Yay, I’ve completed my first draft of Gelvira the Goth, The Barbarian Chronicles: Book 1. A girl with horse adventure story for upper middle-grade readers. (about 9-13) No magic, just skills, guts and determination. It’s set in the 5th Century A.D. and revolves around a small tribe of Visigoths driven out of their village by the retreating Roman army. The Romans attacked the Visigoths after the death of their king, Alaric. Don’t worry, that’s too much information for even me. The second in the chronicles Viatrix the Vandal is bubbling away in my thoughts, stewing and working its way into a follow-on story.
The cover is a fusion of ideas, not the ultimate design.
Nay.
I joined in with NaNoWriMo this year but, a calamity occurred. By the 15th November I’d completed 27,000 words, and well on the way to success. On the 16th, my young horse decided he wanted to be the star of the rodeo and bucked me off. Being, shall I say, older, I didn’t bounce and incurred a broken metacarpal in my hand and concussion. Unable to concentrate, blurred vision and nausea all conspired to impede my word count targets, to the effect I failed to reach 50,000 words by the end of November. And having my hand strapped up didn’t help my two fingered typing speed.
Lockdown.
Each month I meet up with a fellow author, Abigail Thorne, to discuss writerly things and set ourselves achievable writing, research and learning targets before our next meeting. This month, November, the municipality of Monforte, where I live, was locked down because of high rates of COVID and we couldn’t meet up. I didn’t have anyone to push me, or thrash out problems with, or sob into my coffee with and I floundered. Without a path, distractions took me down many rabbit holes, metaphorically of course and my achievements were few and disjointed. We have our next meeting planned for December, a schedule, a focus, and no rabbit holes. Fingers crossed the lockdown has worked and infection rates stay low. For everyone’s sake, not just mine. Stay safe and keep well.
Jacqueline P Vincent 
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