between the rock and the cold, cold sea

...The first day of the rest of my life, in this case.

University=Good.
Commuting=Bad.

This is the math that will dominate the rest of my year. And probably next year, as well. I'm wrecked with a capital W. Concentration is shot. Will not be working on novel-project tonight. Maybe not until the weekend.

Good news: more words (approx 650) on short story 'The Names of God'. Which is much weirdness, since I don't know what it's about. (Change? Nah. Freedom? Nope. Divinity? Probably not.) Now it only needs an ending. (Train tomorrow. Or maybe the library. After I do assigned ancient history work, of course.)

And I'll stop babbling now.

I have read the paper, and it has conformed to my expectations. To wit: all news is bad. Earthquakes, nursing home and health service scandals, politicians telling lies, politicians telling the truth, SF/IRA bosses in the drugs trade.

And in continuing bad news, both my hotmail e-mail account and my college e-mail account are giving me 'page not found' messages when I try to access them. Bah.

And writing has fallen by the wayside, since I am exhausted this weekend. A week of train journeys, followed by karate class yesterday and karate grading - two and a half hours worth threreof - today. Plus biological hazardousness. And oh, it's finally decided to be autumn, which means the skies are grey and threatening rain, and the wind chills and blusters from the north.

And next week. Gods and little fishes, next week. I'm in university, but y'know what I was thinking, walking through that impressive Trinity front gate for the first time? F*ck, I'm supposed to be an adult now?

( Wafflage: )

Ah, well. Tout ca change, tout c'est le meme chose I felt like this the first three months of secondary school, too, (well, except for the 'supposed to be an adult' part) and that passed off without too many ill affects.

I'll get used to it.

Tonight, wordcount = nil. I did, however, make up lists of names. I'm a little frightened by how quickly they're proliferating. My lists come under the headings:
( Lists )

I have written 800 words' worth of lists, and in the next few days I'm going to have to revise my outline, tack another 3000 or so words on to the front of these damn 15000 words, and revise them so that I have conflict that is making sense. Then I can move on to the next bit, in which introduction is finished, and plot starts to move apace.

I need to revise my outline notes and make sense of what I've already written. Otherwise I'll just end up confusing myself.

Possibly I'll be able to adjust those 15,000 words so that they're doing a bit more for the story. I'd prefer to be able to finish this thing in under 120,000 words. Down around 110,000 or less, if it'll let me.

I know what I need to do, more or less. Doing it'll be goddamn hard work ('So what's new?' says the heckler in my backbrain) but I think I can do it.

Good news is I have my course timetable for university, and my reading lists (as long as a giant's arm), and some of the books for my coursework.

Bad news is: I was in three different bookshops today and bought no fiction nor any for-personal-reading non-fiction, 'cause I am broke. And Terry Prachett's latest stared down at me from the shelves *covets*... And all those shiny history books that have nothing to do with my coursework but are absolutely fascinating... I feel positively ill.

Still, at least I know where to go to find them now. Until today, I hadn't realised that Hodges Figgis had such a large selection in history books. Just wasn't paying attention, I guess...

*is broke*
*covets*

Right. I'll stop now.