Marrakech

I've just come back from five days in Marrakech. Hmm, not quite what I expected, to be honest. We stayed in the Kasbah (sounds exotic but wasn't) and the streets were crowded and narrow, full of shops selling everything from soap powder to live chickens. There were motor cycles everywhere and it was difficult to walk through the streets without running the risk of being mown down.

The accommodation was very nice. We stayed in a Riad, which is the name for the many courtyard hotels you find in the old parts of the city. It was strange when we first arrived. The streets were too narrow for the taxi to negotiate so we had to get out and pull our cases the rest of the way until we arrived at a smart door that was the entrance to the Riad. Honestly, you wouldn't know it was there unless you spotted the tiny gold plaque on the wall.

Our room was comfortable and nicely furnished. We had a large bathroom and a balcony to sit on. The Riad became our retreat from the noise, dirt, crowds and general mayhem of the city. We ate in one night and the cook made a couple of tagines for us to try.

Our saving grace was a trip to the coastal resort of Essaoira, a three hour drive away but well worth it. We had a pleasant wander through the streets and stopped for a seafood lunch.

The shopping in Marrakech is good. I particularly love the coloured lanterns you can buy nearly everywhere and the silver jewellery. If it wasn't for the paltry luggage allowance of EasyJet, I would have bought much more.

However, the experience has given me a few writing ideas to develop now I'm back home.

LET IT SNOW

Well, actually,only let it snow at Christmas time. We went out this morning to the local shops, trudging through great drifts of snow as we went. There were a lot of jolly people about, mainly children off school for the day and pulling sledges. The shops were busy with people 'panic buying' as usual. We just got a normal shop with food to last us over the weekend. We were supposed to be going to Essex today but have obviously decided not to travel. If it's not essential, you have to follow advice and stay at home. Nobody in our road went to work this morning and the milkman got stuck for four hours!

What better way to spend the afternoons when you can't go out but get on with THE NOVEL. It now stands at over 30,000 words of mainly serious re-editing but I'm just getting the basics down on paper (or on screen). This might form part of my last assignment for the WB too.

I am now stiif from another afternoon typing away and it's ten past five and time to call it a day, press SAVE and put the laptop to bed. We're having curry tonight - we make ours from scratch - no takeways in this house! We buy all our spices from an Indian supermarket in Southsea because you can't get them anywhere else. The house will smell like an Indian restaurant for days. Delicious.

A Mid Week Break

We've been on a mid-week break to a favourite restaurant of ours with rooms. It's called, "36 on the Quay" at Emsworth. A wine tasting evening was held on the first night and the restaurant was completely full. We drank New Zealand's Cloudy Bay wine with a gourmet dinner - each course was paired with a different wine. I'm a huge fan of New Zealand white wines, particularly their sauvignon blancs.

We stayed two nights in Emsworth and took the train to Brighton for the day and had a wander around the Lanes. We also went to Arundel and had a pub lunch and a stroll through the town browsing in all the different shops. I found a very good second-hand bookshop that I could easily have spent hours in and have made a note to return to Arundel to do just that. I have a list of books I'm looking for from travel books to classical novels.

We got home on Friday morning in time for me to go to Writing Buddies in the afternoon.

Yesterday and today has been spent on THE NOVEL. I have now written 24,000 words approximately. I'm not editing it until I've got 50,000 words written and then I'm going to start, I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not but I think you can spend too much time rewriting at the start of the project and not getting on with the plot. Comments please!

Gathering more ideas

I spent yesterday going through my issues of Frelance Market News to check I hadn't missed any opportunities for writing possibilities. I made a list to check out on the internet and narrowed it down to only two! These are for short story and articles. I already have another list of ideas for fillers to follow up.

I then looked at the Prizemagic website for any suitable competitions to enter. I always look for the free to enter ones first. I found about six possibilities and will now have to come up with some ideas for submissions.

I was going through an external hard drive for my computer to see what was on it and found a novel I had started a good few years ago about a cruise ship. I read through what I had written and was amazed at myself for not having carried on with it and let it fester away, forgotten about. I have copied it back onto my computer and I am determined to carry on with the story. This can happen very easily, I suppose. You start something, work at it for a couple of weeks or more constantly and then put it away, disillusioned or you've simply run out of steam. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that but you must remember not to put it away for 8 years or more! May be a few weeks or even months but you must return to it quickly.

I also found a file full of character descriptions for this story and plot ideas so I will most certainly be taking up with the project again.

A Night at the Theatre

We went to the Mayflower theatre in Southampton to see 'Calendar Girls'. It was quite good but I had trouble hearing some of the actresses speak. I don't know if it was the accoustics in the theatre but it did spoil things a little. When we had a drink in the bar during the interval I overheard a couple of ladies saying the same thing so it wasn't just me, thankfully.

We went to 'Buon Gusto' on the corner of Commercial Road after the show had finished and had a really nice meal although it was late. We hadn't been to this restaurant for a number of years so it was good to try it again.

I'm having a frustrating time with computers this week. We now have an I.Mac as our main computer but I do all my writing work on my laptop. To print things off I transfer to disk and then put the disk in the main computer and print from there. This isn't happening so easily now and when I insert a disk into the I.Mac I can't open the document, let alone print it. I will be heading for the Apple Store to try to find out why this is proving so difficult. I have tried connecting the printer to my laptop instead but I keep getting various error messages and being told the driver isn't compatible. I have now wasted nearly two afternoons trying to solve the problem but have given up because it's making me bad tempered and not in any position to produce good writing work.

Weekend Workload.

Assignment 7 is finished and ready to be printed and then sent off. I have spent the weekend going over the first 3000 words of THE NOVEL that is going towards this assignment. I was quite horrified to see many glaring continuity errors already but have gone through it all word for word until I am quite sure it is reading as well as it could. I can't wait to receive some feedback on my efforts.

We went out for dinner on Friday to a place in Wickham. Now I'm not going to name the establishment but we were very disappointed with the service received. This restaurant isn't cheap and we've been there a couple of times before and each time came away satisfied. I really resent going out for dinner to a good quality restaurant and then getting sloppy service. I'd rather go to the Harvester or a Beefeater. Well, we shan't hurry back and I did post my thoughts on 'Trip Advisor'.

Must sign off now as it's time to prepare our Sunday roast (a tradition in this household) and then I'm afraid it's a TV viewing night - Strictly, X-Factor and the marvellous 'Downton Abbey.'

13,923 words.

That's how many words I've written on THE NOVEL so far. I've been really industrious today and have spent all afternoon typing. I'm quite pleased at the way the story is evolving because I am writing what I know about rather than what I don't really know about and need to do a good bit of research on. I think this is the right way to go when you right your first novel. Just after 4 O'clock I decided to call it a day and do an entry for my blog.

I'm a member of 'Flair For Words' and the latest copy of 'Flair News' dropped on the mat at lunchtime. I can now get a coffee and read it from cover to cover. This little gem is full of interesting articles and lots of inspiration from Cass and Janey who are joint editors and run 'Flair For Words.'

This morning we went for a long walk. We didn't even need coats as it was so warm. We stopped for coffee and a lovely deli called 'Cork and Cheese' and bought a tub of huge olives and a wholegrain loaf, locally baked.

The walk enabled me not to feel selfish when I shut myself in the study all afternoon and banned my husband from any interruptions.