The beginning of another week.  The weekend was fairly laid back – the husband was away for work on Saturday, which meant that the kid and I were alone for the day.  Except we weren’t – my mother came in to catch up with the kid for a bit, and then I spent an afternoon with an amazing friend of mine while the kid took a mammoth nap.

Yesterday was as cruisy – the kid had a massive sleep in (his sleeping so much is probably the effect of the chicken pox vaccine he had last week), which let us sleep in.  Housework in the morning, then the husband and I toodled off for a massage in the afternoon.  Which is pretty much necessary for both of us with our back problems.  Back home to feed the kid, then bath him and get him into bed. And then we finally tested out the 3D of our new television – by watching Tron: Legacy in 3D.  Just insert a happy sigh here

This week is probably going to be all about research for me again, as well as plotting and outlining.  I need to find my way into this new shape of Thought and Memory.  I’d love to be actively writing right now, but I suspect that any writing I do now will just be deleted in the future.

Heh, and the kid has decided that I’ve been sitting unmolested for too long and is trying to climb onto the laptop.  Time to wrap this up and get on with the day.

Have I mentioned how much I love the MacBook?  Part of this is just being happy to have a light, portable laptop again, but there’s a huge part in just loving the fact that everything just works.   Don’t get me wrong, I am always going to be a PC girl first (and one who doesn’t mind having to fiddle with things to get them to work), but I can see why people join the cult of Mac.

The highlight of today was getting to meet my niece for the first time.  Madeleine was born yesterday by c-section and is utterly adorable.  First niece for my sister and I, first grandchild for my parents.  And in a month’s time (or less!), she will have a cousin   Which is suddenly feeling all too soon and yet really far away.

I haven’t written for the last two days.  Neither have I missed writing for the last two days.  Frankly, I’m utterly exhausted and my well of creativity has been wrung dry.  So I’m officially taking a break.

This doesn’t mean that I’m not thinking about writing.  I have been, a lot.  I’ve been reading a bunch of blogs and articles on writing advice (which I shall link to sometime soon) and contemplating process.

My process has always been this: I am a pantser.  I get an idea, and I work with it with no plan, just trying to excavate the relic hidden beneath the earth.  And I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite.

Anyone who’s been reading my blog entries will know by now how frustrated I’ve been with this process.  It doesn’t mesh with my innate nature, which is someone who likes to plan and organise.  And so I think it’s time for me to try something different.  Not now, but when I come back to writing again after the sprog is born and life has settled down again.

I am going to try to become a plotter.

At the moment, I’m unsure as to what method of plotting I’ll use.  I have plenty of time to explore them, so that doesn’t worry me right now.  I’m also going to try to get myself back into a writing routine as soon as I can.  This may be the more ambitious part of the plan, but it’s always been the best way for me.  I’m also going to seriously track the time that I spend writing and set myself deadlines.  And yes, I will probably blog endlessly about this entire process.

1. Send out Shaede for another round of agent submissions.
2. Write the first draft of Requiem.
3. Rewrite Thought and Memory.
4. ?

Let’s see how these progress as the year goes on.