Write up my street

Monday morning and I'm feeling completely exhausted. Not the best of beginnings to what promises to be the busiest week I've had in a long time, but I feel like the tiredness is positive tiredness... if that makes any kind of sense. The weariness comes partly from quite a packed weekend socially - dinner with the Boy's family, celebrations for the Boy's brother's birthday, and a football match with my Dad - but partly because my mind is absolutely teaming with thoughts and ideas. I haven't felt this mentally active and alert in a long time.

First off, I've started the novel! This is really exciting for me. It's something I've meant to do for a long time, but have been too afraid of failure to really get my teeth into it. In the past I've started writing and then talked myself out of it - telling myself the plot's too weak, the characters too predictable, and that I can't possibly achieve my goal. But like I've said before, everything that has happened to me this year has helped me shed a skin of doubt and become more fearless. And I'm finding myself becoming totally obsessed with the novel. I've mapped out the plot and characters in quite a detailed manner, and I find myself thinking about my creations and how I will record what happens to them over the course of the book most of the time. I want to spend every waking minute I can on it - I've already written nearly 7,000 words and I feel completely enthralled with it.

But me starting this project has coincided with us beginning our scuba diving training - which is something that I need to be pretty engrossed in and obsessed with to get through. The Boy and I watched nearly two and a half hours of the DVD over the weekend - and we still have another 90 minutes to go! I'm ploughing my way through the text book but there don't seem to be enough hours in the day to get the work done. I've still got another 100 or so pages I need to have read and understood by the time we do our first confined water dive tomorrow night... hopefully I can make some use of my lunch hours and get through what I need to before our session tomorrow. I'm feeling a little nervous about starting this new hobby, but I am proud of myself for pushing my boundaries and giving something new and challenging a chance. I'm not sure I would have been capable of this 12 months ago.

On top of this, work is really going up a notch with the complex issue of public sector pensions coming to the fore in the media and behind closed doors, and in advance of the big union day of action at the end of the month. Tonight after work I'll be heading to a record studio in West London where we're going to record a track by a group of public sector workers, which will be released to coincide with the day of action.

So a long day lies ahead for me. But it feels great to have so much going on and to be so mentally active and engaged. As long as I ensure I get enough down time to balance all this activity, then the next few weeks will be pretty exciting. I'm going to try to keep blogging as much as I can during this time, as writing like this really helps me make sense of my thoughts and keep myself steady, but it may be the book takes priority - so please bear with me if my entries dwindle a little over the coming weeks, I will be back!