…But not with writing, sadly. I have been moving forward but it is truly at a snail’s pace. The days of Nano’s 1,667 words a day seem like a dream! If it weren’t for writing group every week, I doubt I’d be getting anywhere (and even then it takes me ages to actually write anything because of chatting away about movies and books and writing).

I’m now at around 62k with my book and still only about halfway through. I’m heading into unknown territory, which is partly why I think I’m slowing down and I desperately want to edit some of what I’ve already written but am refraining for now. My main female character has finally come into the plot physically and is going to shake everything up.

On a side note, just discovered a really weird coincidence when it comes to her! Her name is Ravon Evermore and for physical inspiration I have been using Cate Blanchett as my template. I discovered today that there is a Led Zeppelin song called “The Battle of Evermore” which has some ties to Lord of the Rings, the opening lyric mentioning the ‘Queen of Light’ who most people assume is Galadriel. And who played Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings movies? Cate Blanchett. So now I feel it is imperative to give a nod to the song somewhere in the story. I think the line ‘The apples turn to brown and black, The tyrant’s face is red’ will work nicely.

I also came up with a new idea that I have tentatively dubbed “Paper Faces” which is a modern re-imagining of The Phantom of the Opera. It revolves around a girl (Erika) and a young boy (Christian) who grow up together in a children’s home but Erika has issues and becomes somewhat possessive of Christian throughout their lives. It’s hopefully far more interesting than I just made it sound! I’ve written the prologue already but will leave the rest of the writing for Camp Nano in April.