoping that it would lead to the promised overtaking and less of the procession that we've come to see in the last couple of years. Sadly, this failed to pan out as planned.

Fuelling the cars for the full race makes them too heavy, in my opinion. They simply don't have the power and subsequent breaking ability to accelerate and stop that extra mass in such a way as to provide enough advantage to get to a corner ahead of the car in front. The whole race turned into a procession like we've never seen before. I hope that the FIA will quickly realise this and reintroduce fuel stops before the season is out. Otherwise it could get quite boring. The other thing that fuel stops do is add excitement, and much more strategy. Now it is just too boring. I'll wait and see how the next race pans out, but judging on what I've seen so far, I'm sad to say I'm not excited.

This afternoon I began work on writing the dreaded book again. Over the last few days it had slipped a little bit. I'm at the stage of writing a book that I hate almost as much as the starting process. That is, the finishing process. The last 15,000 words can be the hardest to write. I know how the story is supposed to go, and how all the plot develops. There is no mystery left for me. I suppose that then is why I've become more than a little bored with this book. I really just want to move onto something new - I'm sure all writers can sympathise with me here.

Luckily today inspiration has flown, and I've been able to write nearly 5,500 words. That's not bad, and gets me ever closer to the end. I've got two scenes that I wanted to get into this book written, and I'm more than pleased with one of them, and happy with the other. There's just a few more scenes to go then it's all done. Aaaah! If only it really was as simple as it sounds. The current word total, for those people who like to know these things, is just under 78,500.

To see a man about a pair.

Today is one of those days where writers' block has struck. Actually, at the moment I'm still thankful that I've had such a run of productive weeks, getting to the 70,000 word mark last night. Unfortunately today is one of those days, not helped by the fact that I feel exhausted for no good reason at all and this exhaustion is rapidly turning into a queasiness that hints at something a little nastier for the weekend.

There's been a lot of niggly illnesses running around of late, and I suppose it is only inevitable that I'm going to catch something sooner or later. That doesn't mean I have to be happy about it though. I have to go out tonight, and I can't say I'm looking forward to the walk, but maybe the outside air will make me feel better.

Yesterday I went into Manchester to see a man about a right pair. I'll leave the cryptic description about that, but needless to say it made for a long afternoon that needed me to power my way back up Manchester Road towards the city centre and on to Victoria station to just manage to catch my train home. Yes, I know that I can catch a train from Oxford Road station, but that necessitates a change and isn't necessarily guaranteed to meet up with that required change on time, leaving me with a possible one hour wait on a station platform somewhere, which isn't ever my cup of tea.

It was strangely busy in Manchester, although the weather was somewhat nice. Walking around in shoes made for being pretty rather than being comfortable takes its toll though, and I paid for all that walking last night. Still, my weight needs to come down, so it's all for the greater good. I only wish that I'd been told I was going to put on a stone in six months, because I would have planned how I was going to pork my way through food a little better. Greedy old me. The Wii fit was quite rude when it discovered how much I had put on in my absence from regular front room jogging and hula-hooping.

Car trouble my friend?

As I sit here writing I have a lovely view out of the window next to my desk. It's a lovely sunny day, and is surprisingly warm. Two doors down there is a guy who likes to tinker with cars. I've not seen that many bits of car laid out on the pavement since I removed the front crossmember of my old Volvo 740 to change the timing belt and water pump. That was a big job. He, however, appears to have broken his car. Badly. Now there's four people stood shaking their heads and doing that sharp inhaling of air through teeth thing that garage mechanics do a lot. Should front wheels on a car ever point in radically different directions whilst blue coloured water dribbles down the road?

Those darn anniversaries come around ever so quick.

This weekend has been mostly a family weekend, and I've certainly enjoyed it. I can't believe how long it ahs been since Zoë's family have been here. How time passes by quickly.

Talking of time, the one year anniversarry of the civil partnership is almost upon us too. How quickly will the first 50 years of marriage actually seem to pass by? We're still very much like a new couple in love, so I have little doubt that the fifty year mark will be reached without issue. For the first anniversary though we've decided to focus a little more on my birthday, which is the same day. The reason for this is that last year at the wedding it was something that although acknowledged, played very much second fiddle to the ceremony and the big day. And so it should have. But this year I get a birthday. Go me! Unfortunately funds are ever so tight this month, as a result of the car insurance taking an unexpected chunk out of the finances. So I suspect a bottle of Cava and a homebaked cake will puit in sterling service (and I like Zoë's homebaked cakes a lot!).

On the writing front I have inevitably not had much time of the weekend. I suffered from writers' block on Friday too (it happens) so it wasn't until today that things came together again. I really got a handle on the scene that was causing all the trouble on Friday, and after a mammoth writing session I can safely say that it is all in the can (or on the hard drive?).

Is that the time?

March already; isn't 2010 passing by fast? Soon it will be Christmas again. Where does all the time go?

This week has been a little up in the air as far as writing is concerned. There's a long explanation, but the short (and more fun) version is that I had to take Zoë on a 270 mile round trip over two days to get her teeth cleaned. One of these days she will get a Dentist and a hygienist in the same bloody city that she lives! Consequently writing this week has slowed a little. I'm still pushing on, but with relatives visiting over this weekend, it will be next week that I hopefully get back into the swing of things. I'm hoping that I might be able to get the first draft finished before the fifteenth, which is both my wedding anniversary and my birthday, however that might be a tough call.

In other news there is no other news. The side projects at www.nobmouse.net and www.alloverthehouse.net are going pretty well. Revenue has picked up, so we may be able to afford two cans of supermarket own brand beans this month instead of just the one.