So you wanna lose weight?

I have blogged before about extreme methods of losing weight - can't find where though; it must have been in the pre-tagging days. It had something to do with getting divorced. At the height of my personal trauma, the good news was that I looked lovely and svelte... (There's always a bright side...)

Well, I've recently lost two kilos and I attribute that to two fairly drastic reasons:
1) no man
2) writing

As you may remember, if you are a fidèle reader of this blog, I got the old boot in the butt in July which meant I was free as of August when I came back from holiday having left the boys with their father to do as I liked. I thus cut down on aperitifs, aperitif snacks, wine with meals and food in general, being too lazy to cook full meals. One thing about guys is that they need feeding properly and since the food is there on the table, or already served onto your plate without so much as a by your leave re quantity, one tends to eat it. This means that you are probably consuming way more than you would usually, and unless you get off your backside big time and rush out to jog/cycle/exercise it all off, you're likely to see a surreptitious piling on of the pounds.

Writing is a time-consuming exercise and tends to absorb one's attention totally. With me, this meant being completely distracted and generally hopeless about everything to do with daily life, which made it even more difficult buying Rentrée stuff than usual because I was simply not concentrating!

Wishing to have as much time to write as possible made me cut down on pointless food preparation. The boys are generally happy with trashy food, the trashier the better on the whole, although there are limits... so they've been eating a lot of fresh ravioli and tomato sauce (previously homemade from garden toms), even peanut butter sarnies (!!) and omelettes. I console myself with the knowledge that they are eating a full meal at lunch time at school and don't really need the whole caboodle at supper. I certainly can not be bothered to spend hours not writing on preparing a scrumptious dinner only to be told that they are not hungry, don't like whatever meat it is, whatever veg it is, whatever whatever it is, and would rather have a peanut butter sarnie or a hot dog. Recently they've been getting the sarnie or the hot dog!

As for me, after the boys have finished (I sit and join them so we can chat - I'm not that neglectful!) I stuff a Ryvita or two with tomatoes in front of the computer and get to work.

The result is two whole kilos off - the ones I had put on over the past year, so I'm dead pleased and feeling very perky about slinking around again.

However, I'm sure there must be easier ways!

Writing Days

Today I've been working on my book. Gigi, in one of her comments, asked me to describe how I manage to fit writing into my days as I have a full-time job and two boys.

For example, today, I've done no housework to speak of, and gave the boys fresh ravioli for lunch (very quick!). I left them to their own devices pretty much, which suits them just fine, throwing them off the computer for a while to play outside, but basically letting them make their own amusement.

As a result, I've managed to work on my book for part of this morning and much of this afternoon. The house is a tad messy though, but should I keep an immaculate home and not write? Nah!

During the week, the boys are in bed or at least in their rooms at about 9pm. We eat together and I clear up, then I ignore the tele and go upstairs to work for a couple of hours on my book. At 11pm I come down to watch something silly on my Sky digibox for an hour (in English).

However, I am in 'book' mode at the moment. I was able to spend swathes of time on it in August, unhampered as I was either by boys or a time-consuming partner. I could come home from work, have a cuppa and get on with it. This meant I was able to re-enter the world of my characters and what they were getting up to, and maintain a double existence inside and outside my head.

Had I not had the freedom to do this in August, I would not have been able to conjure up the story world in the evenings. As it is, I'm thinking about my book all the time even when I'm not working on it; waking up early refining it in my head (and then forgetting...) and being quite obsessive really. I need to be though, or it won't get done.

I remember when I was writing it at the beginning how compulsive it was - it was all I wanted to do, and the boys had to get used to mummy being on the computer the whole time for about three months. I had had the dream, and the story was invading my head so much that I had to write it down to get rid of it. That's how the book got to be written in the first place. I started it, and didn't stop until I had an ending. It evolved out of the characters. Then it had to be refined, which has taken years, but the basic story was there.

I have another 150 pages or so to modify, out of nearly 400, so I'm not far off. Luckily no one moans when the house is a mess, the boys are happiest hanging out at home and outside and I don't have a man about who needs attention. Lovely as they are, if I have a man, I don't work on my book, hence my resolution to stay away from men until I finish.

So Gigi, I empathise with your inability to get down to writing your own book. I've been there! You'll need to go away by yourself on a retreat or something, take only your laptop and just do it! Once you're inside your story world, you'll find the momentum to carry on when you get home, hopefully.

I'm sure your ados won't mind if you ignore them for a few weeks...