it’s really official, now…

Current work: revisions
Listening to: Manic Street Preachers
Reading: next on TBR pile – need to finish my book, first

Lots happening here at the moment.

• East Anglian Book Awards – the shortlist is here, including Heroes, Villains and Victims of Norwich. And my lovely published emailed me to say my tickets are in the post. Colour me overexcited. This will be the third awards do I’ve ever attended (and also the third one where I’ve been shortlisted – am still pinching myself a bit about that). But the nice thing is that DH’s best friends are babysitting for us, so for once I actually get to go to an awards dinner with my other half. Without whom I couldn’t write – especially the nonfics, as he’s my driver on the more awkward field trips (i.e. ones which are further afield or need a seriously good map-reader – the kids do try but son drifts off, panics and ends up in Wales). And without DH being chief parent in the evenings/at weekends, I wouldn’t have time to work.
• Work - I’ve sorted my revisions in my head and know where it’s going, so the second draft of the manuscript now has big chunks removed and little notes all over the place. Now to go through it and fill in the gaps (i.e. follow my instructions in the notes and flesh out the conversations I’ve sketched in).
• National Year of Reading – am doing a talk at a local school tomorrow, and am doing a whole morning at my daughter’s school next week. She’s gutted that it’s only to the top year and not her class (I think she was planning to do that ‘That’s my mummy!’ bit, bless her). But they’ll have more of an idea of how authors work and it's going to be fun.
• The floor problem – my charm offensive clearly worked as the insurance guy was nicer, this week. However… the readings weren’t good. One of the floor areas was reasonable, one was just about there, and one is still almost saturated. So the dehumidifiers are still in place, and the restoration guys may need to do some scavelling (i.e. taking the top layer off the floor – this was a new word to me. Well, hey, you have to get something positive out of it).
• Guitar – picked my way through the rest of the Dowland; Jim helped me work out the lovely opening to ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ (on the playlist for the current book), though will have to borrow DH’s Fender to do it properly – my guitar has nylon strings, being classical, so you can’t bend it effectively); and this week I’m doing the first line of a Bach prelude (very difficult stretches – I find barre work really tough, and because I haven’t been playing much this year my fingertips are a bit sore). It’s one line because it’s not in first position and I have to think about it; and if I do one line a week, I’ll achieve more than weeks of just not having time to practise a whole piece and ending up doing nothing.

I'm busy, yes. But it's nice busy (well, apart from the dehumidifier). As today is the last day of September, am hoping that October will be an even keel.