Nanowrimo 2018 - day 6

Daily Word count: 4,421

Total word count: 11,814

Had to hit the keyboard hard today. And for the most mundane of reasons.

Electricity.

Tomorrow the electrician is replacing a lot - I want to say most if not ALL - of my downlights. I have sixteen downlights alone in the back room and only two of them work. And it isn’t the bulbs. I am so tired of cooking by candlelight. I swear the other day, Kid 1 broke a glass and he just turned on a switch that hasn’t worked for five years… and it worked. Everyone just stared at the ceiling in disbelief.

Over the years we have struggled with roofing leaks and as lights got damaged there was no point replacing them until the leak that damaged them was repaired. Right?

I am forming a theory that home ownership is like a never ending game of triage. Which thing is likely to fall apart first? I’ll fix that.

Maybe it’s just my house? The longer we live in it, the more we realise the renovations were done by some tragically gifted amateur who watched too many hours of Renovation Nation or the Block or whatever TV show. It was all very superficial.

Things are weird… very, very weird.

We eventually worked out the roofing problem after multiple attempts. The way climate change is affecting Australia is to have long periods with minimal rainfall, and then to have some wild and woolly storms - as my mother used to say. We’d get the roof repaired and then wait weeks or months for rain. During which we couldn’t really tell if the repair had worked, or not, until the rains came. Every attempt so far had not worked. A very large Tupperware container was permanently sitting under one light fitting.

So… after the last effort, I am fairly sure (quote me on this) that it is now repaired. *crosses fingers* *crosses legs* *crosses everything*

Thus, the electrician. He has a very long list of things to fix.

I always think it’s the worst kind of sign when your electrician peers into your power box and says, “Oh, that’s odd.”

Odd is NOT a word sparkies should be using.

The automatic cut out switch required by law in Australia was there… it just wasn’t connected to anything, so it wouldn’t have actually worked if somebody stuck a knife in the toaster.

Although really, this house is much better than my last house. I’ve been using the same electrician for nearly fifteen years, and when he came to do the quote he turned to his new apprentice and started regaling him with stories of my last house. I am memorable.

[Oh, god. It’s me, isn’t it? I’m the common element here. Sighs.]

I have often thought I ought to make a voodoo doll of the bloke who did the property inspection because he has brought me much pain. It’s only fair if he has some shooting pains in the back in return.

But… back to the writing. Given the probable absence of a PC tomorrow I wrote like a demon today. So, okay, I have three different versions of the ‘meet cute’ in there. It doesn’t matter; it’s a draft not a finished product. I’ll work out later which one works better and cut the others. Perhaps after cannibalising them for some good dialog lines.

It’s very dialog heavy, which is often when I can tell the characters are really speaking to me. Sometime later in edits, I will realise I haven’t even described an important person, like the hero.

I’m onto it in this draft. I have left my usual reminder key to come back to something (which is two percentage signs.)

I have a note that says: %% describe hero.

Few words. Much wow. So pro.