Past and Present

I've had huge difficulty concentrating these last few days. Progress on the novel has been frustratingly slow. A slight plot change necessitated a rewrite of an earlier chapter and I like to sort these things out as they come up rather than leave them all to be dealt with at the end. It's taking me ages.

The truth is that a little rewrite of one section easily ripples through everything that follows, paragraph after paragraph toppling like dominoes. My novel is written in the past tense, but I only decided halfway through to write the flashback scenes in the present and this one needed to be changed. Again, it's amazing how much work was needed to do that. It's so much more immediate in the present that I imagined the scene far more vividly, insisting that I describe it in greater detail.

It's very counterintuitive at first, writing the present in the past tense and the past in the present tense, but it works. It was a revelation when I first realised this. 

Moment of the day: Watching Jimmy Anderson fend off the last ball of the 4th Ashes test match to earn a dramatic draw. Has a meaningless result ever held so much meaning for a team? For the record.

A day off from writing today to walk with friends. I'm definitely not myself. It was actually reassuring to understand that's not just in my imagination! People noticed.