Day 93

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

21 Apr 2016

It’s been a shockingly good week, despite spending hours on articles(reading), hiding from the nasty heatwave, and various other distractions. Over 2 hours of writing and over 2K words, even nearly 3K words produced a day.

At a rough estimate, given the current rate and the sketched out chapters left, I could be done the first draft within two weeks - one, if I weren’t going to be home alone next week.

Starting to seriously reconsider the charm of writing to an outline. I can’t imagine it working very well if I mapped things out at a book level, but sketching the next 5-10 beats out and then having something to sit down and write to seems to make a huge difference. Plus, things are starting to tie back together now that the groundwork as been laid (even though I keep changing basic premises, invalidating previous pieces), and there’s more action and development to get into.

I quite like writing fight scenes, although I get the sense that the detailed trivia I piece together bit by bit (problem solving a straitjacket escape, for instance) is significantly less thrilling to read than I’d hoped. However, given the success of The Martian (which I loved, despite not having much interest in space/astronaut stories), I feel like maybe I could tap into a niche market…?

I’ve just got to take a beat here and note that home-mixed steeped gin is absolutely spectacular as an alternative to the raw smokiness of Scotch or Mezcal. OK, sidebar done.

Did another trial pack yesterday, and somehow, even though I keep hauling bags of clothes away and trimming down my closet drastically (it’s a good thing I write in pyjamas - there’s nothing left to wear!) I can’t seem to trim down the amount I’ll need to haul.

To complicate matters, I have a minimum of two instruments (violin & guitar) to transport, several full swing dresses with at least one, and possibly more crinolines, and extra small packs to fit inside the larger cases. Laaaaame. Shoulda skipped the repro-vintage shopping sprees.

Also, I feel like my shoe collection is extremely modest, particularly when I trim out the aging pieces. Five pairs + flip-flops is nothing (and matches absolutely nothing…) - but still takes up a horrific amount of space.

And then there’s all the extra stuff that I want to drag along and really shouldn’t. And cosmetics, jewelry, hats… so many hats… Again, I’ve halved or better everything I owned, and it’s still way to much to take.

My dad seems to think I’ll throw in the towel and run home too quickly to make carting it all over there worth the effort, but since he’ll be moving in the near future, I don’t really want to saddle them with any more of my crap to haul around… Not to mention, I don’t want to come running home immediately!

Did some more looking into the Tier 5 visa yesterday, and it looks like you can’t apply more than three months before your arrival date, so combining that with my plan to push my start date to September in order to travel without wasting productive time, its still too soon to apply… making it worthwhile to keep waiting to see where flights settle.

Nothing stellar so far, but more possibles coming along all the time.

Thursday

Start Time: 1:15 pm

Location: couch/living room

Drinking: home-made gin on the rocks; the spice mix

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