Emmeline and the Ice-God, Chapter 16

In this instalment of Emmeline and her adventures, we see Thing getting crafty, Emmeline getting pushed to her limit, and a glimpse at the Baddie who is intent on using her to further his own ends.

Enjoy…

Image: walldime.com

Emmeline and the Ice-God

16

                ‘You ain’t leavin’ me behind!’ Thing’s teeth were set, and his eyes glittered. He clutched Emmeline’s satchel to his skinny chest like it was a lump of gold. ‘I ain’t lettin’ ya!’

‘Look, Thing, we can’t bring you with us! You have to understand!’ Sasha was busily packing away some sort of chart, so big that it would have covered a wall. Thing couldn’t read well enough to understand what was written on it, but a strange symbol near the top of the sheet caught his attention. It was like a large round eye with several wiggly ‘legs’ coming out of it. Something about it made him feel uneasy.

‘All I understand is that me, the only friend of the kid you’re all rushin’ about tryin’ to save, isn’t allowed to be part of rescuin’ her from whatever ridiculous situation she’s got herself into,’ snapped Thing, renewing his grip on the satchel. ‘I can help, you know! She trusts me!’

‘She doesn’t trust anyone, Thing,’ said Sasha, snapping the huge portfolio closed. She buckled it shut and slid it off the table and into a large case, along with several others. ‘She’s been raised that way.’

‘But she – she saved me, from that man –‘

‘She saved herself. You just happened to be there. Don’t you understand?’ Sasha turned and faced Thing, and placed her hands gently on his shoulders. She looked straight into his eyes, and Thing saw them soften and grow gentle. ‘I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, Thing. I’m sure Emmeline likes you well enough, but you’re not her friend. So, why don’t you go home and forget about all this, and let us take care of it from here?’

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you,’ muttered Thing.

‘Pardon?’ said Sasha, confusion creasing her face.

‘Nothin’. Well, if you can’t bring me with you, will you at least tell me where you’re goin’?’

‘You know I can’t,’ said Sasha, straightening up and releasing her grip on Thing’s arms.

‘Does it ‘ave anythin’ to do with that weird eye-thing, on the map?’ said Thing, hazarding a guess.

‘What do you know about that?’ Sasha stood perfectly still, and Thing didn’t think he was imagining the look of frozen fear in her eyes.

‘Oh, you know,’ breezed Thing, improvising. ‘Only what Ems told me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Sasha. ‘Emmeline is completely ignorant of anything to do with that map.’

‘Sure about that, are ya?’

‘Yes,’ said Sasha, but Thing saw a tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth that told him she was lying.

‘Interestin’,’ said Thing. Just then, Edgar came back into the room. Someone had rebandaged his arm, and given him some sort of pain-killing medication. His colour was back, and there was a sparkle in his eye.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked Sasha. ‘We’ll be docking within the hour, and we won’t have time to waste. We’ll need to get to – Oh. Hello,’ he said, finally noticing Thing. ‘What are you still doing here?’ He smiled down at him, and only his twitching fingers gave away his impatience.

‘I were just tellin’ Sasha ‘ere about Emmeline and the wavy eye,’ he said, straightening his back. ‘Nothin’ important.’

‘Emmeline and the what?’ he said, glancing up at Sasha.

‘The sun is warm,’ said Sasha, cryptically, focusing on Edgar.

‘But there is ice on the breeze,’ he finished, blinking.

‘Er – right,’ said Thing, into the silence that followed this strange exchange. ‘Anyway. We was discussin’ my role in the rescuin’ of Emmeline, actually, just as you so rudely barged in.’

‘Your role?’ said Sasha, snapping out of whatever spell she’d been in and staring back down at Thing. ‘You don’t have a role!’

‘That’s not what this says.’ Thing nodded down at the satchel in his hands.

‘That’s nothing! That’s simply Emmeline’s bag – all it has in it are her tricks, her gimmicks, her – her little means of keeping herself safe!’ Sasha frowned, throwing her hands up in the air.

‘Yeah, that,’ agreed Thing, ‘and also some very interestin’ papers on – ice.’ He felt his way into the next thought, very carefully. ‘Ice, and stuff what lives in it.’ Sasha’s eyes burst open like someone had slapped her on the back.

‘Are you – do you even – what are you talking about?’

‘Guess you’ll have to bring me along. ‘Sfar too much to explain before the ship makes landfall,’ said Thing, with a sniff.

                 ‘But – what about your parents? Your family?’ asked Edgar. He laid a strong, warm hand on Thing’s shoulder. ‘Won’t they worry?’

‘Shouldn’t think my parents’ve worried about me for about ten years or so,’ he said. Edgar blinked.

‘How old are you, Thing?’

‘Not sure, ‘xactly. ‘Bout twelve, there-thereabouts.’ He didn’t trust himself to look up, but he felt Edgar and Sasha share a look, one that was full of stuff that grownups did, tears and pity and disgust and all that stuff. Thing had long learned to ignore it.

‘Well – look. If we bring you – and it’s only an if – will you tell us everything that Emmeline discussed with you?’ Edgar’s words had sharp edges.

‘We need to see those documents!’ hissed Sasha.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Thing, his heart beginning to race again – not that you’d have known it to look at him. He kept his voice low and bored, and even chanced a yawn. ‘Whatever. Just let me come, yeah? I’ll be useful. Swear.’

‘Fine,’ said Sasha, trying to mask a yawn of her own behind her hand. ‘Come. But I’m not taking responsibility for you.’

‘That suits me fine,’ said Thing, who didn’t know what it felt like to have someone else take responsibility for him. ‘Now. Finally. Will someone tell me where we’re goin’?’

 **

                Hours were passing in Emmeline’s prison, but she had no way of knowing how many. All she knew was the cold was growing stronger, like a wild animal getting more and more enraged. It had started biting at her a long time ago, taking mouthfuls of her warmth away with it and devouring them, leaving Emmeline with nothing but her bare bones. An empty dish lay beside her, which had been filled with warm porridge-y gruel a while back – Emmeline had eaten it, but it hadn’t helped to take away the gnawing inside. She was in a constant state of half-asleep, never sure if what she was seeing or hearing was real, or dredged up out of the depths of her mind.

Vaguely, she heard a clatter, and a gust of bitter wind on her face.

‘Girl! Look lively, down there. The boss wants to speak to ya. Are ya decent?’ Emmeline didn’t reply, because the words didn’t seem to make any sense. The voice was coming from far away, bending and distorting as it travelled, until it reached her ears sounding hollow and twisted. It wouldn’t sit comfortably in her mind, so she ignored it. She was feeling tired, and just wanted to sleep. If she could only sleep, everything would be all right…

‘Woohoo! Girlie! Wakey wakey!’ Emmeline didn’t hear this, and so she didn’t move. ‘Here, Joe – she’s not doin’ anythin’. Give us a hand with this, willya?’ One of the men dropped down into Emmeline’s compartment, catching his breath at how cold it felt down there. For a split second he gazed at Emmeline’s small form, her bare legs beneath her grubby dress and her light jacket which didn’t even fasten properly, and shivered inside his heavy winter coat.

‘Get ‘er up here, Baker!’ called a voice from above, snapping him out of his thoughts. Quickly, he bent and picked Emmeline up, and within a few seconds she’d been handed out through the trapdoor and laid out on a couch in the body of the ship. Her skin was ice-cold to the touch, and her eyes were firmly fixed shut. The bits of her skin that could be seen were a uniform grey, and her breaths were shallow.

‘This is your fault, y’know,’ one of the men barked at another. ‘If you hadn’t insisted on getting started with that card game, we’d never have forgotten to check on the kid.’

‘My fault? That’s rich! Whose idea was it to put her in the fish store in the first place? I believe – and correct me if I’m wrong – that it was yours!’

‘Now, look here –‘ began the other man, his face reddening, but he never got to finish his sentence.

‘If one of you fools doesn’t get that child covered up and warm, this instant, you’ll all be forcibly unshipped in Newfoundland without a stitch of clothing.’ Nobody moved. ‘And I will not be paying any of you so much as a red cent.’ Instantly, the cabin was alive with movement. Someone grabbed a blanket and wrapped Emmeline snugly in it while someone else started warming up the stove to make her some soup. A third dispatched himself to find some thick clothing, and a fourth threw some sticks into the furnace. Gradually, some pink began to creep back into Emmeline’s face and her eyes started to move, ever so slowly, behind her eyelids.

‘Gentlemen. I want you all to feel for this child as though she were your own,’ announced the pale-faced man, looking around at the scar-faced, tattooed, gap-toothed crew he’d gathered around him. ‘On second thought, actually, I will say this: I’d like you all to feel for this child as though she were the only, treasured daughter of your employer – which, in so many ways, she is – and I want you all to know that whatever harm comes to this child will be revisited upon your own persons, times ten. If she freezes to death, you will be encased in a glacier having first been whipped raw. If she starves, you will be force-fed snow until you burst. If a hand is laid upon her body with the intent to cause her pain, that man will lose all four of his limbs and be left on the ice – alive, mind you – as a snack for the next passing polar bear. Am I clear?’ The listening men stood to attention, each of them focused utterly on the weird white-skinned man they’d allowed to convince them to come north. At this time of year? some of them had scoffed. He must be mad! But he’d shown them all the colour of his money, and, one by one, they’d caved.

And now, here they were.

‘As ice, sir,’ said one. ‘Clear as ice.’

‘Wonderful,’ he replied. ‘Don’t disturb me again until she wakes.’

Sisyphus – I Feel your Pain, Man

It’s the twelfth of December. Say what?

Image: funnyjunk.com

Santa is, indeed, coming. So is the end of the year, which is a lot less pleasant to think about.

You may remember – mainly because I went on and on and on about it – that I completed NaNoWriMo this year. That means I wrote 50,000 words in less than 30 days. However, I’m beginning to wonder if I dreamed the whole thing, because it’s now been nearly two weeks since NaNoWriMo finished, and since then I’ve written about 9,000 words, tops. I sit down at my computer, and open up my document, and I scroll to the spot where I left off last time.

And I feel like this.

Image: scienceblogs.com

Getting through the work, day by day by day, is akin to strapping on a pair of cement boots and taking a brisk walk up the Matterhorn. It’s just so hard, and I don’t understand why.

Consider these points:

1. I have plenty of story left. I am nowhere near the conclusion of this book, and I know (in a broad sense) what I want to happen. It’s just a matter of getting there.

2. This feeling of mental block only happens when I’m actually at my desk. I was out for a walk yesterday, f’rinstance, and found my head filling up with ideas and enthusiasm and sheer delight at the thought of returning to my story, and so I galloped home. All that enthusiasm took a nosedive out the window as soon as the computer was switched back on, though. Does this make sense?

3. I really want to get this draft finished by the end of the year. I just can’t countenance the idea of bringing it over into 2014. Normally, when I am determined like this, I just knuckle down and get it done. Normally. But something – alors! – is not normal, these days.

It seems as though the story has become turgid, and floppy, and bland. It seems like my words are banal and meaningless and ‘seen it all before.’ Perhaps this is a side-effect of having had such a forced intimacy with the work for the past six weeks or so; maybe I simply need a break from it, and a change of focus.

But, at the same time, I don’t want a break from it. I want to finish it. I want to get through it, because I’m afraid that if I leave it alone too long I won’t ever see it through, and that would be breaking the first rule – the most important rule – of writing, which is: Finish Your Work. You can’t do a second draft of an incomplete first draft, so grinding to a halt now would be, in terms of Emmeline and Thing and their story, a disaster.

I believe there’s potential in this story. I really love the characters, and I like how the plot has, to a large extent, woven itself around them. It has taken a few unexpected turns, and ideas have suggested themselves to me as I wrote, which is an exhilarating feeling. But now I’m coming close to the End – I’m within 10,000 words of the conclusion to this story, by any rational calculation – and Endings have always been hard for me.

I read a book recently (a review will be posted in a couple of weeks’ time) which was a flight of extraordinary fancy. It did a few things which irritated me, namely introducing characters at the last minute who happen to have just the right power to get the protagonist out of a sticky situation, relying a little on coincidence and ‘extraordinary strokes of luck’ (my teeth go on edge when I read a phrase like this), but it did one other thing, which taught me – or perhaps, reminded me of – an important lesson. It demonstrated the power of a free and full imagination. This particular book went places which no other children’s book I’ve ever read has gone, and I found that refreshing and exciting.

It made me wonder why I constantly clamp down on my own imagination, telling myself that a scene in whatever I’m working on couldn’t possibly happen – it’s too far-fetched, and not realistic enough, and nobody would ever believe it.

Image: badideatshirts.com

But isn’t that sort of the point?

I’m not saying that child readers will believe any old rubbish, because – of course – I am passionately aware that isn’t true. But what they need are books which explore the limits of what a writer can imagine. They want to read things they’ve never read before, and they want to be surprised, and they want to be gripped, and they want to care about the characters. They want to be amused, probably more than anything else. They want descriptions which are good enough, and clear enough, that they seem effortlessly done; at the same time, these descriptions cannot be allowed to get in the way of their reading enjoyment, or stop them imagining themselves in the place of the hero. They want a world which is internally logical and consistent, which holds together and doesn’t break any of its own rules – but, after that, if you want to bring in talking elephants or pink trees or whatever it is, and they make sense in the world you’ve written, then there’s no reason why you should hesitate. Yet – when it comes to some of my own more ‘out-there’ ideas, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Why is applying the lessons I’ve learned from years of reading, enjoying and dissecting children’s books such a challenging thing?

Every day I sit down at this book, I spend the first hour or two unpicking most of what I wrote the previous day. Progress is painfully slow. I am getting there – and I hope I’ll make it before my ‘deadline’ hits – but I hope I’ll remember to give myself the space I need to let the story live. I’ll have to remind myself not to be afraid of where the story wants to go, and to give it the freedom to do what it wants to do. I have to trust myself to handle it.

Otherwise, I think the boulder’s going to start rolling back so fast that I won’t be able to stop it, and it’ll crush me to a pulp.

And nobody wants to see that, right?

Emmeline, Chapter 4

So.

This is Chapter 4 of my NaNoWriMo project. Emmeline has finished reading the note she received in Chapter 1, which was from her mother – ‘to be opened in the event of my death’ type stuff – instructing her to go to Paris and live with a mysterious lady named Madame Blancheflour. Watt was entrusted with the task of seeing her to the ship, and naturally he has done his duty admirably. As our current chapter opens, she is on board, and about to meet a strange new friend…

Image: cruiseweb.com

Emmeline and the Ice-God

4

                A dumbfounded Emmeline stood on the deck of the giant ship and watched the dark speck that was Watt, several hundred feet below. People all around her were yelling, shouting their farewells, pleading for telegrams and letters and visits and lots of other things, but Emmeline saved her breath. All she wanted from Watt was for him to come striding up the gangplank and bring her home, and she knew that was completely pointless. Shouting and shrieking about it would make less than no difference, and so Emmeline stayed quiet and still, like a small forlorn statue.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that she wanted to go home out of love, or affection, or loneliness, or anything like that. She wanted to go home because that’s where her books were, and she didn’t like being removed from them against her will. As she stood on the deck of that ship, she was an angry and humiliated girl, not a lonely and sorrowful one.

Or, at least, that’s what she’d have you believe.

Emmeline sighed and leaned further out over the railing. She decided to wave, on the off-chance that Watt was looking, and then she stepped back out of the crush, her satchel carefully clutched to her chest. As she walked across the boards toward the cabins, a sudden sickening vibration under her feet almost knocked her flat, and she heard a man nearby cry out with what sounded like joy.

‘She’s away!’ he said, slapping his friend between the shoulder blades, making the other man cough. ‘Those’ll be the engines firing up. We’ll be at sea soon enough.’

At sea, Emmeline thought as the guffawing moustache-wearing gentlemen passed her by. Meaning lost or confused, or both.

                ‘Apt,’ she said, to nobody in particular.

‘Did you say something?’ said a curiously metallic, hollow-sounding voice, out of midair. ‘Only, I thought I heard you say something, and I wouldn’t want to be rude and not reply in a suitably witty and interestin’ way.’

Emmeline looked around. There was nobody within ten feet of her, and absolutely nobody looking in her direction. The only things she could see were a few carefully welded benches, a flotation device or two bolted to the wooden wall in front of her and a curious seagull, looking at her sideways.

‘Where are you?’ she ventured, clutching her satchel close.

‘I’m sorry. Are you talking to me, now, or is there someone else with you?’ The metallic voice sounded no closer nor any further away, but every bit as strange as it had the first time Emmeline had heard it.

‘You,’ she said. ‘I mean – sorry. I mean, dear strange and slightly frightening voice, I am talking to you.’

‘’M not strange,’ said the voice, now becoming a little less hollow-sounding and a lot more clear. ‘I’m perfickly normal, thank you very much. And I’m over here.’ Something moved to Emmeline’s left, and her gaze was caught by a scruffy head emerging from a grating in the wall. This head – the colour of whose hair was impossible to determine – was swiftly followed by an equally grubby body dressed in dusty overalls. The fingernails of this creature were clotted with dirt and oil and his – its? – face was smeared with grease. As Emmeline watched, he slithered out of the hole he’d been hiding in until all of him – and there wasn’t much – was standing in front of Emmeline with a hand held out in greeting.

‘Mornin’,’ he said. ‘My name’s Thing. Who’re you?’

‘I’m sorry?’ said Emmeline, looking at his outstretched hand as if he’d offered her a used handkerchief.

‘Yeah, me too,’ said the boy, in a weary voice. Emmeline blinked, and wondered what was going on.

‘Sorry for what?’ she ventured, after a few silent moments.

‘About my name,’ he replied, taking back his hand and wiping it on his grimy overalls. ‘Wasn’t that what we were talking about?’

‘I’m quite sure we weren’t talking about anything,’ replied Emmeline, adjusting her grip on her satchel, and casting her eye around to see if there were any adults in the vicinity. Not that she had much use for adults, normally, but they could on occasion come in helpful. As she’d expected, however, most people were still hanging over the railings, and those that weren’t engaged in tearful goodbyes had already retired to their cabins. She and this strange dirty boy were like a little island in a sea of handkerchiefs and snot.

‘You need a hand with your bag?’ The boy snuffled, like he had a heavy cold. ‘Only I’m good at that. Giving hands with stuff.’

‘No,’ said Emmeline, aghast. ‘Thank you.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he replied. ‘So, are you goin’ to tell me your name, or have I to guess it?’

‘How on earth would you guess it?’ said Emmeline, taking a step back.

‘Bet I could,’ said Thing, grinning. His teeth were nearly as filthy as his face.

‘Look, I have to go to my cabin now,’ said Emmeline. ‘So, if you’ll excuse me?’

‘No,’ said Thing. ‘Is it Amy? Angela? Angelica? No – wait. Agnes. It’s Agnes, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean, ‘no’?’ said Emmeline, wishing she had a heavy book to hand in order to throw it at the boy’s head.

‘Well, you asked me if I would excuse you. So, I said no. Agnes.’

‘My name is not Agnes.’ Emmeline felt her teeth start to grind, all by themselves.

‘Betty? Bettina? Bucephalus! Please say it’s Bucephalus. I’ve always wanted to meet one of those.’

‘No. It’s none of those names. You’re not even on the right letter.’ Emmeline’s arm was starting to hurt from holding her satchel so tightly, and she really wanted to find her cabin and go to sleep.

‘Ah! A clue. Right. Caroline. Carly. Christina. Chrysanthemum.’

‘Chrysanthemum is a flower. You really are an idiot, aren’t you?’

‘Lots of girls’re named after flowers. Rose. Lily. Petunia. Gardenia. Viola. Violet. Daisy. Poppy. Lily.’

‘You said Lily already,’ sighed Emmeline, shifting her satchel to the other arm.

‘I was just testing,’ grinned Thing.

‘My name is Emmeline, all right? Now, can I please go? I want to take some rest before we get to Paris.’

‘Emmmmmellllllinnnnnne,’ said the strange boy, rolling her name around in his mouth like he was tasting it. ‘I like it. That’ll do.’

‘Do for what?’ Emmeline’s patience was on its last legs.

‘I collect names,’ Thing replied. ‘Someday I’ll meet a name that I can’t resist and I’ll ask someone to give it to me, because it’ll be too good to keep.’

‘Right. And how many do you have in your collection?’

‘Oh, hundreds,’ said Thing, casually. ‘Thousands, maybe.’

‘When are you going to make your decision?’

‘Well, whenever I meet a name I can’t resist, of course,’ he said. ‘Hasn’t happened yet.’

‘Look, this is fascinating, and all, but I really need to lie down now. Please, can I go?’

‘Certainly, Emmeline. Mind out for that name, now. It’s a long ‘un, and they tend to get caught on things. Like newborn foals, they are. Awkward and leggy. Just watch out for it and see you don’t break it, or lose it.’

‘Thanks for the tip,’ said Emmeline as she squeezed past. Thing smelled like smoke and dirt and sweat, and as soon as she was past him he swung himself back into the hole in the wall. Despite herself, Emmeline couldn’t help but be curious about where it went.

‘Bye, now. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again,’ he said, as he waved and disappeared from view. The grating clanged shut and Emmeline was by herself again.

This time, she felt even more alone than before, and she wasn’t sure why.

Ode to Joy

If you’re interested in writing, and you think you’d like to do NaNoWriMo but you haven’t signed up for it yet, then I have two words for you.

Do It.

Image: steventallow.com

Well, actually, I’m not sure if it’s possible to sign up now that November has started, but if it is, then I recommend you go for it as soon as you possibly can, and if you can’t sign up this year then make sure you sign up next year. I’ll see you there.

Writing 50,000 words in thirty days is nothing to sneeze at, of course. It is a commitment, and it’s not exactly a walk in the park. But – and this is a big ‘but’ – it is absolutely possible to achieve. Really.

I realise I’m speaking as a person who is only one-fifth of the way through this particular challenge, but I am filled with certainty that I can see it through. The reason I know is because the first ten thousand words of my NaNo project are now under my belt, and they have been so much fun to write.

Image: flickr.com

I broke the 10K yesterday, and it felt amazing. It didn’t feel amazing because I had hit 10,000 words, or because I had struggled my way to that point, or because now I’d made it there I could stop and take a rest; it felt amazing because I know there is so much more still to come, and I can’t wait to keep going.

Normally, when I’m writing, I feel under pressure. I feel squashed beneath my own self-imposed deadlines, or I am actually working to a deadline – whether it’s for a competition, or a particular submission opportunity, or whatever – or, for some other reason, I am screaming at myself to get the job done, as quickly as is humanly possible. For NaNo, even though I am also working to a ‘deadline’ – i.e. if I don’t finish my 50,000 words by November 30th, I won’t ‘win’ – it feels completely different to anything I’ve written before. My NaNo project is for fun; it’s an idea that I’m working through as I go. It’s something I’m discovering as I write. If it works, that’s amazing – I can take the first draft which, hopefully, will be completed during the next month and make something out of it – but if it doesn’t work, then that’s fine too.

I am allowing NaNoWriMo to remove some of the pressure I normally put on myself when I write, and I am rediscovering the reason I do any of this in the first place.

It’s because I love writing as much as this cat loves this dog. More, maybe.

Image: dashburst.com

Over the last while – probably because I’ve been getting involved with agents, and large competitions, and attempts to get my stories published, all of which have gone nowhere – I’ve been feeling a bit disheartened about my writing. I’ve been working as hard as ever, and putting as much of myself as possible into it, but there’s been a sheen of desperation and panic over everything. I didn’t always sit down at my desk in the morning full of enthusiasm and pep, ready to start the day; putting words on paper wasn’t always a labour of love, and as my stress levels rose so my happiness diminished.

That was my own fault. I let that happen. I allowed my love for words and my desire to write be overtaken by the strain of actually writing – because wanting to write and actually doing the work are two different things – and I began to forget why I ever bothered getting started. It’s easy to fall into this way of thinking, and I should’ve been aware that it could happen. I should have been on my guard. It’s no wonder that despair is never far from the shoulder of anyone who labours away, alone, at something they love; when you invest so much of yourself in what you do every day, a certain amount of disappointment and frustration is inevitable.

That’s no excuse to let it scupper you, though, or to allow it to erode your joy.

So, that’s why I’m so grateful to NaNoWriMo, and why I’m so glad I signed up. If I hadn’t decided, on a whim, to take part this year, I wouldn’t now have 10,000 words of a new project completed. I would never have met my sparky little heroine, and her story would never have started to unfold in my mind. And I might have forgotten how it felt to click ‘open’ on your Work in Progress document of a morning and be met with a wave of excitement and happiness instead of pressure and fear.

If you’re taking part, come and join me – here‘s my participant page, where you can add me as a writing buddy. If you’re not taking part, come and have a look anyway. Every drop of support will help me to reach my wordcount, and I’ll be forever in your debt.

Whatever it is you love, or whatever it is you do, try to remember why you love it so much and never, ever take it for granted. (Actually, that goes for people, too.) Joy needs to be nurtured, and fear can drive it out. Whatever it takes for you to recapture your joy, then go for it. For me, it was remembering how much fun writing can be. What’ll it be for you?