Progress Friday + an excerpt from the WIP

Hey peeps!

It's been another of those weeks, where I again, didn't make my target word count *sigh*. Blast - it seems all I ever do on Fridays is admit defeat, and I'm tired of that. When ever will things calm down a little and allow me some sane moments so I can get on with my stuff? This week's paltry productivity is thanks to a massive migraine of the female-only kind, and then my super-crappy ISP f*cking up my connection again. Tell me how productive you'd feel when every morning - when you've been assured that everything's okay and in working order! - it takes you 3-4 attempts while refreshing every page to even log into your email inbox. If by some miracle, the connection didn't time out and you do manage to open a message, you type your reply, and *gasp*, didn't look at the lights on the modem when you reflexively clicked 'Send'... and find that a) the page has frozen, b) the connection is NOT THERE right then (no lights, not even a blinking one, on the bloody modem!), and c) of course since the connection was down when you typed your message, it never got saved to Draft, so you've just lost all you typed when you have to refresh the page WHEN the connection comes back, and start afresh again.

Lost 2 hours this morning while trying to send out 3 important emails. 3 emails, people! Ain't that enough to drive anyone bat-shit crazy, when just yesterday afternoon, the customer service were calling to tell you everything was sorted out??? ARGHH!!!

My plan was down some painkillers this morning for the migraine and thus enable myself to write for an uninterrupted 3-4 hours, and thus catch up on some of the word count lag. Not to mention that today, the hyenas go on 2-weeks' Easter break - I won't have much free time for most of April what with them being at home with me. But of course, the #$%#@& ISP had to come mess it all up. Sorry for going off my trolley so much, but when you realize that I've been dealing with such crap for the past 5 months... Yes, I know I'm the fool for not taking my customership elsewhere. The problem? In Mauritius, there is really no elsewhere to go, unless you can afford to pay 3-4 times what you're paying to get the only other faster/unlimited Internet access.

But I did clock some 4K-something on Transient Hearts this week. Not all's been lost, but still... ARGH!!

Here's a snippet that I wrote this week - I edited the scene so you can get the bigger picture. More and more, it appears a secondary character is going to get her own story, so this aspect was kinda the foreshadowing of her plot when her time will come.

If only the damn thing [sleep] came when it was needed. She’d rarely needed more than five hours of sleep, and here, she got her rest by napping in the late afternoon when her biological clock told her it was nighttime in London. Which left her wide awake in the heart of the night, hearing every creak and groan of the big wood house. If she was a scaredy-cat, she’d say the house was haunted. Something – what her Indian aunts would call nazarr, the evil eye – seemed to hover inside the dwelling. She shivered. Her aunts would tell her to wear a black kohl dot on the outer corner of her eyes to ward off the threat, but she’d never believed such superstitions.

....

Shania got up and ditched the tattered old T-shirt she wore to bed and changed into jeans and a light cashmere jumper. Might as well head to the kitchen after was done with the call - she had a feeling chopping vegetables would be very therapeutic for the frustration any conversation with her mother would bring on.

The house was still and quiet when she stepped into the corridor. Shania couldn't help the shiver that coursed down her back. Something weird, and not right, shrouded this whole place, and right then, she was attuned all too well to the hovering cloak, one that wrapped itself around her and made her look over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway. The feeling settled around her, and suddenly, her heart no longer hammered. A soft, soothing breeze blew gently in her hair, lifting the locks from the nape of her neck, and then drifted away. Heavy stillness fell on the surroundings when the breeze left.

What on earth was that about?

Shania gasped. She should be scared shitless right then - her mind agreed with that conclusion, but something inside her heart made her certain she had nothing to fear.

    Strange - she should ask Aurelia if the house was haunted.



Here's to wishing you all have a fantastic weekend, peeps! I know I'll be looking toward more migraine-pain and a hell of a hissy fit tomorrow when I confront that shoddy company for the crappy service they're making people pay for!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee