Death and taxes

Oh my goodness, I need to do my taxes soon. I can see the envelope staring at me from the table. I hate doing taxes, especially now that I'm doing freelance work.

Another productive morning at the cafe ... making a pot of tea and a frittata last two hours, trying to convince the waiter that yes, he can take away my empty cup and I won't be angry (strange boy) and writing. About another thousand words today, and a couple of powerful scenes. I took an unexpected turn with one of my characters this morning after a conversation with my advisor yesterday.
"So," he said, tapping the paper with his glasses, "What's going to happen to Oliver?"
"I'm not sure," I said, "Although I'm going to resolve it somehow."
"He needs to die, doesn't he?"
"Die? Well, no, I hadn't planned to kill him off."
And for the rest of that day I still didn't plan to kill him off. Then, when I started typing this morning I realised that actually he does need to die. So I wrote that scene this morning, and was very sad, because I like him, but his death makes a point that I need to make.

Life

How do you deal with people or events that intimidate you?

My usual tactic is to a) do my homework and b) put on an act. That is, try and prepare for the stressful event as much as I can, and then step out of myself and become someone else while my real self is observing from a safe distance.

I would love to be able to meet these people and events head-on, by being myself instead of detaching. Anyone have any good tips for this rather vague scenario ...?

Family day

Am home from a morning spent with my mother. She's flying out to England on the weekend to stay with my grandparents and great-grandmother, so it's my last chance to spend time with her for the next six weeks. Also went and picked my sister up from the airport, where she has just flown in from Sydney, so it has been a family-filled day.

This is my sister and me at my wedding - just before the picture was taken, my sister said, "We should do something Zimbabwean for the photo!"
"Do something Zimbabwean? Like what?"
"Um ... play the drums?"
And then we cracked up, and the photographer clicked the shutter.

Anyway, I'm home now and planning to get stuck in to some work before I go out again this evening.