Sunday a day of rest (for some)

I stayed in bed until 11.20am. Oh my goodness what a sleep in and very unusual because staying in bed that long usually causes me physical discomfort in the extreme but due to the lengthy noncycle ride last night I suspect it eased something in my structural integrity so I was able to sleep long and pain free for once. I am seeing much more of my bedroom floor(goodbye floordrobe) now that I am organising the space as my writing space. I just measured up the book shelf for my resource materials and it fits just perfectly in the designated space so I can take folders out of bags and have them ready to hand when I need them. This might be the first time in my life that my room will be totally organised. woo hoo. Today I did my eighth Aussie Christmas image for the sketched out challenge (HO HO Doo Da) and I am quite enjoying myself.

These images are appealing to my sense of rightness in the world. I have been tired of seeing northern hemisphere images at Christmas every year with snow and animals we never see here. Snow men, snow flakes and snow covered trees are things we see in winter but only in a very limited portion of Australia. My preferred Aussie images are the gorgeous red flowering native plants that bloom in December or the light displays on houses, hot sunny days, people at the beach, cricket and family and get-togethers. That is what the time of year is about. Getting in touch with each other when all through the year we make electronic notes that don't really feel the same. Typing HUG or LIKE is nothing like a real hug and a real word out of a real mouth. The middle of December has been a time for humans to celebrate and get together for thousands of years no matter what the trendy religion of the time is. I love that people are kinder, more generous, closer and want to give gifts of appreciation to each other. I also love Christmas songs. They are always cheerful and there are no dark malicious lyrics in them. There is no sex, drugs, violence and drive by shootings in Christmas Carols. Give me Christmas carols all year please.

I am struggling with the plot of a short story and my head is in overdrive working on reasons for the characters doing the things they do so I haven't much brain left over for everything else and I think my face to face (F2F) friends are becoming used to that. I am glad to know they love me enough to tolerate my eccentricities.

Time to write and work my head around the international tax file number application. I joined several motivation groups online so that will help keep me on track. Having the chat and interaction in sprints was a wonderful way of motivating myself with the support of others and I miss it. I am reorganising my room to have a permanent writing space and feeling very positive about it. I have never been so organised at home in my life, except when I had seven foster kids at once, now that was a logistics challenge if ever there was one. I am writing around 2500 words a day but not counting specifics. I think I write approximately 600 words at a time if I allow myself to edit as I go. The sprints gave me permission not to edit which is probably why I could get the 800 to 1000 words in 30 minute sprints. I have signed up for some revision groups for PB manuscripts and will play with that Idea for 12 months. I do love children's books but I suspect I will settle into relationship fiction in the long term. I have written and sent several short flash fiction pieces off to anthologies since nano and enjoy them for the challenge of getting a good story out in the world in a short space of time. I had some wonderful feedback from two readers of anthologies I am already in. One said my story stands like a beacon amongst dross and another said 'I only found one mistake in yours but the others are riddled with them' and I take that as high praise. She came through her schooling when grammar was an integral part of the curriculum and she went on to become a highly efficient copy editor and secretary in her years in the newspaper industry before proof reading became redundant as a practice. I refuse to give up my s for american z and entered a discussion on that very push by of course americans who demand everyone else fall in line with their spelling practices. I shall also refuse to delete 'u' where it is an automatic spelling choice. Off my soapbox again I have more vacuuming to do.