I keep hearing that by four months of age a lot of babies are sleeping through the night (at least five hours, anyway). Well, we're a long way from that, but at least Sophie is now in a solid bedtime routine which sees her settling down at about 7pm every night and staying sound asleep until at least midnight before she next wants food.
So, that means I finally have some me time, which means a consistent time I can use for writing.
In celebration I finally bit the bullet and bought my long-awaited MacBook. Now instead of having to borrow my husband's PC laptop to write I have my own space, my Scrivener and all the other things I've missed so much over the last five months of being Mac-less.
I've set myself a concrete goal: to write, plot or otherwise progress Between the Lines for one hour every single night, between 9:30 and 10:30pm. Sophie has not been awake at this time on any night of the last fortnight (having said that she'll probably change her routine tomorrow and make it her du jour time to fuss :))
I sat down tonight not sure of what I'd manage, and an hour and ten minutes later I'm very pleased to report that I've been able to reconnect a little with the story by re-reading previously written scenes and working through some plotting and some notes. I actually think the extended break has been good to give me some much-needed perspective. I'm looking forward to my hour tomorrow night- and let me tell you, that's the biggest progress of all considering I've been almost dreading the idea of forcing myself to get back to writing over the last few months (too few hours in the day! Too much to do! Argh!).
So, it's all good. Hopefully before long I'll be right back in the swing of things.
Excerpt from Between the Lines
A memory wavered into his mind, shimmery as heat rising off the road in summer.
He was six years old, and he’d been in Stonehaven no more than a week. He was hollow and lonely, confused. He missed the bustle of Melbourne. He missed the other kids on his street, the whole gang of them and their scampy games. He was stuck out in the bush, all of a sudden, with nobody but Lionel for company. Lionel had spent the first day ignoring him completely, and the last few beating the stuffing out of him whenever he got the chance. So that day, he’d wandered out to the back garden, if it could even be called that- just a scrubbed, flat expanse of hot red dirt with a veil of tangled trees and shrubs behind it.
The bush.
On impulse, he’d taken a couple of steps toward it, bare feet burning on the hot ground. The air was filled with the lemony scent of eucalyptus and the fresh tang of the distant sea. He'd filled his lungs and the two steps had turned into six, then ten, then before he knew it he was running headlong toward the wall of whispering green and brown, pushing all his mother’s warnings about snakes and savages from his head. He barrelled between the first spicy-scented leaves and, to his surprise, popped out on a sort of beaten down track, hidden from view of the house. After a moment’s pause to wonder how many strokes of the belt he’d get for this, he set off down the track toward the most interesting noise he’d heard so far- the babbling giggle of flowing water, and laced in with it, the high, clear notes of a girl’s voice, singing.
He stepped off the track with his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly terrified as he caught side of the wide river bank and the rolling mass of glassy green water.
She was standing there, all right- a girl not much taller than him, skinny as a rake, skin the golden brown of tree bark lit by sun. A cascade of golden curls rolled over her shoulders to skim at her waist, tendrils flicking out here and there as she drew back her arm and lobbed a big rock into the water.
He watched it go, traced the arc with his eyes until it hit the water with a loud splash and was swallowed. She was singing, still, her voice high and clear. She was wearing a white dress that finished at her knees and puffed into short sleeves at her shoulders. He looked down at himself, his grey shorts and jumper coated in jam, dirt and everything else he’d been busy with that morning. He stared at her back with suspicion. She was pristine. The only dirty bit of her was her feet, bare as his.
If it hadn’t been for those feet, he might have thought she was an angel. Or a ghost.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
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