Yay!

I have reached 10,000 words. Phew. Time for bed.

Sometimes titles are hard

Nanowrimo progress!

Today's word count: 2,000
Total word count: 8700. It would be fantastic to reach 10,000 words this early on - if I have time this evening, I'm going to try and put in another couple of hours' work and get to that milestone.

I am filled with new-book glow. This may change, of course, as I'm about to start work on the Essay of Doom again. But I have my Monday afternoon housework to cheer me up! (I know I'm strange).
A bit of a subject change, but this week I am in the process of joining a group called Woman2womaN which was co-founded by a very inspiring lady, Shupayi Mpunga. I first met her when I was doing some work for a local magazine, writing an article on Zimbabwe (this was the year when the Zimbabwe cricket team was meant to visit New Zealand, and there was a lot of controversy involved). Shupayi founded an organisation called the Friends of Zimbabwe Foundation with two friends. The Woman2womaN Network is a part of this organisation, and they also do a lot of fundraising for the Harare Children's Home where Shupayi grew up.

Woman2womaN establishes contact with the women of Zimbabwe and offers friendship and hope in many different ways. In June, for example, the group fund-raised and bought groceries in South Africa to send to the women. This month they put out an appeal for donations of underwear and sanitary towels for women in prison. They are also making quilts for the orphanage in Zimbabwe. They respond to issues as they come. What I love about the organisation is that it is practical and personal - as Shupayi says, "We aren't trying to save Zimbabwe, we're just doing our bit person to person." To me, that is the absolute best way to make a real change. I become frustrated with people who have grand plans to 'make a difference' one day, but who aren't doing anything practical right now.

Sunny Sunday

Thanks for all your comments on our Halloween costumes - I'm glad they were effective! Although I'm a little frightened to realise how much I look like Sarah Palin.

My in-laws are coming for dinner tonight. I had originally planned to cook something very complicated that involved stuffing meat with something and wrapping it in something else, but then came to my senses and realised it's disastrous to cook something difficult when they come over because I invariably screw it up. So we're having marinaded chicken, new potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and peas instead (meat and five veg ... we always teased my grandmother for cooking that. And now my genes have come back to haunt me), all of which are very difficult to screw up. And a bought dessert, because I lack the mental and emotional capacity to prepare dinner and dessert together.

I got so much work done on my Nanowrimo novel today, as you'll see from my snazzy word-count-o-meter. I'm really excited about it (which is typical for the first week; in the second one usually hits a wall). It's set in Zimbabwe again, although back when it was Rhodesia, this time, and it's wonderful to return to that landscape. I missed it after finishing my Masters novel. Zimbabwe is the only place I know from the inside out, and sometimes I think that means it's the only place about which I can write honestly. Even after six years in New Zealand, I feel like I only know it from the outside in, like a friend with whom you get along but have never really talked to in-depth.

I live half in New Zealand, half in Zimbabwe, even though I haven't been in Zim for six years. In a weird way I feel like the 'real' Andrea is still living there - as if I split in two when I left, and the me living in New Zealand is an aberrant, alternate-universe version. As if my real life is being lived by someone else, somewhere else. It's a strange feeling. I still wake up in the morning sometimes and can't remember where I am.

Anyway. I feel certain that this is what I'm meant to be working on at the moment. And that's a good feeling.