In fear of Helen coming round to my house and holding me at gun point I thought I should write a blog entry (just before she gets to the doorbell).

I can't say a lot of excitement had happened to be recently.

First of, I started my diet again, lost 8lb and put 5 back on. Yeah, I know that's not the general idea of diets, I shall work on this. I've still lost 3lb though right? That counts?

Secondly wedding plans are going to shit. A venue I looked at a couple of months back (three to be exact) has totally failed to respond to emails, phone calls etc so now we're a bit uneasy about the co-ordinator and whether or not she will be able to fulfil what we want for the wedding and whether or not she will be reliable. We're currently thinking not and we're currently looking for a back up (that I am going to email tomorrow after coming up with some questions to throw in their general direction). So at the moment the date of 6th August is a bit out the window. The way things are going we'll probably be looking at 2012 :(

Thirdly (yes I can get down to thirds, that's how exciting I am), I'm planning on writing a novel.

Now I've wanted to write a novel for a long time, and I have had scores of ides wading through my head over the last couple of years but I never feel I could get anywhere with them. But I've had a little push in the right direction. On Sunday I attended a workshop on "How to Write Fantasy Fiction" and I was enthralled. In my head Fantasy Fiction was Dragons, Swords, Maidens and Hobbits on epic quests. Could I write that? Probably not. BUT, as I learnt, Fantasy could be about anything and everything. Thus what I want to write about is a mixture of the "Epic" fantasy (although not much) and mix it with Steampunk, amnesia, reunions, love, betrayal, Good vs Evil, with twists and turns along the way. I keep coming up with new ideas and need to decide what direction to take the story in.

Now there is a reason to all this. Not just "Oh, lets write a novel". I've been coerced by Danny (he'll deny this) to join NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo has been going on for a little while, and I nearly joined a couple of years back, but I didn't have a plot and decided against it. Now Danny and Kelly have helped sway me to sign up properly this year and be a participant. Yes, I'm scared but it's also exciting. I've never done anything like this before although I've wanted to. So this is my chance to do something new and exciting :) Now whether I'll do the 50,000 words I need to "win" the NaNoWriMo I don't know. Probably not, but its the taking part that counts right?