And now for something completely different...

I've never done this before, but recently I was approached by a company called Literary Book Gifts who offered me a free pair of writing gloves if I'd write a review for them.  As winter is coming and I always have cold hands, I thought I'd give it a shot!  This is not going to be a regular thing on the blog - back to book reviews next week - but as once off, I thought it was worth a shot.

So these are the gloves:

I really like these gloves.  They're fingerless, obviously, so you can still be nimble on the keyboard, but unlike other fingerless gloves that make my hands sore after a while, because these have nothing between the fingers, I don't get that soreness and crampy feeling.  It's like not wearing gloves at all, except your hands and wrists are toasty warm.

They are going to be so handy through the winter when our office is chilly, when my writing room is cold and for wearing outside when it's cold and I still need to be able to make my phone work.

They're also super-soft because they're cashmere, almost luxurious to wear.

I ordered mine in 'heather purple', and they're actually really bright purple, but I don't mind because purple is my favourite color.

I'd recommend these for winter writing.  You can buy them here if you're looking for a pair.

Weekly Goals 15-4-19

I didn't get very much done last week with being sick and having to work anyway, so this week needs to be better.  I did get some writing done yesterday, but it wasn't enough to make up for a whole week of nothing.

So this week, the goal is to do something.  It doesn't have to be much - just a chapter or two, maybe.  I seem to have fallen out of my routine for writing, partly because I don't have any stories just burning to be told, and partly because my time and energy for it just don't seem to be as strong as they used to be.

I need to turn this around.  But with the long Easter weekend ahead, I hope to get some work done.  Everyone is going to be away except me, so I'll have the house to myself and no excuse to be distracted.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 12-4-19

This post is part of Lexa Cain's bloghop, Celebrate the Small Things. Head on over there to join up!

What am I celebrating this week?

It's Friday!

It's felt like a really long week, partly because I've been fighting to shake off a cold all week.  It's mostly gone now, except for an annoying, lingering cough.

But because I've been feeling lousy, I haven't really done a lot except make it through the work day and collapse into bed at night.  I haven't been to the gym since Saturday.  I haven't done any writing, although I have been reading through the stuff I already wrote, fixing little things here and there.

So I'm looking forward to the weekend.  I have people coming for dinner Saturday night and am supposed to be going up the coast to see a friend on Sunday, so it's going to be a busy one.  But that's okay, because the next weekend is Easter and I have 4 days off.  Then two days at work before another public holiday which I'm extending into a second 4-day weekend.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: 10 Things I Can See From Here

I enjoyed this one because its portrayal of someone living with severe anxiety felt really authentic and real.  Maeve is just an average kid, living with a brain that constantly goes to the worst possible place every time, imagining catastrophe at every turn.  And things just get worse when Maeve's mother follows her boyfriend overseas and sends Maeve to live with her father for six months.

The new place brings with it a whole new set of things to worry about - a pregnant stepmother,  twin half-brothers,  her father's knife-edge sobriety.  But at the same time, she meets Salix, a fascinating girl who seems not to worry about anything.

As Maeve navigates through the chaos of family life in her new home, and the first tentative steps into a relationship with Salix, she has to fight her anxiety and her own thoughts every step of the way.  But can she fight them hard enough to be there when the people she cares about need her most?

As someone who has always struggled with anxiety and out-of-control thinking, this book rang very true to me.  Maeve's thought patterns and catastrophizing seemed very familiar, even when they felt ridiculous on paper.  I loved that despite all this chaos in her head, Maeve did still get out there and do things, challenged herself, even when it was clearly very, very hard for her.

This is probably not a book for everyone.  Maeve is a difficult character to like, even if you do identify with her struggles.  She is often selfish and thoughtless because she can't get away from her anxiety.  But if you know anyone who suffers through this kind of thing, it's probably worth a read just so you can begin to understand what it is like to live with a brain that's constantly throwing up worst-case scenarios.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Maeve has heard it all before. She’s been struggling with severe anxiety for a long time, and as much as she wishes it was something she could just talk herself out of, it’s not. She constantly imagines the worst, composes obituaries in her head, and is always ready for things to fall apart. To add to her troubles, her mom—the only one who really gets what Maeve goes through—is leaving for six months, so Maeve will be sent to live with her dad in Vancouver.

Vancouver brings a slew of new worries, but Maeve finds brief moments of calm (as well as even more worries) with Salix, a local girl who doesn’t seem to worry about anything. Between her dad’s wavering sobriety, her very pregnant stepmom insisting on a home birth, and her bumbling courtship with Salix, this summer brings more catastrophes than even Maeve could have foreseen. Will she be able to navigate through all the chaos to be there for the people she loves?

Weekly Goals 8-4-19

Not quite sure how, but I missed writing my goals yesterday.  Maybe because I have a streaming cold and feel like garbage.

And I still have to go to work because there is some big stuff happening that I have to be part of.

Yay!

So this week, I'm not going to set any major goals because I feel like I'm going to be falling into bed as soon as I get home to try and recover from this lurgy.

I'm trying to find my way back into the book I was trying to finish before the Christchurch shooting.  I left it for a couple of weeks because it was too depressing to work on when I was already reeling from that, but now I'm going back to it and hope to write the 20K or so it needs to be finished over the next few weeks.

I'm also going to continue submitting my short fiction to publications.  I have so much of it sitting around on my hard drive, it might as well go out and see if it can find a place in the world.

But other than that, I'm just going to try and shake this cold so I can get back to my regular life.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 5-4-19

This post is part of Lexa Cain's bloghop, Celebrate the Small Things. Head on over there to join up!

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

It has been a stupidly long week and I haven't managed to find any time or energy to write which is irritating.  But I did submit a few short stories to publications, so I guess I have that going for me.

Winter appears to have crashed in on us, and it's cold and wet and windy and looks like it's going to stay that way all weekend.  My poor son is going on an overnight hike today too, with his school's tramping club.  I imagine it might put him off tramping forever which is a shame, because he just got into it.

My partner is working all weekend, so that leaves me and the younger one on our own.  I think I'll take him to the movies, just so we can get out of the house for a while.  If it stops raining long enough for us to get there....  I'm wondering if I will even be able to get to the gym today!

What are you celebrating this week?