NaNoWriMo is killing me

One has to wonder why we intentionally place stress upon ourselves. Why we have the urge to challenge and push ourselves when we could just be spending free moments sunning ourselves in the garden with a good book. NaNoWriMo happens every year in the month of November, when crazy people decide to write a novel of a minimum of 50 000 words. Yep, this is not a joke, thousands of people all over the world take up this challenge. Being a little bit crazy myself, I decided to take up the challenge again this year, as I had managed it successfully last year. this year I worked out a more detailed plot scheme so it would be easier to write. However, with my current work load it's not always possible to write the required amount of words each day. This is causing me stress. One of the things to suffer in the month of November, is my blog. Today I thought to hell with it, let me at least update my blog before I get back to writing to try and make today's target.
The latest news, is that The Great Mountain to Mountain Safari is now available on Amazon.  Now I put pressure on myself planning the next adventure to write about.  June/July we're going to backpack through Egypt and the Middle East.  This has been a dream of mine ever since I was a teenager.  When I was about fifteen, all I wanted was to go and work and live on a kibbutz in Israel!

Our flights for Cape Town in December are booked.  We'll be leaving on the 13th December at some ungodly hour.  With Kerri flying in from China it's going to be a great holiday!  Part of the holiday we'll be staying at the family house on the Garden Route near Knysna.  I'm counting the sleeps already, but I have to conquer NaNoWriMo first!  Hopefully, can get a lot of writing done tonight and tomorrow morning as it's a public holiday.

Siobhan has been very active of late, taking part in a netball tournament, a horse show and this past weekend - she climbed Little Meru which is 3801m high!  One of the highlights for her, was one of our teachers who accompanied the students on the trip, who just so happened to be Australian (of course), who wore shorts, leggings and flip flops when everybody was wearing serious below-zero clothing!

The Associate by John Grisham

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I was looking forward to this, not having read John Grisham for a while. Normally, I am caught up from page 1, but for some reason the story seemed to drag and it took me until three quarters of the way through to be gripped to read for greater lengths of time. The plot was a bit same-old, same-old, not fresh at all. The ending was very different though, in that there wasn't one. There was no closure, no sense of satisfaction, in fact I double-checked to see that the last few pages hadn't come loose and fallen out. The story just stopped ending so up in the air, it seemed unfinished. It wasn't a twist ending, it just stopped. It was almost as if his editor had given him an impossible deadline to meet. The first three-quarters was bordering on the tedious, the next bit was the usual gripping Grisham content you're come to expect, and then it stopped. I know I've said that a couple of times, but I'm just astounded it stopped when it did. Die-hard fans might still enjoy it, but there are so many other crime novelists with courtroom dramas around these days that have surpassed this quality of book. Yeah, I am a bit disappointed with this read.



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Omigod! Civilisation!

We'd heard quite a bit about Dar-Es-Salaam from people who'd been there before.  Dirty, busy, horrendous traffic.  Nobody, however, told us how civilised it is.  Especially on the Seacliff side.  Enormous mansions, beautifully tarred roads, great restaurants, shopping malls, we thought we'd accidentally left the country without realising it.  In comparison, Moshi is a one-horse town, and the horse died several years ago.  I do like Moshi though.  We don't have much traffic.  The traffic in Dar is a problem, but not nearly as bad as Mumbai.  I didn't find it dirty at all, and yeah it's the capital so it should be busy.  It was a great getaway but I'm not sure if I could live there, as there are far too many temptations to spend your money on.  I'd be flat-broke in five seconds. 

My book launch was great, A Novel Idea is one of the nicest bookshops I've been in, a great selection of books, I felt quite privileged to have my book launch there.  They're opening a branch in Arusha in June, so that is definitely something to look forward to.

The first two nights we stayed at the Jambo Inn in the city centre.  It's very budget and has a good restaurant downstairs.  Good for one night if you are catching the ferry to Zanzibar in the morning, but I wouldn't recommend it for longer than a night.  Our last night we stayed at the Q-bar and this I recommend highly.  Double the price of the Jambo Inn, but worth every penny.  A great English breakfast with proper filter coffee is included in the price.

Of course being me, there has to be some crazy madcap adventure to our weekend away.  We once again fell foul to corruption on the roads.  What is it with me and these traffic guys?  On the way to Dar we were only stopped twice, and both times the little traffic policeman looked in the car and asked if Siobhan was my daughter.  Although, the first one actually first asked if she was my son.  When I said yes, they waved me to continue driving.  Most bizarre.  Did they think I was kidnapping her or something?
But on the way back, a loose wire somewhere in the car was telling the car a door was open, which caused my hazard lights to flash on and off all the time.  I slammed all the doors closed so forcefully, that I almost sprained my wrist.  But, that damn loose wire was still sending out the wrong signals.  We left Dar confusing all the other drivers in the torrential rain, as they didn't know which way we were turning.  There's nothing like a car not doing what it's supposed to be doing, to put me in a bad mood, which poor Siobhan got the brunt of.  My girl, I'm sorry for snapping at you when you only wanted to give me a piece of melted chocolate while I was trying to negotiate the road in the pouring rain with my hazard lights flicking on and off like a disco.

As I gathered speed, the loose wire stopped making the hazard lights go on and off, and the trip became quite pleasant.  Even the rain stopped.  Unfortunately, as I overtook a staggering truck that was going so slowly it was almost going backwards, a little traffic man jumped out from next to a 30km speed limit sign.  Now you can't overtake a truck at 30km an hour, and you can't magically change from about 80km an hour to 30km an hour in the space of one metre.  He told me he thought I was speeding.  Obviously, I denied it, so he called over his little helper with the speed camera thing.  71km an hour.  "How do you know that's my car?" I asked, noting that their speed catching contraption does not record photos of the vehicle or licence plates.
"Look," the little helper man said, and took the speed of the next car.  21km an hour.  "See how slow he's going?"  Of course, he didn't realise by doing that, he was wiping out the speed of my car.
"Well," I said with a grim smile trying to feign patience, "He's only going slow because he can see you and me dancing around in the road.  In fact, he's going so slow he's a hazard to the safety of the rest of us on the road.  He should be the one you stop and fine."
The main traffic guy didn't fall for my advanced female logic.  "So do you want to go to court, or can I write you a ticket for TSH 20 000?"  That's roughly $20.
"But what speed was I going again?  Show me?"  I knew that I had them foxed as they had replaced my speed reading with the reading from the next car.
The traffic guy laughed.  "If you go to court you'll win as we don't have your speed anymore, but think of how much time and expense fighting it in court will take?"
He had me.  His English was far too good.  "Well then, I fine you TSH 20 000 for having such a bad road with potholes, it's a danger to drivers," I countered.
He agreed with me, and by then all the traffic police were laughing and pointing to the potholes in the road.  I thought I'd won the battle, but then he produced the ticket book again.  "So, court or fine?"
Bastard.  "How about, I just give you TSH 10 000 and we forget about court and fine?"
"Sure," the greedy corrupt bastard said as he held out his hand to take my money.
Civilisation comes with a price, I reckon.  It opens the doors for corruption.

Roll on holidays

Schools out on Friday!  Yippee-dee-doo-dah or however you write that.  I should be more organised with an hotel booked but I'm not.  All I know, is that my big book signing/book launch which kicks off the start of my African Book Tour is at A Novel Idea, Slipway branch, Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania on Monday 29th March at 6pm.  I haven't even decided yet, whether I'm driving to Dar on the Saturday or Sunday, or if after the book signing, we'll hop on a ferry and spend a few days in Zanzibar.  Apparently, after 3 months of no power, the power is finally back on in Zanzibar.  So what to do?  At the moment, I have no idea.  I'm so caught up in writing Not Telling, the story is so consuming, I think about it constantly.  I'm not sure how it ends yet, I'm hoping the characters will decide for me.
Hopefully, this week will fly.  I'm definitely ready for a holiday.  Quite a few people around me have been hit with malaria of late, so it's definitely in our area.  I might have to get some of that mozzie spray to keep them away.
I really have to start working on the planning for our drive down to Cape Town in June.  I have to get a carnet de passage, to allow me to drive my car through different countries.  The problem is, is that they like to keep your carnet at the border here which is going to be a problem as I'm going to be driving through a few different countries and coming back another route.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make them see sense, but I'm not holding my breath.  Money will probably have to change hands to make it work.
Well, breakfast for me and then I'm doing some more work on Not Telling.  Have a chapter to finish, and this one has to end in a twist so I need my wits about me.
Have a great week!
luv

Cindy