annanotbob's diary

annanotbob's Diaryland Diary

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You can go your own way

Well, yesterday was mostly a very bad day but today has been good so hallelujah. I'm going to stop saying 'I think I'm past the worst of this' because it's obviously tempting fate. I'll stick with today was a good day.

Lovely to stay at my sister's and wake up there in a bed full of big cats and a little dog. I made coffee and went back to bed to get stuck right into that Nano novel, which just poured out of me. I had to make myself not look at what I'd written the night before, as I could tell from this diary that my head was all fucked up, but it DOESN'T MATTER. I'll have the rest of forever to sort out the first page - right now it's about getting on with it. No inner critics or editors allowed, by order. I knew today's was better, and it cheered me right up and even, thank the lord, gave me a shot of energy.

I came home, whipped my word count up to just past the day's requirements and DID CLEANING! Even put away the camp bed Tony had slept on and other quite unnecessary fiddle faddle-ing about. Yoga, healthy dinner at a cool place in town, bit of X-factor and here I am ready to bung down a bit more, having managed to walk away from the telly - yay, go me.

I realise on turning the page on the calendar that the felt-making class I've signed up for starts on Thursday and will run weekly all through November. Not the best timing as the art class is Thurs evening. I'm thinking I'll have to make that a non-writing day. Felt-making from 10-4 and art from 7-9 is probably enough. Yikes - just worked it out - I'll need to average 1,923 words a day. Better fuck off and do some writing.

First though, I must just say that good things are already flowing from the nano experience. Sammie is having a go - yayness of the highest order (sorry - it's the contact with teenagers, brings out the worst in me). She hasn't written much if anything since leaving school, but she was a great natural writer and I feel really excited about her even wanting to do it. And I've heard from two of the kids who were in my nano group at the last school I taught in. One's writing again this year, beating me already, and another has sent me a message to say that he's got too much school work to do it this year but his mind has been turning to words and he's rhyming and narrating everything to himself. This makes me immensely happy.

As do the pictures I took from my car when stuck in traffic on the coast road. Last night: