Pas de Deux seemed fitting for today’s post. Even though according to The Free Dictionary it means “Dance for 2“, and I’m still dancing for 1.

Real Life:

Crazy busy week in which it seemed like I got absolutely nothing done. I love our new office, but I hate the boardroom. Ever since we got one it seems I do nothing but have meetings; with staff, with the boss, with interview candidates. I spend more time in that boxy room with the beautiful view of the city then I do at my desk with the beautiful view of the building next door.

Online:

I decided this week to go back to the 1990s, before social media and smart phone technology made it super easy to update everyone and their dog with discussions of lunchables and the commute to and from work. It was harder than I thought. I never realised how many times I check in with Facebook or Twitter during the day. I took to taking photographs of my lunch for instagram in an attempt to remain connected to the interweb world. By the end of the week however I was doing pretty well, although I discovered I think in 140 characters or less.

Alcohol:

Well, I’ve made it a week without wine. After last weeks self destructive meltdown and subsequent attempt to get my sink drunk by pouring 6 bottles of expensive Savuvignon Blanc into it I’ve made it once again to 7 days sober. I’m pleased with that. It’s not a major achievement but the act of pouring the wine down the sink has led to a weekend where the first thought I had when I woke up this morning was “woo hoo I didn’t even think about having a drink yesterday, now, where’s the vacuum cleaner.” Trust me, for me, on a weekend that’s a major accomplishment.

Creativity:

Not so much of the creativity, although I did download a couple of new photography apps for the iPhone yesterday. That allowed me to play around a bit with some funky filters. As a photographer I make a great writer, but I find it fun and frankly that’s all that matters. Sometimes you just need to do something purely for the fun of it. I turned a self taken photo into this yesterday:

(note to self: really must learn how to resize pictures and also put in a cut away on these posts)

Diet:

As mentioned in my last post, I started BodyTrim again last week. It’s a high protein, low carb diet that involves eating lots of yummy food and very little of favourites like pasta and fresh bread. I managed rather well – even if I do say so myself –  and of the advertised 5 kilos in 7 days goal I lost 4.5 kilos. Not a bad effort considering all I did was change the food I ate, limit my coffee to 1 a day and replace Coke with water.

Setting a goal this week for 2 kilos. I would like to maintain at that rate for a while. I don’t have a massive amount to lose. I put on 15 kilos recently, so I’ve now only got 10.5 kilos to lose and then the other 5 I gave up on last time. Of course, to achieve that I’m going to need to start exercising. I’m a huge fan of creative visualisation, but I’ve discovered thinking about doing exercise is not really creating the same results as actually doing it *sigh*

Writing:

Yesterday I spring cleaned. I hate spring cleaning. Love the result, hate actually doing it – sort of like exercise. Still, it desperately needed doing and now my room is all sparkly and clean. Loving it. Today I’m going to finalise the edit to Butterfly. At least the current edit.

For those out there who have participated before in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) it’s coming up again – where has this year gone – and I’ve decided to throw myself into the mix for the first time this November. I’ve signed up twice before but never done a thing. I have an idea for a story that I’d like to release as an eBook in the next year or so. I think NaNoWriMo is a good chance to get started.

The idea is to get out of your own way, and write a 60,000 word novel in 30 days. That works out at 2,000 words a day. I’m going to start taking the lap top on the train and using the commute time to write my daily goal. It’s a nerve wracking thought, but I live in a deadline driven world so maybe it will help get me moving.

General:

It’s been a beautiful week. Busy, stressful, and tiring, but still I’ve loved it. Next week is probably going to be just as nuts, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I guess what I learnt this week is to let yourself have the freedom to simply do silly things – like downloading filter apps for my photos – and let go of the past judgments that everything I do has to be absolutely perfect, first time around. That’s what time and editing is for.