Midweek Musings: Exciting news and Daph updates
Phew! It's been a busy old week. Oli has started rehearsing for his new show, which has meant childcare musical chairs for everyone so that I can still do my in-house office work. Again, thank god for my mum. It'd be so much easier to get Daph a childminder sometimes but I don't think anyone would have us with our annoyingly inconsistent hours.
But anyway, the future is looking a bit different (read: exciting!) for me, as I found out last week that I got a place on the Faber Academy 'Writing a Novel' course. I applied a few months ago and it's been literal agony waiting to hear if I got on - I even googled myself into insanity by finding someone on Mumsnet who had applied for the same course and was offered a place about a month ago. I was convinced, therefore, that I hadn't got on.
For those not in the know, it's a six-month course, run by publishers Faber & Faber and based in their Bloomsbury office. It's spawned a load of exciting writers, including SJ Watson (Before I Go To Sleep) and numerous book deals. It's not cheap, and even though a few of my friends said I was mad to apply because a) one of its main aims is to get you a literary agent and I already have one and b) I could just spend the money on clothes and write the damn book on my own, I really really love working with others and meeting new people and collaborating and just sharing experiences. I'm a bit of a sucker for training/education in that sense. And it gives me a goal - I'd like to finish the first draft of the new book I've just started by the end of the course, and doing it also means I HAVE to take writing seriously for the next few months. It's so easy with writing to let it fall to the back burner in favour of bread and butter stuff (which is obviously essential!) but I feel a bit like it's 'now or never' for me. I'm really lucky in that I've still got money left from selling my business so I can afford to have a career break right now. Although I am still working a couple of days a week too, as well as doing my half of the childcare... hmm, hopefully my social life will still be there when I'm done?!
Oh, and eeep, the course I'm doing is run by Joanna Briscoe. Even more exciting. If a little intimidating.
Anyway, before I found out I got a place I started writing something new. Something a little bit different and a little bit risky but I'm feeling fired up about it which is such a great feeling after so long. I forgot how addictive and obsessive writing can become when you're excited about something!
In other news, we took Daph for her development check up yesterday. The doctor was pleased with her progression re crawling, but she's still not pulling up to stand, or standing by herself if we pull her up. She also always rests her weight on her tiptoes - in fact sometimes her feet kind of curl right over so that she's resting on the top of her foot which looks so painful and wrong! He said she has really tight calf muscles (weirdly so do I) and in fact her muscles are a little 'too strong' so we have to massage her feet and ankles to try to get her to put her feet flat. He seems to think she'll get there eventually, but she may walk on tiptoe for a few months. Like I've said many times, she ain't gonna be an Olympic gymnast, bless her.
He actually said he was more worried about the fact she wasn't using specific words for specific people/things yet. She's thirteen months old on Saturday and a few of my friends with babies of similar ages don't seem to think theirs do either, but perhaps they're being nice. Daph says LOADS now - makes a huge range of sounds and lots of baby googledegook with mixed consonants/vowels etc. But nothing really specific. She says Dee Dee and Daddy a lot, but not at anything or anyone in particular. She also says 'Dink' which my mum thinks means she wants a drink but I've yet to really truthfully spot a correlation there. So a bit concerning but I still think she'll get there - we know she's running on a slightly delayed schedule but she does seem to always find her way in the end. The doctor even said she might just be a bit shy at trying to do things she's not good at, which kind of makes sense, she's definitely a cautious soul! Anyway, he told us to come back in two months if she still wasn't using five or more words with meaning, and then he'd 'refer her right away'. So another little target for our little girl - fingers crossed she can do it!