Excitement and Potential Marital Strife!

This long awaited book arrived today and I am very, very excited indeed! Michelle Paver has been a real inspiration to me as a writer and her work is truly gripping. I defy anyone to read the first book and not be consumed with her characters and the attention to detail in order to create a stone age setting This is the last book in her series The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, and I heard on a podcast that she wept quite a bit when she had finished it, as it was the end of the story for her characters...she would write about them no more. I wondered then what it would be like to write a series of books where you become besotted with the characters you create and travel with them as you create their stories, to then have to bring that to an end, never to write about them again. I am sure JK Rowling felt bereft when she finished her seventh book, as Michelle Paver did at the end of her sixth.
Marital discord could be prominent in my household as my hubby is as caught up in the series as I am and seems to think he will get to read it first as he thinks I should re-read the previous book (Oath breaker) as he has done in the last week, knowing that Ghost Hunter was on its way. I am not sure about this as I ordered the book, so we may end up reading it to each other!!!!
Also got my Children's Writers and Artists Yearbook 2010, so will be burying myself in that too!!

Progress

I found this wonderful image of a barn owl on Google and it has helped me think about the role of the barn owl in my novel. I now have a role, responsibility and a name for him. Research has been fab, especially the Barn Owl Trust website as they have a live webcam of a barn owl nest here in Cornwall. I have made lots of notes and plan to write him into the book very soon.
I also did the What Kind of Book are you? thingy over at Debs and spookily I came out as Sci-Fi/Fantasy - exactly the type of books I read and am writing!!! Go and have a go it is very cool - though I am not sure everything in the description is entirely accurate?

Having a 'Hoot'

Yesterday I thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful day out with my kids at the local Owl Sanctuary. It is a fantastic place that not only displays these incredible birds, but also rears owl chicks and rehabilitates rescued birds, including those hit by cars etc. They also do a flying display with a couple of the owls and my son and I were particularly thrilled to watch the falconer fly a barn owl. Barn owls are my absolute favourite; they have a hypnotic and inspiring serenity and beauty about them. My son shares my love of them and he had the particular thrill of being able to put on the falconer's glove and have the barn owl land on it. He is a sponge for natural history and fact finding at the moment, so it was a fantastic day for him.
It got me thinking about barn owls for my 'tween' novel. It has introduced another potential thread for my novel, which is great, but also has me worried that my story may have more threads than the Bayeux Tapestry and may therefore be too complicated to complete without ending up in knots!!
Really enjoying the summer holidays, although resigning myself to having very little time and energy for writing and therefore resolving to put all that energy into my two little people until September 2nd, when my youngest goes full time at school and I have a larger window of opportunity to finish my novel. In the meantime I will content myself with writing ideas I have on index cards and filing them under ' to be written'!!