A pretty average Tuesday today, my that’s going to inspire you to read on isn’t it? We tried out a ‘new’ toddler group this morning, I say ‘new’ toddler group because I took Girl Lacer there once or twice when Boy Lacer was a baby, so it’s not that new but it’s under new management now. I’m afraid one of my motives for today’s visit was business related as I’m scouting for new toddler groups to target with my book selling. This toddler group seemed busy enough and in an affluent enough area but the normal person running it was off today so I didn’t approach them. I did bump into an old friend though who’s son goes to a nursery in a different school and she said they were looking for people to run stalls at their Christmas fair, so after I’ve posted this (and Boy Lacer has reliably gone to sleep) I’ll give them a ring. I’m getting downhearted about trying to sell my books through various ways at my daughter’s school (I will point out here that I am offering them my profit margin back in free books) as they’re well and truly in bed with Scholastic and don’t seem interested in any other publishers.
Anyway there was another reason for today’s visit as well, despite my money making scheming, obviously it’s good to take the kids somewhere to play but also today’s toddler group is in the same building that Boy Lacer’s playgroup is in, which he starts the first Friday after half term, so I thought it’d be nice if he got used to the building. He seemed to quite like the toddler group and wasn’t too worried where I was so that was a good sign. They had some photos up of the playgroup, there doesn’t seem to be that many kids in it, which is probably a good thing for Boy Lacer right now and they seem to be exclusively boys, including one with the same name as Boy Lacer (and it’s a not exactly common name) so that will confuse him.
Anyway, so all in all a nice morning BUT it really tired poor Boy Lacer out, so he was miserable from about lunchtime and I could have put him down for a nap straight after lunch but no he had to stay awake for another hour as we had to go and take Girl Lacer to nursery, so he was absolutely miserable and spent most of the time screaming his head off. So I decided that instead of being stuck at home listening to him screaming his head off, we’d just go to nursery early. I stuck him in the pushchair and dashed back inside for a banana for Girl Lacer’s snack at nursery, the screaming intensifies, shortly followed by Girl Lacer coming in (I was only gone a second) “Mummy, the pushchair has fallen over”, so I rushed over finding the pushchair on it’s side with Boy Lacer still in it, in the mud. He was ok but he wasn’t having a good day! So once I had cleaned the mud off him, off we went to nursery with him wearing just a t-shirt and trousers in cold drizzly autumnal weather, he has a thing about coats you see (and blankets and quite a lot of jumpers and long sleeved tops) and it’s on the best of days a screaming match to get his coat on but today I wasn’t even going to try, not with the amount of screaming he was already doing, so bad mummy took my 2 year old out today without a coat, whereas everyone elses little ones were all layered up. A friend with an autistic son reckons Boy Lacer may have some sensory issues regarding the coat and blanket thing and I think she may have a point, argh we so need that second developmental check!
Anyway now onto something completely different, after umming and ahhing about it yesterday I have signed up for this year’s NaNoWriMo. I had (when signing up) decided that I was going to do my mid war Venice story but since then thinking about it, I’m really not sure it could make 50,000 words as it’s a kids book and I think would probably make around the 30,000 mark, so I could try and write it and add another 20,000 words of tosh but what’s the point of that? So an idea has been circling my head that I could possibly try, it’s an adult story (I see myself primarily as a children’s writer, so this is a departure) with a sci-fi theme. I complained yesterday that I couldn’t ever think of any sci-fi plots (considering I’m a trained scientist) but this possible NaNoWriMo plot has been actually, in various bits and pieces been littering my head for some time, it’s just that these ideas have been the results of day dreams and what ifs? And have been very disjointed, whereas my ideas for children stories come to me in a completely different way, where I can usually see the outline of the story a lot more clearly. So, so far for this sci-fi idea I have my main character, I have her location and her profession and I have a number of dilemmas on a big and small scale for her to face but as of yet I don’t have any concrete plot. Part of me thinks it’s be fun just to start out with this character in the situation she’s in and see where she takes me, as I’m seeing NaNoWriMo as ultimately fun and some writing practice, not an exercise to produce publishable work as I still see myself as an (unpublished) children’s writer. We’ll see, I’ve still got a few weeks to think about my main character some more to see if some more concrete plot does come to me.
Watched the wonderful Spooks tonight and it’s so good to have it back! I think we’re going to be in for a rollercoaster of a series with the continuing storyline. Considering Spooks past history I was expecting half the cast to bite the bullet, or the grenade or the . . . well you get it (I couldn’t throw a deep fat frier in there to) and that’s one of the things that makes Spooks so exciting, you know the no one, not even the divinely gorgeous Adam, are bullet proof. Definitely up there with 24!
