Sigh!!!!!
‘ONE CANNOT WRITE A BOOK WITHOUT APPLICATION OR DEDICATION.’
I was filing in my office tonight and came across a poem that my friend Rebecca sent me when The Stumpwork Robe was released. It was written by her daughter Rachel a number of years ago, when Rachel was only ten.
I read a blog last week (I wish I could remember who, because it was good) about how often real life interferes with best laid plans for adding a few thousand words to the WIP. Today was one of those days for me. 
Tomorrow at our farm, it’s lamb-marking day. Essentially that means all the lambs are vaccinated for deadly diseases and the ram lambs are neutered. So today my husband and I moved the ewes and lambs about a kilometre down the stocklane from where they were grazing.
30 Days of Writing Questions was from a meme on A Broken Laptop. It became 25 days of writing as it applied to my own writing life. It should really be answered one question at a time in depth each day you blog but Time is at a premium just now. So here goes my abridged version. If you subscribe to my blog and read this, please assume you are tagged and play around with it and pass it on.
I’ve been injured and out of action for four weeks now. And in that time I should have almost finished The Shifu Cloth. In fact I have 30,000 words to go and another six weeks of rehab. Finishing is a possibility if I dedicate myself. But the silence from London over Glass Flowers/Paperweights is hardly conducive to me finishing a further novel. I believe there is a summer holiday-break in the UK and London business has almost shut up shop, and it is a soothing thought.
Recently my friend Lua, from Bowl of Oranges, did the most extraordinary interview on her blog between herself and one of her characters. I thought it would be a really hard thing to do and wanted to have a go. The difficulty is that with the book Paperweights/Glass Flowers at the submission stage, I had to be careful just how much of the story and the character was revealed, which makes an interview really hard. In this instance however I was really lucky because Finnian is like a closed shop.
My friend Pat from BoPress http://bopressminiaturebooks.com/blog wrote a really interesting blog recently on her studio and then even more recently, on her tools. She’s a miniature book artist and I was in love with the space and the equipment.
I wondered how my writer’s space and my writer’s tools could ever compete. My spaces, of course, are wonderful. At the shack, the table by the window listening to the waves and in town, the family room and the big navy couch, looking out to the Derwent and over shadowed by a complete wall of all my favourite books.
Tools-wise, it’s a whole other story. I have a little white laptop, an iBook G4, a pile of A4 writing pads, a brown and white container full of pens and pencils,
Pens, especially RED ones . . .
a couple of USB’s, and a thoroughly worn out thesaurus that my husband gave me in 2003 to replace my thirty year old one and which is now falling apart.
A worn out thesaurus
I have a few different dictionaries and some special encyclopaedias. As I’m a fantasy writer, my reference books relate to myth, legend, folktale and imaginary lands.
A small selction of reference books . . .
I have a pile of journals that contain notes and inspiration, because my daughter is a bespoke journal maker and graphic designer and keeps me supplied.
My special journals . . .
I have a wireless printer, in fact wireless everything. And I have a friend called Doctor Google. I do have lots of reference files in the office, filed under the title of the book to which they relate. I was a reference librarian for a short term after I left university many years ago and that part of me says I should cross-reference everything in an effort to keep track. But at the moment I can rely on my memory to tell me where things are stashed.
My other tools are two demanding Jack Russells, a pantry filled with camomile tea, a Spode Blue Room coffee mug and the four CD’s of Cary Lewincamp, whose work I adore and which is a quiet and ambient counterpoint to whatever dramas may be going on in my brain. http://www.cary.com.au/sound-1.htm
And that’s it . . . boring, isn’t it? Compared to an artist’s space and an artist’s tools?
Now if it was embroidery, that would be a whole other story . . . and one that I just might write about one day.
Baby rug embroidered for Marcus, newborn son of English writer Simon James Atkinson Turney.
I love treasure hunts. Whether it is renovating the old site of the stables from the 1800’s and finding pieces of history, whether it is shell-seeking on my favourite beach.
What's at the end . . .
I’m in the process of the second last revision of my manuscript. I say second last because I’ve given it to two very trustworthy friends on another side of the world. Whilst they read and report I could of course, rest and re-gird my loins.
But I decided instead to revise it myself .
Well, I suspect it might be this weekend, beginning with today.
I am at the shack (for those outside Tasmania [Australia] read cottage, beach house etc). I have the laptop with me, I have my revision reports, research notes, dictionary and thesaurus. I arrived at midday. It’s been a mild day . . . unusually. It should be freezing as it’s past June 1, but its forecast to be 17 (64?). The sky is powder blue and there is no wind . . . none. It’s heaven.