When someone asks me if I'm having any more kids, my whole-hearted, emphatic answer is 'shit NO!'. What has that got to do with writing? I finally realised that I haven't hit a wall after all. When I envision the red brick wall that I can't see around, that I can't see over and I don't know just how big the damned thing is, I realise that I haven't quite reached it.
Standing in front of my wall is my two beautiful girls, my fiancee, my housework, my neglected washing machine, the half-kilo of dead cow in the fridge, screaming to be made into something more interesting than meat and 3 veg, all those things are in my way before I even get to the sometimes insurmountable wall.
How do you get over it?
Do I commando crawl past the kids and man, pretend to be playing a computer game so they won't interrupt me doing something important? If they thing I'm playing, they don't annoy me quite so much. What happened to the days when I could pump out 6,000 words in a day with the kids? Do I expect too much and those days were just a fluke?
Once I've crawled past the real distractions, I crane my neck up to see past my wall but it's no use. Even if I did have something to write, it would come out all wrong or too tense, too intense.
My new favorite place to be is the local library. It's the only place I can go to work in peace where I have an excuse to turn my phone off, I can't get up to make a cup of tea or change a bum or get a drink for someone. It's total silence. (Well almost, except for the annoying mouse clicking guy... Can't he play games somewhere else?)
This week I haven't even read a book. I can't remember the last time in my life that I haven't read a few books in a week or at least written one.  I've managed 1/2 a chapter this whole week, I've dropped my stats on FB scrabble because my mind goes blank and I can't remember my 'big' words, but the DVD player has had quite a workout.
I've blamed so many obstacles for my lack of creativity, the kids, the heat, being sick, stress. I've finally come to another realisation. It's all of the above. How do woman with small children crank out two or three books a year and do they? A lot of the writers I know, and know of, are a bit older than my 26 years. Perhaps I'm reaching too high and should have set myself some limits? Maybe I should get my man to hide the internet stick when he goes to work so I have one less distraction? Maybe I should think about childcare a few days a week? I don't have the answers. All I know is that I wont give up! I can't give up. Writing (or even loack of writing) is something that I love to do. I love it even more than reading but I've never taken that final step and officially submitted anything. I have two query rejections and a couple of failed contests but that's it. Maybe it's dejection and not the wall that holds me back?
So this week I got my butt into gear, (a bit) I entered one WIP into the Molly and I'm hoping to get two into the Golden Claddagh. Both of these comps have historical final judges from Avon and since that's where I want to go... I've stopped concentrating for now on contemporaries, I'm trying to devote all of my time to my historicals and getting a foot in the door. In the next few days I find out about the Great Beginnings contest and The Knight Agency's Bo In A Nutshell comp.
Anyway, go out and rent the movie 'Wanted', with Angelina Jolie. Absolutely fantastic!! Also 'The Bank Job'. Both can get a little gory but are well worth the blood and guts! Hopefully next week I'll be able to recommend a good romance to read.
Head down to your local department store or bookshop and have a look for Trish Morey's Forced Wife; Royal love child. It's a Mills and Boon (a red one). Enjoy and have a good weekend!

In the words of Natalie Basingthwaite, 'Someday soon you're gonna catch that dream you've been chasing'...

First of all I want to thank the 300ish people who've checked out my site since it's inception. Thanks so much for the support and all the positive messages from all my buddies around the world and close to home.

I'm going to make this one a quickie today because I'm madly trying to prepare for a Hawaiian party I'm off to tomorrow night. (I will take lots of pics ;-)

At the moment I'm getting ready for the Golden Claddagh and I really want to re-enter a story I put in last year. Of course it needs a total rewrite on the first 30,000 words. So I was wondering what happens when the first 60 pages of your ms turn out to be crap? This was the very first story I started when I was working 12 hour security night shift. I got to the stage where I could read an entire book in a night and still smash my own Freecell record. When the sun eventually came up I was bored out of my brain and down a story on my dwindling TBR pile. I was reading faster than I could find books to keep me entertained and I was not going to resort to playing Playstation with the guys.

Anyway, one night I had an idea and decided I could write my own historical novel. Five years and two babies later, I'm told the first 25-30k are pretty much crap. (Okay they didn't use that exact word, but I can take a hint.) So now with the competition looming, where the final judge is Esi Sogah from Avon, do I rewrite those first words that I penned in a Winnie the Pooh exercise book and put some of the skills I've learned into practice? Or do I scrap my unique premise and enter something different? I'm torn between what I should do and what I want to do.

I love my first hero and heroine so much that I'm rewriting. Yes, I'm rewriting and it's crap! (Not the story but trying to get the original one out of my head so I can think of new predicaments to throw them into.) For over six months I've had to wage a not-so-silent war with myself not to open the document and read my original storyline. Do you have problems rewriting? I do. I find it really hard not to keep remembering what I already had, and when I really liked what I already had, it becomes even more of an issue.

Three and half thousand words in, I have my fingers crossed that I'm onto a winner but I only have to the 15th May so I better get busy.

Just for extra luck, can you cross your fingers too?

 

Alright! I found yet another time waster.
Welcome to my new website. I have promoted myself to Author even though I am yet to be published and for some reason I'm inexplicably drawn to things on the internet that wate my precious time. While I'm typing this one, the kids are trying to kill each other, the deepfryer is warming up and the washing is not going to do itself no matter how much I wish and wish and wish. What age can I start training (making) my girls to do the housework for me?
*bloodcurdling scream from the 3 year old* blow up another balloon because suddenly they both have the same favourite colour.
I just finished reading Anne Bishop's The Shadow Queen and it was fantastic. I love fantasy when I'm not in the mood for romance and Anne Bishop writes about a world I have to try to imagine rather than one I can already see. My next book to read is Stephanie Laurens Temptation and Surrender. I love Stephanie's books and when I found out she is an Aussie, it made me want to read her even more. 
Tonight Doug is out fishing with his dad so I'm going to try to get some writing done. Not sure yet whether it will be a historical wip or a contemporary one and I'm trying so hard to forget about Friday night chat over at Romance Writers of Australia. Geez those girls get rowdy.
Hopefully by next week the site will be up and running and full. I'm new to all of this website stuff so bear with me while I stumble through.
Have a great weekend and please come back and check me out!