Please! No Eye-Balling!

Hi All

I think I need oxygen! I have just had a weird experience.

I have JUST finished the first draft of my new novel, The Sleeping Field. This is amazing because I have had so many interruptions, distractions and curved balls hurled my way during the writing of this, that I thought I would never achieve conclusion. That isn’t why I need oxygen though.

I’d just finished the draft, saved it to two plug-ins, looked up, and there, trotting across my middle vision, just outside the kitchen door, was a grey squirrel. We don’t have grey squirrels here …or any other colour or variety!

I have lived here for twenty-three years and only once seen a grey squirrel, and that was years ago, and I think he was merely attempting to pass through. And I use the word attempting on purpose because at the time we had Oscar, our Burmese cat, and one day he brought me a lovely little present. At least I thought it was a lovely little present. It had been left on the kitchen tiles and looked like a perfect little rosebud. On close examination I discovered that it wasn’t a perfect little rosebud but an eyeball. Later that day I found a squirrel, dead, with one eyeball missing. And that was the only squirrel that I have ever seen around here.

So here’s the thing. Am I, in my delirium at having finished the first draft, hallucinating? Is the squirrel – that really shouldn’t be here – not really here? Or is it a sign? Are squirrels synonymous with anything? Finishing a novel? Going slightly potty? All answers kindly received.

I’m now going to take a break from writing for the rest of the day, and then, tomorrow, start again at the beginning and edit the draft etc. Then I’ll be looking for a proofreader and someone to produce a nice cover. I am a dreadful creature, by nature, and everything has to be done at the speed of light – usually – but this time I’m taking my time and I’m heading for a pre-Christmas release. We’ll see.

* Just a quick thank you to all followers of this blog, new and not so new. Your likes are appreciated and your comments let me know that you are still there. I liken this to book reviews. So many people don’t leave an author a book review and so we never truly know if we are on the right track. And the same applies with blogs. If you leave a comment now and then it lets us know that we are still on the right track. Though, seriously, I find it hard being on the right planet half the time… Oh, I thought that was another squirrel passing across my vision, it’s just Chea coming back, and thankfully there is no sign of an eyeball peering at me from her pretty little mush.

Off to hug a tree – or something.

Take care my lovelies x