Commitment-aphobe,

I'm not scared of commitment. Commitment is something that I think is paramount in life, but I'm better at it in some areas as opposed to others. Editing is probably my worst area with it because I have negative feelings towards the process (I get bored), and I have quite negative feelings towards what comes later (sharing your work with the world is terrifying). 

There are other problems, too. I use the cover art designer on the publishing website, but because the last thing I want is any form of copyright problems, I tend to stick with their stock images as opposed to doing anything different. That creates an issue when I know roughly what I want the book to look like, and there's no way for me to get it there. That's still a little while down the line, though.

The trip to Edinburgh was supposed to give me time to edit. The reality was not quite so pleasant, and I'm finding that getting back into doing it is hard. When I chose my desk and my swivel chair etc., I was thinking about the long hours of editing but hadn't figured out just how much my butt would hurt on this chair. I also need to find a way to raise my screen because it is hurting my neck and my back. Whinging aside, being in pain is obviously not conducive to getting the edit done. 

Now, heading back to the subject of commitment. Camp NaNo is about making your commitments to what you will do with this month. April, like November, is 30 days of literary abandon, but instead of a strict target of 50k+ you can choose your word limit, and also whether you work on something old, something new, something fan-fic or something rude. 

I'm not going to commit to writing a blog every day because I would fail and that would make me feel like rubbish, which isn't helpful. I'm also not going to commit to getting the novel edited before the end of April because the same would happen. Failure does not sit well with me, so I'm not going to set myself up to fail. I know it's counterproductive to do that to myself, so all I'm committing myself to - to the distaste of Yoda - is to try. In trying, I will see where I get. It's obvious what my hopes are for this month, so let's get on in there and see what happens. 

To those joining me at Camp, I'm bringing the marshmallows. To the first timers, Welcome, Willkommen, Bienvenue, and Bienvenido. (Sorry, they are the only languages I can do!) And for those of you still considering, or who were not considered joining us on this literary treasure trail, vocabulary scavenger hunt and associated camp fire story telling adventure: come to the writing side, we have the s'mores. Now away to your cabins to hide from the bear of procrastination!! 

Happy Mondays,

First of all I would just like to say I had a wonderful weekend, despite it being wet and windy and feeling like I was coughing up a lung pretty often. Edingburgh Zoo was wonderful, but it was tough climbing to the top because some of the paths in there are REALLY steep. I finally had the joys of meeting a panda, and also saw a kaola bear, too. They're a lot bigger than I expected them to be - I thought that they were diddy little things about the size of a newborn baby, but they're not! 

We also got to have a lovely time in the restuarant Ask and I picked up miatures of some pretty expensive gins that I have been wanting to try, so overall it was a good trip. However it has been framed by two horrid experiences and one of them was in Nando's for heaven's sake.

Like many people my age, I love Nando's , despite not eating chicken. It'ss not because they give me a good old discount for working for the NHS or because they are the best place if you want to be choosy about what you do and don't want on your burger  I just like what they do and 99.9% of the time they do it realy well. Trusst me, Saturday night in Edinburgh was their 0.1%.

Now I know what Nando's is and I love it. It's not gourmet food; you are not there to be waited on hand and foot, but there is an issue when the hot plates bar is so full that the kitchen staff actually have to start piling plates on top of other plates. There is a problem with your staff when they are essentially standing there staring at it as though they do not know what to do with it. There is an almighty big problem when it takes until about 15-20 minutes after I have ordered for you to come to tell me that you don't have one of the vital ingredients and if there is a price difference between my original order and what I'm having to choose instead that was not what I wanted, I shouldn't be the one pointing that out. The Nando's on Lothian Road in Edinburgh needs to seriously take a look at itself. If your trainees have more of an idea of how to run the place than your seasoned staff, there is A BIG BLOODY PROBLEM! Thankfully I am one of the fatihful who knows that this is a blip - it has coloured my view of that restaurant and not the brand in general. When II walked out of King's Cross tonight and just wanted comfort food I knew just where I wanted to go and it was straight back to a Nando's that I could trust not to cock up. 

Not that I can realy face eating it.

I left Edinburgh almost eleven hours ago. I only arrived home at 9. I waas travelling for 10 hours and it was not because of the planned engineering work that is notorious for delaying Bank Holiday journeys, but because of a technical fault with the power supply cables that messed up EVERYTHING between Peterborough and Kings Cross and left a tailback of trains to Doncaster. I mean, Doncaster. What on earth is in Doncaster? Welll, we were for about an hour actually, and the only thing I could surmise is that it is in fact where the zombie uprising will begin, because it was dull enough to be such a place. 

It's not even the time that annoys me so much, really it's not. I've been getting the trains between London and Manchester for so long that delays don't really bother me too much, but to leave people on a hot train with no food and not enough water is disgusting. The toilets stank, everyone was getting cranky and headachey and we all just wanted to get home. How on earth they couldn't figure out getting even just bottles of water to one of thre stations we were stopped in I really don't know. the East Coast trains aren't like the pendolinos either; there are no blinds, so we just sat getting hotter and more headachey. 

I get that they do the delay repay thing, so we should get the cost of the ticket back since it was a three and a half hour delay, but theere was no sense of care whilst we were delayed. We were travelling over two meal times (set off at 11:09 and arrived at 19:20) and yet they ran out of sandwiches before we even knew about the delay. It's all fine when we're a captive audience paying for things, but companies need to remember that then you need to care for that captive audience. I had a greedy bag with me, so I had enough sweets and stuff to keep me going, but in terms of water, I wouldn't have thought I needed enough for six and a half hours, so I didn't have enough. I had the good sense to go buy more when they first mentioned the delay, but because of the sun on us it still wasn't enough really. 

Considering how much money they make on the trains and the fact that this isn't the first time they've encountered a problem, you'd think that there would be a procedure in place to keep passengers feed and watered and with a usable toilet, but apparently not.

I Don't Like Trains,

Okay, that statement is not quite right. I don't mind trains. 

Back when I was in my teens, I was kind of scared of them, but they don't really bother me too much any more, I really prefer them to buses as well, because I get travel sick on buses and not on trains, but I don't like long train journeys. 

My idea of a long train journey is the trip to Manchester - which from my local station to Manchester Piccadilly is about 3 and a bit to 4 hours, because you have to go into London first, then get the tube to North London before you actually start. Bearing this in mind, the fact that I am now "looking forward to" something like 7 hours from my local station to Edinburgh is somewhat beyond a joke. I'm really not happy as well because my tickets to come back don't even have a seat reservation. I even called the train operator to as if it would be possible to make a reservation now because it seemed to be an error, but they're fully booked. Of course, they are fully booked. 

Anyway, with this is mind I've obviously been attempting to prepare myself for this journey and the only thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I'm not ready to go. My weekend bag is open on my bed, but I have literally nothing in it at the moment. I have sweets, biscuits, chocolate, cheese sticks, fruit juice, yoghurt and multitude of other nibbles, but none of that is in a bag to go either. This from the person who is generally packed at least 2-3 days early for any trips. Being ill this week has really thrown me off of my game. 

I'm doing this and so many other things to distract myself from packing because I genuinely hate doing it. This is ridiculous. 

The worst thing is, I have no idea what I'm going to want to wear tomorrow, let alone Sunday or Monday. And it's going to rain. I cannot express my distaste for rain often or strongly enough. 

I swear to God packing only got harder when I discovered make-up, too. As an indecisive person I should never have been allowed to buy more than one colour of eyeliner, but being an adult and also being a bit of a colour nut I have about four liquid ones. I don't know if I'm going to be feeling green or purple or like a flippin' rainbow whilst I'm there. 

I'm finally getting somewhere though, but my jamas are in the dryer, which isn't helping. And if it weren't for the fact that I was just contemplating putting on my heater I would have forgotten all the chargers that I need because gadget battery life sucks. I'm not stressed at all - it's fine! ** For some reason, my brain does not like telling my hands to type the word "not". I keep missing it out of texts and posts and everything. Weird**

Anyway, I think I'm pretty much packed, and I hope I have enough to do between my iPad and my Kindle and one of the novels I'm working on. If not, train window it is. Great. 

Here comes the actual celebration of my 23rd birthday...

It's Not Sunday,

I was looking forward to a productive week before heading off to Edinburgh this weekend, and the truth of the matter is I have done a fat lot of nothing. 

I've been too ill to leave my flat, and at points, too sick to get out of bed. I thought it was my recurring chest infection, but when I ventured out to the GPs to query the constant pain in my throat that painkillers weren't touching, I found out I actually had a throat infection with blistering in my throat. It was as disgusting as it sounds, and I was struggling to breathe for a good couple of days, which is why I feel so damn feeble now. 

Put simply; I didn't eat for a few days which meant I was even dizzier than normal. Before anyone thinks of making jokes about that, I have a problem that makes me dizzy and no it's not vertigo. I'm now trying to get back onto an even keel but as quite a small person, I didn't have a significant amount of fat to burn. (Although thankfully Lent is my season to gorge on chocolate, so there was a little bit to keep me going.) The problem is that it means I'm running out of energy quite quickly and needing to sit down a lot. Obviously, that's not overly conducive to getting anything done. 

Part of me is now looking to the trip to Edinburgh as a chance to regain some of the momentum I lost this week and really get on with things, and then there's a nagging part of my brain that tells me I really need a laptop to be able to get on with things on the train. I'm not going to give into it because a laptop is just any techy accessories that I don't need, so a pointless waste of money. It would also make Alphie (my lovely AlphaSmart) redundant, and I would hate to do that. Sticky keys he may have, but that little blast from the past is beautiful. 

I'm trying to plan how else to get work done on the train (and stop myself being really, really bored. I had hoped that I wouldn't allow myself to work on anything new until the point that Yours, was FINALLY fluffing done, but even that is looking unlikely. The best thing I can think of is printing off the pages that I already know need re-writes and doing that on the train, then biting the bullet and continuing to write for another couple of novels on which I have been working. The other thing I have to factor in is the almost complete lack of wifi because Virgin trains make you pay for it unless you're in first class. I'm going to end up really wishing that I had a flask, too. 

I'm under no illusions that I will get any work completed while I'm there, but with the journey there and back taking up so much time the idea of wasting all of it playing 2048 (and believe me I could do that) is pretty haunting. I also don't want to lug a rucksack full of wool there to be knitting the entire journey. 

Ah well, I don't leave until Saturday, so there's time to figure it out yet. Depending on what my arrangements for tech stuff are, I might be missing the Sunday blog post this week, but will endeavor to post on Monday if that is the case. Have a very Hoppy Chocolate Feast!

23,

Yesterday was my birthday, and I turned 23 years old. 

I have a thing about odd numbers that means I could not be happier to be 23; I know it's weird. This has been pointed out to me many times in the last few weeks, but I don't care. Everyone has their little quirks. 

The sucky thing is I spent the whole day in my bed due to being ill, rather than being there just to chill out and rest. The honest truth is that I would be likely to have stayed in bed anyway, but reading a book instead of sleeping through the entire day. 

I hate it when my weekends go like this. I had a list of a million and one things I wanted to get done, and I feel like I've got none of them done. I didn't touch the novel at all.

The actual celebrating of my birthday is going to be next weekend. I'm getting the train up to Edinburgh, seeing my parents and finally getting to meet a pair of pandas. I can't remember how long it is since they came to Scotland, but I'm excited to finally go and see them. Less excited about the 7 hour journey there and another coming back, but I guess that just can't be helped. And it gives me a lot of uninterrupted work time to be either writing or editing. Thinking about it is making me wonder how I feel about being sans laptop still. 

Urgh, I don't know.

Definition of a Douchebag,

As a writer, I really like words. Words and definitions. They don't even have to be English all the time - in fact, several of my favourite words are German. (I know, essential information that you couldn't live your life without, right?) There's a problem with language and words, though, and if you studied philosophy, you'd already know it well, but if you haven't, I'll give you the short version. 

Wittgenstein. Really smart guy, but sucked at formal education and ended up living in something reminiscent of a shed (though maybe we can actually trace the tiny house movement back to this very spot!) He basically said that language is like a game, and if you're not in the game, you can't understand it. Like when I talk about NaNoWriMo. Some people will never really know what that is because they are outside of it. (Must point out, very, very short version!)

Now, people have tried to argue against his theory, but I almost accept it as absolute fact, mainly because we see it in operation every day. Have you ever asked a man to pass you a turquoise sweater? Men are just not in the same colour game as women are, I swear it. (I am getting to the point here, I promise.)

If you're writing something, as I do, naturally you want it to appeal and be relatable to as many people as possible (more often than not anyway, and not just because of profits. Although, yay, profitability!) Do you see the problem?

Sometimes, writers don't necessarily understand their limitations. Until I read an Amazon review I didn't think I used that much British slang, but then again we are a product of our environment. And therefore, our novels will be, too. Knowing I do it myself, I should probably chill a little bit when I see it in others, but when I stare confused at a book because of a simple phrase until remembering it from a TV program I watched quite a while ago, there is a problem. 

Sending someone to Coventry. I can guarantee if I called a large number of my friends, and told them someone was sending me to Coventry, they'd think I was getting on a train or a bus or something and schlepping off to the geographical location of Coventry, rather than me using slang for someone giving me a bad case of the Arctic shoulder. In the context of the character, it also didn't work. If it were a case that the author had written in that someone in the family was in the military, or previously had been, it would have made sense, but that wasn't it. Her family were described as the kind who celebrate going to jail (or gaol as she spelt it - fine Irish roots naturally). 

Now I'm not saying it's a bad book - it's not. It's pretty good though through parts of it I was either really uncomfortable with or felt were a little past believable, but it's about a divorce, so I guess it's meant to feel a little uncomfortable... I don't know. 

The book I'm talking about is called Who Gets Fluffy? By Judith Summers, if you were interested, and I'm only using it as an example because I read it during the few days I was off work (was very tempted to call it the weekend then, before realising it's Friday) There are plenty of other novels and authors guilty of the same, and as I stated, I'm no exception. The interesting bit though is, can we ever actually escape it? Can we find a way out of the game?

And now, to address my title. We've all had a situation in life where we've called someone a douchebag, or heard someone be called a douchebag, and other's have disagreed that this person is or is not a douchebag. While this is almightily annoying, can you imagine trying to build a character, and wanting to call them a douchebag, or other uncreative profanities, and knowing that regarding description, he's a douchebag is about as useful as a steak knife to a vegetarian? 

We all write douchebag characters. We often kill them or make sure that a multitude of miseries befall them and think of it as literary karma, just like everyone used to do on The Sims before you were lumbering with their whiny and irritating ghosts. The problem is that like the vegetarian and the steak knife, we can call it what it is, but there isn't much we can do with that. 

What I'm trying to say is descriptions are all well and good, but they have to mean something and they have to do something. We give our characters traits and features that we find beautiful or disgusting in line with how we feel about the character we are building, but it's important to make it work. One person's Satan is another person's misunderstood angel.

It's Only Taken 3 Months,

It's only month 3 of 2016, and I managed to skip a blog post date. Sorry for anyone who missed my weekly rant/narration on how life, the universe and novel-ing was going, but there were a couple of things happening, not all of which I want to share on the internet. 

The big thing that's going on at the moment is I'm trying to cure my anti-social attitude. I have an appalling habit of avoiding everyone and refusing to meet new people, and it seriously needs to be, well, fixed, so I'm trying to be a bit more social. Unfortunately, I'm more of a caterpillar than a butterfly however that could easily change.

I'm hoping that, as a result of this, I will have some more interesting things to talk/write about on here, and also hoping that spending more time actually doing things will help to motivate me towards actually getting things done in terms of writing and editing and publishing; that's something only time will tell with though. I'm doing my best, but I can't predict the future. 

I have something else to own up to as well, and that wouldn't have been something anyone would have known really without me confessing, but what I was hoping to do, and now will not be doing, is launching the e-book on Saturday.

As some of you may know, the fifth anniversary of the publication of Fairies passed on 24th February this year. When I committed myself again to editing the novel, I never imagined I would get it done by then (partly because I also need to give my beta readers some time to get through reading it and then make any changes based on their feedback) but I had hoped that it would all be ready to go, even if just on the Kindle, in time for my 23rd birthday. Unfortunately, that's not the case I've left myself with.

I would like to point out that it's not because I didn't want to do it, but instead it was a lack of motivation to do it. When I come out of work, all I want to do is sleep or catch up on TV shows. It's the same at the weekend, and pushing yourself to do something else which feels like work is hard, especially when the getting paid for it never actually happens. I got annoyed a few days ago because there was a chart on Facebook showing the difference between the cost of textbooks and what we call 'recreational books.' The point that the article/video attached was trying to make was that the cost of textbooks is pushing up the cost of studying, and while I partly agree, I would like to point out - libraries. The issue that I take with the same data is that yes, as a 'recreational' writer, the amount of research you have to do to write your book is significantly less, but if you're not working with a publisher or an editor (I'm just going to point out that one of the reasons I don't work with an editor is that I can't afford to) you do all of that work yourself. There is a whole lot of legwork to getting a book self-published and it feels like a real kick in the pants to know that if you don't put the book online for the cheapest you can without losing money (so literally subsidising the cost of people reading your books in order to get more copies out there) there is little chance that they're going to sell to someone you don't know, and they're the sales that you need to boost.

I get tired and frustrated because other than people that I have met randomly and told about my novel, the majority of the downloads of it come from free promotions and whilst that is a trend I understand, and I do appreciate the downloads during that time, it sucks that regarding doing what I want to do with my life, it's nowhere near a financially viable option. And yes, there is more to my writing than making money. It's something I really enjoy doing, and it is something I will continue to do. All I ask is that people understand that it can be hugely disheartening. I am on the road to having Yours, edited though, and since I'm off work for a few days at the moment, I'm still plugging away at it. 

Rant over.

Pride + Prejudice + Zombies

Proud Zombies? Yeah, no, it's not that at all.

If you were at my writer's group earlier you'll probably be bored of me talking about this, and if you know me quite well this might come as a shock to you, but I actually really enjoyed this movie, so much that I want to tell you as to why.

When this book was originally released I was really confused and I didn't like the idea of it, because it just seemed like a rip off of Pride an Prejudice. Now before anyone even thinks what about fan fiction, yeah, I get why people enjoy it, but it's not my thing. I've still not read the book, but was bored so decided to watch the film, and I cannot believe how much I enjoyed it. 

*Spoilers are inevitable*

Whilst the first part of the movie is completely out of nowhere, it sets up the film so well and allows them to keep to the book really well. There are quite a few important scenes which they have adjusted really well, but then they keep the original dialogue and it makes it wonderful. 

I also think that no other person could have played Mr Collins like Matt Smith. In a similar fashion to the beautiful way that he played Doctor Who, Matt Smith was a wonderful, quirky character that made Mr Collins ridiculous and funny in equal measures. The best thing I can say about it is he makes the character work without turning him into something seedy and unpalatable, but Mr Darcy is not Mr Darcy. The fact that if it weren't for Elizabeth Bennett he wouldn't make it to the end of the movie is ridiculious. He's not quite the level of awful that whichever Jonas was in Les Miserables 25th anniversary concert was, but it was the same vein of wet fish playing supposedly commanding character. I guess that getting someone to play Mr Darcy will always be a Herculian task though, because everyone brings their own idea of who he is to the character. 

I'm sure that there will be people saying that there are issues with the way that the characters are dressed and the weapons they used, or just generally issues with the way it has been put together, but personally I think it is fantastic, partly because it's nothing like anything I have really seen before. 

Oops, I Did a Bad Thing,

If you read any of the blogs I've written since just before the start of Lent you'll be aware it was my intention to "give up my jeans" for Lent, and force myself to wear dresses and skirts, since I own so many, and a few have never actually seen the light of day. I'm never very good at Lent, and this year was no different - I gave up when I had annual leave and a gig to attend. There was no way that I was going to see Theory of a Deadman in a dress or a skirt! Also, my outfits had been getting decidedly wackier because the tops/shirts, etc. I own don't always go with my skirts, and I've had to wear cable knit tights, too so that I don't freeze my behind off!

On the plus side, Theory of a Deadman were amazing and one of their support acts, Royal Republic, were surprisingly good also. (If you want to look them up, their best song is Baby.) I also got to go to the Camden Electric Ballroom for a gig, which is something I have been looking forward to since I moved here from Manchester. It will also be very useful for a book I'm part way through writing!!

Unfortunately, feeling run down and crappy meant that I didn't get the chance to attack any of the editings which I still need to do. It's rather frustrating because I know I only have a limited time left to work with the software I'm using, but I always seem to be lacking in the energy of the motivation to get it done, but that just can't continue! It just needs to be done, because then it can be released and I can stop having to try and explain that yes, it is amazing that I published a novel at 17, and then I have nothing to show for anything I have done since.