So now I’m not writing or blogging! Shame on me! The truth about yesterday is… I forgot. I went out for breakfast, then to work, got home late and just plum forgot.

I’ve been avidly reading Reflections on the Magic of Writing by Diana Wynne Jones for the last few days as well and it is so amazing and so addictive. I haven’t felt this way about a book since The Invention of Angela Carter.

It’s also made me realise my book is just not cooked yet.

What Jones says about her own process is that before she is ready to write a book she usually knows the beginning, sort of the end, and, in great detail, one or two scenes in the middle. She also talks about a book being ready to write when all the bits and pieces of the initial idea have come together to produce three things: the nature of the book, a control element (the beginning, middle scenes and ending she knows before starting), and that the book is demanding to be written NOW!

What I have realised is that I tend to work in a similar way, though reduced because all my finished work are short stories. And the novel I have been trying to right has not culminated in these three things.

• While I know the nature of what I want the book to be, I haven’t been writing it that way.
• I can’t see any central scenes clearly and the ending is still quite hazy.
• And the book was demanding NOW! It was just kind of mumbling it.

So I’m not going to push on just yet, but I will come back to it. Instead I’m going to work on a short story adapted from a Doctor Who fan fiction I wrote several years ago. Such fun!

As for what I got up to the last few days? Fest your eyes!

November 13

• 2.5 hour commute each way
• 5 hours work – Day Job 1
• Read

November 14

• Breakfast with Mat (we were going to go with our friends but someone went to labour)
• Laundry
• 5 hours work – Day Job 2
• Got home late: ate dinner and watched TV

Now just because I forgot to blog and I’m not officially NaNo-ing anymore doesn’t mean the blogging will stop. I’m still committed to keeping these blogs rolling till the end of November. Stay tuned