The Clock Tower Begins

Ah…today…today… What happened today?

Gah. This is why I should do my blogging during my afternoon break, rather than at night. I forget everything I meant to say in the midst of diapers, bottles, and games of “count-to-three-and-then-throw-me-in-the-air-and-say-wheeee.” :D

Substitute again today – this time it wasn’t quite as interesting, but still a productive day. Mmm…raining when I left, so no exploring… Oh, but on the way home I spotted a craft store I hadn’t noticed before, even though I walk by it every day. :P They had pretty good prices on yarn, so I think I’ll buy some soon and do some crocheting.

I guess my big news for the day is that I finally started seriously writing again. Not sure how long the drive will last, but I was reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and just felt so inspired – I love Rowling’s descriptions of places and people, just look at the first chapter and how she describes the Dursleys. Brilliant – and so I sat down and started work on the sequel to my middle-grade novel The Whispering Gallery. I finished the first draft of TWG last year, and hadn’t quite managed to get going on the sequel (tentatively titled The Clock Tower.) I’m not exactly sure why, but whatever I did just didn’t seem right. I’m still not completely happy with the beginning, but I’ve got a chapter and a half done, and I’m projecting about 12 chapters. So we’ll see how far this goes.

As a motivation for myself, I’m posting the story chapter by chapter on a site called Apricot Pie. I posted The Whispering Gallery chapter-by-chapter on Facebook, but the format isn’t really friendly to fiction, so I’m doing The Clock Tower on AP instead. I used to post there all the time when I was in high-school – in fact, AP is responsible in large part for most of my completed projects. I never would have finished my first “good” novel, The Tale of Ander Collins without the feedback I got from there. It’ll be good to go back – though I’m older than most of the other writers there. Then again, the age group that tends to write stuff for AP is the age group that I want to write for, so I guess it’s the perfect test market!

It’s Wednesday, and I was supposed to try and get to a women’s Bible study group tonight, but didn’t. Mainly because it’s (comparatively) really far from here – about an hour and a half walking. I wouldn’t mind the going, but it starts pretty late and I’d still have to walk back, putting me home at 10-11 at night. I may see on Sunday if there’s anyone driving that way who could pick me up, but if not there’s a Reformed church around the corner that may have some sort of Wednesday night service or something too. We’ll see.

Honestly, by the end of the day, I’m always too tired to want to do much of anything. Anna keeps telling me that if I want to go out to a movie or shopping in the evening or anything to do so, but I’m pretty content to put the kids to bed, eat a bite of dinner, and then write or read for an hour or so before bed. I think I have the healthiest schedule and lifestyle right now that I’ve ever had – there’s almost no sugar in my diet, I’m walking 4-5 miles a day (depending on whether I explore or not), I’m in bed by 10 every night and up by 7 the next morning… I feel pretty good. :D

Anyway, that’s my day. Sorry it was a boring entry, but I’m actually kind of distracted by getting back to The Clock Tower. Maybe I can finish chapter two before bed.

Goodnight!

~Mags