The (revised) plan for 2024 . . .

Completing a first draft by the end of January was always going to be a stretch and so it proved. On a positive note though the final few chapters are planned, I know exactly where this book is going, and I reckon I’m a good two thirds finished.

 
Anyway, January 31 was always going to be an (optimistic) goal rather than a given!

So my revised deadline for first draft completion is now Easter, which is the end of March. Doable I feel sure as now very focused and determined to not be too distracted by either world or local events that demand letters to editors, or comments on blogs – even though I have managed to do one or other on an almost daily basis. It seems that having become a political/environmental activist – however unintentional it might have been – there’s no turning away from the role.

But there’s also more to do each day than sit before a computer and write for five, six or seven hours. As well as the bread and butter writing and the harvesting and processing of produce it was time to emerge from my bunker and re-connect with friends. Not exactly a New Year resolution, more a recognition I was missing out on a social life!

So January has included a lovely couple of days spent in St Helens with Dee, and arranging a lunch date with some of the Green girls. The Greenie friendships were forged during the pulp mill campaign, and have continued. The balance sheet from those years didn’t include too many positives, but breaking down social barriers and making new friends was definitely one of them. It’s an observation that has been made by many others.

But now the laptop is warmed up and raring to go it’s onwards and upwards with The Book, to borrow a saying from the late Jeremy B.