BN12 - Christmas Eve

I have never been a huge fan of Christmas. I don’t like the expectations of joy and community harmony that it puts upon us all and it seems even sillier in this year of the virus.

Despite my general festive grumpiness, I have always like Christmas Eve and being able to go out to a pub on the night before Christmas. It’s been nearly a year since I last visited a pub, but I miss the community, the company of friends and the opportunity to see, hear or experience something different. Some of my best fiction ideas have been sparked by an overhead pub conversation or social calamity fuelled by too much drink. The pub visit won’t be happing this year, of course, and that makes me a little sad. It’s another personal tradition that has slipped away in 2020, another little navigation beacon of a “normal” year that I have missed.

BN11 - Writing/Progress

I was heading to an Arvon writing retreat at the end of February next year. I suspect that CV-19 and the imminent, but as yet unannounced, new lockdown will put paid to that. My plan had been to take the hundreds of pages that I have already written, and shape them into the next draft so that I would have something tangible to work with when I got there.

The retreat probably won’t happen but the process of redrafting is still worthwhile. The last two days I rewritten about two thousand words. I will post updates over the next couple of weeks. It’s a good way of gently keeping me accountable. The previous draft was done in Scrivener which is my Swiss Army knife text management tool.

The Scrivener Print Out

For this draft, I have taken the print outs and I’m handwriting the next version. I find it slows me down and makes me pay more attention to the words. It also means I get to use a good fountain pen in conjunction with a big notebook with premium paper. The hint of luxury gives me a little thrill of pleasure and I will take what I can get in the current climate. I don’t NEED these tools to write, I can work just as well with a rollerball and cheap A4 notebook, but sometimes it’s just nice to enjoy the tools as well as the process.

BN10 - Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice, the darkest point of the year. With lockdown, I have started to feel a little trapped by the restrictions, but at least I can look forward to the days filling with more light. With the emergence of the new variant of the virus there will be lots to challenge us in the first few months of 2021. A bit more sunlight will at least help my mood when facing them.