The Rain in Spain...

We (Paul and I and the children) had a week's holiday in Spain over the Easter break.  This was a big event for us - we tend not to take holidays abroad, partly because of the expense and partly due to the logistics of travelling with four young children.

However, the children are not so young now - the little one is six and a half now, and really not little at all.  And we desperately needed a holiday - we booked it in the New Year, after our family car was written off in an accident and when we had puppy problems (which have since been resolved).  We just had to have something to look forward to.

The holiday exceeded our expectations.  It was an all-inclusive package, something that I was not sure would be a good thing.  I had visions of all of us eating and drinking far too much and becoming extremely unhealthy as a result.  Well, we did eat and drink too much, but then I soon relaxed about that - we were on holiday, after all.

The weather was hot and sunny.  The children were contented and well-behaved.  Paul and I relaxed completely, and it was just exactly what we all needed. 

Since our return, I feel as if that holiday existed in a parallel universe.  The chilled effect did last for a couple of days since we got back, but now, only a short while later, although I can cast my mind back and remember spending a large part of every day for a whole week lying in a sunlounger, somehow it doesn't seem quite real. 

Never mind.  It happened, and it might happen again.

I have been writing like crazy since I got back.  I re-read some of my favourite motivational books while we were away, and absorbed a lot of the advice for better living.  I love that sort of book, and self-help books - although I did also read a novel 'My dear, I wanted to tell you,' by Louisa Young, which I was very impressed by.

Anyway.  I have been writing fiction.  Most of this year I have been in a writing frenzy, as a matter of fact, but now I am resolved not to waste anytime doing anything else.  My cleaner started this week - remember how Paul suggested that I should have a cleaner?  I have still been busy around the house, but she did some of the jobs that I most dislike, which was nice.  And it has spurred me on to further action - I have to keep writing so that I can keep affording to pay the cleaner!

Some of my new books are on Amazon already.  Paul has designed the covers for me, and done quite a good job.  They are quite short, novellas really, but the one I am working on now will be longer - a full-length novel.  It is a romance, and not a great one.  At first I was a little ashamed of writing it, but now I have relaxed and started to enjoy it.  I am not worrying too much about the plot or the characters - the story is just coming out, almost as if the book is writing itself.  I am twenty thousand words in now, and hoping to finish it by the half-term holiday.  To this end I am eschewing all social encounters and other distractions, and I even spent the whole of this morning (a Saturday!) in bed in my pyjamas, typing away like a woman possessed. 

Meanwhile, my memoir is selling well.  Sales had dropped in recent months, and although I was disappointed by this, I was not surprised, as the book has been out for almost three years now.  However, I returned from our holiday to find that my sales figures had leapt in the week that we had been away, and even now, a week later, the book is high in the Amazon ratings.  I am delighted.  It even has a #1 Amazon Bestseller flag next to it on the screen now. My memoir is #1 in Schizophrenia, something that would have made me feel a bit conflicted a year or two again, but which has no bearing at all on my state of mind these days!

The reason for my sudden bookselling success escapes me.  Perhaps it is just my time.  But when Paul asked me what I thought had changed I told him that it is definitely my newfound motivation, garnered from all the books I have recently read and re-read.  And maybe there is a grain of truth in that - I am feeling a lot more positive recently, and good things do tend to happen to people who expect good things to happen.

I'm tired.  That last sentence was nowhere near grammatical, and I am starting to ramble, so I am going to stop this post right here.