Happy New Year!

Come on down Twenty Ten!

Thank god Christmas and New Year are over.  I always find the expectation that you have to have a good time over the holiday season slightly irritating.  Not to say that I didn’t have a wonderful time, but I’m happy it’s back to business as usual.  No more tinsel, no more carols and no more forced merriment. 

I housesat for Mr and Mrs J for ten days and was quite happy to see the back of their TV too.  DVD boxsets are the way forward, who would even pay their broadcasting fees and Sky bills with the absolute crap that you get shown.  Hundreds of channels and nothing to watch.  

Next year I’m going to be somewhere hot for Christmas and New Years and next year I’m not going to drink so much.  I’ve been laid up for two days with a hangover.  Yesterday I thought I was going to die.  Today it just feels like a hangover and I’m happy with the progress I’ve made since this morning, when even watching people drinking on TV made me feel nauseous.

2010 (Me and Koi-lee are  saying Twenty Ten as it sounds more futuristic) feels full of promise and I have big plans for the coming year.  I’m not going to call them resolutions as no one ever really sticks to those and these plans had been in the pipeline since before New Years anyway.  I couldn’t have thought of them yesterday or today as my brain capacity has equalled that of an amoeba.

Little Miss Sunshine’s Plans for 2010

1. Improve my diet and health (from Monday)

2. Pay off all my debt (which I’ve had since I was old enough to get credit).

3. Start saving (which I’ve never done and it will make me feel quite grown up).

4. Move into my own flat (although I did miss Dolce and was happy to have her arrive home again today.  Not only because I could whinge to someone about how terrible I felt either, but her sympthy was gratefully received).

5. Work super hard and double my take home pay (these two will go hand in hand and also tie in quite nicely with the debt being paid off and my savings starting – woo hoo!)

6. Go to San Francisco, Mexico, India and wherever N and F plan to have their wedding.

7. Practise yoga twice a week and do at least 2 lots of cardio (aiming low on the cardio, I really mean 3 but am saying 2 as that’s what I’m more likely to stick to).

8. Write.  Every single day.  At least 3 pages.  (except for today as I am still feeling rather ill and have had to be semi  sedated with the whole series of 30 Rock and Outrageous Fortune).

9) Find love, luck, laughter and prosperity wherever I turn.

2010 is going to be the year that Little Miss Sunshine has it all.  Hope it’s true for you too.  Cheers (with a very non alcoholic drink) to a fabulous new year, filled with promise and hope! xx

Best Selling Novellist

I really want to be a novellist.  A best selling one actually.  I LOVE writing my blog and am hoping that this passion for writing will transfer to other’s passionately reading.  Obviously I’ll need lots of people to read it if I’m going to be a best selling novellist!

I have images of me sitting in my very fabulous house, immersed in fantasy land as I craft my best selling masterpiece.  Many images come to mind when I imagine myself as a writer.  In summer, there is a light honeysuckle scented breeze gently drifting into the open french doors, where I’m sitting at my laptop typing.  My dog Dolly is at my feet, lying there with her lead in her mouth, looking at me with hopeful ‘take me for a walk’ eyes.  

Sitting in a cafe seems like a fabulous way to combine people watching, eating and writing.  I think this will be the perfect way to while away the days, getting inspired by life and the characters sitting around me. 

In winter, I’m sitting in my living room watching it bucket down with rain outside. I have the fire going and have hit a particularly interesting part of my book, words are flying out from my brain on to the keyboard as if I’ve been possessed.  Dolly (my miniature schnauzer dog) is happily lying in front of the crackling fire, having happy doggy dreams, moving and growling occasionally as she chases squirels in her sleep.  A comfortable silence fills the room, punctuated only by the tapping of the keys as the words transfer from my brain to the screen at warp speed.  This vision is made even better by imagining business suited commuters hurrying down the road to their 9-5 jobs, huddling under umbrellas, with miserable expressions on their faces.

So every goal needs some action behind it. I’ve drafted out the bones of my story and I’m currently reading ‘How to Write a Damn Good Novel’ by James Frey (not the one that wrote that book A Million Little Pieces and told all those porkie pies to Oprah, this one is a writer and university lecturer – who must be SO mad that other James Frey has besmirched his good name!)  The book seems to be delivering on everything it says on the cover – apparently you need to create sympathy for the central character, get your readers to identify with them, empathise with their plight and then the magical transition – you need to transport the reader into your carefully crafted world.  HOW exciting! 

That’s only chapter one, I’m going to be a fount of knowledge by the end of the book.  Then I just have to start writing, then keep writing, even if what I’ve first written is a pile of shite.  Apparently that is the hardest bit.