Eden and the literary masterpieces of 10 year olds

We decided to take advantage of an offer for locals and visited the Eden Project on Saturday. Eden offers £5 entry fee that then gets you free entry for a year if you are a local resident. Children were a two pound donation each and so for the princely sum of £14 we have free access to the Eden Project for a year. Definitely worth it as we live about 15 minutes from it! This time of year they have a covered ice rink for a couple of months, so we can pay to skate at Eden.

We had a great time and if any blogger buddies out there are ever in Cornwall I would put it on your visit list. I am going back for the Christmas shopping next week as they had some decorations there!! Hollie, my four year old, is excited beyond belief about ice skating for the first time, whilst I have a little trepidation as I have not skated since my teens.

I have been so excited this past week or so with the Bodmin Bookworm. Kat is working so hard on it and it looks great. We went into two larger Bodmin schools last week to promote the Bookworm and since then Kat has been inundated by the most amazing piece of writing from a number of year sixes. Not only are they writing in with their work but also commenting on each other's work, and those comments are across schools, not just on friend's work. It is really beginning to take off and I know my boss hopes it will be going national in the near future. If you get a chance have a look at the Bookworm and particularly check out Berrycoombe, St Petrocs and Robartes Junior School. At Robartes there is one young man named Brandon who is sending in epic work that is fab to read. It is so encouraging to read these pieces of work as they are coming from 10 and 11 year olds who could have promising writing careers.

Busy busy busy at the moment. Christmas lights are going on in Bodmin on Friday and I have four puppet assemblies to rehearse for as well as a Carol Service. Hopefully there will be blog posts popping up in between the madness that are the weeks before Christmas.

Inspiration, Emotion and Editing

It was my mum's birthday this week and every time there is a birthday in the family I am tempted to go back through old photos. Memories are so powerful and pictures, like smells and sounds, evoke very emotional responses in me. Every time I see the photo above of my son aged 24 hours old, I remember the joy of his arrival and the pain of knowing he faced surgery just 10 days later for his cleft repair. Now aged seven, every time I look at this photo and then look at him now, I have a catalogue of emotional responses ranging from pain, fear and worry to pride, joy and hope. I have tried to harness them in my writing as I believe every experience we have has purpose and can be used positively in a number of ways.

I went back over my chapters on Wednesday and I have to own up to editing them all slightly, though I was not too ruthless. I just felt I could not go on writing the story till I had modified the dialogue in chapter two, it was like a barrier I had hit and had to hurdle before I could go on. I have made a solemn promise to myself now that I will not edit anything else in this book until I have finished it. This will keep me motivated and stop me languishing in chapter three!!!

Speaking of photos, I was trawling through my Cornwall shots and came across this clearing, taken at Lanhydrock (NT place near Bodmin). It has provided me with a very visual setting for next chapter of my book and so I am planning to get going with this over the weekend. I do not want to stall again but I have a busy November ahead so the words are discipline and organisation (Boy, am I in trouble).

Travelling Tales

I have been away 'up country' as we say in Cornwall visiting relatives for half term and feel I have done a lot of travelling. Andy' s parents are in West Sussex, so we were based there, visiting old friends in Chessington (former home town) and have a fab day out at Legoland as well as a trip to the south coast. Feel well travelled around the south east but I am happy to be home again.

I have also been travelling in my reading experiences too. I have read all the Michelle Paver's 'Chronicles of Ancient Darkness' books to date and was hungry for a new series, so one of the twelve year olds at church loaned me ' Ingo, ' by Helen Dunmore. It is set down here in Cornwall and is proving to be a great read, though it has taken me a while to get into it properly. The picture gives away a little about what the book might be about, but I think I may be hooked for this series too. I am really enjoying reading the 9-12 ' tween ' fiction however I do find it hard to read ' grown up ' books sometimes!!

It was hard to get any prose written whilst away, however I had a twenty minute window of time alone when I was able to write pages of descriptive notes about the time travelling device in my novel. Really pleased as it has given me pegs to hang prose on now!!

Back to school tomorrow plus Mum's birthday, plus important church meeting, plus Kat's little boy's birthday...so busy day ahead. Might need to escape to Ingo again later on.