The return of the blogger

I am back, sort of. After spending Christmas under a thick blanket of snow, pudding and wrapping paper, I dug a way out and found that it was mid-January, my worst month. A dark, cold month, a month of misery, post Christmas fat and penury. It should be a time of new beginnings and optimism but it isn't and so I've been pretending I am not here. Although I hate to wish my life away, I just long for it to be February, when the promise of spring is more evident.

Things aren't all bad though. For Christmas I was given a wii fit plus and, after years of thinking up excuses not to go jogging or join a gym, I now have a method that is fun. I have used it everyday since December 27th, only gently as I am very unfit and don't want to do permanent damage. I have lost 9lbs so far, which is, for me, miraculous.
I'm following the Slimming World plan, at home on my own as there isnt a class close enough and my income won't stretch to joining online. The plan suits me as it is generous and caters brilliantly for vegetarians. And I do feel better already, more positive, confident, thinner, fitter even though there is still such a long way to go. I am trying to look no further than the next goal, half a stone at a time, for small steps make up a mile and all that.

As to work, well I am rewriting and editing The Forest Dwellers and not finding at all it easy. There are parts of it that I am reluctant to lose, small minutae that help explain the whole, and I am trying to figure out how to blend them in better rather than omit them altogether. I don't think I am alone in disliking the rewriting process, I miss the thrilling creative flood of the first draft, the interaction with the characters, and not knowing how it will all end.
Rewriting isnt art, I have become a mechanic retuning an engine and the real trouble is that I preferred the engine when it ran a little rough and used up a little too much fuel. I am fixing something I dont want fixed. I suppose its all part of becoming a professional but its rather like having given birth to a child and someone says its nose is all wrong and you feel you have to get it altered :)

The sun will help when it comes. I am indoors too much and miss the feel of the gentle spring breezes, the birds singing, the green aroma of growing grass. So, I look forward to the springtime, just a few weeks away, when everything will be right again. Until then I trudge doggedly on, rewriting my novel and reshaping my body. Belated New Year wishes everyone :)