what to expect when you're an expectant elephant...

So while you are figuring out your fabulous answers to my Author-in-residence competition questions here is some other stuff.

I spent the last three days writing and then polishing a scene in Jack the Viking 2 which I am now going to cut. Still, nothing is wasted - I shall squirrel it away with my other nuts for use at another date. It was rather graphic and a bit gruesome but very thrilling. I should have known something was up as I kept polishing and polishing but I couldn't seem to move forward with the plot. When my writing is stalled it tends to be because the scene I am moving through is not what I should be writing. My brain has figured this out but sometimes it takes a while for it to filter down to my conscious: this does not work -lose it and move on. I am a little annoyed though as I want to be making more progress than I actually am. Unexpected things still keep cropping up and I have other demands on my time in the near future and I really want to have this done. More hours in the day will make no difference. I have enough hours in the day, I just don't seem to be able to use them as I should. I am beginning to feel like a mama elephant - I have been gestating this story FOREVER and wonder now if I will ever give birth.

And things keep arriving that change my life. Just little things. This career thing I have been working on for the past ten years seems to be gathering some momentum and almost developing a life of its own and I have had three surprise invites to participate in bookish events in the last ten days. I also had an email forwarded to me this morning about some unsolicited (?) overseas interest in one of my books. I know the drill with these things - initial interest (A) rarely translates into actual action (B), but I figure you can't get B without some A happening so I am going to allow myself a brief splurge of excitement over this. I can't lie: it was exciting to see the actual email from the foreign editor. Soon I will go back to normal, but for a little while I will indulge myself.

Here are some pictures from my evening event last Wednesday. Just in case you were wondering.