Okay, okay - best laid plans of mice, men and writers.  What can I say?  Well, knowing me a lot really.  So what have I been doing other than NOT updating Underground Mainstream?

Well, Joshua is settled at music school and still so thrilled with it all he is sad when Saturday rolls around and he has no class. I'm betting that could wear off soon....Elijah and Meg are both settled in with new classes and teachers and seem to be happy campers.  The dogs, ducks, cats, hens, and man are all happy.  So what does that leave?

Let's see - I am now a Girl Guide Leader in training - something I'm sure I'll talk about in here regularly - especially considering how overwhelmed I feel about it right now.   I've also joined the Monarch Butterfly Trust and we are converting the garden to an official butterfly garden - so be sure to keep an eye out for the butterfly section coming soon. Then there's the Pink Gumboot Project - another garden project that you'll soon see more of in here.  Yes it's going to be a busy week.

The things I am most excited about though are the Kim Rosen interview, some guest bloggers, and the campaign to change attitudes toward obesity.

See you further on up the road

I have this cyber friend -Tade Thompson - who is a fantastic writer. (Actually, he's currently working on a book called 'Changing Pace' for kids, which I suspect could well be the next phenomena to hit book stores by the way!  I think he has the next Harry Potter in the making.)  Anyway, for whatever reason Tade has made it his mission to save me from myself and ensure I do not neglect my fiction writing.

With this in mind he regularly tells me off, shakes his finger at me and sets projects designed to ensure my imagination is not allowed to wither up and die.  It is not an easy task, let me tell you.  And for once it has nothing to do with my stubbornness.  Journlists and editors are trained to question everything they hear and read - and yes I know there are an alarming number of them out there who do neither but I'm not talking about them - because if you get it wrong, it could not only ruin the story, it could ruin your career.  So you check, you double check, you verify, you go back and verify again - you change the style to fit the story, you pick the words depending on how you want to portray what's happened.  You do all of this as you go - and if you do it carefully and you do it right, you get a great article.  It is a technique however that does not translate easily to fiction writing.  Because when you are making it up as you go along (well that's not quite how it works as any fiction writers reading this knows but it's the easiest way to describe it)if you stop and question every little detail - you are not going to get much writing done.

So, Tade decided I should do NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org) this year and simply get the words on the paper.  He caught me in a moment of weakness - probably around half way through a glass of chardonnay  - so I said yes I'd do it.  Around the second glass I signed up.  It all seemed like a really good idea at the time as I had been playing for some time with an idea for a story and I figured this was a good way of getting a rough draft done.  All was going well ...until my character flicked on a light switch in her shop.  The editor in me wanted to know what kind of light it was.  Was it the kind of light this character would have in her shop?  Would she have something else?  In fact what kind of lighting overall was in the shop and where is the shop and why does she have it?  Now in and of themselves these are good questions that need to be answered - but not while I'm actually writing the damned story down.  For nearly twenty minutes I wrote and rewrote the line about the light.  Tade had to finally send me a message and say 'stop thinking'.  Okay he might have been a bit more forceful than that. 

But he did have a point.  In fact he had such a point, I'm going to write an article about it later today but for now suffice to say I agree it's very hard to use your imagination when you are thinking.  I actually had to tell the editor and journalist in me to take a hike and let me work.  In the end they sat on my shoulder and grizzled about continuity and typos and logic - but for the most part I did a pretty good job of ignoring them.  And churned out 1008 words for NaNoWriMo  - not to mention this post.

I'm not going to take myself off to the garden to recharge the batteries.

See you further on up the road.

The biggest obstacles to our progress exist within our own lives in the form of cowardice and the tendency to give up. Breaking through these barriers will unleash a surging wave of change.  - Daisaku Ikeda

Have you noticed that the minute you determine to do something - challenges come thick and fast?  And immediately.  Don't believe me?  Go on a diet. I'll bet you a double chocolate frappe that should you declare to the world that you are only going to eat organic vegetables for the next six weeks, within an hour someone will be offering you the very foods you have turned your back on.  And not your average garden variety chokky bix either. No it will be your favourite rich double icing gooey kind.

I haven't decided to go on a diet but I have decided to commit to my writing and boy am  I getting obstacles thrown at me thick and fast and it's awfully tempting to give up on both of them.

The first thing I committed to was signing up  for NaNoWriMo - partly because I need the discipline in my fiction writing and partly because I would like to actually finish my damned novel.  Having attempted NNWM twice before and never got beyond Day 2 I made a vow that come hell or high water I was going to write every day and get this rough draft down. I made it through Day 1 and the dreaded Day 2.  Didn't get anywhere near it yesterday and it's hovering on another open tab as I write - taunting me.  A part of me - mainly the part with the thumping headache I've been nursing for a fortnight - would like to just throw up my arms and concede defeat. After all it's not like NNWM is a huge deal right?  It's not like it's important or anything.  Only - it is.  I want to finish this manuscript.  I want to submit it for publication.  And I can't do that if I don't write it!  And if I can't commit to writing once a day for NNWM - when am I going to commit to it?

Not long after making the committment to NaNo, I made the committment to launch this site and work on my non-fiction.  People were supportive and showed intereset.  Within days the idea of documentary writing came up .  All of the things that keep you going.  Then life began intruding.  Things like cooking dinner, housework, going to yoga, cuddling kids, work - and please tell me I don't have to tell you these are in no particular order - showering.  For the first time in ages, when my head hit the pillow, The Man of The House has been all out of luck.  Suddenly, I am struggling to get everything done.  And again that desire to give up began to niggle at me. Luckily I took some advice from blogger extraordinaire Ben Young from www.bwagy.com  who pointed out that consistency didn't have to be three times a day, seven days a week. Not yet anyway.

You see I love to write - it's my driving passion.  And I've worked really hard over the past six years to be in a position to be able to write - so I don't want to give up.  I also don't like to think of myself as a coward. Well not in this instance anyway.  Tell me a shark is heading my way, and I'm more than happy to wear that label - but a coward when faced with writing.  No thank you.   What about facing becoming a successful writer?  Nu-uh - no cowards here.  So if there are no cowards, I should just be able to get on and do it.  Which leads me all the way back to the blasted obstacles. 

And that is when I had my efip...eppyf...my realisation occurred (and I should point out that it was only about a half hour ago).  I realised the obstacles were of my own making - so I could in fact break through them.  Life getting in the way? Plan better.  Lacking confidence?  Draw on faith.  Can't concentrate?  Turn off the TV, take the laptop outside.  Too quiet?  That's why Bruce was put on this piece of granite.  In other words - there IS always an answer if you just choose to look for it instead of giving up. And it doesn't have to be perfect right away - the important thing is you keep working at it.

So if you'lle excuse me, Bruce is cued on the mp3 player (dear Santa...iPod.....), the kids are asleep, I don't need to be at work until 7 tomorrow morning, and I've got some chanting under my belt - I think I'm ready to go smash an obstacle or two.

See you further on up the road