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.

Want something for giving?

The daughter of dear friends of ours lost their baby son when he was just 36 hours old at the end of last year. Instead of buckling under the weight of this tragedy, the bereaved parents threw themselves into fundraising for the hospital that battled so hard to save George's life. They have done a phenomenal job at raising money so far, culminating in the Milton Keynes marathon and half marathon today. My husband and daughter are running - so proud of them! - but, as my asthma won't let me do that, I'm currently donating all proceeds from my books to the charity. 

You can find my books here http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=karen+guyler

And George's charity page is here www.mycharitypage.com/georgestansfield

So now you can read funny, quirky and scary stories in the Celebrations anthology and find out what makes Maya special in the future UK I hope we don't live in and do something really great at the same time!

A spanner in my works

So I've had a lesson in patience lately. There I was busily hitting my tight deadline on my work-in-progress, working flat out at the day job and my wrists and arms said enough is enough and promptly went into overdrive - pain, pins and needles, and all the RSI symptoms you could want. Cue sound of screeching braking as everything came to a halt. I've done everything I can to stop this happening to me again - even to the point of relearning how to touch type on the Dvorak keyboard layout which is so much more wrist friendly than QWERTY - and yet here I was again unable to do anything and reduced to looking sadly at my knitting and laptop.

With all this fabulous technology at our fingertips, however, I thought I'd have another go at dictation software but when the system decided that my 'isn't it obvious' would be better typed as 'Disney or penis' (and let's be honest, those two words don't even belong in the same sentence), I gave up with that too. Enforced distance from my writing, right when I only had a handful of chapters to go on the wip. Hmmmm.

Being forced now to 'enjoy the journey' I've been tinkering with a few things and, after a fantastic brainstorming session with my creative son, realised I'd gone in completely the wrong direction on the wip and made it much weaker. So, handily, I currently have the headspace to be in my head with figuring out how to put it right. And that I'm excited about!

So I forgot

So did you notice? I forgot my own ‘blogaversary’! In my defence, I am writing a new book and we all know how blinkered I can get when I’m doing that . . . The writing is going really well, thank you for asking. I am very, very excited to share this one with you J It’s going so well, I’m writing in Stephen King numbers – he writes 2000 words a day so I know I’m in good company hitting that target every day!

Belatedly, then, happy blogaversary to The Purple Muse. It’s been a great year for me with some fabulous highlights (in the case of the trek to Everest Base Camp, quite literally high!). And I need to send a huge thank you to you for clicking the link to get here and having a read of my musings - it’s fascinating to see from where in the world the traffic originates.

Since my last blog post I’ve been a busy girl. I was interviewed on a blog here http://www.natwritesstuff.co.uk/ (second interview down) where I share what 3 things are essential for my writing! I also give you a sneak peek into my plans for 201, let’s just say it’s going to be busy!!

I was also invited to take part in Book Fest at Newport Pagnell library in Milton Keynes – 4 authors being quizzed by an audience about all things authorly and bookish. Great fun and real added value for readers from their local library and there was cake, what more could you want on a Saturday morning!? It's great to get out and about as an author, it's really good balance to all the nights sat in front of a computer screen, just me and the words, talking of which, my word count for today is calling . . . 

Re-imagining

Last night I was lucky enough to go and see a performance of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. I love the ballet, I adore Matthew Bourne productions but this was the most extraordinary dance show I’ve ever seen. In a traditional Swan Lake the corps de ballet are women and, as the swans, they usually wear tutus and dance en pointe. And their dancing is beautiful but you never lose sight of the fact you’re watching beautiful dancers. In Matthew Bourne’s version, the swans are men and clearly they’d spent a lot of time studying swans as watching them dance, we experienced the strength, raw power, majesty and sensuality of the birds through a head movement, the flick of a wrist, the stamping of a foot  – they weren’t dancers, they were the swans. It was amazing and mesmerising and heart-breaking and funny and if you can get to see it, do!

In an example of what out-of-the-box thinking is all about, Matthew Bourne has taken something steeped in tradition that you expect to give you one thing and thrown it so completely on its head that you experience something else entirely. And it reinforced exactly what I’m trying to make 2014 for me – the year of looking at everything differently.  

I’m starting small, with Mondays. Practically everyone hates Mondays and our perception of how a Monday should be quite often colours how it actually turns out – if a thing can go wrong, it will absolutely do so on a Monday! So I’ve been practising loving Mondays. What’s not to love, it’s the start of a new week and who knows what amazing things we might learn or create during that period? It’s a whole 168 hours of new time and the more you think about that, the more amazing that is! Okay, I haven’t quite managed to leap out of bed on a Monday morning, and my fourteen-year-old isn’t at all convinced Mondays are anything to be happy about,  but it’s really refreshing turning Mondays on their heads - try it!