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.