my journey as a civil war novel writer

Better to do it today, not sure how much time I will have to write after today. The last days of the year are always hectic socially. From now on almost every evening is filled with gettogethers with friends playing games. And in the daytime I have to do some research and work. It happens when you are your own boss. You are more inclined to work weekends, holidays en evenings then others are. My main resolution for next year is: to listen to my body better. Next year for the first time ever my body is going to be in the driving seat. No more taking painkillers to keep going. If my body is telling me it needs rest, I am going to do just that. It is not going to be easy, I know myself too well, but I plan to stick to it. And I would ask others to help me stick to this. If I am going to make a succes of my own business I have to. And I do want to be nice to my body. It has got me this far, it is about time I did something back. :) For everybody else reading this blog, I wish you a good ye...

Boy was this a year of ups and downs. I started the year cramming for an exam, for my first year degree in counseling & coaching. It involved going through 4 books full of facts and they asked tiny details. I make it! And passed the exam. The next two months I delved into preparations for my practice, I was well on track to start in July and full of confidence and got a lot of work done. In april some breaks were planned. With my then boyfriend and a group of english friends coming over for the elf fair. That is when things started to go to hell in a handbasket. I had some doubts about my relationship for a while now and that was making me unhappy. But it took me some time to voice them because he is such a nice guy and we shared a lot of the same hobbies. Round the same time my dad fell ill and was admitted to hospital. I set every thing aside to be able to take my mum to hospital everyday. For me with the RSI it is physically tough to do that and it meant that I could spend less ...

Graphics & Myspace layouts It is time to start this years reviews. I will start with the easier one, books, and leave the year's review of my life for another date. This year in Shelfari I kept a list of how many books I read this year. It are the books marked as owned. It comes down to 225 but those include study books. So it is not that bad. These I count amongst the highlights of the year. There were many more good books but I had to make some selection. Catherine Asaro - the ruby dice Not a new author for me. I love this series and am always looking forward eagerly for a new volume. It is a family saga in space. And it has got everything, romance, action, SF. The a uthor is also a scientist so she knows what she is talking about. And that combination of romance and hard SF make the series so very good in my opinion. patrici a Briggs - moon called An au thor that I only started reading this year. I tried some more new vampire/werewolf writers this year and most were oka...

Merry christmas to everyone all over the world. Everybody celebrates it differently. Parcels on chrismas eve or chrismas day, one day off or two. Here in the Netherlands we have the presents on christmas eve. This is what I got from my parents. I can use it when I go away for ebooks, music and films and to check the internet. But mainly I am going to use it for the practice. It has all legal software, linux based. It ways next to nothing and I can still type on it very well. I do have a laptop, [I want my mum to go and use that one more and not only for games!!!!!] but on bad days when my arms hurt it is too heavy for me. This one isn't. In between clients I can make some notes and do more with them when I get home. So it is ideal for my needs. I will blog about the weekend later. Monday evening I met with an accountant. It is all becoming so real now, the only thing missing is the clients. It is strange to think that I will be opening my own business. Exiting and more then a litt...

This time of year is always sooooo busy. Christmas is under a week away already, were has december gone!!!! Going to spend the weekend in Belgium playing boardgames so no blog for me for a few days. Wanted to let my readers know. :) Made another decision today, I have joined a paid dating site. They had a discount deal going on. And I feel I am ready for it again, so fingers crossed for me. The end of the year seemed like a good time to make a decision like that. New year's resolutions and all that. After the weekend I will tell you about the games I have played. Monday evening I have an accountant coming over. Yeah the practice is becoming very real. :) Have a good weekend everyone!

Yesterday was the tradiotional kaarsjesavond in Gouda. The main programme is the lighting of the christmas tree in the marketsquare for the first time. And all around the market square all electrical light is doused and the houses and the city hall are lighted by candles. It is a huge tree given by our sistertown in Norway every year. It is a very popular eve nt drawing a huge crowd each year. The last couple of years they have added a lot to i t wi th a whole day programme. This year I went along for the first time in ages, us gouwenaars tend to stay away on the evening itself because of the crowds. But this year I had friends coming over. Marjon and Susan came in the afternoon and Susan's husba nd Jaap joined us for the evening programme. We had a stroll over the market square, seeing everything in the daytime a nd taking some pictures of the old houses and of course cityhall and the old weigh building. They had some people out in period dress and dresses up as father christmas ...

Getting ready for another busy day, the last in a row now so I can use wednesday to friday to relax and get ready for the weekend in Belgium. Tonight is kaarsjesavond in Gouda. I will tell you more about it later in the week and share some pics hopefully. Finished reading the english heritage handbook, it was more setting a cross on almost eve ry page about things I would like to see. Hopefully I will get the chance to see some of them next year. Starting a new book tomorrow. Living in the past, a book about historic reenactment. It is about time that I read some more about that. Next year I am probably going to participate in my first. I have of course been a spectator at a few. I also need to read up on the english civil war, a time period that I don't know too much about. It is in April so I had better get a move on! I haven't said anything about my studyday on saturday yet. I was frustrated that I wasn't feeling any better but I did manage to go for most of the day. And...