Now hole-punching and treasury tagging for distribution later. I sent out some ecopies a couple of nights ago and that was nerve-wracking enough, but handing over physical copies to the nice friends who have agreed to read it will be something else. I’ve told them I don’t want them to be nice, as there is little point in that when I want to make improvements. I think my ego has definitely hardened in the past year with all of the Faber critiques. I’m not totally immune, but I can mainly park the criticism in the rational part of my brain – even if it takes a few days even to feel brave enough to read the comments.

Time to go and hand over first copy – rest tonight at my book group. Yikees.

I had decided to set myself a zero word target for the school holidays but actually managed to scribble quite a lot, albeit all longhand and scenes randomly scattered through the book, so I’m now trying to place them and figure out how much I’ve changed the story in the interim.

Since I managed to surpass my zero target by a long way I’ve now set myself the more daunting task of getting my book ready for the Mslexia Novel Competition www.mslexia.co.uk which closes in 6 weeks time. I’ve still got loads of work to do but I do need to get some momentum going and these seems like a reasonable thing to aim for. I definitely want to look at submitting to agents by the end of the year, so even if I do submit to Mslexia I should be much further forward .

When I began writing the novel – All the Places I’ve Ever Been, the enormity of it scared me witless. Now 68,000 words later I know I’ll get it finished, but I still have to worry about the quality, now I’ve got the width. Onwards and upwards, its nice coming to the computer when I’ve still got about 25 handwritten A4 pages to work on.

Maybe I’m just tired, and my brain needs a bit of a rest. Since March I’ve been trained for 2 different jobs (although one was very temporary and is now done) and have finally started in my new part-time role (no big career, just making money). I think the result of all of this is that my brain is feeling a bit overloaded – none of it is particularly difficult to understand, but when you’ve been sitting on your own, and mainly living in your own head for a while, anyone talking to you needs concentration – never mind 8 hours of people talking to you.

Hopefully though things will calm down, and I can get back into my groove. I managed to make it along to the ex-Faber group (now that we have been cast adrift) and that has certainly reminded me what I’m meant to be working on. Because I’m always handing in things that I’ve written a few months ago, there is a bit of a disconnect with where I am now, and I always feel that the other writers’ stories are progressing faster than mine. Good to get the fingers moving again.

Had a good couple of days writing (so far) although spent the morning on a new idea rather than THE NOVEL. Mind you its good to know that there is more than one idea in my little brain.

Starting my new part-time job next week, but feel ready to start juggling again and very focused on what I want to achieve. First draft will be ready before the kids’ long summer holiday.

The next round of submissions for our follow-on group from the Faber Academy have started to come in too, so although I’ll not make the next meeting everyone seems really keyed up to make it work.

We all read our peices on Tues then Janice gave us our verbal report cards – scary stuff.  Thankfully I’d managed to take on board most of her ‘could do better’ bits, and everyone complimented my reading.  I’ll not go into the feelings of ‘how bad was I at the beginning’ and just say that I’ve learnt tonne of stuff and my writing has definitely improved.

I think I’ve also finally realised that this is a long term project and will need many more hours of work before the actual end, so the blog will continue, even if not quite as regularly.

I’ve also got a part-time job, if I believed in it, I would say that my stars must all have aligned on Tuesday, as I got my first pay slip in 2.5 years (for my temp job), got offered a job and finished my course.  I’ll still have loads of time to write, and will now be able to more easily afford all the coffee I consume.

I’ll really miss all the help and guidance from Janice, but I we did need shoved out of the nest.  Unfortunately the first training event for my new job clashes with the first meeting of our Janiceless group, so I’ll need to go cold turkey for a bit longer.

Then in the afternoon it was the turn of Derek Johns from AP Watt agency to amaze us.  He came at the whole ‘how-to-get-published’ problem from a different angle, but was equally enlightening.  We all left really bouyed up and terrified in equal measure and had to console ourselves with lots of wine and a deep fried mars bar (NB. one between 6 is a good ratio).

Now all that remains is a 7 minute reading from each of us on Tuesday night, and then probably more drinking (although I’ll be back on the Irn Bru as I’ve got to drive on Tues or can’t get there in time).  Janice didn’t want to put us under too much pressure, so we’ve only got to read out our best ever writing before she lets us loose into the big bad world again.  Looks like I’ve got 2 days of re-writes ahead to get a perfect 1000 words.

I’m a big fan of Alison Kennedy’s work and it is obvious that she puts every ounce of her being into it.  She did an hour long lesson in character with us, then we spent time talking about her research for her book ‘Day’ and her new novel ‘The Blue Book’.  Both sound really fascinating, and are on my increasing long reading list.  I think I’ve mentioned before that my feelings of being reasonably well-read have been totally debunked, and I now feel like I’ve lots of catching up to do. 

One of the things that has struck me over the course is the recurring themes – not just in the ‘this is how I write’ category, but also in  ‘this is what I read’.  George Orwell and Raymond Carver come up time and again as masters among masters, and while I had read 1984 and Animal Farm at school I’ve not given Orwell a grown-up read.  I also have to admit to never having read Carver until this course, where we took our time over ‘Cathedral’.  Definitely one for the birthday list.