Memories and Madness

First the memories - oooh - it was one year ago today, the loveliest day of my life -big, big soppy sigh... So, here's wishing a very, very Happy First Wedding Anniversary to Elle and The Doctor - oh, and a very happy birthday to The Doctor today as well. They're away for the weekend - somewhere secluded and romantic... I'm not.

And the madness? The edits and rewrites for TWTAWH are back! Already! Aaargh! Mind you, I actually enjoy being edited, so once I get to grips with the "yes, of course I'll change that - it's so much better" and "no way, over my dead body!" bits I'll be fine - I think... It's always a good thing to have someone else's perspective (a professional person, I mean - it's no good relying on your best mate or your mum who will always tell you it's the best thing you've ever written) on your writing - and I must say I agree with about 90% of Emma Editor's points. Sooo - I'll be bum-on-seat and fingers-on-keyboard for the next week hopefully honing TWTAWH into A Good Book.

The madness has also involved loads of stuff going on while I was trying to finish TWTAWH - mainly because I couldn't see for most of it having developed viral conjunctivitis after the shingles episode, so while I looked like Quasimodo and had to wear Matrix-type sunglasses INDOORS (and wouldn't go out because I couldn't wear eye-make and I haven't been outside with bare eyes since I was 14!) neither could I see the screen. I was typing in a massive font and The Toyboy Trucker said I looked like the least attractive half of Peters & Lee... I'm better now, thanks.

And Elle and The Doctor have been buying a house with all the angst that brings, and finally move at the end of April. They already had a house each, sold his, lived in hers after the wedding - now they've sold that too and bought what they're referring to as "a proper family home" in the country... Am getting very overexcited at the thought of the patter of tiny grandchildren... Elle tells me this is NOT on the agenda anytime soon - but then she said that about getting married so I remain "broody-by-proxy"...

And I've been writing a couple of commissioned things: a feature for Prima on "the way we holiday'd" which was great fun (but tricky again as I couldn't see the screen) and includes lots of black and white holiday snaps and made me very nostalgic (but NOT weepy as "weepy" still hurts!), and a short story for a Your Cat magazine competition - which was lovely as the readers had to send in details of their cat and I had to choose the winner and write a story round him/her... I wanted to use ALL of them - they were amazing!

And The Toyboy Trucker has been promoted AGAIN (I knew no good would come of suddenly deciding to get himself an education!) but this time to here - well, almost - but reasonably locally which means he'll be living at home again from April 19th. Can't wait... Not sure about him - think he's probably really enjoyed being young, free and single for all these months... But it has meant a lot of disruption as we've had to move his whole life from the wilds of "the other side of London" back here again...

Oh, and I've also been child-minding for a friend while she had surgery - they (the children - not sure how many of them there were but it seemed like a lot) were quite good (if a little blurry) and most days I just chained them to the Wii while I wrote TWTAWH and fed them on pizza every now and then...

Sooo, somehow amongst that lot, TWTAWH got written and now it's going to be rewritten and I'll be back again as soon as it's DONE!