At this time of year, the world feels as if it's absolutely bursting with energy. Vegetation exploding into life, birds singing, days of warm sun and, today, an exhilarating mix of sunshine and refreshing breeze. All this activity is, to be honest, making me feel a bit tired!

Had a lovely few days with my friend - on the Saturday we went shopping, and on the Sunday we went down to an art exhibition by Anne Sudworth, held at Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham. It's a remarkable 'little Gothic castle' which is about to close for complete renovation. On the Monday we went to a craft fair at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire, where it was so sauna-like inside the marquees that I don't know how the poor stall-holders could bear it. Bought some lovely pictures of hares, exotic-scented soap, and a ceramic frog of immense personality. Tuesday, we went walking in fabulous bluebell woods, had a pub lunch, then did more walking and discovered a hill with amazing views from the top. I'll try to post images, once I work out how to do it!

Most importantly, we had some in-depth talks about our respective novels-in-progress. I can't emphasise enough how helpful it can be to share writing ideas and problems with like-minded writers. Thanks to some no-nonsense input from my friend, I sorted out all the tangles with the outline I'm writing for my agent!

Writing outlines is such a pain. If the book is already finished, it's easier, but also kind of pointless because, er, the book is finished. If the book is in progress, or even not yet started, it can be hard unless you already know every nuance of your plot - and also still pointless, because you know how very much the book may change during the actual writing. And yet, it has to be done because editors need to see outlines! Even thought it might not yet be fully formed in your own mind, you have to put something together that sounds like a cohesive, convincing story. So input from a friend that suddenly turns the little lightbulb on is priceless! 

Now it's time for breakfast, and finishing synopsis number three...

Result of dawn chorous watch: two blackbirds and a robin, accompanied by a background of assorted twittering. Later, a song-thrush and a greenfinch joined in. I get the feeling that song-thrushes like to perform solo, though, and as for greenfinches, do they ever shut up?!? They are fantastic personalities - almost all garden birds, in fact, are wonderful and so full of character, I just can't resist them. I'm not a fan of magpies, because they scare the other birds, or of pigeons, beccause they tend to sit in the middle of the food we've put out for smaller birds and and eat until they are almost too fat to take off. Apart from those rogues, we take great pleasure in our garden birds. Blackbirds, robins, starlings, dunnocks, sparrows, greenfinches, great and blue tits, the occasional chaffinch or wagtail, sometimes a pair of bullfinches and flocks of long-tailed tits and goldfinches. We discovered that putting raisins out attracts lots of blackbirds. In fact our garden was ruled for three years by a true Alpha male blackbird, Blackie, who soon trained us to give him raisins to order.

If he saw someone in the house, he would fly at the windows - didn't matter if you were in the bedroom, study or bathroom, he knew where you were and would flap around until you fed him! He would perch on the kitchen door handle and wait impatiently, even hopping in over the threshold if you were taking too long. If we were sitting in the conservatory, he would come and fix us with a beady stare until we caved in. He was, however, a gentleman - once the raisins were in place, he would stand back and let his missus feed first. All day long he would treat us to his loud melodic singing, especially at dusk. And he must have brought at least five lots of beautiful fledglings into the garden. I suspect he may have had two nests on the go. My mother christened him, 'The Unstoppable Sex Machine.'

Sadly, we don't see him any more. I like to think he has simply moved to pastures new, rather than died. Our most regular blackbird now is 'Father Ted', so called because of the distinctive white collar of feathers around his neck. He is a lot shyer than Blackie, though, who wouldn't stand nonsense from anyone. I still miss him!

Weather today is absolutely incredible - does it not know it's Bank Holiday? My friend is here and we've been to a craft fair - all is right with the world!

Wow!  I've only written one entry and about nine friends have shown up already! Fantastic. Thank you Steph for the lovely mention! It has to be said, so far I prefer LJ it to MySpace. I did start a MySpace page, but it was mysteriously deleted for (as far as I could see) no reason whatsoever. When I emailed them to ask why, they told me that I may have breached one of about a thousand rules. Fine, but WHICH ONE? Tell me so I don't do it again! But they didn't. So that was a little frustrating. Anyway, it just strikes me as being rather more user friendly here.

It has been a gorgeous day, despite threats of rain. It seemed to me the leaves were awfully late coming out this year, but maybe I think that every year... I'm so desperate to see the new greenery that I expect all the trees to spring forth on the 1st of April, but it's closer to May before they really get going. Spring is my favourite time of year. I like autumn too... transitional times. And apparently it's 'dawn chorus weekend'! I shan't be heading out into the countryside at 5am, but if I manage to wake up that early I will open my window and lie there listening to the birds going at it in full force.

This morning I went to a yoga class with my mum, and the rest of the day I have been doing housework. It had to be done because, excitingly, I've got a friend coming to stay tomorrow for a few days. She's a writer too, which means we can share the chapters we're working on, give mutual feedback, and just spend as long as we like chatting about writing, reading, ideas, etc etc.. Luxury. I've been very lucky over the years to find a handful of friends who are on a similar wavelength, writing-wise. It's enormously helpful to bounce ideas off each other, especially when you're stuck on something.

My dad used to do a jigsaw every Christmas (er, a different one, not the same one every year...) and while he was working on it, every time I entered the room he would always gesticulate at the half-finished puzzle and say, 'It needs a fresh eye.' Every single time! But he was right and it's the same with writing. It needs a fresh eye. In fact the 2 outlines I'm working on emphatically need it, as I try to shape them from a sprawling mess to something that makes some kind of sense...

Mike (my hubby) although generally wonderful, is not always totally helpful when it comes to working out plots. 'Have someone burst in with a machine gun and kill them all,' he will cheerfully suggest. So I'm very excited at the prospect of sharing problems with my friend who is likely to suggest something rather more, er, constructive!

Blog beginner here.

I've always kept a diary, mainly because my memory is scatty. If I think, 'when did I first meet so-and-so?' or 'what year did we go on that trip?', I like to be able to look it up.  A blog is a bit different, though. Emphatically not private. I find gossip a bit of a naughty pleasure but I'm aware that probably shouldn't type, 'Ooh, I can't believe what X did!' because, er, X might read it...

Anyway. I'm a writer, Freda Warrington. You might know me from 'A Blackbird in Silver' or 'A Taste of Blood Wine'. I enjoy reading other writers' blogs so I hope people will enjoy mine too. It's a spendid way to share our thoughts on writing, all the difficulties and rewards of along the twisty path of writing a novel.

My 18th novel, Elfland, is being published by Tor (US) and I'm now at work at my second book of three for them. It's not, however, going to be a trilogy! I have sworn not to write trilogies any more... only stand-alones. More of that soon... right now, it's lunchtime.