I've rather neglected most things over the last work, including this poor journal and my writing. My mum came to visit us this weekend, which was great, and we all had a good time, but it meant nothing much else got done. And the week leading up to it, Steph and I spent all our time unpacking boxes so there was enough space in our living room to put out the spare bed, etc. We only moved in to the house two months ago, so for us that's record-fast unpacking. Now I have to get my mind back focused onto the second of my six-story sequence. I've written about a thousand words of it and plotted out most of it, except a few little scenes and the end, so it's just a matter of re-imersiging myself in the story and the story sequence.

As well as neglecting the short story, I've kind of neglected my novels. Earlier this year I finished first drafts of my adult fantasy novel, Water Ways, Iron Roads, and my middle-reader/young adult novel, The Winter of the Earth. I've got all the critiques in for both of them and so I should be starting on the second drafts. The adult novel needs a lot more work, so I'll probably get on with that one first. Trouble is, I just don't have enough time in the day to work on revising novels and writing new short stories, and I'm loathe to stop the short story sequence right now. I need more short stories to market as I only have a handful of good ones out there at the moment. Well, there are worse dilemmas to have.

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Yesterday we went on a long walk through the countryside between Leeds and Bradford. This part of the UK is very built up, with a series of cities and towns sprawling into each other, but for some reason there's a wedge of countryside untouched in the middle of it. Probably not more than 5 miles in any direction, but there are a couple of beautiful wooded valleys in there. We stopped off at a pub on the way back, then when we got home went to the Christening party of a friend's baby. All in all, having a bit less to drink might have been a good idea.