The Office Diet up and running

After a few afternoon's slog, I've got www.theofficediet.com looking pretty much how I want it.

(My webmail doesn't seem to be working currently, but apart from that, it's all good.)

I've discovered rather more about nameservers, DNS changes and CSS table attributes than I expected ... it's certainly been a good learning experience, if a slightly frustrating one at times!

This is part of the 2008 resolution to move into more non-fiction writing: I achieved the 2007 goal of getting 20+ short stories completed (29 at last count, with another drafted and a 60k word novel for NaNoWriMo) -- 2008 is the year for getting those stories off to market, and building up a non-fiction portfolio.

Once TheOfficeDiet is going steadily (I'll be posting a shortish piece each weekday, and writing a longer article once or twice a week), I want to make a start on the next project -- a "gift-type" book proposal & sample chapter, with an eye on Christmas 2008...

Christmas Break

It seems really odd to have a whole week off work (and now the weekend, and I'm not due back in the office until next Weds!) The days of relative-visiting alternated between hectic travelling and sitting around fairly idly with one of many books...

Highlights of the past week included:

• The Boyfriend's cousins, and winning chocolate-Cluedo along with Youngest Cousin
• St Nicholas's Carols by Candlelight service (with the Family and the Boyfriend)
• Christmas stockings (thanks mum!)
• Lots of books! My Christmas list was clearly well scrutinised.
• FAAAAAAAR too much chocolate. I'm on a permanent sugar high...
• Seeing the St Trinian's movie this afternoon; hilarious, non-stop entertainment, well worth queuing for half an hour to get into.

Presents and Packing

I've finally got all the presents wrapped, and my packing done, for the next few days: we're off to Shropshire to see the Boyfriend's mum's side of the family this weekend, then heading straight to Oxford on Sunday to be with my parents, siblings and granny for Christmas.

I plan on doing lots of reading (have packed quite a few books) and no writing! I've managed to get a lot done this week -- six articles finalised and the 'About' page written for my new website, and some work on the other big project I'm doing. I feel I deserve -- and need! -- a good break.

My parents' net connection is down, so I'm unlikely to be blogging/replying to emails for the next week.

One more week...

Only a week of work left before I have a Christmas break. It still seems odd not to have student-length holidays...

I've been working on drafting some articles for a new website, which I'll be launching at the start of January. (It'll consist of about 10-12 medium length articles to start with, along with daily blog posts and product/book reviews.) I've already purchased a domain name and done a bit of thinking about design. Watch this space for more information... ;-)

I've been making very slow, but positive, progress on an online fiction/game project that I'm hoping to launch by the start of February. This is going to be much smaller than the website, aimed at a tiny group of friends rather than the world at large. It's got almost no potential to be big or make any money but it's good fun.

This afternoon, we're off to the Nunhead Green Christmas Shopping Day -- lured by the banners promising free food and mulled wine! -- and then heading on into Dulwich. The Boyfriend has choir practise, and I want to spend a couple of hours in the library working on the first unit of my Short Story course.

It's rather sad that academic work has now become a weekend treat... I wish I was a full-time student again!

Almost out of the "early-twenties"

I had a great birthday yesterday -- it got off to a good start when I took mars bar crunchies into work in the morning (always popular!) I left at lunchtime to open presents from the Boyfriend -- gorgeous cross-stitch goodies, including a much-needed LARGE workbox! We spent the early afternoon lounging in the Nun's Head, enjoying red wine, and nachos followed by a lentil-and-mushroom lasagna and a steak. (I'll let you guess who ordered which. ;-))

We went to the Phantom of the Opera in the evening, which was excellent. The melody is still stuck in my head... After wedging ourselves into the balcony seats, we decided we'll one day be rich enough to buy a box. Just not box 5. And not near a chandelier...

Various Competitions

I've been polishing up a handful of stories for several competitions over the past couple of days:

"The Bench in the Park" for Writers' News "The Bench in the Park" title competition (the first time I've tried writing from an omniscient viewpoint, and the first time I've put five major characters -- counting the bench -- into a sub-1700 word story. Quite happy with it, though.)

"A Girl in the Family" Writing Magazine "Adoption" competition (this one got radically changed between the second and third drafts. I cut about 50% of the original on the advice of my writing group, and though it's definitely improved, it still doesn't seem quite there. Got fed up of tweaking, though.)

First 1,000 words of my NaNoWriMo novel Four Red Spots for Wannabe a Writer? start-of-a-novel competition. (I did redraft the opening quite a bit, but have a nagging feeling the story should have started somewhere else.)

"Kim's Kids" for the Willesden Herald short story competition. (I really like this story, and was disappointed it didn't even make the shortlist for Scribble's "The Return" competition -- I think perhaps I veered too far from the theme in an attempt to be original.)

With that lot out the way, I've no more deadlines until well into January, so I'm going to make a start on the first unit of my short story correspondance course...

Short Story Course

I got an exciting package on Friday: the materials for my correspondance short story writing course. It looks exactly what I wanted -- practical, academic, strong on content. I need to write out a biography-type statement for the Head of Tutors so that they can match me up with a tutor, then I can get going on my first assignment.

I'm oddly excited about getting back into academic work with some sort of structure: I feel that I've done a lot of practise of short story writing, over the past 12 months, but not much learning about how to put a story together, how to target the right market, and similar. I'm starting to think that my lack of success is because I'm still very new to it, and jumped in feet-first without taking any time to learn the craft.

As well as the short story course, I want to continue working through Palgrave's How to Write Fiction (And Think About It) which I started on a few months back. I'm feeling quite positive about the next few months, writing-wise, so want to make the most of that energy!

Advent

It was the first Sunday of Advent a few days ago, and I was relieved to find that Methodist-URCs sing "O Come O Come Emmanuel" just like the Anglicans. ;-)

I like Advent. I like the sense of hope and expectancy, the waiting for something amazing, the sharp chill in the air, the cards and Christmas wishes and thinking about presents and family.

Also, with NaNoWriMo done it's a good time to stop and reflect about the next projects to take on. Or ... well, it should be. I seem to have dived headlong into the next thing I want to do, a huge project which I'd abandoned a while back and have now revived because a small group of friends might be interested. Maybe this time my enthusiasm will last long enough for me to see it through to the end.

I've also written a couple of short stories, one of which I took to the East Dulwich Writers' Group meeting on Monday. I got some great feedback: it helped me figure out the problem (about 2/3rds of the piece needs cutting, and I need to expand the grandmother-granddaughter relationship which is of real interest, rather than having the parents sitting endlessly making small-talk.) A couple of other members also read, two excellent pieces which I really enjoyed. I was very shattered by the time I got home at 10pm but was glad I'd made the effort to go along.

That's one thing I miss at the moment, not working in a words-driven environment. At Uni, I was surrounded by English students, but computer programmers and software project managers just don't have the same love for words... (Sam excepted, of course!)