How I'm Doing

I've had an ME relapse and I'm more or less in my room the whole time for, so far, most of this year. I've gone from home-cooked delicious food to salt-ridden processed food which keeps reasonably well and is easy to just grab and eat. I am craving unsalted meat more than anything else. Physical activity is limited to looking after the cat, pots and laundry.

I did manage to complete an OU taster course over the winter. I want to do AA100 Introduction To The Humanities this year and start a six year degree. However, at the moment my brain is buzzing with strong urges to write stuff. I've got an idea which could span several books. It's my first experience of assembling a book, rather than writing it. I know roughly what I wanted the main plot arc to be. Then I had to make up characters to act out this plot, and give them names, functions (such as Protagonist, Research Whiz, Mentor, Comic Relief) and backgrounds. Alongside this, I built the world they're going to live in, or at least the basic premise for it that everything else hangs from. After bouncing about between these three stages for a while, I've finally got to the point where I've done a rough draft of Chapter One, which introduces the protagonist, explains enough of her situation to be intriguing and ends in a cliffhanger leading to the main plot. Now I am fiddling around with the characters, seeing what is missing and which ones would be suitable for Chapter Two, as well as working out what Chapter Two is supposed to achieve.

The actual writing-something-someone-would-want-to-read, or even beta-quality copy, is all in the far, far future. I'm not writing a book. I am *assembling* a book, or rather, a series of books. It's oddly satisfying, even with nothing to show for it.