On the other hand I have a lot to be grateful for. I did get another job. I still have a roof over my head. I didn’t lose everything because of it. But I am finally angry at the chances I didn’t get. The opportunity to realise what was happening and defend myself. The opportunity to make a complaint and get justice. The opportunity to make my own decision about when I left Royal Mail. By the time I understood I was being bullied it was too late. Perhaps my biggest problem in moving on is that I haven’t got angry. Maybe getting angry and feeling low is a way of letting go of some of the negative emotion that has been bottled up this past year.

Anyway Friday 1st January 2010 is a new day of a new year of a new decade (there goes that decimal system again!) I decided to do a positive thing involving post it notes and pretty coloured pens. And looking forward.

It’s something I first did on a Graduate Works programme with the fabulous Will & Rupert. The general premise is that you get post it notes and pens and write down all the things you’d like to achieve or do in life. However crazy or unrealistic they seem. Or however dull and mundane. But all the things you want to do. You then narrow them down to the things to REALLY want to do and stick them on a big piece of paper in any way you want. I go for the vaguely chronological approach & have arrows and doodles… but when I did it with the Royal Mail Grads there were plenty of different interpretations.

The next steps are to draw up a three year plan. And then a more detailed one year plan with achievable goals (you know… the SMART ones!) Of course I haven’t quite done it like that this time. I’ve skipped the three year bit because to be honest I’m not quite sure where along my time line I will be by then. I decided a while ago to ditch the new years resolutions. Nothing new and crazy here. Just building on each years successes and move on to the next step in achieving my ambitions.

In 2009 the things I contributed to meeting my goals were:
* Started teaching my niece Spanish
* Did lots of internet dating
* Blogged regularly (and hoped people read it!)

Thanks to my NaNoWriMo attempt I also realised that I really wanted to go into Journalism. I might pursue fiction in later years, but it isn’t my priority right now.

So in 2010 I will…
* Continue to teach my niece(s) Spanish
* Complete the Michel Thomas Spanish CDs (I’ve made it up to CD5 in the past!)
* Continue to blog
* Submit pieces to paper/magazines both in print and online
* Get my writing published (and hopefully get paid, but that is really a 2011 goal!)
* Keep an eye out for the knight in shining armour
* Go on the dates I postponed due to illness at the end of 2009…
* …but give internet dating a break for a while. It’s quite tiring!

2010 has to be better than 2009. Friends and family are so important to making it that way. During the past year I’ve been a bit of a hermit at times. I hope that my many cancelled trips to London and other places haven’t left everyone thinking I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. Over Christmas I realised how wonderful it is to be around people who know you well and who can share your dreams with you. And in 2010 I’ll make so much more effort to see the people who bring a smile to my face and pick me up when I’m down.

That’s enough soppiness for one day. Or even a whole year. How did I get from number systems to sentimentality?!!!

I did attempt going back into work for two days this week, but I wasn’t holding up so well with the aches and struggling to concentrate. My boss suggested (read ‘rearranged my Thursday morning meeting’) to go to the doctors. It turned out I still very much had the flu and was ordered back home to bed. Apparently going back to work before your properly better means a second week of high temperatures and needing to sleep after just a few minutes of any physical activity.

It’s been nearly two weeks since I started feeling off and I’m really quite ready to reenter the world of the living. Unfortunately my body is not in agreement with this and this morning I woke up still feeling like I done a few rounds in a boxing ring. I really need to learn how to improve my attitude towards being ill and resting (thanks to Phil* for the comment “I reckon the only way to get you on the mend is to place you in a medically induced coma for the weekend”)

All I can say is thank goodness for the Gilmore Girls. There is nothing better than hours and hours of Lorelai and Rory to keep me entertained whilst I doze in and out of consciousness. If I can get my brain to cooperate from now on I can hopefully resume writing too. As for my Saturday evening, I will be tuning into the excitement and sparkle of Strictly (not to mention the drama and gossip – it’s turning into the XFactor!) to take my mind of the fun I’m meant to be having with friends this evening.

*Phil has just started his very own blog so this is an opportune moment to suggest that you should now go and read his first post.

Now it’s Saturday and about 15000 words behind target. I tried writing yesterday and managed just over 100 words. It’s not looking good right now. NaNoWriMo does not allow for illness, especially not an entire week of brain failure. As I write this blog my brain is struggling less than 200 words in.

I haven’t given up yet. Purely because I refuse to give up whilst I’m still ill. Realistically I can’t see myself being able to write 3500 words a day for the rest of the week. And that’s based on me being in a fit state to write from tomorrow, which I’m not sure I will be. But there is still the part of me that is determined to succeed. Just last weekend I could visualize the finish line and see myself getting the 50,000 words I needed to win. Now that seems like it is a million miles away.

But then there are the times you get stuck. I get on a roll and see my word count soaring in a couple of hours, then I hit a turning point. I’m suddenly at a cliff edge and can see the other side, but there’s no way across. And this is where Twitter keeps me going. Within minutes of tweeting that I’m stuck I had people suggesting solutions and pushing me on. @rebeccablain tweeted “Even corrupt leaders make stupid decisions” and that set me off again. I’d be so caught up in my lead characters moving through the story I’d forgotten that the other characters were there to help the story along. Their stories and actions could be independent of the main characters, yet inadvertently create the situation that would get them across the void and onto the next bit of the story.

I’m up to 19000 words and just over half way through the month, but I’m determined to hit the 50k mark in the next two weeks. A few more days of 3000 words and I’ll make up the shortfall and before I know it (well probably the last couple of days of the month!!!) be sprinting to the finish line.

On Monday evening I made a dent into the word count shortfall after being away at the end of last week, but as this week has gone on that is a small mercy as the daily target moves further and further away from where I am (13,404 words for those of you that are interested).

My plans to make up some of my word count during my lunch hour have been fruitless. My lunch hour has ceased to exist. I’ve been so excited and busy with work that midday becomes 1pm, then 1.30 and the other day even 1.50pm before I have nipped to the staff room to have something to eat. There just isn’t time to bash out a sentence let alone a couple of hundred words.

Tuesday I popped out for a swim before my tutor session. That was good. However the tutor session was not. Only one tutee turned up and after nattering for 15 minutes I called it a night, but having walked up, down and around Durham as well as swimming 1km I got home when it was late and dark, to a cold flat. There was only one thing I could do. Sleep. Wednesday was a colleagues retirement party, after 47 years in the job he got the fantastic celebration he deserved. Of course completely underestimating how much I had going on I’d also volunteered for Cake Friday this week, so my Thursday evening was spent cake baking once I’d returned from Body Balance. The Rotweinkuchen went down very well though!

Tonight I was due to be on a date but by this morning my head was starting to ache and there was no chance of making coherent conversation with anyone by this evening. I don’t think a headache combined with random babbling is the way to attract a potential future boyfriend. I’ll hold off on the dating until I’ve caught up on some sleep! It’s not surprising I’m so tired. I wrote a list of all the things I’ve done at work this week and it seems that I have managed to warp time as I’m not quite sure how I have actually fit it all in.

This evening I’m recharging the batteries. Catching up on TV I’ve recorded on my overflowing PVR, accompanied by a couple of strawberry beers. Tomorrow I’ll be around 10,000 words behind in NaNoWriMo but I can make a start on catching up. As long as I get a decent nights sleep it’s realistic to do in a couple of days (NaNo is about quantity, the quality comes later!) I am still determined that I will complete the NaNo challenge this month and am aiming to hit the 50,000 word mark on Sunday 29th. I am a deadlines person, always have been, and I always pull it off. I’m just hoping that next week gives me time to write during the weekend, as I don’t fancy writing 12000 words every weekend this month!

The conference was great but it’s put me a day behind on NaNoWriMo even with my writing on both journeys to and from the conference. However we’re only on the 8^th and I still have three weekends ahead to lock myself in darkened rooms and get that word count out. If I really go for it I can get 1500 words out in an hour so in theory I can do my remaining 39400 words in under 27 hours. I will get back on track!

The ‘up’ of work creativity and ‘down’ of NaNo word count isn’t the only thing that the conference is responsible for. It also got me swimming again. As I mentioned in a previous blog my brain finally seems to be altering some of it’s thinking. If I’m feeling crap it’s off making it’s little connections to tell me to move my backside and do some exercise. A big difference from all its years of telling me the answer was at the end of a chocolate bar. In my newly found motivated state I decided to make the most of the hotel having a swimming pool and rediscovered my inner water-baby. I love swimming. Not only because it’s the one form of exercise where I can lap most of my mates, instead of panting hopelessly as they sprint off towards the horizon. But once I’ve set a target of the number of lengths I will swim them no matter what. It’s calming and relaxing and yet I push myself harder than I will on dry land (unless you count spinning!)

So as a result of these few days I’ve made a promise to myself to go swimming once a week. It’s exercise AND I enjoy it. Why did I ever stop?

This Halloween will be considerably quieter and more sober, but hopefully just as significant. At midnight it will be November, and I will be writing the first few words of my NaNoWriMo novel. 50,000 words in one month.

I spent last Sunday evening listening to David Nicholls and Nick Hornby talk about their latest novels as part of the Durham Book Festival. They shared that they write about 500 words a day. I’ll be aiming for 2000. The reality of this is starting to finally sink in. Juliet Naked is 85,000 words, by the end of November I’m aiming to have written around two thirds of that. I shared this with David and Nick as they signed my books afterwards and they both looked quite horrified. Two published authors caught in the headlights of imagining getting that many words down in such a short space of time. It should have been enough to make me run away screaming from this crazy month ahead of me.

With less than 36 hours before it kicks off my mental state switches between complete fear and total excitement. I sometimes also just stop thinking about it or make myself believe that 50,000 words is easy to do. In reality I haven’t got a clue what this month will bring or how I’ll juggle work, conferences, tutoring, social life and an average of 1667 words a day. But the one thing I know is that deadlines work for me and if it means most of my weekends in November will be spent making up for the words not typed during the week it’s more likely than not I will do it. It is a huge challenge, but one I’m confident I can succeed in. (In a weeks time I’ll probably want to delete that last sentence!!!)

Back in August I set myself a challenge of writing a blog a day over 18 days. In that time I wrote 19 blogs, averaging 512 words per blog. A total of 9722 words in just over two weeks. At the start it was daunting and seemed quite difficult, two weeks later I was finding it much easier to write. Although I wasn’t considering NaNoWriMo at that point it was a nice warm up. And although it may have been only a tenth of what I have to write in the month, at least with NaNo there’s no worry about editing or uploading (which can take up a good bit of time when you have a few links and pictures).

I have finally decided which of my stories I am going for, though it has changed a bit since I started in February. Tomorrow I’ll be gathering all my research together, handy for reference if needed as I go along. I think I have an idea of the first chapter, again not what I had originally written. I am starting from scratch though some of the work I’ve already done may find it’s way in to the book once I start the editing process… but that’s December and onwards. I have some intensive writing to do first!

The only other concern in November is what will happen with this blog? I’d like to think that I’ll keep up at least a couple of posts a week, venting my frustrations and general feelings about the NaNoWriMo challenge. Or just a way of getting out of my system anything that is diverting attention away from getting my writing done. I hope you’ll bear with me through the ups, downs and possible silences that November will bring. And I promise whatever happens I’ll be back to full blogging duty in December with plenty of festive cheer.

So I have to do it. This week. Back to Body Balance. Back to working out at home. And in a week or two back to Spinning as well (one step at a time, I need to motivate myself before I kill myself with exercise!)

Both exercise and writing need to be staple parts of my routine once again because in a couple of weeks it will be November. And November is NaNoWriMo. That’s National Novel Writing Month. I will be trying to write 50,000 words in one month. To be honest I’m not thinking about the reality of it too much. My plan is that every spare minute between work, sleep and exercising will be spent writing. I do have a weekend in London planned. But that is three hours on a train each way. Plenty of writing time even then.

For me the aim of NaNoWriMo is to get past the mental block I have about writing fiction. As with blogging I just need to do it and as I do I am sure I will find my voice. I am not expecting 50,000 words of fabulousness at the end of the month. 50,000 words with the potential to be fabulous after copious amounts of editing would be a great achievement.

First I need to decide what I am going to write. I have two ideas which already have outlines and a certain level of character development. I have a further two with nothing much done so far. For a while I thought I might just dive into something new and see what happens. But if what happens is writers block I have nothing to push me on. No cues to get me writing again. That could be fatal and mean I stop before I’ve even started. So it’s down to the two ideas with outlines, characters and some initial efforts to get them down onto paper.

Sooo… which one do I pick? I’ve written a synopsis of both and sent them to a few friends for their opinion. It took me a good couple of minutes of hovering over the send button before I let the email go. The friends I’ve sent it too are mostly bookworms. One has already written a couple of scripts which I really enjoyed. Another sells books for a living and has probably seen thousands of synopsis better than my attempts. Two I’m in a book club with and together we’ve pulled apart novels that other people have poured their heart and soul in to writing. I’m petrified that someone will reply with the email equivalent of incessant laughter at the thought of me writing a novel. It isn’t that my friends are cruel. It is that I am feeling quite insecure.

If nothing else I’m hoping NaNoWriMo will boost my confidence about writing fiction. Whatever I write is never going to be liked by everyone so I need to learn how to be confident about my writing. I will have to learn how to differentiate between helpful feedback and negative criticism. And work out which are the people I know who will read my work as it develops and give me an honest and useful response.

I am scared that whatever I do write might be completely wrong. I might get to the end of the month and discover I can’t write fiction at all. But this is precisely why I need NaNoWriMo. To push me out of my comfort zone and see exactly what I’m made of!

On the 1st October it will be a year since I decided to quit my job in London. One of the goals I set myself was to use more of my time to regularly write. Another thing I am proud to have achieved. My persistence in blogging has stopped me from being scared of putting words on a page, I’ll now happily write something I know is rubbish and come back and redraft it later. The difficulty used to be getting the thoughts from my head onto paper. Now the longest part of the task is usually uploading pictures, adding links and the final proofread.

I am also grateful for the existence of Twitter. Without that I’d still be writing to an audience of my closest friends and family. Twitter has allowed me to share my blog with so many, and I am so pleased that people enjoy reading it. And now it seems that people are starting to find my blog via other routes. A couple of weeks ago someone followed me on Twitter because they’d read my blog first!

It’s taken me over two and a half years to reach blog number 100. During that time my life has changed in many ways. Where will I be by blog 200? At the pace I’m writing now it’s likely to be in less than six months. The next few months will be lots of fun though. From October I’ll be a tutee for a few of the students at Trevelyan College. Once I get them settled in I’ll be challenging myself to write 50,000 words in a month thanks to NaNoWriMo. By December I’ll be ready to relax for Christmas and enjoy some time with friends and family. Before I know it, January will be here and I’ll be celebrating one year since my move to Durham. And I’d like to think that by the time I reach blog 200 I’ll have had something published somewhere other than here.

But I’m not wishing my time away. The past year has flown by and I want to enjoy as much of the here and now as possible. And share it with you.

The thing that needs to be said in my 100th blog is THANK YOU! Thanks to all of you who read my blog. If I hadn’t got Google Analytics letting me know that you are all out there I might have given up before now. The more you visited my website, the more I have written. You’ve stuck with me and been the life that my blog needed to survive and grow!

Anyway enough of the soppiness… time to write Blog 101!