Back to Writing

After two weeks of not writing, I am now back into it. I was trying to decide whether to try and write and finish a book before the end of the year, and decided, why not.

I started writing Hope and Thor’s story, the next in my Racing Harts series. Hope is currently the middle sister, and she races Sprint cars. However, I have decided that after writing the third story, Grace (the eldest) and Hope might swop ages, and Grace will become the middle child, only because Grace, who races Rally Cars, will fit between, race and time wise, between Faith and Hope. The motorbikes race over the summer, then the rally cars over the winter, then sprint cars during the speedway season. But that’s a problem for future Karen.

And to make things more interesting, I’m doing NaNoWriMo. That stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s because November is a quiet month in the United States, where this idea came from. I’ve participated in SoCNoC which is Southern Hemisphere version when KiwiWriters was a thing.

What does NaNoWriMo actually mean? Well, it means that you write 50,000 words over the 30 days of November. Some people will cringe at that and think it must be hard. Some will wonder why I would put so much pressure on myself. I, myself am wondering why I wanted to do this, but then I look at Hope and Thor, and I know how much I enjoyed writing Faith and Cole’s story, that I wanted to continue. And if I finish before December, it means that I wrote three novels this year. Which is pretty darned cool and might mean that I have more than two novels to publish next year.

Of course, to overcommit myself further, I’ve signed up for the New Zealand Certificate in Business – a Level 4 study of setting up a small business in New Zealand. I thought that since I want to get serious with my writing, cardmaking, and proofreading, that I really should get some understanding behind me to start the business. I’m scared that I’m pushing myself too much, but if I can just get Hope and Thor’s story written before December, then I can have most of December and January off before pushing into new writing projects.

But we’ll have to see if I get NanoWriMo first.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Hey! So I’m going to let you in on a secret. I used to hate Christmas. Shocking, I know.

When I was a kid, I loved Christmas, I remember the year I got a bucket of Torro (a precursor to Lego) and I played with that stuff, like forever! It was awesome, and about one of the few Christmases I remember as a kid.

When I married for the first time, his parents, particularly his stepmother, was a nightmare. She didn’t like my Dad, so she didn’t like me. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t make it better. So I didn’t.

When I married for the second time, my Second Ex had two and a half children (2 boys and a foster son). The first Christmas together was pretty epic. I made a heap of toy boxes up with toys from the $2 shops because neither of us had any money. But after that, the Christmas’ got harder and harder. I would make a Christmas dinner, but they wouldn’t eat it. I’d make dessert, but they wouldn’t eat it. They didn’t like the presents I got them, because their mother, that they lived with, got them big presents and spoiled them. And every time I complained to my ex, he’d defended his kids, which is natural, but instead of telling them to be gracious, he told me to act like an adult.

So I did, and I stopped doing Christmas. I got them basic gifts – mostly toiletries, and then sat back and let everyone else sort it out. All I wanted to do was head for the hills and just camp out for a week or two, then come back once everything was sorted.

Unfortunately, mixed up in that, was my own son. It was a real struggle to make Christmas exciting for him when I hated it. I hated the run up to Christmas, the idea of having to give gifts that were unappreciated, and then listening to everyone (except my son) complain about how ungiving and uncaring I was.

It took a while, after I left my ex, to get the Christmas spirit back, but the last two years, I have been getting into the spirit of things again. I’ve been making presents for my family, because I just love to give. I’ve already got most of the presents I’m getting for everyone, because I like to be super organised and no where near the shops closer to Christmas!

There is one thing I still don’t like about Christmas, commercialism. Everything is the best deal you will ever get it, (unlike two weeks ago, at Black Friday, when it was exactly the same price…). That’s why I make a lot of my gifts. To make it more special, and personalised.

So, Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you’re starting to enjoy the festive season too.

Done and Dusted…I Think

I busted a gut and got my assignments finished and handed in with a day to spare. My first one was returned, as I hadn’t completed the tasks as they asked. Which was kind of confusing, because they asked you to name two pests that would eat your plants, and that was it. The rest of the questions were about what type of climate, soil type, and drainage I have that can affect pest management etc… which I assumed to mean that they wanted answers for those two pests. No, apparently not. I had to provide answers for a range of pests (we’re talking insects here).

The last assignment was on companion planting, which I think I nailed. They haven’t responded yet to let me know if I passed or not.

So, then I thought I could do some editing, but instead I’ve ended up working on a special project. This year, I personalised a diary for my writing. It has everything in it from what I put on my Catherine Mede page, to word counts and what I’ve edited (chapters etc). It was rather challenging to try and make it up, as I have it in a weekly format and then I had to work out which pages go where for when I made my signatures. You see, I like to make books too. The exciting part is, it actually worked! I’m in the process of building my own writing planner. I have the signatures sewn together, and I’ve glued in some bookmarks, and I’m so damned proud of myself! I just need to make the covers and then it is finished. What a mission.

Anyway, hopefully I get my results this week and I can then put that part of the course behind me. I have another topic to go, but I might just start that in January, so I don’t have any more stress between now and May when the class would finish. The January intake finishes in June.

I hope you’ve had a better week

Kia kaha

Catherine.