This week the terrible trio have been at an acting summer school 10-4 every day! This means that aside from the house work I have had a free run and I have made the most of it, using the time to write!
I tend to write my first drafts by hand so have been typing the first draft of the completed manuscript of the kids book and giving it to Hpops to evaluate. In fact she said; ‘it’s good Mummy but it’s not David Walliams!’ I am presuming she meant it as a compliment! Anyway she is making that up for me and I have also been trying to progress with Tumbles 2. I have to do a lot of updating (my own fault for taking too long in the first place,) and have been trying up the completed chapters. I have to say I was relived – It flows better than it deserves to as it has been written in such a disjointed way and as I have been typing it up I actually thought it was OK.
With their performances tomorrow I may struggle to find as much time in the day to type and write but I am hoping now that I have re-located my writing mo-jo I can keep up the momentum. I really want to get at least one of them done and dusted by the end of the year with the other not too far behind as I have been researching and planning the novel I wanted to write since I was young and am ready to go but want to finish my current projects first!
The new project is a throw back to old school detective work, think Nancy Drew, The Hardy boys and The Three Investigators. I think the main character is going to be a boy and while some gadgets are a necessity – who doesn’t have a phone these days? I want the mystery that unfolds to be solved with logic and brain power not luck and magic! Nothing wrong with any of those things but I really want to write something like I used to read and enjoy as a kid. Perhaps it will be too ‘far out’ for our technical generation but I have always written more for myself than for the market – if other people like it and want to buy it – well that’s a bonus!
I am still trying to decide what to do in September. I am going back to teach for about 15 hours a week and want to keep writing when the kids are at school but this makes the idea of re-trainign more difficult. The road is a long one and the children are concerned that I will not have enough time for them with all the things I plan to do and I can understand their fears! I wasn’t going to be teaching which makes study more feasible but I enjoy teaching and having got the opportunity I want to take that up.
Time will tell – I think if I get offered more teaching hours the decision will be made for me or if the writing takes off and the clamour for sequels is so loud that I have to spend my time parked in front of the computer! Maybe I should become a professional prevaricator – I’m definitely good at that!
