On life getting in the way of writing

Poor, neglected blog. It’s been so long since my last update, and I’m sorry, but you know how it is, right? A host of contracts and new customers come along, and deadlines are short, and then pregnancy and ‘flu hits, and then it’s nearly Christmas, and on and on the excuses go. My poor blog has been sitting in the back of my mind like a hungry puppy wanting sustenance, but life has rushed past like a steam train and I’m only just catching up again…

So, today’s blog article is purely personal. I don’t think anyone wants to know the intricacies of my working until the early hours of the morning to meet bid deadlines, but there are some fantastic things that have been happening on a personal front, so I’d like to share those. Bear with me – I’ll return to communications soon – when I stop communicating, and have time to write about it instead!

Firstly, Blob and I went for a scan earlier in December. There have been huge concerns throughout the pregnancy because of various issues, and this was a kind of D-day for us. I was terrified. I went in, Blob was lying with her legs in the air chewing away on a thumb, and was perfect. Did you get that? Perfect. The placenta? Fine. Bob’s growth? Fine. The blood clot? What blood clot? The little star has managed to beat all the issues and we’re now on track to have a healthy and normal baby.

Wow.

Other than that..my volume of poetry – Unspent Possibilities – is now available through Amazon. I never intended to be a poet, nor publish a volume of poetry, but a good friend of mine is a bit of a Jiminy Cricket when it comes to me writing and kind of persuaded me to up my output, and this is what happened. I write poetry to vent emotion, so the contents of the volume are sometimes packed with feelings in a way that my fiction never could be. I’m pleased with this little book though and hope that people find it interesting.

The second novel (which is actually the first one I ever wrote), called The Wedding Dress, is also due out at some point early in 2011. I’m sitting on the final proof at the moment and need a few more days, but it should be published shortly. This was my baby if you like – the first thing I ever really wrote, and it’s very dear to me. I wrote it because I secured a literary agent having sent out a volume of short stories, and was informed that while the stories were worth publishing, they would never do so well as a novel. At the time, I didn’t think I had what it took to write a whole book, but after some thinking The Wedding Dress poured out. I’ll keep you posted about publication for this one!

In between working, I keep daydreaming about having the time to write fiction as a full-time role. I have so many ideas which I’d love to develop, but never seem to get the space to devote myself to it. My resolution for 2011, in between bringing up Blob to be healthy and happy is to free up some time every day to finish the latest project I have on the go. I suspect this time it may take me longer as Stilus is flourishing, but it gives me so much pleasure that I miss it and would love to get back to it properly.

I’m sitting in the living room right now with Christmas presents everywhere waiting to be wrapped, and it’s just the tortoise and I as everyone else is still asleep. With the best intentions in the world, once again we are left with the last-minute stresses of wrapping and writing cards, even though I vowed that this year would be different and we’d have it all completed and posted out by early December. John Lennon sums it up beautifully – Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. It seems to me that 2011 could claim that as its mantra, already, but there’s something rather lovely about that being the case. I’m not going to be bored, whatever happens.

Signing off now to do some more work. Thanks for catching up with me, and I promise to come back to communications very shortly!

Jen x