Hello, I'm back! (via Padova, 5terre, Pisa and Siena...)

Hello my dearies!

I'm back at my (home) computer after a couple of weeks of road-tripping and a week or so of playing catch-up at work. This is the first time in a long while that I've had the time to do something for my blog so HERE I AM!!! 

I've missed you guys. Weird, huh? I've never met you, and yet, the blogging community is rather important to my writerly psyche. 

So today I want to share some of my trip with you... I was driving through Italy with a friend of mine. We passed through Padova, the five little villages that go by Cinque Terre, visited the leaning tower of Pisa and the beautiful medieval city of Siena, to finish out trip in Rome. 

Siena, I think, was my favourite - it's one of the few cities I've come across that is pretty much the same as it was hundreds of years ago. It's impressive, and rather awe-inspiring in parts. Going back to Siena to see the Paleo is definitely on my bucket list - for the Paleo they race horses around the main square for the honour of their contrada. It's supposed to be quite a spectacle! Have any of you seen it before? 

So now that I'm back I've started writing again, though it's slow going for some reason. I've managed about 250-400 words the last couple of days, along with some plotting and scene setups (I use index cards for my plot points and scenes - that way I can shuffle them when something doesn't fit...). Not much, but better than nothing, right? 

Anyhows, I'm very glad to be back! 

Yours, most sincerely, 

Delicious sandwiches in Padova

Cinque Terre is full of beautiful views...and apparently there's dirt on my camera lens. Bother.

Yep, this is the leaning tower. With the leaning cypress tree... hmm....

A view in Siena - the city is built on top of a hill. The modern parts are  built on the slopes and lower (see the house on the left), which left the medieval city at the top of the hill, walls and all, virtually undisturbed.

Once more, with feeling...an IWSG Post

Hello my dearies!

Welcome to my Blurb and thank you for popping in. It's the first Wednesday of the month, which means it's time for....

CLICK HERE

I don't know if you saw my post on Sunday, but I've been plenty insecure lately. I've made the same writing-related new year's resolution for a couple of years now, and have yet to succeed. This year, what's plaguing me is actually getting down to the bones of it - writing, pure and simple. I have endless ideas, some great (at least I think so), some not so much (but they could possibly turn into something). 

In the past two weeks, I have managed to write down random plot points for the story I've decided to work on (and yes I've FINALLY decided to work on one in particular), and I've written about 1500 words, total.

Not much, right?  Well, I'm going to go with the glass-half-full idea and say it's better than nothing.

Vacansopapurosophobia

Happy Sundays, my dearies!

I hope you had a great end-of-the-weekend, or maybe you're busy watching the Super Bowl, or avoiding it, or waiting for the half-time show, or whatever... 

Meanwhile, I'm suffering from vacansopapurosophobia. Which is a word according to google...I'm not entirely convinced, but it will serve for now. What it means, you see, is having a fear of blank paper. Which is me, in a nutshell. 

I've been dithering about with my (numerous - I'm sure I've mentioned this before) story ideas (seriously, I have files and files and files of the things), but none of them are really...speaking to me, if you know what I mean. So here I am, sitting before a literal blank page, and it's looking rather scary. Add to that a whole load of job and family related stress and an ongoing lack of sleep, and it makes for a rather cranky Tessa.

*sigh*

I hope you're all doing better than that, but I would like to know what you think of vacansopapurosophobia...do you suffer from it? Or is it, for you, nothing but bah-humbug? 

Welcome to a new year full of writerly insecurities...

Hello my dearies!

Long time no see. And I mean that regarding both my fellow insecureists and all you other wonderful writerly people out there.

Insecure Writers' Support Group website HERE

Well, we're truly in 2014 now, aren't we? Scary thought. I don't know about you, but for me 2013 is a bit of a blur. What on earth happened to all those days/weeks/months that should have been part of that year? They all ran away from me.

I must be a scary person.

Mr Muse has been running away lately, too. In his current incarnation he looks a bit like Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet (that would be the picture, source of which is the BBC). As I'm not particularly fond of moustaches of any shape or form, I think he's doing this purely to annoy me and to get back at me for not paying enough attention to him. 

You see, I have made a new year's resolution to finish one of the endless number of plot bunnies hopping around my laptop (and my brain). As in, write an actual book rather than just plan one and write bits and pieces until something new and shiny comes along to distract me. 

I am nothing if not distractible. 

What Mr Muse doesn't like is that I have yet to decide what story I want to dig my heels in on, knuckle down and work through. I simply cannot decide. 

Which, in turn, makes me very, very insecure. 

How about you? Did you make any new year resolutions? Or are you against the whole concept (which I think I'm starting to be) because one tends to not only not manage them, but stress needlessly? 

What are your writing plans for the year, and do you have any tips for me on how to decide on a story to focus on?