Writing Spa Day

Today is my Writing Spa Day - give or take - I've got to get some chores done but other than that, the day is my own. Hubby is braving the world and carrying his man-flu out with him where it will roam free amongst the locals and move in with them all in time for Christmas. This makes him, momentarily, not my responsibility so I can focus on other things. Time for me and my guru to snuggle up together in my writing space and get some chapters down I think.

A Writing Spa Day is an immersion experience. The idea is to be surrounded by writing; so I won't leave my writing space for most of the day. My main goal is to finish some of my book and get into a slightly obsessive state about it so that I continue to write through Christmas and don't just forget about it until a couple of days before my self-imposed deadline in February. I also plan to read some writing magazines I bought with the clothes budget, prepare a competition entry or two and watch some relevant telly. It's research! I will be watching as a writer not a couch potato.

Competitions
I write competition entries every month. I never send them. Well, that's not true actually, I sent one last year and won, which was a nice surprise. I never write them planning to send them anywhere - I can't afford the postage and entry fees for one thing - I write them to tone my writing muscles. I write all sorts of stuff: poems, short stories, biographical pieces, children's stories. It makes my writing fresher when I go back to my novel.

On an ideal Writing Spa Day, I drive to the local library, throw loads more books than I could ever read into a cloth bag and drive home feeling virtuous but I'm feeling a bit run down today so I might just stay at home and make use of what I have to hand.

Pressure's Off
The oven may be broken for Christmas but at least I now have a 'Plan B' - my folks have said we can go over there and cook. Not sure quite how this will work. Does that mean we're hosting Christmas at their house or just that we're bringing the Turkey and doing all the work? I'm sure all will become clear on the day. Who cares? There will be an oven, a turkey, a table and smiling people. That's Christmas sorted. I've been thinking about those poor people at Woolworth's who lost their jobs just before Christmas. How depressing is that? At least a bunch of people I love will be around a table somewhere and one way or another the 'gawd bless us, every one' turkey will be consumed. Also, I can stop feeling guilty about pasting the in-laws' chicken dinner to my manuscript (see earlier post) as the oven is broken so it has to be soup or nothing. Hurrah!

The morning's getting old. Time to light a Cafe Au Lait candle, grab a cup of tea and spa myself silly. Luxury!

R.W.

P.S. There are some extra bits and bobs up now for you to look at, including the countdown for my self imposed novel deadline. It says '1 months' because someone programmed it that way so please ignore that bit. Not much time left now. Tappetty-tap.