Quicunque

Yay! I have achieved my goal of 5,000 words for the April Fool's challenge! *happy dance*

5,257 / 5,000 (105.1%)

No, I'm not going to get over-confident and complacent and up the ante again. I've done that already - I would have been chuffed enough with my originally planned 3k, so I'm well pleased.

What's next? *grin*

Today's post for one of my collaborative novels at PanE adds another 686 words to my total, and with the addition of a wee piece done as a prompt for In So Many Words it inches me a bit nearer my April Fool's goal:
I'm getting anxious about achieving those last 1073 words. It sounds very little, but with the series of Bank Holidays we have lined up for the next 10 days, the preternaturally sunny weather luring me outside and the fact both my partner and I are off work for the aforementioned 10 days and there will be activities planned, it means there are going to be many, many distractions away from the keyboard!

So, thanks to Ashtoreth's encouragement I embarked upon the April's Fool thing. Since I missed the first week of the month, I set myself a very modest target of 3000 words (not 2000 as in the counter below; the counter didn't offer 3000 as an option) and managed a 618-word post for one of my characters today which got me off to a respectable start towards that goal.

I want to try and write something every day. However small. Whether its a something self-contained or part of a work-in-progress. I just feel its important to get back into the habit of regular writing.

618 / 2,000 (30.9%)

Not in reading order, the books I currently have in the pile (paper and Kindle) are:

1. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
2. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
3. Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
4. The Tulip by Anna Pavord
5. The Man Who Would be King by Rudyard Kipling

As I finish each one, another will be added to the list in its place. I am determined to read more this year! The brain needs the stimulation and maybe it will encourage me to write more too.

'The seeds of butterdock must be sowed by a young unmarried woman half an hour before sunrise on a Friday morning, in a lonesome place. She must strew the seeds gradually on the grass, saying these words:

I sow, I sow!

Then, my own dear,

Come here, come here,

And mow and mow!

The seed being scattered, she will see her future husband mowing with a scythe at a short distance from her. She must not be frightened, for if she says, "Have mercy on me," he will immediately vanish! This method is said to be infallible, but it is looked upon as a bold, desperate, and presumptuous undertaking!'

[Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales by James Orchard Halliwell Esq., 1849.]