Of course I don’t really work at a coal face. My place of work is much cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than that. It’s just that after being on holiday for over a week in beautiful bright sunny weather, going back to work anywhere would have seemed like being exiled deep underground in dim, dark conditions. I am wildly exaggerating here to make my point.
Flower-bed at Saughton Park
Several minor things happened during the week to set my teeth on edge, but I have pressed on regardless with my work on ‘The Coronation Quest’ and have reached my (self-imposed) Camp NaNoWriMo target of 30,000 words. Of course this isn’t nearly long enough for a novel so I am still writing, with a view to completing the first draft some time in May. I’m considering having all the covers for this series re-designed professionally, but we’ll see if I have any money left when I come back from Finland!
Oddly, I don’t consider writing conference papers to be real writing, perhaps because the element of fiction involved is a bit smaller than in most novels. However, for once I have brought all my research notes and drafts home with me this weekend so that I can write some of my paper for Finland in peace, i.e. without people ringing me up to say their password doesn’t work, or that they need to get three interns trained before next Tuesday.
One of the minor things that happened was that my order for a Kindle Fire was randomly and unexpectedly cancelled, so as I write I am listening for the postman who should be bringing my new order at some time today. I may leave the blog post in mid-sentence…
McCallum Ogilvy 