I hurt my foot last week so all my plans for the last few days of my annual leave have been ruined, rather.  I can't go back to work either, which I'm suddenly longing to do because the problems of my life are so gargantuan (or they feel that way to me) that playing with dusty books seems like quite a lot of fun.  Needless to say, working in a library (trolleys with books, big piles of books, lugging books, climbing ladders with books.......) and a sore foot don't go together.  Since I've run out of money this month and can't go anywhere, my only escape is working on my second draft.  And it's going well - not brilliantly, but well.  I still can't work out my male character but have realised I'm going to have to do that on the page.  I have had a few flashes of inspiration regarding other problematic areas in the novel.  The best one was working out the conflict between my lovers.  Inspiration came to me while I was on the cross-trainer at the gym, listening to Marilyn Manson on my iPod.  Yes, thanks, just when there's no paper handy......fortunately, I managed to remember the important bits until I got home and could write them down.  Unfortunately, I think it was on the cross-trainer that I may have hurt my foot.  Which leads me to believe that for everything you get given, something else gets taken away.  In the last week, I've been quite desperate to crawl into a world of magic to get away from so much pain and frustration and hardship.
I just don't know where that world is.

• Approach with a fresh perspective:  this is a mighty difficult skill to perfect.  Taking some time off helps.  Not thinking about writing at all for several weeks helps too.  I took about three weeks off to proofread something else so that I could forget about my novel entirely.
• Keep a copy of the old draft:  this is for peace of mind as well as being able to check the first draft if you think you've changed too much.  I've just realised I've forgotten to do this and will have to copy the original chapters from one of three memory sticks I use.
• Slash with vigour:  anything that is even slightly wrong, chop it out, whether it's a bad description, a superfluous paragraph or a dull scene.  If your attention wanders then the reader's will too.  I spent ages researching my heroine's clothes and what sort of boots would be appropriate - and nearly died of boredom while reading it, so whittled it down to about three words rather than half a page.
• Don't be afraid of drastic changes:  I've changed the way my heroine looks and she's suddenly much more alive on the page.  I felt rather sorry to see my original heroine go but it just wasn't working - she was the wrong flavour entirely for the novel.  Anyway, I can always resurrect those particular features in another story somewhere else, so it's not like she's died.
• The reader's point of view:  I virtually never think about the reader.  This is a terrible fault of mine.  Although, actually, I do think of the reader when I long for them, when I want to share my ideas with them, but when I'm actually writing, what readers like isn't something that concerns me.  With my first draft dead on the page, I had to change this attitude entirely.  I was being subtle to the point of bland and even I wouldn't want to read anything where the drama sits so far under the skin you can barely see it.  So with that in mind, that the reader would probably like to see a bit more ACTION, I'm trying to do just that.  (I'd better go and look at that dull chapter 4 again....)
• MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL:  take yourself out the novel.  I don't know how else to put this.  I tend to sink into my writing so that I'm so far inside the character's head that I am the character.  I feel everything they do and find my days mirroring theirs, which can be a tad spooky.  This worked during very intense scenes when writing the first draft, but not all of the novel is intense.  I need to be able to stand back and allow my heroine some freedom to be herself because not everything she thinks/says/does is what I would think/say/do.  Most writers don't seem to have this problem.  They're able to produce characters which are quite unlike themselves - they're inventing people.  I tend to BE the people I write, rather than invent them.  It says much that my secondary characters are often more believable (in my eyes anyway.)  This probably just means I'm  bad writer.  Or a self-centred one.  Or too personal.  Or too autobiographical.  Or maybe it's just the way I write.

I should say that this is probably the first time I've ever actively gone from writing the first draft, stopping just moments before the Big Reveal, and sitting down consciously to write a second draft.  In the past I've worked on sections when needed, going back when something doesn't work, reworking when something fails.  But then I've never had an entire novel fail on me before so this is a new experience.  I'm having to invent ways of approaching this second draft.  A lighter touch might be the key.

Bad week.  Bad, bad week.  Thought I'd cheer myself up today but instead I got bad, bad, bad, bad, bad hair.  I wish I could rewind the day and start again.  Might have stayed at home then and saved myself a whole lot of money AND sheer utter awful despair.  And yes, I know it's only hair and it'll grow back (in about four fucking months)(roll on Christmas) and that there are people out there who are dying in wars and trying to escape and would like to be safe, never mind their hair, so, really, I do know what's important and what isn't.  But it doesn't change the fact that I look terrible, I feel terrible and my finger hurts.
Starbucks have been handing out sample breakfasts this week, with a 50% voucher, so after my rather awful week, I thought I'd treat myself today and cheer myself up.  It's been a tough week at work, triple the amount of work than usual.  Also my vacuum cleaner broke just when I thought I might recover financially this month after a really expensive August (school clothes, school shoes and holiday type spending......) so had to rush out and buy another one, so am broke all over again and it's only the 4th of the month.
So off I went to have my scrambled eggs at Starbucks and a nice cup of tea (no coffee - I'm on diet too, just to add to my sorrows) and pulled the chair forward to sit down, as you do, and caught my finger in a join under the chair that shouldn't have been there.  The instant blood blister was the size of a grape, on the soft pad of my forefinger (it's agony typing here....) and I almost burst into tears at the PAIN of it.  Went and got some ice eventually and got lots of sympathy from the manager and a barista - needless to say, they took the offending chair away.  But that still left me with the sorest finger you can imagine.  Couldn't tell you what the scrambled eggs tasted like.  I might have been in shock.
Never mind, I thought desperately, off to have my hair cut now.  THAT will make me feel better.  I've had many ups and downs with Mr Leo on Tottenham Court Road.  Have walked out with terrible cuts but also some really excellent ones, and for only £20 too.  However, it's never been cut too short - how is my JAW the same as my SHOULDER??????  I said shoulder length - it's so far above my shoulder that it'll take MONTHS for it to grow back down there again.  And worse - IT'S SKEW.  Oh, that's because he cut it in a middle path and now it's in a side path.  OH NO IT FUCKING ISN'T - IT'S SKEW SKEW SKEW SKEW.  The left side is an inch longer than the right!  Any idiot can see that!
And it makes me look old old old old.  What you would call age-appropriate.  I could ALMOST tolerate the too-shortness - after all, hair grows.  But skew?  What do I do with that?  I can't even tie it up properly into a ponytail because it's too short!  And I can't wear a hat all the time or wear one indoors.
So:  no stars for Mr Leo.  Never going back there.  Avoid it if you don't want to look like your dead mother.  Spending money I don't have on a hair extension and the most expensive hair dye and hair accessories I can find.
I'm quite, quite sure the Bloomsbury writers of yonder years didn't have these problems.......