Today I sat behind trusty ol' Burgundy for two hours, with the intention of studying and somehow, I achieved zilch, zip, zero.

In my defense, I was working..just not on the things I was supposed to be working on.

As you may already know, I set myself the deadline of March this year to have 'Elysium' draft four finished and rested for 6-12months. I achieved this, much to my relief as on March 1st I commenced full time study, and I needed the head space to concentrate on Uni rather than Elysium.

Now the first unit's I ebarked on in this final year of my Literature degree were Narrative Fiction and English 210. As luck would have it, these two unit's are wonderfully inspirational for a would be writer and therefore made the transition from full time writing to full time study an easy one.

What they did not do however, was grant me the free head space away from 'Elysium' that I so desired. Instead, every note I made, every novel I read,and every assignment I submitted was tainted. Tainted with thoughts of how to progress with 'Elysium'draft 5!!!

This you would think is a good thing, and indeed it was, but now I find myself dying to start on draft 5, but  alas I cannot, as the next semester has already started. The two unit's I am studying do not lend themselves so well to creative writing. Public relations and Styles and Genre's Journalism will indeed be interesting and of much use to me, however 'Elysium' has no place in the course of study.

As you can imagine this has left me in a bind, but I have come up with a solution.

During the course of my love affair with literature, I have purchased many a writing book to inspire and motivate. Many years before I had the freedom to embark on Uni I purchased Kate Grenville's 'The Writing Book' and although I flipped through it and kept it on my bedside table, sadly I never managed to work through it's wonderful pages.

Now last semester I found to my delight that Grenville's book was on our reading list, but sadly once again, I did not get a chance to adequately work through the entire range of motivating exercises Grenville's book details.

The solution to my conundrum then, of not being able to start on 'Elysium' draft 5, but being full of motivation to write, is to commit one afternoon a week to a chapter per month of Grenville's book. This I am hoping will keep the light that I accessed last semester alive, it will see me through this bleak time of living outside of 'Elysium' and hopefully inspire as many noted as my previous semester's work.

If you are interested in joining me, get a copy of the book, and check the blog monthly. I will post the chapter I plan to work on at the beginning of the month, invite a discussion about it during the month and post my findings at the end.


And now, I must be off, the girls are awake and the boy needs to be collected from kindy.

Happy reading...