….Where I amuse myself on a Monday. Okay, okay. I know. Time for my injection – I just had to say it.

For some reason this morning, I am feeling incredibly productive. Don’t ask me why. It’s not like I have done a heck of a lot since I got to my office. I did get a little editing done… and obviously now I am writing up my weekly post. I just feel productive because I set myself a small list of things that needed to be achieved this morning, and I’m getting through them. Productivity makes me feel great.

Every six months or so, I review my Writing Goals Plan. And every six months I reset it, to achieve more and more, and to pick up any loose threads from the last plan that wasn’t quite achieved. And every six months, I am always super-duper surprised at how much I have actually accomplished. This week, and next week – I need to once again review and revise my plan. My productivity levels have definitely dropped considerable over the last six months due to a few other pressing things happening in my life that impacts my writing… but hopefully I will see some changes and achievements.

So, since I’m amusing myself on a Monday – here are my thoughts:

•  Thinking seriously about writing up a few different blogs to post over the next few weeks, so that I feel a bit more organised with Parchment Place, instead of just winging it each week. A friend of mine has recently done this, and it’s been rather effective in allowing her to get on with the real work behind the scenes at the moment.
• Here are some editing stats of my progress with The Mediterranean Source for you – because I know that everyone loves stats:
   – I now officially have 30,000 words of a pretty damn clean manuscript.
   – I have officially deleted four chapters, that equate to nearly 13,000 words.
   – The original Preface has gone. I am still undecided about whether or not I should write a new stronger one, or if I should just forget about it.
   – My bad guys seem to be getting badder.
   – Tension is seriously building within my characters as I gap fill, and revise.
   – I still have 50,000 words to go. Some days I feel as though this is taking forever. Other days I know that I am only spending about 5 hours of solid editing time on it a week. If I’m going to get this done faster, I need to dedicate more time.

• 

  Wellington Sunrise by Ross Collins

  Spring Equinox is this week, and our clocks go forward an hour this coming weekend. Since I’m such an early bird, I’m sad that I’m going to lose the epic scenery when I’m eating my breakfast in the morning. At the moment, I get to watch the incredible sunrise over Wellington city while I’m eating my breakfast. But it once we throw our clocks forward an hour, it will be dark again. It won’t take long before it starts getting light again in the mornings. I’m just really enjoying myself at the moment when I get into the office at the crack of dawn, and I have a few minutes to myself to sit back and watch the sun rise for the day.

• I’m incredibly annoyed at myself for losing my mobile phone when I was walking on the beach the other day. Incredibly annoyed. In fact, I was so upset, I even made my husband go looking for it. (Do you even realise how big our beach is?) I was dreaming to think that he might actually find it over the sound of the water, the wind, and the people down there. But you know me – Little Miss Forever Hopeful!
• House renovation planning is underway at the moment for us to gut a bedroom over the summer, and redo the whole thing. When we first bought our house in was just a quaint little beach house, and it had zero insulation in it, and no storage. So over the years we have had to rebuild parts of our house to insulate it, and build in fixed cupboard space. So in December, we are going to strip the room out and fix it. Shouldn’t take too long, and nor will it cost much, which is one of the reasons why we want to get this one out of the way. So now we just need to convince and coordinate our builder, electrician, and plasterers to come and do some cash jobs for us over their Christmas break.
• Really looking forward to a little warmer weather coming our way. And really really looking forward to the break over Christmas. I need it from the EDJ… and I think the EDJ needs a break from me!

That’s it from me this lovely Monday morning. I hope you all have a splendid week ahead of you. Happy writing. live it, breathe it, love it.