He's Climbing In Your Windows...

Sorry I haven't been around much. As well as preparing for Christmas and the release of Storms I'm also setting up a new blogsite. As well as looking after a baby. Really can't wait for a break over Christmas.

I meant to catch up with you all yesterday, but as those of you who follow me on Twitter may already know I got distracted when someone tried to break into my house. In an urban neighbourhood. At 11am in the morning.

I was feeding Polly Pocket in the living room, when my dog jumped out of her bed and ran to the front door and started barking. Now, despite being a large dog with a large bark my dog is afraid of her own shadow. She doesn't bark very often, and when she does bark in fright at something she usually runs back and hides behind me.

When she didn't stop, I walked into the hallway with the baby, thinking she'd gotten spooked and needed calming down.

Not so - there was a gloved hand coming in my letterbox and trying to reach up to the latch (the letterbox is very close to the latch in my door. He tried to pull his hand out after he heard the dog barking.

I ran in to the living room to put Polly down, but by the time I made it back to the door he was gone. There were some people on my street, but I had no way of identifying which one it was. None of them seemed to be hurrying.

I was kind of calm at the time, but it freaked me out a little bit later. If Roxie had been in the back garden, he might have gotten into the house before I'd realised what was happening. I guess it's just a sign of the times, economy is getting worse and the run up to Christmas is a tough time for everyone. Though unless the burglar has a penchant for paperbacks or craft beers, there isn't much to steal in my house.

I do have the best dog in the world though. She's definitely on Santa's good list. And yes, her favourite thing in the world is teddy bears.

Thanks to everyone who offered support on Twitter and Facebook. You are all stars, I really appreciate it :)

My blog is on fire! (Now I have that Kings of Leon song stuck in my head)

The lovely Hart Johnson Gave me the Blog on Fire Award. I'm super happy, because Hart's blog inspired me to start my own after I met her on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award forum. I got this award a few months ago, but this time it comes with a new meme, which is pretty cool. So here we go!

1)  Are you a rutabaga? I had to Google this to find out what it was. To be honest, if I'm going to be a root vegetable I'd rather be a carrot. Doesn't sound very fancy, but makes great soup.

2) Who is your current crush? I'm holding on to James McAvoy, even though he kind of reminded me of a bumbling David Cameron in the X-Men prequel. Hopefully that was a one time blip, because David Cameron does not a leading man make.

3) Upload a heartwarming picture that makes you smile.

These pictures are of my Labrador Roxie when she was just twelve weeks old. When she was this size I carried her to other peoples houses in my handbag because she wasn't completely vaccinated, and couldn't touch ground that other non-vaccinated dogs could have walked on. She's now seventeen months old, sixty pounds, and carrying her anywhere would involve a wheelie suitcase and a back injury. I love her to bits, and these pictures makes me smile in that goofy way that parents do when they're looking at pictures of their newborn. Yes, I'm one of those dog owners. 

4) When was the last time you ate a vine-ripened tomato?

Probably the last time I ate in my mother in law's house. She buys vine ripened cherry tomatoes because they're the only kind her tortoise will eat. True story.

5) Name one habit that causes other people to plot your demise?

Probably my absent-mindedness. I can tell you the names of prominent nineteenth century physicians, but will forget where I put vital things and to do things you specifically asked me to do. Despite frequent reminders. I have a planner, post it notes, flash cards, Google reminders, and to-do lists but I still manage to forget almost everything important.

6) What is the weirdest, most-disgusting job you've ever had to do?  

I haven't had any weird, disgusting jobs (yet), but the worst job I've had was as a telephone market researcher. I had to ring people and ask them lots of questions on behalf of big companies. My worst day was when I was ringing on behalf of an Irish bank, I rang a woman and asked to speak to her husband. She told me that he had passed away a few weeks ago. I apologised, and said it was nothing important, just a customer satisfaction survey about his account with said bank. She said that he hadn't had an account with that bank, and got quite upset. I felt awful after the call. I'd just informed a grieving woman that her husband had a secret bank account. She didn't need to hear that, especially not then. Other bad days involved ringing people at 10am on Saturday mornings, and a woman who was convinced that I wasn't ringing from a call-centre, but was in fact her husband's mistress. Fun times.

8) What author introduced you to your genre?

Young adult urban fantasy: Richelle Mead. I love all her books. Women's contemporary fiction: Marian Keyes and Sophie Kinsella.

9) Describe yourself using obscure Latin words.

Sorry, I'm not going to even attempt this. My father and husband both learned Latin, and will pull me up if my declensions are wrong. 

That's it! Hope everyone is having a more productive writing day than me, I have a cold that is making my life (and that of my husband) miserable. Hope it passes quickly.

Five Things I Can't Live Without...

Ok, the lovely people over at Paper Hangover have asked us to talk about the five things that we just can't live without when we're writing. So here are my top five:

1: Coffee. I used to be addicted to tea, but it proved to be a gateway drug. I now drink double shot espresso Americano whenever I write. And the number of them I drink daily is slowly increasing...

2: My lovely Ikea office chair. When my husband and I bought it, it cost us the same amount of money as two weeks worth of groceries. Money was super tight back then, so it really was a ridiculous extravagance. However, I spend so much time writing that if I sat in a normal chair I may have spent ten times as much in the physiotherapists. (If you think ten times is an exaggeration, you should see the cost of healthcare in Ireland. It's unbelievable. And not in the good way.)

3: Focus Booster. I think I've talked about it before. It's a free app that aims to make you more aware of your time so that you are more productive. And it really works. Anything that can stop me wandering into various internet fora is a good thing in my book. And a good thing for my book.

4: My dog. I have a chocolate Labrador, and she lies by my feet when I write. I sometimes read parts aloud to see if the rhythm of the language is right, so she knows what is going on in my stories. She sometimes makes suggestions, like maybe one of my characters might like to run like crazy after a frisbee, catch it in her mouth and slobber over it. I politely decline these suggestions.

5: My husband. I could get all emotional and talk about how supportive he is, and it would all be true. However, he is also practically helpful. He's my number one beta reader and he picks up all my grammatical errors. I also talk about plot with him. He's my sounding board.

What about you? What things can you not do without?

U is for...Ugh.

It's a lovely bank holiday weekend. The sun is shining, my husband is off work, there is a ridiculous amount of chocolate in my house. But I have decided to disregard all these things in order to have a rant thread.

My fibromyalgia has been bad this week. My hips and knees are so bad that I had to bow out of a fun game of rounders that my husband and his friends had organised. I was never going to be playing, I wouldn't be able to, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to stand and watch or sit on the grass either. So my husband went off on his own. He didn't want to leave him, but I made him go. He misses too many things due to my ropey health. Even so, I know that he'll be worried about me while he's there, and I feel so guilty for taking the shine off the day for him. And I really wanted to go out, enjoy the sunshine and chat to some nice people. I'm a bit down about that.

I had four of my siblings over yesterday for dinner. They're 7, 10, 11 and 14 and I love them to bits. We had a good time, but I struggled to seem cheery and upbeat for them because of the pain I was in. I really hope that they didn't pick up on it. They're only kids, and the last thing I want is for them to think I don't enjoy their company. I do, so much.

And then, of course, there's my writing. Despite resting my hands and arms, they're in bad shape and it hurts to write. This is bad, because I've reached a seam of writing where it's all flowing, and I'm in the middle of some intensive edits too. I can't work right now. Writing is what got me through my illness, and now I worry that physically my body can't do it.

Living with a long term illness is hard. Not only the pain, the nausea and the lack of energy, but you sometimes feel like you are losing yourself, the person you'd like to be and the person that you want to become. I think to be honest that that's the worst part of all.

I'm just having a bad day. Tomorrow will hopefully be better, and I'll remember that in the scheme of things I'm a very lucky woman. I've a great husband, a lovely family, I get to write a lot and have a lovely house and supportive friends. But right now? I need to vent.

Anyone who has a chronic illness, or knows someone who has should check out The Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino. It gives a great explanation on what being ill feels like on a day to day basis, and my husband said it really helped him realise what it's like to be me.

Hope this all finds you well, and that you have a great Easter. I'm going to go cuddle my dog, drink copious amounts of tea and read a book.

O is for...Organisation (or lack thereof)

So, I was a little ahead of this whole A-Z blog thing, and that turned out to be very good news. Because my new house does not have an internet connection. It started out as something liveable with, and anyway my husband and I had far too much work to do in the house to procrastinate on the internet. It was rustic, and old timey. And then I realised just how spoilt and technology dependent I have become. I couldn't write on my blog, or more importantly read other people's. My access to forums was gone, my access to news was gone (why not watch the television, you say? Or buy a newspaper? All good points, but the petulant child in me just wanted to whine). I'm currently writing this in my parents house, as I need the internet for my journalistic work. Oh interweb, how I've missed you...

We moved house on Friday. Our car (with keys), my parents car and even my Grandad helped move boxes, bags and furniture. The move wasn't helped by my husband and I's laid back approach to packing i.e. throw it all loose in the back of the car, it'll be fine. Chaos ensued, but I am pleased to report that all belongings plus Roxie the Labrador are now happily installed in our new house.

So, organisation. I'm starting to realise the importance of it in the abstract, though I'm not so good at it in practice. Fibromyalgia has actually helped in this regard. It affects my cognitive functions so on a bad day I forget everything. I forget what I was saying half way through sentences, I forget what I was going to do, I forget important things like closing doors, and turning the oven on, and ordering a broadband package for my new house in advance before I move in. So I have discovered lists, they are my saviour. All I have to do is remember that I have a list and everything is well.

Now that I'm getting nearer to that oh-so-scary activity -submitting to publishers- I have had to become more organised about my writing. When you first sit down to write a novel, it's all about Words on Page. This is the novel that you're going to finish, and you find an hour here, a half hour there to make it happen. Some days you write thousands of words, some weeks you don't even open the file. But that's alright, because you're writing regularly, your word count is going up, and everything is rosy in the garden. But then you realise that writing is addictive, and if you don't put some order on matters everything else in your life will suffer for your art. Which is noble, I suppose, but my muse doesn't make me tea, give me hugs and buy me a chocolate egg on Easter Sunday so I need to keep my marriage going.

I don't plan my novels, but I plan my work. And that is today's project (after I finish the work that pays the bills) to write up a time frame for completing manuscripts and edits for every project I have going on. Which, is fairly organised.

I should really be writing 'P' today, rather than 'O'. And I have to do 'Q' tomorrow as part of my query blog hop. If I run the letters together as a sample of a 'Pathetic Query', does that count?