Writing is a sweaty business

I'm sweating. Metaphoric sweat, but sweat none-the-less. It's beading on my forehead and running in little rivers down my sides.

I have some changes to make on the manuscript for my novel. I have notes from my editor. Suggestions. Most of them are of the forehead-smacking 'of course! you're right!' variety. Some are surprising. All of them require more. More from me. They require me to dig deeper, go harder, dive, dive, dive. I need to move things around, change things up. Wade back into that sea of words.

So far I have done a lot of thinking. A lot of note writing. A lot of sweating. When the boys go back to school, I will do a lot of writing. And more sweating.

I'm worried that I'm not up to the challenge. I go to bookshops and run my fingers along the shelves. All of those clever people with their witty turns of phrase and their convoluted plot lines. Can I do this? Really? Who do I think I am?

I am lucky. I have a husband who knows me well. "Can I do this?" I ask. "You did it in the first place," he says. "Of course you can."

I have friends who write books. I call them. "Can I do this?" They tell me that everyone feels this way (good news). With every book (not so good news - this novelist thing is not for the fainthearted). 

I will do it. I did not come this far to turn back now.

In extra good news, one of my friends who writes books has agreed to spread her knowledge, experience and support even further. Dianne Blacklock, author of eight fabulous novels, including her latest The Secret Ingredient, will co-host the next Fibro Facebook chat, all about writing fiction, next Wednesday night, January 25, 2012, from 8.30-9.30pm (AEDST). Join the Fibro Facebook page for details and reminders.

Making a meal of planning an app

I used to love cooking. I was a huge fan of recipe magazines and cookbooks (see evidence in photo of a small portion of my collection). Always looking for something new to try. The Builder and I used to have at least one new dish to try each week, if not more. I hated eating the same thing two weeks in a row.

Used to.

All of this, of course, was pre-children. When I was dealing with two adults with relatively adventurous palates and had all the time in the world to pontificate about what we'd have for dinner that night. Now I have four palates: two relatively adventurous, one relatively adventurous for a kid, and Mr5, who would happily live on ham and salad for the rest of his life.

So I have to plan meals. A week in advance. And generally featuring mostly things we've had before. Things I know that Mr8 and Mr5 will eat. Boring things. All of which makes meal planning about as exciting as flossing one's teeth.

Having said that, I have learned through the school of 'Cruskits for lunchboxes' that meal planning is essential. I do a weekly shop, including stuff for lunches, and top up with fruit and bits and pieces as the week progresses (which is to say that I'm still at the supermarket every second day but it's only for small items). But there's great value in arriving home after Little Ninjas or swimming or whatever and knowing the 'fixings' for a meal are at hand.

As I wandered through the supermarket today, menu planned, list in hand, I began to invent a new app. A meal planning app. You put in your details (number of adults, number of kids, general likes and dislikes, level of cooking skill), fighting the auto-correct all the way, and it sends you, once a week, a full week's menus, with shopping list. All the deciding done for you. No need to sit down and think 'what the hell am I going to make for dinner tonight?'.

I think it would sell.

There is an app out there called 'What's For Dinner?', which seems to offer access to lots of recipes, your own and other people's. It's almost there. Now if they could just make the decisions for you, I reckon they'd be on to a winner.

Until, of course, they create an app that actually does the cooking for you. And the washing up.

Now that would would make me app happy.

What would you put in a meal-planning app? What's the best food/cooking app you've tried?

Drifting

Remember when you were young, and school holidays felt endless. Each day stretched before you. Time passed slowly. You had time to be bored?

Our first week back in the Fibro following the Epic Family Holiday has been like that. Starting late. Easing into the day. Nowhere in particular to be. Nothing in particular to do.

It's lovely. The boys are relaxing. They play together. They bicker. They do something separately for a while. They come back together. I faff about, providing snacks, reading my book, an occasional spot of housework.

The perfect rhythm for a school holiday. Except I'm not. At school. Or on holidays. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the notion that there are a couple of deadlines screaming my way. Sigh. Best I think about those.

Tomorrow.

[image: via weheartit]

How to turn your blog into a book

A few weeks before Christmas, as I was floundering about in my usual search for the perfect Christmas gift for The Builder, I had a moment of, well, to put it politely, genius. I'd make the Fibro blog into a book for him. A nice little precis of our lives over the past couple of years.

Right. Now how was I going to do that? Initially I had visions of reformatting every post into Word and... well, let's just go no further down that long, winding and difficult path. Instead, I turned to my best mate Google and typed in 'blog to book'.

Voila! Several enticing options for me to simply press a few buttons and have a neatly printed book appear. But which to choose?

I had one false start with a company that seemed to offer exactly what I needed but... well, let's just say the program turned out to be way too difficult unwieldy to think about in the middle of the night (my natural working time). Then I stumbled across Blurb.com.

Despite the fact that I couldn't quite work out how much it was all going to cost, I followed the instructions, exported my blog, imported my blog, edited my blog (Blurb has an advantage over The False Start in this area), removed posts that were not relevant, added photos that were relevant, dillied, dallied and dithered and, after several nights of hard work, discovered that I had created a 320 (!) page hardcover book. Eek allores!

Taking a deep breath, I uploaded the whole thing and then awaited the final costing (you don't pay until you get that figure, so no stress - just lots of work wasted if it turned out it was going to cost an arm and a leg). And I was surprised. Pleasantly surprised. Very pleasantly surprised. The whole custom-made thing, including shipping, cost less than some of the gift books that come out around Christmas (email me if you want the exact figure - The Builder reads my blog every day and I don't want him knowing how much Santa and his elves spent).

I pressed publish. I pressed private (you can choose to have your book publicly sold). I waited anxiously to see what the quality of the whole exercise would be like.

Again, I was pleasantly surprised. There are some limits to the design process, which may be less pleasing to those with a more discerning eye than I, but for what I wanted - a wholly personal and meaningful one-off gift - it was perfect. It's a tangible record of all this ephemeral writing. A tangible record of those tiny moments of family life that are otherwise lost to memory (despite an extensive archive to wade through).

It reminded me that, while the Internet is forever, holding a book in your hands makes your words so much more... present.

If you're a blogger, give yourself a present and visit Blurb. I really recommend it*.

*Not a sponsored post. Just saying.

Where do you go to relax?

When Fam Fibro goes on holidays, we go. Around 1200km, round trip, in the car, to be precise. What began as a simple 'let's visit the family up north for a few days' turned into an odyssey. A few days at Chez Maxabella (sadly without Maxabella in residence) in the Big Smoke, where we visited Oma, visited the Harry Potter exhibition, visited cousins, visited friends... you get the picture.

Into the car for the short drive to the Central Coast, where we visited friends. Into the car for the longer drive to Port Macquarie (how boring is that stretch of highway between Buladelah and Kempsey... no, really? Something must be done), where we visited a carnival. Into the car, for the short drive to a small town near Coffs Harbour, rumoured to be the holiday destination of an Aussie supermodel, where we visited, not the model, but The Builder's brother.

Three blissful days in which the only visiting we did was to the beach.

Into the car for the shortish drive to Forster, which turned into a much longer drive when we discovered that there was no room at the inn. Any inn. So we visited Newcastle and granted ourselves the luxury of a night at the Grand Mercure, simply so we could stretch out and watch the enormous boats on the working harbour.

Into the car for the very short drive to our next stop - which became much longer once we decided we should visit some of the Hunter Valley's finest wineries. Now that was a visit.

One more night at a friend's house, in which we were visited by an enormous storm. And then into the car to head back to the Fibro, where we visited with the family members who'd been staying at our place in our absence.

Phew.

On the positive side, we did more socialising in 10 days than we've done all year. We visited amazing beaches, drank amazing wine, got to see the Sorting Hat in action, spent time with family and friends, sang a bit, laughed a lot. On the negative side of the ledger, Mr5* managed to split his head open, stand on a bee, and develop a serious case of Verbal Diarrhea (which, as everyone knows, can be fatal to anyone else within, say, the close proximity of a car...)

Somewhere around about Newcastle, Mr8* asked me how many more days on the road we had. "We'll be home on Friday night," I told him.

"Ah," he said, leaning back in his chair with a big, toothy smile peeking out from under his new Hogwarts cap. "Then we'll be able to relax."

Did you enjoy a family holiday this year? Where did you go to relax?

*new year, new names

[image: a photo I took whilst trying to keep my cover as an innocent tourist when I was really on Kerr Watch on the north coast]

Happy P-Day to Career Mums!

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Just popping in from my blogcation (weather is great, wish you were here) for a small happy dance to celebrate the fact that Career Mums hits the bookshops today! Huzzah! Happy P-Day (publication day) to our little blue book. My co-author Kate and I are very excited!

See you on the January 8. I'll have a cocktail with an umbrella in it for you. Assuming I can find one in at my non-tropical holiday spot.

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(Read more about Career Mums here...)