my favourite of the bunch.

Mine too. There's a sweetness about Weaver, and a power about Matty, but Agnes rings some chimes in me that the others just don't do.

Thanks, Deena. I was admiring the economy and grace of yours. I'd like to take down one copy of my review--I put up a duplicate thinking I'd done something wrong and it hadn't posted. Novice mistake. But hey, if it counts as another review for Weaver, I'm leaving it.

How much do I want that Broomfield Hill tour shirt? A lot, that's how much.

Okay, I'm rockin' and rollin'. After catching up in here I went and got busy -- deleted about a thousand words I hated, but... BUT... I've got 5100 words on my Nannynannybooboo. Woo Hoo.

I feel much better. Thanks for all the slug away encouragement, guys. I've got the words, "shitty first draft" running over and over in my head.

Beverly, grace? huh, and I was thinking, goodness, I sound like a schoolgirl next to your review. Funny.

(continues to wave the NaNoWriMo pompoms)

Rahrahrah! Gogogo!

Deena, the thousand words still count. (If it's whole pages, I toss them in an Outtakes File, in case there's some reason, like I want to reexamine the idea that inspired the digression, to revisit.)

One of my proctors has said she will buy your book. Wants it autographed. Told her no prob.

(spreading the word)

Sounds good to me (NaNoWriMo counts and signed book).

Ah, blast. Well, they would still count if I hadn't just deleted them. I was going all wrong and had to remove a scene. Blast.

Random wandery nonspecific thoughts on the word count thing:

At Meg Clayton's reading the other night, someone asked her about her method of working. She has a set thing: she gets the boys off to school (Nick's a brilliant little pistol of 8, Chris is a very snarky 12, so they aren't babies, which makes it a lot easier). Then she sits down and has the rule: "two o'clock or two thousand words".

It's completely the opposite to how I work. I have days where writing is simply not on the cards, for any number of reasons: health, schedule, mulling over an idea or a scene or a story twist or just because my creative streak is aimed squarely at making dessert or looking at kitchen porn. There are days when I do fuck-all in terms of writing. That's how my life works; that's how my creativity works. Point is, for me? That really does work. Fifth novel about to be on the shelves, with the sixth and seventh on the way. But I sure as hell wouldn't rec my method (below) for any other writer on earth, because I expect there would be mass suicides.

For me, I won't push it, and that's OK, because when I'm writing, I'm generally writing fast and furious, although, with the word counts some of the writers I know claim to produce, I'm damned if I know how I'm producing anything. I'm fascinated by the idea of writers - not talking about NaNoWriMo here, or in fact about anything with a deadline attached, because that's obviously different - who schedule their creativity. I flat can't do it, in the same way I can't work from an outline. I turn into the "Far Side" cartoon: "what dogs hear, what cats hear'. I stare and go blank.

I can't work from an outline either. It makes me crazy to even try. Some days I think I'm not working on it and then I realize I know what to do when I was stuck just the day before, and I realize it's been simmering in the back of my brain. It's the times when I suddenly realize it's been a month, or 6 months, or years and I haven't written anything that suck. It's been easier since I quit working, though. I think trying to make drug testing and pre-employment screening sound attractive 8 hours a day sucked the life out of my creativity.

I just sent Martin Carthy an email, asking if he'd be willing to write a blurb or, even better, an introduction page for "Famous Flower".

If he says yes, I'm going to fucking plotz.