Wednesday 7 March 2018

First Week Finished - On to Week Two! #ChaBooCha


I almost didn't get today's post up as we had an incident today. My 12 year old daughter Isabella was hit by a car this morning. First off, let me emphasize that she is absolutely fine. she gets off the bus before me as she likes to stop in at her friend's house and walk with her friend to school. Her 11 year old brother gets off the bus at the same time and goes straight to school early, but their younger sibling stays on the bus with me until it comes back around on the other side of the street where he and I get off the bus and I walk him to school. 

This morning, on my way back to the bus stop after dropping my son off at school, I noticed Bella on the ground surrounded by her friends. At first, as our family is prone to clumsiness, I just assumed that she had fallen. Then I noticed that there were a lot of people around her, including some adults. She was talking with the people around her and partially sitting up (propped up by the backpack on her back). When I got to her, I found out that she had stepped in front of a car and been hit by it. She had looked one way before crossing the street and looked the other way while simultaneously stepping into the road where she was then hit by the car.

The driver, a mother of a classmate of Bella's, hadn't been going too fast, thankfully. I was told that Bella had bounced off the car's bonnet and was flung 6 feet in the air. She landed on her back which was protected by her backpack, so she didn't hit her head. Her ankle hurt and she was shaking like a leaf though.

Paramedics came with their sirens blaring and then the police showed up. Bella admitted to her carelessness in crossing the road. The paramedics decided to send her to the hospital because of her ankle, so she got her first ambulance ride. When we got to the hospital, they put her in a wheelchair and, many hours of waiting later, she was seen by a junior doctor. By then, Bella had been complaining about how boring it was to be there and she had given the wheelchair to another patient who needed it more as the hospital had told the patient they had no more wheelchairs. She walked on her foot into the examination and didn't appear to be in too much pain. It only hurt when they touched the back of her ankle, but she was okay with putting weight on it and moving it around. The doctor insisted on an x-ray anyway. Needless to say, the ankle wasn't even sprained. 

You would never have guessed, to look at her, that she had been hit by a car. Another patient's mother even commented to her, "For someone who has been hit by a car, your hair still looks amazing!" 

Bella was very fortunate and will hopefully be more careful in the future, but this event meant I spent many, many hours at the hospital today, so this post almost didn't go up. It's a short post today though and it follows below:

As of today, our first week of the Chapter Book Challenge is completed and we are moving on to the second week of writing. Week two can often be a challenge. The inspiration and new-story impetus that you begin with can start to wain. you might want to take a peek at some posts from previous ChaBooCha's to help keep you writing, such as How to Avoid Writer's Block and Get Your Story Written (by me), Make Writing Fun by Victoria Boulton, or How to Write More - Tips and Tricks for a Quick first Draft by Jo Hart. There are many posts that can help with inspiration, putting off procrastination, plotting, research and more throughout the blog, so help yourself to some blog reading if you need it.

How are you doing on your story so far? Please let me know in the comments. For most of the days of this challenge, I have done no to little writing. However, I had one day where during a 12-hour time-slot, the words flowed and just poured out of me easily. That one day, I wrote over 10,000 words and it made up for the other less-than-spectacular writing days. So even if you are behind in your writing at the moment, don't despair; there is still plenty of time.

There will be further guest blog posts going up this week, so expect to get some more e-mails.




14 comments:

  1. I have been splitting my time between research and writing.. It's amazing how much research goes into one sentence being correct when writing historical fiction!

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  2. I am so glad that Bella wasn't badly hurt. What a terrible scare for both of you today. Though nowhere near your word court, I am having a fantastic time developing characters, plot, settling, and writing my young adult novel set in fifteenth century Spain. Thank you for the motivation, and take care of yourself after this morning's scare.

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  3. I'm so glad that Bella is alright. Unfortunately, I haven't got any writing done so far on my chapter book, though I have re-written a picture book manuscript...

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  4. Prayers for Bella first of all and for you as well!! As to my writing.,,I’m no longer peeking through bandages so hoping this second week will bring about more writing!

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  5. Counting blessings with you this morning.

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  6. Bless Bella's heart, and thank heavens her health handled that accident. And well done to you, Becky, for being wonder-woman to handle the mothering and writing of this past week. I remain so excited about CB Challenge and am grateful for this forum to help get me into gear! Hope this week is unfolding more safely!

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  7. Happy to hear Bella is fine. And that you are, too :-) I've struggled to focus on my CB project this month, instead working on revisions and looking for an agent. But a critique partner who has read the first part of my YA manuscript (sitting at just under 10,000 words at the moment) gave me the encouragement I needed yesterday to get it done. Or at least try to finish half of it by the end of the month! Here is to (slightly changed) goals!

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  8. That makes for a scary week. I'm glad Bella is fine. My writing is right on schedule. I just finished chapter four of what should end up being a nine or ten chapter chapter book. Pretty sloppy at this point, but that's to be expected.

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  9. Thankful to know Bella is OK. Check on her the next few days as that's when more bruising/tenderness appears. (I fell off the treadmill 2 weeks ago - so I know. Have a 1st draft written form NaNO an dit is a chapter book that needs more direction . Am giving git break until next weekend when I'll get "professional" help at the Whispering Pines Retreat.

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  10. So glad to hear Bella is ok! How scary! I haven't been awesome on the challenge this month, but I am most of the way finished with an early chapter book. Just have to wrap it up. I'm hoping to maybe get through two of those this challenge. My goal has been 500 words a day. On the days I sit down and do it, I make over 500. But now we are on spring break...so my progress has slowed.

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  11. I hope Bella's soreness is gone. I appreciate your posts even though I've been less active in this group. I'm working on an early chapter book series - book 2.

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  12. im so glad she is ok. Ive been doing a rewrite, and looks like i might win that publishing contrat, so i have a deadline too!
    kel mcd

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  13. I'm glad Bella was ok. That would have been terrifying. At the end of week 1 I wasn't sure I could keep going with the challenge, as I'd been gripped by a nasty head-cold and sinus infection, but I am already in the habit of writing every day (even if it's just random thoughts, or a sentence) so it was habit to get something down even on the days where I needed to sleep. Due to the nature of my series, research is always needed and that helps on the tough days.

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