A New Distraction

There is a new item in my house today which has caused me not to write at all. I'm hoping that in the future it will create the calm I need to settle down and write. At the moment though, I just keep staring at it.

It took two cars to get it here, and two strong men to struggle it into the house without killing the residents. My brother decided that he needed more space, so he has given me his huge fish tank complete with beautiful fish.

For the whole afternoon the four of us (me, partner, four year old and dog) have been mesmerised, gazing at litle clown loaches nipping in and out of their cave and sword tails hiding in the greenery.

Long story short, I have had to tear myself away upstairs to get any work done at all.

Jilly Cooper Rocks

I haven't read a Jilly Cooper since I was at school where they were devoured along with numerous Danielle Steele and Anne Rice novels. I was in the library when I rediscovered her and just had to take 'Wicked!' out.

She is as good as I remembered. Her characters are fab but I don't know how she does it. There are over 100 in this book alone. It helps that there's a list of them in the front but to be honest, I haven't used it yet.

I'm looking forward to getting totally absorbed in this one.

Two Nosey Parkers

My four year old and his puppy having a good look at nothing through the window.

Haiku Error Messages

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One for the team.

My son takes after me. We did Chester Zoo the other afternoon and we spent ages gazing at a reticulated python and the komodo Dragons in awe. What amazing creatures.

Of course he loved the cute and cuddlies too and was very disappointed not to be able to see the tigers and bears. Elephants as always got a 'wow', but the reptiles seemed to be the winners for him.

Link to Chester Zoo Here

Panic Attack

A sour cheese stench fills the bathroom. I can’t be sick again. I try to catch my breath but nausea catches me first, sweeping upwards through my torso. Deeper, deeper, quicker, quicker I breathe, trying to find fresh air. It’s not working. Lights start to flash. A furnace rises rapidly into my head, my brain. I’m dying.

I grapple at the door. It’s locked. I scratch and scrape at the door. It gives way. I fall into freedom. Darkness.

My eyes try to open. Dapples of sunlight force them to close. The memory floods back. My screams for help are rasps. She comes. At last she comes. My head is bleeding. I don’t know why. She reaches down to me. I can’t reach back.

‘I can’t move my hands, I’m dying, I can’t move my hands,' Panic is erupting again. He’s here now picking me up, bundling me into the car in my hysteric state. I recognise everything, everyone. But places and people have no names anymore.

The journey is a blur. I stumble into the doctor’s surgery and catch sight of my reflection. I’m calm enough now to feel humiliation. My hair is lank and vomit flecked, unwashed since the salmonella hit. Skin, greasy pale, with sallow grey marks like a heroine abuser’s. My hands are frozen still, not listening to what I want them to do. I pray to be out of their sight. Their staring faces sit in rows, spying eyes peering over magazines.

‘Just a panic attack,' the doctor checks me over. ‘Nothing to worry about.'

‘But I can’t move my hands.' Is the doctor blind? Can he not see I nearly died?

‘Just some tetany. It will go. You hyperventilated and the oxygen and carbon dioxide couldn’t get to your brain.’

They look satisfied. We go home. I start to move my fingers and my memory slowly returns.
The horrifying experience not to be repeated for another ten years.

Too many Projects

I've passed the mid point of my OU Creative writing course now, and it's at this point that instead of concentrating on completing one assignment at a time, there are three projects to work on.

One is my lifewriting project. This is the one that's panicking me the most. All the guidance in the course books seems to point owards full length pieces. We have 1500 words. I was thinking of doing a piece on my childhood using the seasons as a through line, but to get a good grade I think we need to concentrate on a lot of characterisation. Ironically this is the project that is due in first.

The other projects are a short story geared to a magazine and the final examined piece of work. Both of these can be works of fiction so I'm not as worried about them. In fact I'm a bit excited about getting another couple of short stories under my belt.

Life writing however is completely new territory. Even if you choose to write autobiography you have to be so careful not to offend people you know. I keep putting it off and working on one of my other projects instead. Hopefully inspiration will strike in time as I really want to do well on this course. In fact I'm going to miss it like mad when it's finished. I still have so much to learn.

Breaking through the Wall

I have just finished chapter 2. This leads me to a question. Do I write the next chapter and then begin to polish the first three to perfection in order to start sending samples out to agents? Or do I write the whole thing first knowing that I'm probably going to make drastic changes as I get to know my characters?

I think I'm going with option two as surely after spending a year writing a novel I will hopefully be a more experienced writer who will probably rip what I've already written to shreds. Also I change my mind. A lot. I've already gone from one protaganist to two, written in a shifting first person viewpoint. This is something I'd never envisaged doing, but I've seen Sophie King make it work in School Run. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Another reason, I want to write the whole thing before sending it 'out there' is that I want to get the story down on paper. I need it to make sense before I start perfecting it. It seems a bit mad to be sending anything out so early as I don't feel I've even hit my stride yet. I'm still feeling my way into the story. I've also started waking at four in the morning needing to write things down. Is this normal? Does novel writing always turn people into insomniacs who also dart off in the middle of the day to sit with their notebook?

National Geographic POD

And this is the reason I have the National Geographic Picture of the Day on my Blog. Link to their websire here.

Passionate Arguments.

Things I have had heartfelt discussions about today:

1. The nutritional benefits of apples vs custard creams.
2. Toothpaste: For hands or teeth?
3. Should the family dog have equal rights when it comes to the use of shoes and soft toys?
4. Shoes: Are they really neccessary in a muddy garden?
5. The bus: Will it be yellow or blue? (It was red)

Yes, just another day with my gorgeous 4 year old.

In Search of Adam, Caroline Smailes

I've just finished reading In Search of Adam, which explains my two day absense from blogging. The most suitable word I can think of to describe this story is 'intense'.

The story follows Jude from the day her mother commits suicide leaving her with a note. 'Jude, I have gone in search of Adam, I love you Baby.' Jude's tragic life is chronicled in the first person giving a graphic insight into the mind of a vulnerable and neglected child. There were moments I had to put the book down and escape because of the power of the writing about very gritty subject matter.

The style of the writing drew me further into the mind of a child, the need for patterns and repetition - something safe. The layout and patterns of the words on the page reflected this. The lack of speech punctuation was different, but the fact that I only noticed halfway through the book proves that it worked.

Although bleak, this is an important story - How many children , like Jude, have no one they can trust to protect them, and problems that spiral through the generations. I hoped for a happy ending right to the end.

Please link to Caroline's blog here.

Brook

Diamond clear light
shines through smooth hard pebbles.
Bubbling water above.

Breaking Through the Fear.

Well, I have officially stopped procrastinating because I now have my first chapter down on paper. No title as yet but you can't have everything and I always find them the hardest bit of any story. It is unofficially, 'Doormat to Clodhopper in Ten Steps'.

I knew I was missing something before I could start and it turned out that the something was a lovely new notebook with a red stilletto across the front cover for drafting. I don't know if it's just me, but I'm very fussy about the notebooks I write in. The have to be A5 or bigger (but never as big as A4), hard back and ringbound with lined paper, preferably faintly, with something lovely on the cover. My favourite scribbling book at the moment has a dalmation puppy on it. Things like this shouldn't matter but they do. (To me anyway).

Anyway, I have popped a word counter on the side of my blog to keep me motivated, and see it creep up towards the magic 80,000. 990 so far, but you have to start somewhere.

The Novel

After a year of thinking about it, I am finally going to start preparing to write my first novel. I have two stories in mind and have not quite decided which direction to go in.

Today I have bought two scrap books to fill with anything that relates to my characters and themes and a lot of coloured index post its to plan with. Part of me is very excited about actually starting to plan on paper and the other half thinks I am procrastinating. Is this just an excuse to read endless magazines/newspapers and cut things out, creating my fantasy world? I am too scared to start without actually knowing my characters inside out (wallpaper inclusive) and having a decent idea of where I'm going.

Any advice from those who have got through the wall of starting their first book would be very welcome.

Blackberry Wine, Joanne Harris

Having found it difficult to sympathise with Harris' protagonist in Chocolat, I wasn't sure what to expect from Blackberry Wine. However, I was encouraged to try it and was very curious about a story told from the point of view of a bottle of wine. Well, I'm really glad I did read this. A lovely book full of magic, set in the same town as Chocolat.

Told in two times, late nineties and mid seventies, it follows Jay through three summers in his teens and later as a formerly successful writer. Having opened some wine homemade by his childhood companion Joe, he begins to connect with his childhood self and buys a house in France and ups and leaves, much to his girlfriend's horror. In France he finds his past is waiting along with new mysteries.

I don't want to reveal any more as it would spoil it, but as the narrator would say, it's a full bodied story with a good finish (and a hint of berries).

Not writing what I should be writing

Since I've been having a little 'employment break', I've had the privilege of two blissfully free hours to write and work towards my OU Course. My local library has the advantage of a very quiet reference library with plenty of desks to spread out on. I don't know about anyone else but I always feel a bit exposed writing in a cafe. (Oh look there's that crazy girl who thinks she can be a writer).

At the moment I'm meant to be working on some life writing both biographical and autobiographical. After twiddling my pen and staring at the clock for a while, I thought some free writing was in order. Just a bit - just to write something useful. Anyway the occult came up in my freewrite and I was sure I had seen a demon dictionary on the other side of the shelves. I had, starting a new page I started noting down interesting facts. I then decided I should learn about Celtic demons and got all five volumes of the Celtic encyclopeadia out.

By now I had a pretty good outline for a short story which is not to be sniffed at. However, unless I'm going to write the biography of Beelzebub I had not achieved any of my writing goals for the day. I wouldn't be too worried but the day before, I spent a good half hour giggling over The Oxford Dictionary of New Words (1991 edition). Ho hum, will try to do better next time.

Jigs & Reels, Joanne Harris

Since studying creative writing with the OU, it's become a neccessity to write short stories for assessment. At first glance this didn't seem too difficult (2000 words on whatever you like), but I soon realised that my only experiences of short stories came from weekly magazines read in Doctor's surgeries.

Since last September, I have been grabbing hold of anthologies by well known authors in an attempt to grasp the art of a quick read and learn some of the tricks these authors use. My first (a collection by Stephen King) was unfortunately devoured by my puppy after I left it on a table in the living room. From the one I read though it seemed his idea of a short story was somewhat longer than mine.

Yesterday though, I came across the above collection by Joanne Harris by accident. I was just about to leave the bookshop empty handed (being hurried along by my partner and four year old) when it caught my eye in the sales pile. I'm reading Blackberry Wine at the moment so I thought it wouldn't hurt to have another of her novels to add to the collection. By pure luck, it tuned out to be an anthology of short stories.

I've only got through three of the stories so far but I have to say, I will continue to read them. All three have been very different in subject matter and mood and all with surprising endings. The stories also left enough untold to keep you thinking and wondering about them after finishing reading. In her preface, she describes how difficult she finds the short story and this collection of 22 stories has, in fact taken her 10 years to put together.

Definately one to keep in the bookshelf and learn something from.

Joanne Harris Website

Unrequited

Bright air illuminates the dust.
Bottle of wine still lies overturned.
Hearth lies empty, coal turned to crust.
Pale wax candles last night burned.

Dark beams across the ceiling stare
at my still form. I mull over you.
Igniting mere spark where she made you flare,
my soul still wonders if it's true.

Back in the moment our intimate frisson
comes but with a bitter twist,
inhaling your musk, the truth hits – a collision.
A hint of her scent, present in our tryst.

I leave in silence with the look of a seer,
we both realise your wife's ghost's still here.

OU Writing Courses

Since September last year I have been studying Creative writing (A215) with the Open University and without doubt it is the best learning experience I have ever had. Previously, despite feeling an overwhelming urge to write I always felt guilty about it as there was so much else going on. By shifting the focus of my degree, I've been able to write as much as I like/need and feel good about it.

As well as having great materials, the course offers an online forum for discussion and comment on each other's work as well as day schools. These were the aspects that scared me the most but how wrong was I? Comments, both positive and constructive have been such a help. The best thing about writing is that there is always something new to learn, whether through research, honing a technique or simply talking to another writer.

A great blog covering this course and more is here

OU Website

The Five Minute Writer, Margret Geraghty, 2006 (2009).

I bought the above book from Amazon a few weeks ago and I haven't been disappointed. It does just what it says, but this is far from a book full of writing prompts. Yes, the writing could only take five minutes but most of the exercises I have tried have led me onto larger projects and taught me something new about style. The best thing about the book for me is not only that you can simply open the book at any page and begin, but that you can repeat the lesson as many times as you want and create something totally new.

Even if I already have something in mind for my writing session, I have been starting with a page from this book. Topics range from thinking up a character's name to humanising nasty characters. Highly recommended.

Hysteria

Hands grasp me. My body
pulsates, I struggle. His gentle
touch overpowering, I swell.
A puffer fish using her spines.

Sweat, Rancid and old,
Chlorine and sulphur
Ooze from my pores
The stench of panic.

I scream, weep, plead
for help. Yell for solitude.
Cry of loneliness, howl of despair.
Mind broken, voice intact.

Bitter bile rises and
consumes me. Salt replaces
bitterness, Nauseous my
stomach seizes in pain.

He catches me, I struggle,
slipping through strong arms.
Rodent like I bite, rejecting
comfort, seeking dark corners.

I'm dropped. Crawling back
I plead. Arms reach out, I
wrench back. Writhing on the
Floor, a slug in a salt bath.