It's a rainy day in England, and I've been keeping myself really busy! This past week I got to go to all my courses, all my rehearsals (both of which, I'm really excited about the music selection!), and I've also gotten into the French class I mentioned last time. By the time I had gotten signed up and everything, I had missed the first class, so the second class I went to was a bit overwhelming. And as different as French is than Spanish, every time the professor asked us what the French word was for an English one, my mind automatically pulled up the Spanish translation. But I'm sure that after a few weeks I'll get into the swing of French. :) I'm excited to get good enough to have a conversation with someone in France (France is only a two hour ferry boat away from where I live, so my fingers are crossed).
Also this week, I went on a 5 mile walk with my friend, Helga, from Norway. We stumbled across this old cemetery that neither of us knew was there! I'm not sure why, but the grass throughout the gravestones was all bumpy and torn up, which made it a little bit spooky! :) See the picture below, although it's hard to tell the extent of the torn up grass in the picture.
We also found this grave marker that was a sculpture of an angel. It was massive and stood out amongst all the other more traditional stones in a very haunting kind of way. When I got closer I noticed that someone (or at least I hope it was someone and not something!) had painted its eyes red, which was rather scary looking, and also kind of sad.
Finally, I snapped this photo of an ivy covered headstone, and I just really like how the photo turned out, so I thought that I'd post it for you! :)
In my writing news, for one of my courses (Writing for Children and Young Adults) we were given the task of writing a picture book for children. The professor said that we could put in sketches for the pictures, and I got really excited about it! I'm thinking about writing a story about "Stanley the Unshaven Sheep" which will be about a little sheep who doesn't want to be sheared. Below is a rough illustration that I've done on him so far. It may very well change, but this is what I've got so far:
I also have worked on a few other characters, but I don't have any particular story in mind. The first is "Lucy and the Purple Violin" and then below her is just a little dragon/monster sort of thing that just sort of happened while I was sketching. We'll see if they have any potential to get worked into a book.
Finally, I've been working really hard on my novel, and I'm hoping to have a full rough first draft finished by the end of the month. I'm hoping to enter it into a "Page Turner" competition for unpublished first novels. The winner gets 1,000 pounds, an agent, and I believe the novel gets published or at least represented by the agent. It would be really exciting! :) I'm averaging 3,000 words per day, so hopefully I can keep that up and get it finished off!
Until next time,
Sarah
