Fanfare, please

Do you remember my blog post "a spanner in my works"? Well, the upshot of that was that I had hit a wall in my ’work in progress’ because I had aggravated my wrists and elbows to the point where I had rip-roaring RSI. That happened in March and I expected it to be gone in April. He we are, practically in July, and I'm really not much better. It's been a huge lesson in patience and I've had to change my working methods.

Using dictation software is a huge challenge, not least because it always seems to degrade over time – this evening it decided to type everything without any spaces, helpful. Wrestling this Dragon is worse than any fantasy battle I could write!

I always write or edit or plan in my lunch half-hour and to not have that time in which write new words is really hard  – it's tough starting to write in the evenings with a zero word count on my project target bar. So I've been inventive, taking my break after everybody else so that I can sit outside and dictate out of earshot of anyone else, when that hasn't been possible I’ve been sweltering in the car with the doors and windows open (I think this will work better in the autumn!).

And tonight, I've done it: first draft of my wip is finished (I dictated an exclamation mark here but the dictation software inserted a ? which is probably more accurate!) Dictation struggles with the little words so I can't help thinking it's inserted another layer of editing for me to do but, hey, I can still write. It might feel very different dictating the story, rather than seeing it appear on the screen without really having been conscious of what I wanted to say, but I'm trusting that the magic still happens. And I'm looking forward to editing to see what magic is in this one.

PS if you were wondering how I did in the World Cup word count challenge in the 15 days it's been on, I've written 22,888 words - just a little pleased at that!!!

WC - now that's something I can get excited about!

It can't have escaped your notice that a lot of attention is focused on Brazil at the moment and you can't have failed to notice why - anyone uttering the initials WC right now isn't likely to be asking directions to the loo. The World Cup is dominating the media and the living rooms of a huge percentage of the population. But if you asked me anything about it, I could tell you nothing because  if all 7 billion people on the planet were lined up according to their love of football, I would be right at the very back.

 This time around, however, I have found something to get excited about – my WC. I subscribe to the Facebook page "The Seriously Serious Scribes", a group of writers who share enthusiasm, motivation and knowledge. One of the lovely ladies on there came up with a really cool idea for us to upload our word counts each day of the tournament and to keep a running total. Some of us are aiming at a target word count, some of us are just seeing how much we can write. And it's amazing what an incentive it is to just do a few extra words here and there so that I can upload a respectable WC for the day! We're four days in and my rolling count is 5722 - does that qualify as 'back of the net' yet, I wonder!

A very special RIP

You may have seen in the news at the beginning of May that Professor Colin Pillinger died suddenly, rocking the space community in which he had been a driving force for many years. 
I first met him eight years ago when he interviewed me for my day job position when he promptly threw the rulebook out of the window and we ended up having a good old chat, much to the bemusement of the rest of the interview panel.  One of the first things we worked on was his book "Space is a Funny Place" – can you imagine a better job for me than spending afternoons in The Open University library, trawling the microfiche archives researching and verifying facts!?
Colin was a man with real passion for science and pushing the boundaries of knowledge and technology beyond what people believed to be possible. He had extraordinary determination and spirit and a great wealth of stories, both hair-raising and funny.  Those who witnessed our mobility scooter race across the campus when his new one arrived, which he won, are still laughing about it now.
One of the most humbling moments of my life was when we were in the clean room and he put one of the Apollo lunar samples in my hand and said "men risked their lives to bring this back".  
I'm still expecting him to come round the corner of the office on his scooter for a chat or to call me with a challenge "do you remember…?" or "can you find…?"   
If I could have added a reply to his mention of me in the acknowledgements of his last book, his autobiography "My Life on Mars", ' Karen, who looks after me like I was her fifth child',  I could only have said how lucky I was to have worked with such a lovely man with such an amazing mind. I will miss him for a long time.