Friday 26 October 2012

Withdrawing into Winter

We've been making the most of the last Autumnal rays, trying to spend time outdoors during the weekends - exploring large gardens or stocking up on hardy plants to take our own little garden through Winter. But mostly I, for one, would like to withdraw - into writing and crafting. Creative hibernation.

Wednesday 10 October 2012

My favourite writing tool

For the past four drafts of my book, I've written and edited directly into Word. But for the fifth, and hopefully the final, draft I'm using Scrivener to help me scrutinise each and every scene, both in isolation and within context of the whole. You can do this in Word, of course, but somehow the visual nature of Scrivener makes it so much easier. It also organises all your research material within the same screen or window so everything is to hand. No more scrabbling through folders to locate something important. I love this tool and highly recommend it to anyone writing a book (fiction, non-fiction, academic) or a research paper.



I've been working on this book for nearly two years. When I first started writing it, I thought I'd finish within eighteen months at the latest. But I didn't count on three things: 1. Distractions. There is always something else I need to be doing (or others need me to be doing for them). 2. Fear. Fear of completing it because the next draft may be better; fear of completing it and sending it out into the world for fear of rejection; fear of being so stymied by rejection that I don't write another book. 3. Childcare. Looking after little R has been a wonderful experience. I rushed back, by my own choice, to fulltime work when she was just 10 months old so I feel blessed that I've been able to take care of her this past year and a half and experience her life and growth and personality to the full. Now she's four years old and at school fulltime so I can no longer use her as an excuse for not writing. That leaves distractions and fear, which I now have to resolve to ignore. Wish me luck!

PS This is not a sponsored post for Scrivener. They don't need me.

Monday 8 October 2012

A long weekend

Our weekend began on Friday as M and I took the morning off to view the Rothko and Sugimoto exhibition at Pace London. What a sublime pairing. An exhibition to return to and wallow in again and again. We also popped in to see Robert Motherwell's prints at Bernard Jacobson, plus a few other small galleries. We breakfasted at the Nordic Bakery on Golden Square and lunched at Meat Liquor on Welbeck Street.


On Saturday, we visited the British Museum with little R, who enjoyed pretending to be statues in various rooms of the museum. We also gave her her first taste of Korean food at one of our favourite restaurants Biwon on Coptic Street. The seafood and vegetable pancakes were perfect for her as they weren't too spicy. M and I used to meet up at Biwon often before we were married - first as friends and then as more-than-friends, so it really warms me to introduce our little girl to the place too. We picked up steaks from The Ginger Pig in Marylebone for dinner.

On Sunday, M ran around Hampstead Heath. The weather was beautiful - sunny and crisp - so little R and I joined him there later for brunch. Two cooked, English breakfasts for M and I and pecan cake (and lots of bacon from our plates) for little R. We are lucky to be so close to the Heath and it's becoming a weekend ritual to visit on days when the weather is fine. In the evening, M roasted a lamb and we ate it with endives with blue cheese, roast beets and roast potatoes.


Hope you had a lovely weekend too. I get quite a few visitors viewing my posts but very few comments so please feel free to de-lurk and let me know who you are :-)

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Autumn is here

I am still recovering from a stomach bug so just a few words from me and a whole bunch of photos from the past couple of weekends. Autumn is here, which means a lot of hearty meals, baking, knitting, spending time indoors reading and spending time outdoors trampling in crispy leaves and roaming the "deep dark wood" (Hampstead Heath!). Oh, and work on Draft 5 begins for the neverending novel. One day, soon I hope, I'll reach "The End".