Wow, this is a strange winter, so far. Contrary to what they predicted, we’re a week into June and it’s been fine. Apparently supposed to rain either today or tomorrow but who knows.

The days have been beautiful and slowly warming. What? Warming? 26 degrees C in June? What is happening? Actually, pondering on it, I think it’s been a trend of the last few years.

I remember when I had my first winter in Perth. May days were beautiful and sunny but the mornings were like 2 and 3 degrees. I lived in Balcatta in those days and wow, was it cold! June was much like May but added some rain to it.

Now, coming from Melbourne, I was used to May, June and July being full of sleet and wind and rain. Perth didn’t get any really heavy rain until July and then it bucketed down. I was working for Land Tax in those days, in the old Vic Centre building and I used to watch daily as it used to rain horizontal rain down St Georges Terrace.

Ah, those were the days – I used to walk from Perth Central station, down through the arcades all the way to St Georges Terrace and then along St Georges Terrace to the Vic Centre. Because in those days, there wasn’t a Cat that would take me that close at that time.

Then when I moved to the Valuer General’s Office I still got off at Perth and experimented with the Red Cat up to the office, but still most days ended up walking because the Red Cat was stand up only. I had that enough in Melbourne on buses between the city and Sunshine. So I used to walk from Perth station, through the mall to Hay St, then along Hay St to Cloisters Square, then cross St Georges Terrace and up there to Spring St and into the office.

Those days are long gone. I used to walk almost from the corner of Wellington Rd and Morley Drive to the Morley bus station between Morley Markets and what is now the Galleria. I even walked sometimes home from Landgate to Stratton. I can’t do that any more. But each day is still a learning curve and that’s what I keep doing. Learning.

Well, it’s nice to see things are easing off. Thursday, we got to have more than 2 people in the lifts on our floor but the signs are still on the other floors. They’ll get around to moving them.

It’s been an interesting experience this part of the year – the trains have been quiet and people are keeping their distance. There are now more jobs available to do from home, which is interesting in itself.

And I’m finally at the end of my 4 days at work a week. Hopefully this time it will turn permanent to 3 days a week. Doc has said for the foreseeable future. That, to my words, is indefinite….

Anyway, that’s a small part of a big picture called life. We have up days and we have down days. It’s being able to manage both with the same ease where we excel. My thoughts go out to everyone who is struggling with something today. I hope you resolve it positively and that your life improves after it.

So here’s the funny part. Simon listens to 1080 6IX and at 6.50am they have “Shona Nova” on to give us the horoscopes for the day. We only listen to it for her vocal patterns. We had a friend in the car yesterday that had never heard Shona and she was in hysterics at the end of it. She’s on the digital version of their radio, so if you feel like streaming it, I do recommend it. I have never known her horoscopes to come true, but they are really very funny – just to listen to her vocal patterns.

Shona, if you’re reading this, don’t stop, you are great to listen to and bring a bright moment to our drive to work!

Okay, so I had a sore throat and blocked/sniffly nose (yeah, go figure – blocked in the morning, sniffly in the arvo). But, having that in this environment means a teleconference call with a doc. So, doc calls me back before the appointed time (some of these work well, but I don’t like it) and we discuss my symptoms. He says it doesn’t sound like I have covid19 but protocols now are that I have to be tested.

So, Stu comes home from work and we head down to the local covid19 clinic. Wow! That was an interesting test – doesn’t help if you have a broken nose. But test came back all clear. No covid19. Phew!

So you ask, what have I been doing with my non-covid19 but probably coronavirus flu? Watching a bit of tv and sleeping – often at the same time. Hmm, must go back and watch season one of Supergirl again. I think I missed some episodes.

But back to work on Monday. And to think – I actually had a cake to take in last Monday!

So, we had 2 days last week where it was bitterly cold – and it rained before then. So, I go to work on Monday thinking I have to catch the train and bus, better take a coat. Get out of work and it’s warm. What the hell? It’s May! It should be around 14 degrees but it was in the 20s!

I remember my first winter in Perth. I lived in Balcatta at the time and it was a cold hole! I used to bus it everyday into town and walk about 10 mins from the bus to work. It was not unusual for it to be 2-3 degrees at 7am – which is just before daybreak. Understandable.

At the time, I thought ‘oh, it’s just like Melbourne – without the sleet!’

But now? Tuesday we had 27 degrees! 27! That’s too warm for this time of the year! Even our house says it’s supposed to be colder. We walked into the house on Wednesday night and you could tell the bricks had absorbed the cold. It was downright chilly inside. Outside? Warm, pleasant – inside? Where’s the wood for the fire???

But, enough of that. I have to tell you that it took 3000 words and 2 scenes to finally kill off the baddie in Consequences 3. And I think it was a wake-up call for our friendly hero but I think I also stayed true to his original character – after all, he did start on the wrong side of the law but redeemed himself through his actions.

It was a tough scene to write as I had to really focus on what I wanted him to go through in this scene and to make sure the lead-up was set up correctly. Then, of course, just to pick on him, I threw in wild weather and jittery horses. Poor man.

But he came through it – not unscathed but no one would.

And that’s all I’m going to say. Tough scenes like that can take a while to write, but the idea is to keep at them until you get through them. Ho hum. Of course, work came in the way, too. But I got there in the end. (Says she as she trots off to tidy it up and write the aftermath …)

Wow! We had rain. And lots of it! I enjoyed watching it rain, thinking of all the renewal it will do.

So after a busy week at work, I plan to pull out all stops today. I have a lot of catching up to do with my writing, mainly because I had a brainstorm on Sunday night in bed (why is it always the way – the one time you can’t get up to write because you have to sleep?). So I spend all this week at work making notes for today.

It’s called – get down and write! So I suppose there’s been a storm in more than one way – our weather and in my brain. Now it’s time to start a storm of writing!

Onward ho! (Isn’t that the comment?)

Okay, I apologise for being late with this post. Having said that, a lot has happened over the last week.

Well, then again, maybe not.

Although I have written quite a bit which I’m pleased about and, although I don’t normally do this, I have to say that Joseph Michael’s training on Scrivener is quite good. I’ve learnt a few things more about Scrivener that I hadn’t found on my own. Which works for me. Still can’t afford his lessons but the free one I did had some gems in it for me. Now I just have to wait until 3 is out there (I’m on a PC not a Mac).

So, writing has been a bit of a challenge. Mainly ’cause I’m back at work for 4 days a week instead of 3. I really did like that 3 days a week. Doesn’t matter. Once the planes are back flying, everything will go back to normal. (We hope.)

On that note, it seems that Stu is doing a bit more work than he does normally. Mainly ’cause they’ve picked up Qantas quarantine busing. Which keeps him occupied but doesn’t help when he wants to put our new raised veggie bed together!

I found it great to be back at work – I think because I was forced to stay at home and that it wasn’t my decision to do so. And I have a possible lead into having a booth at Supanova when it’s next on in Perth (all the ooos and ahhhhhs).

So, I read an article last night – or yesterday – that says that writers who complain about parts of their craft should be taught not to. Well, I must say, I can be guilty of that.

My all-out love of writing is action scenes and dialogues. The fact that I don’t write in a chronological-type manner – from start to finish – means that there are scenes in between the action and dialogue that I must fill in. And as I participate in Nanowrimo, then sometimes I’m out for getting the wordcount done. Which means I concentrate on those scenes I love writing. Which leaves me to write what I call filler scenes later. Which is probably my fault because I haven’t written them during Nanowrimo.

My point of mentioning this is, although I might say ‘filler scenes are the worst’ or ‘I miss writing action or dialogue’, these scenes that I call ‘filler’ scenes are really linking scenes and without them, the book would not work. Knowing that, I also know they must be written and I am the one who will write them. So, please, don’t believe me (really) when I say I hate them. I just don’t like them as much as I do the other scenes.

Same with editing. I may say I hate editing, but I don’t really. I find that editing is what refines what comes out of my head and goes on the page and makes it easier for readers to read. That is what I am aiming for. An easy read. I just prefer writing new works.

So I’d like to finish by saying that I appreciate all aspects of my craft, from action scenes, to linking scenes to editing. Now, cover art? That’s one I’m not sure of …. just kidding.

Well, no, we’re not quite back to normal, but some restrictions are being lifted soon. One of these is that our trains and buses are going to an ‘enhanced’ Saturday timetable. No idea what that means.

So, this was my first week back from holidays and self-isolation. Whilst I’d love to be able to stay at home writing through all those hard-to-write scenes, I was surprised that I was happy to go back to work. I only had a day and a bit ’cause, typical me, comes down with a virus that sees me go home at 9.30am the first day and have the second day off on sick leave. But the rest of the week was okay, although I couldn’t pick up an extra shift yesterday to make up for the sick day. Well, them’s the breaks.

Gotta say, after 2.5 weeks at home, your first day off goes so fast it’s like it was a time jump! At one minute, we’re heading for groceries at 11.30am, the next time I look at the clock, it’s 4pm! Where did the time go?

Today, however, I have been able to ‘put pen to paper’ so to speak. I’m tackling those scenes I hate – those scenes with no action or little dialogue in them. Those scenes that fit between the action scenes, linking them up.

At the same time, I heard that the mother of my oldest friend passed away today at the age of 97. I still remember going to Ray’s place and playing mud pies with him. If it was summer, we’d put the hose on. Often, his mother, Grace, used to ring mum (we were all of 2 doors away) and ask to send some clothes ’cause she’s had to bath us both because we’d been covered in muck.

She was a graceful lady that said her piece of mind directly. She had a heart of gold and used to take me to school some mornings – with Goldie the golden retriever in the seat behind. Apparently in those days I had pigtails and he used to chew on them! Ah, Auntie Grace, I miss you already! She was also one of the last of the neighbours to see mum at home and I know it upset her greatly. But what a great old age to live to! RIP Auntie Grace. I will always remember you.

Well, what a relief to be able to go out yesterday afternoon! Albeit, it was only to the doc’s, the chemist and to a chook farm to buy eggs. But oh, just to have the choice to go out or stay in whichever you wanted to do made a world of difference.

But let me get back to things.

So I sent out a novel to beta readers last weekend and while I’m waiting for some of them to respond, I’ve had response from one of my most critical friends. Meaning he provided such good feedback that I have been working hard on that instead of my other works in progress. Those, I feel I need a break from and I really had no idea how to move forward with this one. The story is finished but there was a lot needed doing in it and I think I have what I need to make it so much better. At the moment it sits just shy of 50k but I’m sure with these updates it’ll end up being a helluvalot more.

What’s one of the interesting things I’ve done is decided to use 2 A4 notebooks I bought from a shop closing down (still paid an arm and a leg but they’re gorgeous) as info on people, places and things like that and, maybe, an outline.

I’ve actually managed to write a bit of a backstory to this, so hopefully that will solve a lot of issues with the new version. I’m all excited by this one, now! Hehe I’ll probably get sucked back into Consequences 3, though. There’s something about the MC in that that keeps grabbing my attention….

So we’re into our second week of self-isolation and while we haven’t killed each other and we’ve gone through the shed and the linen closet, I’ve had time to do some writing and some editing. So it hasn’t been a waste of time. However, I’m also looking forward to being able to go and do my own grocery shopping without Stu having to do it alone for the 3 of us.

What concerns me is that because a lot of work has closed down, the amount of people on the trains has decreased – apparently by 85% so our trains are now on Saturday timetables – which means I’m going to have to time leaving work precisely ’cause half the trains won’t be there.

Or I just get a lift to and from work.

The upside of this is that all of our blinds have been up each day and now the cats take a running leap into my room. My blinds are usually down while I’m at work or slitted if I’m home. They think it’s brilliant that they can look out of mine even though the view is similar to that of the lounge room.

I don’t know what is going to happen in the next few weeks, I don’t know if it’s going to be worse or better in the future. I have no concept of when this is going to end and while subconsciously I feel it is waaaay over the top, we have to abide by what the government says.

Currently we have a reducing number of those affected in our state and we hope it stays that way so that we can go back to behaving like we were. Hopefully, it will all be worth it in the end and we come out to a better world than when we went in.