Publishing

I'm still plugging away at the writing. I'm well over 57,000 words which is good, but it's like half way up the hill. I'm just realising how much more there is to go!

Been talking to my LSW about the changes in the world of publishing and generally out there in the creative media. How, previously, you needed some form of permission or sponsorship before you could get your product out there to your audience. Now, all forms of technology are breaking down those barriers. Concepts like publishing houses and bricks-and-mortar bookshops have worked perfectly well for a couple of hundred years are now being circumvented by direct media mean you can connect directly with your customers.

So, in the next short while, I'm going to start building up a presence, so that when finally this book is done and edited and ready for the world, there'll be a world out there ready to read it!

Writing

Just to let you know that I'm writing away, a few hundred words every night. I'm guessing that after about three weeks that means that I must have written thousands of words. The current plan is to get it all down on the screen no matter how bad it looks. And then when I go away on my Arvon course I'll pull it all together

The Joy of Lego

I bought middle DS (aged 6) a huge box of Lego for Christmas/Solstice. I've found it's a really good way to be creative - like a rapid prototyping tool. Although now I've got a project I'm investing lots of time and effort into it to do the best I can at it. The end product is going to be a photograph so I'll share here when I'm done!

Also I now have a writing buddy - someone I worked with about 12 years ago in Ireland. Anyway, we're both on twitter and nagging each other to write every day. My novel is finally restarted and now I've been writing every day I need to get on and plan out the next stage of the plot.

Finally, I'm now booked on an Arvon course - five days of seclusion with other writers deep in Devon to (hopefully) knock my novel into some kind of publishable shape.

Hoping for a more settled 2011

Right so. The state of our family so far is that youngest DS has a nursery that he likes (at 2 1/2 he knows his own mind!) and goes there three times a week. Middle DS is going to his local primary and he can walk there with me which is lovely! But the eldest has so far failed with every attempt to get into school. Luckily he's happy about this adn we're going to start prepping him for the Kent Test.

This does mean that I need to carefully manage my time to get my creative projects underway. I'm about to book an Arvon course - a residential get-away for a week with other writers. This does mean that I'd like to get several thousand words under my belt - if not tens of thousands. That way I'll be able to use the course to do a major re-write and make the whole book hang together. But if I don't get enough written, I should be able to make proper progress on getting it written.

Graham

Light at the end of the tunnel

Well, middle DS starts school any day now and youngest is going to nursery three mornings a week, so hopefully I'll soon get a bit of time to be creative. I've got a couple of craft fairs coming up for Christmas so I'd really like to get some stuff made for them... I'm working on night-light holders at the moment...

Graham

Trying to be creative

Hi

At the moment I'm trying to find time at either end of the day to be myself and to be a bit creative. I went out to Herne Bay the other day and took photos just for the fun of it. And I've sat down here to write this. I've also made decisions about my writing and the direction it's going in.

So I do feel that there is some forward progress.

Graham

Home education

Well, a lot of water has gone under various interesting bridges. My LSW has been made redundant and has started contracting. This means, for the next eight weeks or so that she's doing a weekly commute of over 200 miles and I'm home alone with the boys. I'm also home educating the elder two boys (now aged 6 and 9) as they can't get in to their local school.

Anyway as part of my long campaign to try to get them in, I emailed BBC News on Friday and today a journalist with a camera came around and interviewed me for the local news station. I've been feeling a bit weird ever since and I realised that very literally someone came in from the outside to see how I live my life.

And that made me realise that a lot of what I take for granted is actually quite different. She only saw the home education side of things but in the background the home made wine was bubbling away nicely. And I run a compost heap and am strangely proud that with a family of five, including one in nappies, we can cope with rubbish collections every other week because of the amount we recycle.

Every day I see how other people live and realise that I am quietly forging my own path, from keeping slightly older, cheaper cars going to really wanting to walk my children to school.

Anyway, creative stuff I have done recently. I've had another go at some glass painting and am happier with the results. It's now autumn so I've been out foraging all sorts of berries to make into jam and wine and a new delicacy called Elder Rob. This is a home made cold remedy that tastes divine! And I've been slowly harvesting the garden into the freezer and planning next year's crops. And I even dusted off the chisels to give stone carving another go. I love doing this but hardly get the chance at the moment and it will eventually lead to some metal casting fun!

Anyway I've got to go back to being a full time house-husband-stay-at-home-Dad.

Graham