Feel free to join me and other bloggers at ConversionDiary to share our weeks.
Feel free to join me and other bloggers at ConversionDiary to share our weeks.
~1~
My first week back home I’ve been hard at work, even if I’ve barely left the house. Mornings unpacking and reorganising all my junk; afternoons spent in the living room. It’s all been about writing and the creativity of first drafts as I work through CampNaNoWriMo.
~2~
But I’m not just writing…I’m reading. I’ve almost finished Encante, and I hope to get a review up next week or so. I also spotted Harrius Potter in my books as I was unpacking. You read that correctly: I have the Latin translation of the Philosopher’s Stone. Of course, it is easier to read knowing the general gist than if it were the modern equivalent of unseen Ovid.
~3~
These last three/four days, six of my friends have graduated. I am beyond proud of them, but it’s a sad time of change for all of us. It’s true that I cannot complain that I won’t see them again, since I have the people in my own year still; for the leavers, they are parting ways with all of their university chums.
~4~
I baked cupcakes today, using a recipe I have meant for lemon cupcakes. Instead, I used my typical vanilla essence to flavour and added in a good dollop of cinnamon. My mother and I have enough cinnamon in this house to garnish an entire army! Because I made them simply for my relatives, I mixed a few with chocolate chips and drizzles my spare red food colouring on the top, for a half-marble effect.
~5~
Yesterday was my mother’s birthday. We stayed in, and didn’t really do much, but we had some splendid Taittinger (bubbly) and I watched Back to the Future Part Two. I have a weakness for television running in the background whilst I’m trying to first draft. And, in all fairness, I didn’t think Part Two was as bad as it’s said to be.
~6~
I’m going birthday shopping (you might remember that the certain day was two months ago!) with one of my best friends tomorrow, and I am so excited to see her in flesh again after, literally, months. I’d invited her up to see my uni room a couple of times, but she recently got a new job and has been rushed off her feet.
~7~
An extract of some of this week’s work on the Steampunk adventure I’ve been writing:
“Splendid!” the captain remarked. “Ten more minutes and we shall depart for the Americas.” He gestured forward the slipshod number of people he called his crew.
Cathy scratched her ear. Most of her didn’t mind this. She watched the brief procession of three civil servants. A middle-aged gentleman with a quiff and the spare screwdriver lodged behind his ear was introduced as engineer Whyte. A lean man with a sharp gaze and kohl-stained designs up his arms was said to be the helmsman, Eddard. Next filed forward the tall, light-haired woman—
Woman? A lady crewman?
“This is Amelia West. She is our cartographer, trained at the royal institute of science, no less.”
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss West,” Jonathon said with his best alluring smile.
Alexandrina Brant 