Well, what can I say?

I’ll start with: I feel better.  Much better.  As the lovely owner of my converted-byre getaway commented in her soft lowland brogue, “Och, sometimes things look different after a break.”

Then I should go on to say:  I’ll go back.  Dragging Husband with me.  Actually, after a couple of text messages to him saying things like, “Wigtown – Scotland’s Book Town,” “Garlieston, home of the Mulberry Harbour,” and “Did you know Lock Doon has its own Spitfire?” there won’t be much dragging involved.

For me, it was all about being able to leave my low-eaved front door and immediately walk into the forests and hills.  It was about walking and climbing and little bits of jogging till that last day, when I could run through the Woods of Cree in the rain, laughing aloud at the mud and the water soaking me, and loving that I wasn’t really out of breath.

It was about hunting for that, “Old Bridge of Minnoch,” marked on the map, and never quite able to find the right place, or a path that lead to it, or a hill that overlooked it.  Then going for a quiet stroll after a 2,000 word morning, following the path that lead to fishing stations called, “Robbie’s Pool,” “Low Quaking Ash,” and “Bright Burn,” turning a corner, cresting a rise and finding myself in the shadow of a high-arching, granite built, parapet-less bridge.  The old gentlemen in the red balaclavas who cried, “ah-ha! People!” at my appearance told me it was a Roman bridge, rebuilt four hundred years ago, or so.  Then tried to persuade me to share their lunch.  The path or road that crossed that bridge is long gone.  I’m sure there’s a symbolism in that that I can use in a book….

Cross the Old Bridge of Minnoch from south to north, and you face a quarter of a mile scramble before you reach a path, over marsh, ditches and tumbled rocks, staggering over three foot deep piles of rotting timber, that provided my only semi-serious fall of a week’s walking alone in the wilds.  At the time, it was just a slow-motion tumble, but when I woke up in the morning I found I couldn’t turn my neck to the left… a slight inconvenience.  (It was just a spasm, Mum, from a pulled muscle, and was fine the next day!)

And it was about coming home to my cosy cottage and dreaming and plotting and writing to my heart’s content.

It’d hard to say exactly how many words I wrote, or pages I edited, because there was so much cutting and pasting and editing.  But I did some writing that was hard, and, more importantly, because this has become so rare lately, some writing that was easy.  I also had a revelation that I was imagining my writing calendar completely wrong, and if Medallion want my third book, I actually have a YEAR longer than I thought I did to complete a submit.  Sorry, let me reconfigure that for confidence.  WHEN Medallion want my third book… 

I lay down on the rug and did a complete plot outline on discarded flipchart paper for another book (this is where certain selected people get to point and laugh) and even compared it against the Hero’s/Writer’s Journey charts.  Mostly an exercise in futility, it has to be said.  No other craft book makes me go, “what?!  WHAT?!” quite so much.

But I think the best part of the holiday, which will only be appreciated by Dorothy L Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey fans, was the moment I discovered that in “Five Red Herrings,” Campbell’s body is found in the Minnoch barely a hundred yards from where I was staying.

Lord Peter Wimsey was here!  I read the rest of the book with a map open on my lap….

 

Rough totals, walking and writing, below!

 

Saturday – arrival, 3 miles, 600 words

Sunday – 8 miles (Southern Upland Way to Glen Trool and back), 32 pages of edits, 1,200 words on Project 1, 550 words on Project 3.

Monday – 2 miles and cliff scramble, 300 words, unknown pages of edits (20+?)

Tuesday – 6 miles (Loch Trool round.  Ow.  Heard to cry, “oh that is just evil,” when confronting an unexpected stiff climb during the last aching mile), 420 words, unknown pages of edits (at this point, Project 1, Dangerous Lies, hit the 85,000 words mark, and reached the stage I need to print it out and edit that way)

Wednesday – 0 miles (driving tour of Waterhead on Minnoch, Loch Doon and Clatteringshaws.) 0 miles, 0 pages edits

Thursday – 5 miles (Old Bridge of Minnoch!) 2,140 words, plot mind map and full plot outline

Friday – 4 miles (Woods of Cree!) 2,020 words plus lovely tour of Gatehouse of Fleet and Kirkcudbright.

Saturday – 3 miles, 650 words (and drive home!)

Totals:-  31 miles, 7,330 words, 70+ pages edits

 

I can live with that.

No, I’m not in a competition, I’m in a quandary! 

Next week I’m retreating – retiring to a cottage on the edge of the Galloway Forest Park by myself to walk, eat well and write.  But I’m not sure which project to work on!

Project 1:-  This is the contracted book, due Jan 1st.  It’s complete, but needs expanding by approx 10k words (not hard – I have whole scenes I cut out of the first draft that I could work back in) and generally polishing.

Project 2:-  My next rom susp, for which I have an invitation to send to an agent.  The partial is good, but it hasn’t left its category romance origins far enough behind yet – it’s trying to be two things at once and failing at both.  (I love category, btw, it’s just not what this book is supposed to be).  I need to give this book the Big Book treatment, which is painstaking and hard work.

Project:- 3  A new story, for a publisher I don’t yet write for.  I have no interest in this book from editor or agent and it’s arguable whether or not it could advance my career any.  But it’s FUN and I can make rapid PROGRESS on it.  Gah.

So, what would you do?

Driving home in the dark, the cloud down over the rough ground near Bewaldeth, out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of white like the mist itself incorporating.

Not really seen, only a hint, a glimpse, a mendacious flag of surrender in the hunting dark.  But I knew the barn owl had just taken wing, skimming the mist for the whispers of mice.

Good hunting, night-ghost.

…. still chasing my own tail, still hangin’ on in there….

 ;-)

 Normal service may resume over the weekend…

I’ve paused in clearing out my car (how is it possible to accrue two-years’ worth of receipts, half drunk bottles of water and broken smarties??) to let you know that I’m blogging today over at Magical Musings, talking about my cover for Run Among Thorns.

 Pop on over!

The very smart and talented Edie Ramer tagged me to do one of those Eight Random Things blogs…

This is HARD.  So I asked Husband to contribute.  His only allowable contribution is number 8, and I’m not even happy about that one.

1)  I would rather do without chocolate than cheese.  Dear Lord, please don’t ever ban me from eating cheese…

2)  I once had to go to a large quarry in West Cumbria and select a dozen four-ton boulders. 

3)  I am afraid of spiders, but have a very live-and-let-live attitude to them.  Since we live in a creaky old house with many dusty corners and draughty gaps, this seems like a sensible idea.  Especially in summer when the bluebottles come in from the farmyard behind us.  The net result of this is that there are certain areas in the house (over the window in the bedroom, behind the TV, in the cellar, for example) which, while not exactly no-go areas, are certainly more under the direct administration of arachnids than humans.  If my house were depicted as a 17th century treasure map, these would be the places marked, Here Be Spiders.

4)  I have a HO scale model of a Consolidation steam engine in a display case on a bookshelf in my office.  It has always belonged to me, but until recently was in the loving and skilled care of my Dad.  It’s kind of his and mine at the same time.  Coupled to its tender is the yellow caboose that I used to love when I was very small indeed.

5)  Other random items on the same bookshelf include a pair of Stars and Stripes from the lovely Mel, an enlarged and laminated copy of Kate Walker’s The Spaniard’s Inconvenient Wife, a black Egyptian cat, a pile of notebooks, a picture of Julie’s baby boy, an empty bottle of champagne from my first sale and a lace parasol.

6)  I have started 12 proper stories in my writing life (rather than just notes of vague ideas).  I have finished six of them.  Three are ongoing (scheduled for completion in the next couple of years).  One was completed when I was about eight years old.  One when I was about fourteen.  One when I was about sixteen.  Then a big gap until I was twenty-seven.  I actually don’t think that’s a bad ratio, as things go.

7)  Husband and I actually played a couple of games of Scrabble on our honeymoon.  They were very high-scoring games, including the one where we BOTH used all our tiles in one word and got the fifty point bonus.  I have photographs of the finished board for the two best games.  Many people will think this strange.

8)  I am very gassy.  (What can I say?  My digestion over-achieves…)

 

When I travel to London, I drive to the main line station near work – Penrith.  I’ve been travelling that way for years now.  I remember when Virgin Rail took over, and the place suddenly got a bit brighter, with flowers in the tubs.

Penrith’s one of those old Victorian stations, all rusted cast iron, painted over a hundred times, and gothic sandstone windows looming tall.  The doors are narrow and wooden, the waiting room tall, cold and echoing.

Once, there was a blackboard with the next trains and their platform numbers chalked up.  In the last few years it was a white-board.  It always amused me that everywhere else was run with electronic precision, and Penrith was run by a man with a white-board marker.

The other day, when I got to the station, I stopped in my tracks.  They have an electronic arrivals board!  Civilisation has come to Penrith!!

I’m a little nostalgic for the elegant simplicity of the white-board.

Never mind.  I can always go to my closest branch line station, Aspatria.  That station… is a request stop!  Yes, that’s right.  When the train approaches, you put out your arm and hope the driver’s paying attention…

To be honest, I’m quite fond of these little islands of resistance to progress.  What do you have locally that’s simple, and old-fashioned and works?