A slight relapse and a novel milestone

Had a great sleep last night, but bizarrely I seem to be suffering from a slight relapse. I'm not as good as yesterday, but thankfully not as bad as the day before. Something in between then - ah, as in writing, so in life, eh. I should be used to falling between two camps by now, ho ho. And I'm drinking so much Lucozade that it's likely I'm going to be awake for months to come due to the influx of e-numbers into my system, sigh. In illness terms, I also wish I was doing more sneezing (which is at least fun and you can jump up and down and squeak a lot while you're doing it - or is that just me?...) and less coughing. What I need, my dears, is a spittoon. There's something to be said for the Wild West after all.

Anyway, as a result, I've cancelled golf with Marian and also my Alexander Technique lesson, and have spent the day drooping round the flat and staring in a puzzled fashion at the computer. So no real change there then. I haven't been entirely lazy however - I've sent out The Bones of Summer to another publisher who might like it, so that's two live submissions on that front then. Which always makes me feel somewhat happier than the existential terror of having only one submission in the field - probably something to do with the fact that it's very rare (or vastly unlucky) to get two rejections back at the same time, so if one publisher says no, then at least there's an alternative still out there. Honestly, in this game, you have to build in all the mental support tricks you can think of - as otherwise you'll go under.

I've also managed to do quite well on my planned Johan scene in Hallsfoot's Battle which has veered off in an unexpected but somehow logical direction. Lordy how I love it when that happens. And - hurrah and put out the bunting! - I've reached the milestone of 90,000 words about two weeks before my deadline of doing so. Double hurrahs and crack open the champers. Only another 30,000 or so words to go and I might even have a quivery first draft of a fantasy novel on my hands. Admittedly, one that'll need countless changes and a whole lot of remixing, but hey that's the way it is in Brooke Towers.

So, this afternoon, I'm planning a nap and a hell of a lot of sudokus - and I really ought to think about food at some point as I still haven't eaten anything since I struggled with breakfast this morning (it defeated me) so am obviously on the Food Go Slow Conveyor Belt once more. Lordy only knows what I'm going to do with the pizza I got out of the freezer for tonight. Sigh. I feel Lord H might be on his own at the dining table again. Somebody pass me the gruel and those smelling salts ...

Today's nice things:

1. Submitting Bones to another publisher - hope springs eternal, eh!
2. Getting to the 90,000 mark with Hallsfoot, hurrah
3. Napping
4. Sudokus.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - anyone seen that pesky spittoon?...