Summer catch-up

I've been taking a short break from blogging over the summer holidays but thought it was time I dropped back in and updated the blog with what's been happening in my world of late!

Hubby and I have just returned from a week on the beautiful  island of Sicily. Our first visit there but hopefully not our last. My late aunt used to spend a lot of time there and I heard her talking about it throughout my childhood and beyond. I have inherited several pieces of pottery, glass and jewellery that she bought there over the years. It is somewhere I have wanted to visit for a while, especially since she died. Anyway, I finally made it! I only spent a week there but I can certainly see why she loved it so much. Here are just a view images.

Mt Etna

standing on a volcano is spectacular!

Greek theatre - we watched an opera here one evening

the beautiful sea

sometimes you felt on top of the world!

a little wine tasting was involved!

the colour of the sea was amazing

               

I've also had two lots of friends staying. It was lovely to catch up with them and hear all their news. It also means we tend to go out and visit places near us that we don't often go! Sometimes easy to miss the things on our own doorstep!

Kynance Cove

Gunwalloe Cove - Poldark country!

I went to Plymouth for a couple of days to see the spectacular firework display they hold there. We also had time for a visit to the Plymouth Gin Distillery!

so many different bottles!

these particularly caught my eye - can you tell why?!

We also took a short family trip to London, which was wonderful and very tiring! Lots of walking and sightseeing, but great fun.

I have been writing and have managed to add words to my current manuscript. The first draft is coming along nicely. Hope to get more done before I go back to the day job in just under two weeks time. 

So, that's my summer in a nutshell! What has everyone been up to? I'll try and visit some blogs this week and find out.

       

A little break . . .

Life always seems to get a bit hectic this time of year. Visitors, trips away, trying to catch up with writing projects . . . the result is I will probably be away from the blog for a couple of weeks or so.

I will be back later in the month to update on what's been happening here. I have turned comments off for this post, but thanks for stopping by. I will catch up with you all soon.

In the meantime I will leave you with a picture I took today while out for a walk. As soon as I saw it I thought the rock looked like a dragon gazing out to sea!

 

IWSG (AUGUST) Re-Launch!

I didn't really have anything to talk about for this post until yesterday. Not because I didn't have insecurities lurking, me and insecurity are old friends! It was more the 'writing' part that was bothering me, I guess I felt somewhat of a fraud - writers write right? And I wasn't, well, not shiny new words anyway and this was making me feel a bit stale. What if I couldn't do it anymore? Part of me was a little afraid my spark had gone out.

The last few months I have been editing old projects, reworking and submitting, in short I wasn't getting that creative high you feel when you're working on something new. Until yesterday . . .

Yesterday, I sat down, opened a file I had started much earlier in the year and read through the 9,000 words I had already written before I abandoned the characters to work on editing. I read through the research notes I had already collected and the character profiles and guess what? The spark was re-ignited! I feel in love with the project all over again. I sat and I wrote for several hours, new words, new ideas and I was buzzing! I can't wait to get back to it this evening and already I'm working out time slots for the next few days when I will be free to write. I went to bed thinking about it and woke up the same. I remember this feeling, I love this feeling, this is why I write. It makes me feel all kinds of emotion, it is what makes me, me!

I wanted to share this here so, that if I ever start to feel stale again, I can re-read this post and hopefully find the encouragement and inspiration to jump back into the ring.

Happy writing, may all your insecurities be small ones.

Thanks to Alex J. Cavanaugh and this month's co-hosts:

                                                               Christine Rains
                                                         Dolarah @ Book Lover
                                                       Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor
                                                              Yvonne Ventresca
                                                                     LG Keltner