Once again reader I am at a curious time in my writerly life. I have, ahead of me, the edit, a Sunday School Play to write and all the usual of running a business and a home.

I would like to cram everything in reader, but I find I just end up doing nothing well. But I need to find a way to master the skill of time management.

Google to the rescue, I have found this site. So now am doing several Goal Setting tasks for different aspects of my life. My writing, health, business and Fellowship goals and commitments are just the Headlining Topics. Within each of these Headlines there are subgroups and activities to help me on the way to achieving each goal.

As well you know reader, this is a writing blog, so I will concentrate on my writing goals here and not bore you with all my other daily dribble.

So starting with my Numero Uno goal, I will share with you my goals, time frames and to-do lists.

#1  Goal is to have “On the River Bank”  published

To achieve this, I will need to work through the list below. I have written the list in reverse, with each step leading up the mountain to the peak, the goal is publication.

Prepare my manuscript for submission (30, June 2013 )

• Compile a list of Agents and Publishers
• Write and polish a submission query and synopsis

Professional Assessment (30, January 2013)

• Compile list of assessors
• Arrange for assessment

Polish Final Draft (15, January 2013)

• Consider or implement Beta readers recommendations
• Final edit for grammar and spelling
• Second edit for continuity and readability

First Edit and Plot Changes (Current and to be finished by 31, August 2012)

• Insert plot twists
• Trim unnecessary plot lines and characters
• Add historical detail and researched information
• Fix all terrible and embarrassing writing

Now reader you may think, yeah, so what? But this little exercise has been most beneficial, I now know what it is exactly that I need to do, and I have given myself a deadline.

If anyone has spotted something I haven’t remembered, please feel free to add a comment and remind me.

Would you like to see a little of the story reader? I’d hoped you might.

Well here you are then . . .

Every part of me was jolted and shaken. I felt as if my very bones had rattled out of joint and my teeth ached. I could no longer admire the unusual beauty of this new land, my new home, New South Wales. The ruts in the track ahead looked as if they were worse than those that we’d already lurched over and through. I swivelled around on the hard seat of the wagon to look back at the “Great North Road” although I wonder at the sanity of anyone would could consider the jumble of ruts and gauges in the clay, that stretched both behind and before us, a road.

“Mr O’Brien” I called out to the gnarled brown man who ambled along beside the beasts of burden cracking his long snaking whip like a conductor’s baton. The bullocks moved as one as they clamoured along, throwing their weight against the yokes that bound them together to pull the massive wagon.

“Yes Missy,” he turned his wizened face toward me and waited as the bullock team lumbered by, bouncing on a particularly rough piece of track. The wagon upon which I was perched drew level to where he stood and I could look into the bright blue of his eyes, eyes too young and lively for his weather beaten face.

“Is it much further?” I asked again, and wiped at a rivulet of perspiration that had began to run down the side of my face, I took the untied bonnet from my head and using the brim as a fan, I flapped it in front of my face. The slight breeze created by my flapping did little to alleviate the ridiculous heat, it only served to move the hot languid air slightly.

“Tis’ only a few miles on Missy, but the track is a mite rough in this part, had big rains a few months back, near washed out the road altogether.” His attention went quickly back to the oxen, never breaking stride over the uneven ground as he moved along the line, barking orders to one and murmuring encouragement to another, always urging them on.

I wriggled on the hard bench of the dray and felt the sigh whoosh up from my lungs. My emotions swung between joy at the prospect of seeing Papa, and despair at the sadness of our reunion without Mama to share it. I wondered, as I had done countless times since I’d arrived why Papa had not met the ship.

I set off on an adventure over the weekend reader, I took myself off to an early settler’s home and farm at Rouse Hill. One of the disputed sites of the battle between convicts and redcoats in 1804 rebellion named the Vinegar Hill Uprising. The are a few places that claim ownership of the infamous battle site.

Rouse Hill House and Farm is a Historical House Trust property and the tour guides are wonderfully helpful and knowledgeable. I went on two tours of the house and gardens. There was so much to see and take in reader. I was interested to see  the layout of the garden designed to keep the distasteful workings of the farm at out of sight and therefore, out of mind.

The house and garden are typically Georgian in design and layout, and has given me lots of ideas reader. I am about to draw up plans for Shelby House and plan to include a Pleasure Garden. There’s lots of work to do, and I’ll be busy with designing and scribbling, sketching and painting. These plans and pictures are important reader, for I need to visualise everything. Imagine if I were to have Maddy enter one door on the right, then forget and send her out the door described at the end of the room. You can see the potential for disaster here reader, so I will wile away a lazy day of drawing and keeping the kitten off my keyboard and out of the pencils.

I promise to show you the pictures when I have done them, but meanwhile I will post some photos I took at Rouse Hill House and Farm.

The front of Rouse Hill House, crumbling paint and surrounded by symmetrical gardens and huge trees.

The Georgians loved their symmetry reader and so had false doors and windows to complete the balanced appearance of both exterior and interior.

The servants wing wasn’t graced with shutters on the windows to keep the heat out.

This isn’t a very good photo, but the stables do have shuttered windows and fantastic drainage. In fact, much better conditions than the poor house servants.

The bath house, a 20 metre dash from the house.

The summer house, with a reservoir beneath to collect the water from the brick drains in the gardens. This served as a cooling system on a hot summer evening. Family discussions were often held here in the summer house, as it was the only place the family could talk without servants being in earshot.

A wisteria arbour ran off each side of the path leading to the summer house.

The tall hammer head style tree is a Bunya Nut Pine and was used in the early days as landmarks to show where a homestead was. I had often wondered why the old homes and farms had either these tall pines or else a tall palm tree near the house. Well reader, now I know. To stand out above the Australian scrub and mark the location of civilisation.

An old gate. Just because it’s beautiful. I hope you have enjoyed sharing my ramble around this beautiful old home. I can only recommend you take time to view it for yourself if you are ever in the area.

Firstly reader, I owe you an apology, I was totally caught out last week and Monday slipped past without permission. The rest of the week quickly followed suit and I only managed to work on my MS a total of 2 hours. I have consoled myself with the knowledge that 2 hours is a great deal more than I have done in previous months.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Part of my excuse for failing to write to you dear reader, is that I was completing my last assignments for the http://www.writeruniv.com short course. The Emotion and Body Language master class with Mary Buckham was as interesting as it was difficult. Interesting in that it gave me an insight to why there have been times in my life, when I just “knew” something or someone was not right. The things I have learnt in this course and the lectures have caused me to watch peoples actions with more understanding. That even though some actions could indicate one thing, with other subtle actions the cluster of body language cues may mean a different thing entirely. Difficult in that it’s hard to put those flickers, twitches and raised eyebrows onto the page in a fresh way, without reverting to worn old cliche’s.  For instance, I watched my Pastor as he gave a reading from the Bible, I tried to listen also, but I found myself focused on the cues he gave. As he spoke he often held his hands out to the side, palms up and wrists exposed. I’ve learnt that this is a cue to show that he “has nothing up his sleeve” so to speak. He was telling the truth. He had nothing to hide. His body language matched his verbal communication. Then I watched teenagers in a social situation. Slouched on a lounge, legs sprawled for the boys and leaning back, girls slightly curled torso, but leaning toward the boys, girls legs twisted around each other, almost double crossed. By watching this subtle conversation, and many others, you become aware of how you can convey the emotion of a situation without simply saying “She liked him.”

Another interesting byproduct is that I listen and read more carefully. I identify where the author is showing me an emotion rather than just telling me the character felt this way or that. I am sure that my writing can’t help but improve reader. Surely, for me to be able to cue you into a mood without pointing it out, will bring you inside my characters, rather than just to observe, but to immerse you in the moment. So onto the other short courses I have completed and learnt from. Active Settings, rather than to write a shopping list of furniture or plants in the landscape, I want you to move through the room with me, running your finger through the dust on the mantle, bumping you toes on the stool by the chair.   Pacing, this course has shown me how to keep the story moving, to slow it down to  give you, reader, a moment to take a breath. Then to increase the tension and keep you reading, wanting more. My next course is “Sex on the Page: Understanding and Crafting Sexual Tension” Now reader, settle down, this course does not mean that I am about to launch into graphic detail about my characters sexual exploits! Far from it, Maddy is a chaste gentlewoman and I am not about to cast any shadow over her good name. But she is a normal woman in love with a man. Therefore I want to convey her feelings and actions in the best possible way. So reader, I will join Mary Buckham on this month long learning journey.

So to answer my own question, Why all the courses? Reader it is for you that I push myself, to deliver, for your entertainment, the best writing I can. To allow you the easiest read. That when you read my story of Maddy and Daniel that you might be swept up in the adventure, cheering them on as they forge a life in the colony of New South Wales, 1831.