Modern life comes at the cost of days and sometimes weeks seemingly disappearing with a blink of an eye. All our lives are so busy, and I sit here tonight pondering the five days remaining for me to get a decent amount of writing finished before another school term begins.

Six weeks back at teaching saw the first novel of my trilogy move forward just 1000 words. Not surprisingly, I began my break worried about the lost of the momentum and felt very relieved when the writing started flowing again...all right, not as much as I hoped (there’s my nine-year-old to think about too), but enough for me to feel confident that this year will see book one finally a completed manuscript.

My actual goal is to make this happen during the term coming. This is a report writing term and I’m still striving for a good balance of work, family and writing, but working as a teacher has now allowed me to book a week at Varuna, the Writers House for the last week of the second term break. My plan is to take the manuscript of book one and work to push it through to something I’d be happy to see published. Varuna is the carrot before my gaze to ensure I keep all my balls of family, work and writing in the air.

The other night I had one of those writing light bulb moments, when I suddenly thought of ending the first part of the trilogy at the point storms damage the fleet taking Catalina to England, forcing a return to Spain for repairs. That's about 90,000 of writing; when I finish weaving some hanging threads it should give me a book of at least 100,000. I am chewing my finger over what to do. It means I'd need to stretch out the canvas from the time of Catalina's arrival in England to Arthur's death, but I don't think that would be a bad thing...lots more room to move and a opportunity to develop stronger threads for the narrative.

And, yes, I really need to restart my exercise regime alongside a far better writing output too...Sigh, exercise is something I avoid like the plague, but I’ve worked hard to lose 11 kilos and I really like to see the weight loss continue. My weight has remained the same for weeks – so it’s time to start pushing myself again. I often cringe at my daughter's cry, “You’ve just got to make the time for exercise!” Although I really do enjoy my gloaming walks, I’d so rather be home writing... if I’m actually writing, that is...