Writing, writing everywhere, but nary a blogpost in months!

BL Royal 2 B V, f.184

Hi again, Void! It was only meant to be a week. It has been two months! I would say it has been because of all the fun, but, well... not quite.

It is June!! And the sunshine finally decided to show its face this week. I've heard a lot of people around me say things to the tune of 'This has been the worst Spring since <insert year from yore here>'. One lady in particular said it hadn't been this bad since she'd moved here 47 years ago. I think she may be exaggerating a tad. This is the Netherlands. Weather here is a thing that cannot be pinned down. I honestly think being a Dutch meteorologist must be one of the most nerve wracking careers in the world. It's alright if you're a meteorologist in South Africa. "It's going to be hot, hot, warm, hot. Rain on Sunday". Here in the Netherlands, it's more like playing pin the tail on the donkey where the donkey is jumping on a trampoline on the other side of a busy highway and you have to shoot the pin at it with a catapult.

But, as I said, the sun is finally here. Or it was until this morning. Now it's dropped ten degrees and I'm wearing a jumper again. 

I can hardly complain though. I prefer this cooler weather. 

I am currently working through the last stages of a Research Master's Degree in Linguistics. My area of focus is Historical Linguistics. I won't get into all the boring details, because I'm sure even voids have a limit as to how much linguistic nerding out they can handle, but my topic involves wading my way through many medieval manuscripts (digitally, unfortunately) in search of a specific grammatical construction. I absolutely love it. It is what a colleague of mine calls monk's work, in Dutch monnikenwerk. I prefer nun's work, but we won't quibble. I'll just wait until I publish a paper on nuns writing medieval manuscripts and pass it to him quietly.

What is less fun is all the academic writing that it involves. Well, let me amend that. I actually do enjoy the writing process and am quite passionate about advocating for good, engaging and readable academic writing. It's just very hard work. I used to think writing fiction was really hard. It is, but compared to writing a 30,000 word academic manuscript, it is quite a lot easier to write a novel. A 500-word day is a major victory. Some days you're happy if you add 50. It involves constant revising and editing and feedback and more revising and editing as you go. And that's before you add in all the time you spend making sure your references are correct and your bibliography is consistently formatted and that you have paraphrased that author appropriately and correctly.

It also involves hundreds of cups of tea, taking lots of walks, and writing things that are not at all academic. 

In order to give my brain a break from all the Old English, I have also started working my way through Neil Gaiman's Masterclass on Writing workbook. I bought his class back when it first came out because he is one of my favourite writers and all around good human beings. At the time I watched all the videos, but never quite got around to actually doing the homework. But now I have found the perfect reason to break up the academic with the fantastical. I am enjoying these little writing exercises immensely. And when I am not re-inventing fairytales, I am working my way through the first edit of my new novel and making notes for the follow-up novel. But both of these projects are secondary to that all encompassing thesis. 

I just keep saying 'Not long now' and make another cup of tea and head back to the keyboard. So, I shall go and make another cup of tea and come back to the keyboard for a little more. 

Until the next time, gentle Void.