Illogically Yours,

I am one of these people who likes to be pretty logical. I chose to do a degree that made me be logical and think logically through arguments. The problem is I have to stop, sit and think about it.

And most I don't. 

I don't sit and think about it at all, so I didn't wash my hair before getting my ear piercing and now I need to do it before work tomorrow. It is going to hurt like hell, I know, but it's not going to last that long. And it's no worse than me trying to scratch my ear and accidentally flicking my piercing and feeling the pain of that.

People then ask me what I do it for, and the obvious one is asking if you do it for attention. There is never anything more annoying than this question, because while some people do things for attention, I don't get piercings for it. 

The big reason is I like them. I can't explain why any more than people can explain why they like a certain type of music as opposed to others. They please me, like acoustic guitar music, and that is a good enough reason for me. 

Now, my other reason isn't the enjoyment of pain so much as it is that feeling of having accomplished something. I'm scared of needles, but I have to have them in order to have my piercings. The idea of something being painful freaks me out, but I have to get past that, and I do. I know that I am stronger than my fears. 

Sometimes when I need to remember that I can be brave, I just have to look at them and know that I had to be brave to have them. If I have done it before, I can do it again, and I will. 

Sometimes bravery is facing pain, sometimes it's facing criticism and sometimes it is facing failure. I know it is possible to fail every time I send chapters somewhere or self-publish anything, but the only thing that being scared achieves is making me fail in a different way. 

Basically, I'm putting my big girl pants on and getting on with this. 

Catch you later.

Walk Away from Miracles,

I try not to write anything too personal on here, because if I don't want it all over the internet, then I shouldn't be putting it there. That being said, I dropped the ball the last few days when I haven't been writing on here, but that's because I knew I couldn't do it without outpouring everything I was feeling, and I didn't want to do that. I'm sure it will find a way of venting itself out eventually, but that's for another time.

One the taglines I have used about myself a lot is that I am a writer, a dreamer and fairies believer. I completely submit to that. I live that every day. I believe in miracles and true love, not necessarily soul mates, but romance. With that, though, I carry a slight realism that I used to think protected me. It doesn't so much as I wish it would, but I think if it were too strong, I would lose the dreamer and the fairies. 

Now I know my "belief" in fairies offends some people, but let me put it to you another way: having never knowing met a fairy, I cannot say for certain what one is. I don't believe there are extraordinarily tiny people with wings and flying dust and glitter living in the grass outside my current abode, but fairies exist even for people who don't believe in them because they are the concept in the mind if nothing else. (Can you tell that I miss being a philosophy student, instead of a philosophy graduate who hasn't used her degree in a long while?)

Regarding how that affects me as a writer, I feel like it means I can write romances and make them magical, but believable. I can write the sort of thing which, hopefully, sweeps people up and spins them around as though they were in the middle of a ballroom floor. I would like to think I can do that. The only issue I can have with things like that is that happily ever afters are not so easily won. 

To have that happy that other people hate you for, or the Disney looking romance, I don't know if it's possible in reality. Every relationship is a delicate balance, and every relationship goes through changes. Everyone argues, and couples fight every day, people break up every day, people make up every day, but not always. I would hate writing a romance that made it look like life is always perfect - it's not. I would hate to write anything that made relationships look like a breeze because they're not. It takes love, it takes talking, it takes work, it takes understanding and maybe just a heart shaped arrow and a sprinkle of fairy dust. If you want something, you have to fight for it. If you fight, you won't always win. It's hard; sometimes it's horrible, but I can't remember the last romance novel I read where one of them didn't have a failed relationship in their past. 

I'm trying to keep in mind while making myself write romance and I feel like I'm settling into the genre. 

Catch you later...

Deliberations,

Saturday night I made a deliberate decision not to write on here, and I'm not disappointed in that decision in the slightest. 

I'm normally pretty bad at practising what I preach in terms of being gentle with yourself. I very often feel like I've failed if I don't make my arbitrary deadlines or if things just aren't the way I want them to be, and it's been dragging me down for years. I have always been like this, and it's a difficult habit to change, believe me.

Something that is helping at the moment is trying to see myself through other people's eyes. There are times when I go out and I realise that I am a happy, content (the two things are slightly different) and confident individual. I have fun and can inspire others to have fun. Sometimes I forget how to let my hair down, and sometimes I wish I would realise that it would be better for me to just down a sharing bag of Skittles instead of drinking, because my drink of choice - gin and tonic - is such a downer. It tastes beautiful, but it is a depressant, and that's not a good thing when you drink a few (or more).

Last night I spent time reading a book I was enjoying. In some ways, the story line is similar to the first novel I ever wrote (just to clarify, Fairies was the first novel I published, but it was the second novel I wrote).  Some bits of it really annoyed me, but that was due to bad editing and that happens to everyone. It's called Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble, and there were times where I thought I was going to end up in tears. It's well written and thoughtful, and the characters are wonderful. Don't get me wrong, it's not going to be one of my favourites that I still re-read (that list being The Fault in Our Stars, The Monsters of Gramercy Park and Captain Corelli's Mandolin) but it was pretty excellent. It's also the perfect book for a reading group, because it's already got discussion questions in the back.... (these always really confuse me. Does anyone actually ever use them? If I'm discussing a book I enjoyed with other people, I never really need a prompt or a guide to know which bits need thinking/talking about. Really don't get it.)

I just finished reading the book, and I'm in that happy sort of sated state that comes of having finished something you wanted to finish, but it's something else as well. I have written before about the advice that Nicholas Sparks gave me in that brief conversation in Foyles book store, but it feels very relevant now, because I know that it was a great book. I can see the style and the subtlety with which it was penned and the thought that has gone into the characters. It's the depth of the characters that really makes it, particularly because there is so much difference between them. 

The most important thing I have to remind myself of at the moment is that in order to keep your characters human, in order to make sure that you're not writing the same thing over and over, or the sane character with a different name, you need to experience life, you need to experience people. It's all well and good to have a wonderful storyline, but if the characters are flat, or all the same, it will kill the storyline and that is painful. 

Sometimes, I think of writers as liars, because we're building this elaborate world that doesn't exist, while trying to convince people that it not only can, but it does, even just inside your imagination, but that's not realy a fair assessment. I wouldn't be too surprised if some of us had a problem similar to multiple personality disorder, because sometimes it feels like you need to have in order to produce characters who are truly unique, from each other at least, but even that is not quite right. So what I'm going to go with, for now at least, is intrepid explorers of the human experience and imagination. 

Catch you tomorrow...

Quickie ;P,

No, not like that, but I want to get this in before midnight.

If you have ever forgotten what it's like to have a night out with some of your favourite people (SOME OF) just do it. It makes perspective clearer (or cloudier for the tipsy-time...) Trust me.

Catch you later...

Blank Space Part 2,

This is the reason I didn't commit to writing every day. 

The day before yesterday I spent a long while staring at a blank page and wondered what exactly I wanted to say with it. I had a bit of a hard; it was a long day, and I didn't really know what to write. 

Yesterday was different. I had an okay day at work - it wasn't the worst day, but it also wasn't one of the good days where I have belly laughed at daft things the team has said. My calf muscles were hurting and more than anything, I just wanted to tip into bed and do nothing all evening. I was halfway up the first flight of stairs in my building when I realised I hadn't checked the post. When I did, I found some news that has had me running around like a headless chicken. The content of it is pretty irrelevant, but it meant that I had a few things to stress over and to do last night as well as getting ready for what was supposed to be an interview and a fitness test today. 

Due to the calves issue, I cancelled half of my day today, but with everything last night, the blog had to take a backseat. 

I did start this month with the intentions of writing a blog every day, but I could not have seen that coming, and so I'm glad that now I'm not forcing myself into a definition of failure because last night was not a failure. I can be all too guilty of letting things fall in favour of a novel, or a writing project and that is not necessarily a good thing. It isn't failing if you have to come out of the clouds and be an adult for a bit - it's life. 

I have to accept that, as a single person, living on my own, everything that I need to do to sort out myself and my flat, etc. has to be done by me. It's a scary thing, but I'm capable of doing it, and I have been doing it, but you can see just how in the way of writing, etc. it can sometimes get. 

Anyway, back on track now, and I'll catch you tomorrow.

I Can't Think of a Title for This,

Today was always going to be a little rubbish, and I have been seriously considering not writing a blog today, but why end the streak here? If it's a conscious choice, that does not seem like a logical or valid choice at all.

Today was a dire day because I had the joys of updating all my American tax details. I made my bed when I decided to use an American based company to publish my novel, and what annoys me isn't having to pay 30% tax to a foreign government on the not very much I earn in royalties; it's that I pay tax, and I haven't even been there in the last five years. Also, the fact that I don't get to vote, which is also fuelled by my love of American politics.

Despite that, I did get a lot of things done today that I needed to get done, but there were other things on the list for 'if I have time...' that I would have liked to get done because they just seem to be getting pushed further and further down the list. 

I still have editing to do, and I'm neglecting it so much that I still have no idea when it will get done. I have other things that I'm writing, too, that I keep putting down and picking up and then putting down again. 

Urgh, hopefully tomorrow will be better. Catch you tomorrow.

Blank Space,

There is practically nothing that I hate more than staring at a blank page. 

Blank pages are this vast canvas on which you can do anything - you're not constrained by characters or settings, the world you've chosen to set your novel in... Nothing is limiting you, except your imagination, because you have to set the boundaries, and they're not there yet. It is mind-blowing what you can do with that page and on that page, the things that it can conjure up in the minds of readers can be amazing. 

Then again, a blank page is scary, because what do you put on it? Should it be a romance? Too sappy. An action? Game of Thrones kind of has that covered. How about a historically accurate novelisation of *snores*... (I'm not serious about any of those assessments by the way; it's for everyone to make up their mind on what genre they want to write.) Having no rules, and nothing to reign you in can be pretty petrifying because you can do anything and everything or nothing at all. All of that freedom is pretty scary.

Sometimes, though, the things that terrify me are more the novels full of words and dragons and magnificence. Everything you have ever enjoyed reading or watching started as just a blank page and someone took that blank page and created something beautiful, something spectacular and something to be insanely proud of. 

I've said it before, but writing is not something which you do to fill a void. The void is ever expanding, the space in which to fit novels and films and music is ever increasing, so just because there have been fantastic books, etc., of so many genres and it can often feel like everything has already been written or done, it hasn't. There is still space for something wonderful.

Catch you tomorrow.

And the Bronze Medal Goes To,

It's now Day 10 of Camp NaNoWriMo and that means I'm a third of the way through. As much as I have not been announcing all of the blogs on Twitter, I have been writing one per day and considering that I thought I would be useless at finding things to write about every day, I think it's going pretty well!

It's a wonderful day in London with the sun shining, and instead of being out in it, I'm currently in the basement of a coffee shop in Central typing this. I will also be doing something more consistent with the word 'work' whilst here, but this has got to come first because otherwise I'll have to write it when I get home!! Also, I would say that the grass is green, but this is London - I haven't seen any grass.

1/3 of the way through NaNo events is a big thing, no matter what your goal is and no matter how you're getting along with it, because it is a cause for reflection. Now, it's true that the gidgets and doodads that they have on the website allow for you to track your progress all the way along and I know that my own, and other's, greastest procrastination tool is to become very pensive and wonder how it that we've wasted so much time and have only got to word count of x or through a certain amount of pages of an edit etc. No matter how you are doing it is easy to feel, well, a little bit crap by this point and be wondering if you could be doing more. 

I saw a video this morning about different phasal sleep patterns. So, single, bi and multiphasal sleep and it made me think about how, particularly during the November event, my sleeping pattern goes bazerk. When being completely honest, everything essentially becomes subservient to the novel. Every aspect of my life has it's value considered against what it means for or what it adds to or subtracts from the novel. It's at landmark points like this that we begin thinking, if I sleep for however many less hours a day I can get so much more done. Day 20 is then when you look back and either see that you spent that time asleep, or you were so groggy and disorientated that nothing productive came from those extra hours. (Though if you're like me and groggy and disorientated is a daily occurence when you wake up, it may add to your productive time...)

This all goes back to what I was saying previously about needing to look after yourself. Yes, NaNo is tough - we don't call it tackling the NaNoBeast for nothing!! It's a full on rugby style tackle, and you will probably come out bruised. Yes, some of the programs, particularly Write or Die are evil, but they work at getting you working. Yes, writing a novel is hard, and giving yourself only 30 days to do it is a reason to go see a shrink, but that's because it is not normally; it is exceptional. 

Just attempting to do this makes you exceptional. Not making the full target does not diminish that. No matter what your goal is, no matter how much you do, taking this on is exceptional. At the end of the event you will ALWAYS have more than you did when you started. If you delete your novel because it sucks, you have more because you know that idea didn't work and you will understand why, if you only wrote a thousand words, well, you have a thousand words and a better understanding of yourself. If you wrote a novel, you know you're exceptional, just look what you did, you shouldn't need your ego stroking. Come on. 

NaNo and all it's events show you what you can, and sometimes what you can't, do. Script Frenzy (R.I.P) showed me I cannot and should not write scripts and that I do not enjoy it. Previous CampNaNo events have shown me that I can ignore everything going on in my life (like being off university for Easter and exam leave) to write a novel, but that doesn't make it a good idea. November 2015 proved that I can have a 15K day. It hurts, it's tough and bridges start looking really attractive around 12/13K, but I can do it. I can also write something I am emotionally involved with, and still put it down at the end and give myself some breathing room with it. I can also love pets more than humans.

The big thing I want anyone joining in on Camp this year to take from this is, wherever you are, congratulations and I'llcatach you tomorrow.

Never Again,

Certain films and TV shows give you a feeling when you first watch them that cannot be explained. It happens with books, too, but I find that it is less often. 

I have a really bad habit of forming something of an emotional attachment to these things, and so it has lead me to re-watch and re-read things in a chasing the dragon-esqe style, in order to try to recapture that feeling. 

There's one book that I can always rely on to give me that feeling, because I'm still trying to figure it out, and that is The Monsters of Gramercy Park by Danny Leigh. It iss probably one of the best written books I have ever read, along with a couple of the John Green novels, Pride and Prejudice and a couple of others.

There are some films that people watch religiously and I raise an eyebrow and think, why? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a big one - I really don't get that, but some people don't understand how I can have a place in my calendar for watching V for Vendetta and The Nightmare Before Chirstmas year after year, and also rewatch The Failt in Our Stars, Kingsman, Our Girl & Dr Strangelove just whenever the feeling takes me. (The list of films I have rewatched several times is longer than those, but they are the big ones. 

I know what it is that causes the feeling as well, because I got it from watching Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, too and everyone knows you have to accept that it is ridiculous. I personally think that the film was pretty well done, except Darcy - he's short, has a funny voice and is generally awful!, but more than anything it was different. It's originality is beautiful. 

As a 90s kid, I grew up with board games and Barbie dolls and caravan holidays, but then suddenly the internet seemed to happen out of nowhere, and we're now bombarded with media and advertising and just everything from every angle. Where we used to be able to go on holiday and bring back something amazing that no-one has seen before, and now we have Amazon. We can order practically anything from there. 

Something new and special makes me excited. I used to get that feeling every time I went to see a film, but things can be so recycled (and not in a good way) these days that I get bored easily. People wonder why I tend to take my knitting with me when I go to the cinema. The other problem, of course, is the hype that is created around certain things, like Batman vs. Superman. Before the movie came out it was hyped up, because they are two familiar and amazing characters, they are phenominal, but the film was, erm, less than I expected. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I don't think so, because I expected a lot, and it delivered so much that I was sat speechless other than the word immaculate several times for about twenty minutes after the film ended. 

I think about this a lot because I want the things that I write to give people that feeling. I want to spread that feeling, because it is something pretty major. I don't know if it will ever happen, has happened, or will happen again, but I guess that I can hope. 

Catch you tomorrow. 

Be Neutral,

I had a wonderful adventure yesterday that I didn't mention, because it didn't really fit with what I was writing about, and I don't walk around carrying a shoehorn as an accessory. 

After finding out that someone I appreciate is expecting a tiny human, I decided that I wanted to knit something for her, though I needed to keep it neutral as she doesn't yet know if it a boy or a girl, as it's too early to tell, and I'm not entirely certain that she wants to find out either. 

Those of you who don't knit will probably just assume that 'staying neutral' when making gifts is just a case of colours - it's not. In terms of netural, with the right sort of pattern, you can put mint green, lemon, cream or white on a baby of either gender. The sales assistant tried to tell me that you could also put lavender/lilac on both, but I don't know many people who would dress a baby boy in something that colour, particularly if it was completely that colour, and not part of a scheme.

As I said, with the right sort of pattern. Now, maybe I am too used to the idea of babies being put into their gender but I couldn't, myself, dress a baby boy in a lace cardigan (even if it was blue) and, probably because I have access to some of the most beautiful patterns for girls. I'm not sure that I could dress a little girl in something like a cable knit jumper or a grandpa cardigan. Then again i haven;t done enough messing around to really make a decision on that one. 

Also on the topic of being neutral, I realise I was being particularly negative on Sunday, when I was talking about Inequality, and I want to set the record straight. 

Now I know that I complained about being told that I look good before the make-up whilst I was putting it on, but that's because it feels really negative. It feels negative because someone is trying to say I look better before doing something that I love doing; I look better without a part of myself.

On the way home on Saturday, after visiting Planet Organic, I got talking to a vegetarian girl on my Tube, and another girl who lives in a studio close to my place. Granted, these were women, but everything we said to each other was neutral, or a positive and present compliment. Saying I love your shoes is the same sort of thing. The experience I have previously had is more like You're shoes would look better if you didn't wear them. 

The safest bet is to keep conversation neutral until you know the person, or at least are a little bit acquainted with them. 

I'm going to sleep - catch you tomorrow. 

Act Natural,

This blog is just going to be a quick one because I have something pretty important to be doing tonight, and it's not going to do itself. (Then again, what does?)

Last night I changed my hair colour, and I expected it to look completely barmy and outrageous to the point that I was killing myself to change it. It didn't come out as wrong as I thought. What I have heard a few times today, though, is oh, it looks quite natural. It's cool, but I would have to be a serious sort of a mess, the type where DNA has been through a blender to create this masterpiece. 

The reason I'm not falling over myself to change it though is because changing my hair is usually associated with the word fix, and this doesn't need so much fixing. If I were going for a creative job, instead of admin roles as I am, I would probably keep it a little while and just let it be. It seems like nothing I do to my hair, even the highlighter orange, is too much for me just to accept it, dig my confidence out of the bottom drawer and just live with. It's less styling it out than not giving a crap about most people's opinions or assessments of me. 

Now that last sentence is a weird one for me because a lot of my 'fears' or anxiety comes from the question, but what will people think? Back when I was 17 I asked myself that question and a lovely, strong voice would yell back (in my head) WHO CARES? It's something I'm trying to work my way back towards because in the end it helped me prioritise my happiness. It got me to London, to study Philosophy and it got me to self-publish a book. Yeah, it also got me into trouble a few times, but what's a river without a few rapids? 

Basically, I'm trying to act natural, without the fearfulness, and then hopefully, at some point, it won't be an act, and I'll have beaten it. Practice makes perfect. Practising writing this blog every day is making me practice sitting down and committing to writing. It can only be a good thing.

Catch you tomorrow.

50 Shades,

No,  I'm not talking about the novel(s) or the film, and thankfully I'm also not talking about grey (that would make me pretty upset since I'm only 23!). 

I'm talking about my hair. In order to go back to the glorious summer of the ginger ninja, or rather have a repeat of it, I had to strip out Taylor Swift's favourite colour (Red). Under all of that, my hair is quite a few different shades between platinum blonde, dirty blonde and roughly my natural brown. While I know it looks utterly ridiculous, I love it. 

Over the last few years I have done some fantastic things with my hair and it's been pretty fun, but this time the ginger should hopefully be more like one colour and a little more subdued. 

Something that I have realised is that differne hair colours do actually made a difference to your head. I'm not just saying that it makes it a different colour, which naturally it does, but I tend to be a lot more quirky when I'm ginger, fiery when my hair is red and dark when I was daft enough to dye my hair black ...

It makes me more careful when I think about the descriptions I write for my characters and how that matches up with how they behave. I'm not saying all the ditzy people are blonde (or all the blondes are ditzy) or anything like that, but the persona or identity which people display is directly in connection with the way that they think and feel, and if I can't build that into a character then they can't be believable. As much as I write things which might not be believable, fairies don't want to live in everyone's back gardens (and not everyone has a garden) I want the characters, most particularly the human ones, to be believeable and to feel real. 

Anyway, I have some more writing to do. Catch you tomorrow. 

Is It a Science,

Is there a science to writing? Honestly, no, there is not. 

There have been many times over the past few years where I have met some amazing writers and asked them for guidance in this field. Joseph Delaney, the genius behind The Spooks series, told me that the best thing you can do is have patience and practice. Patience isn't something I usually have in abundance, but it is something I try and practice with my writing. Sometimes though, having patience with myself is unhelpful, because it means that I don't do an awful lot sometimes. Thatt was back when I was fourteen. 

I met Nicholas Sparks when I was 19. Obviously by then I had already self-published my first novel and was well into writing a couple more, but I get nervous, even when things are going well, so in the brief moment I had to spreak to him as he Sharpie'd his name into the front of a couple of his masterpeices I asked him for advice. The jist of it was to read the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between. Seeing what is good and seeing what is bad gives you a pespective, or a scale with which you can work. 

Writing is something that does require practice and patience and n understanding of the good and the bad, but more than anything it requires passion. It requires commitment, and passion and a desire to carry on even if it appears that you are getting nowhere. And it can very often feel that you are getting nowhere. 

Now, I know I am nowhere near the calibre of those two wonders of humanity, but in terms of what I have learnt by myself is that you need to take care of yourself. Now I'm not just talking about needing to feed yourself properly (pizza is not a food group!!) or sleep when you need to and drink eight glasses of water, but that stuff is important. What I'm talking about is sometimes you will feel emotionally raw about things and you need to acknowledge that, and not push it. 

Things have been impossibly difficult recently, and so writing happy endings for my characters can hurt, so I'm having to swap and change between things at the moment. When one thing is too much, flit to something else, and believe me it is hard. I want to finish writing a couple of things and finish editing Yours, but I also know what it feels like to take a nail brush to skinned hands and that is what it can feel like emotionally. Feelings like that you need to listen to. You need to listen and you need accept it, and you need to find the way of dealing with it. For some people, I know, writing about difficult times can help them through it, and that is completely fair enough, but you need to remember, that's not the same for everyone. 

Catch you tomorrow.

Four Hours,

It's quite cool that this blog happens to be on Day 4 of Camp, therefore, the 4th April. 

Last night I was in the most useless of all of my mood combinations: creative and tired. On the one hand, I crave the ability to express my creativity, on the other, sleep. Lots of sleep.

Normally I'm fine with either four hours of sleep or eight, but more often than not I sleep a lot more than that because I'm constantly groggy. Last night I couldn't sleep, so only got about four hours. 

Going to finish this quickly because my heart isn't really in it. Basically, today was productive, but I've been an emotional mess, so I'm going to stick to my extended sleeping pattern and accept things take me more days to do because I spend last hours awake. 

Catch you tomorrow.

Inequality,

After writing this I realised it was a lot more politically fuelled than I had intended. If that makes you not fancy reading it, that's absolutely fine. Also, if you disagree with me, I respect your right to do that, but this is an expreession of my opinion, not the start of an arguement. As with everything I write, it comes from my own perssonal experiences and I hope you can respect that.

I know that a while ago I promised not to talk about politics, but I kind of see this as an existential thing that permeates into people's every day lives, and therefore it also falls into politics, but is not distinctly political in nature, and that's why I'm going to allow myself to get away with it. It's also going to be mostly jovial in nature, so hopefully that will also rescue me a bit.

Here's a bit of background for you. I am not the sort of person who referrs to myself as a feminist, because I don't like some of the connotations of the word. Feminism has come to represent a wide spectrum of beliefs and I don't think it's right that some people are then seen as cherry picking which parts that they want to believe in. I prefer to say that I am an equalist. I believe that in their intrinsic value as people, men and women SHOULD be seen as equal, but that IS NOT currently the case. I also want to point out that I know that I probably have been influenced in this belief in the fact that I have grown up as a middle class (ish) Western family, and have been afforded many priviledges which others do not have. Now, the reason that I stress that is because it is my belief that it's not my place to steam roller over other cultures, so I'm not necessarily comfortable saying that we should radically overhaul the whole world to believe the same things that we do. 

Now this is a very serious topic that I'm writing about, but the reason I am writing about it is because yesterday really wound me up. Yesterday wound me up because the weather was beautiful when I woke up and so I decided it was time to break out the summer wardrobe and wore a beautiful clay playsuit that I don't think I have actually worn before now, despite having bought it last year. Now this would have been all grand had the weather stayed beautiful and marvellous and wonderful, but this is England; of course, it did not do that.

Not only will men never know the pain of trying to make a visit to the powder room in playsuit, which is basically just deciding you're going to get undressed, "powder your nose" and then redress yourself, they will never know the frustration of going out in a playsuit or a summer dress and then the weather changing and it suddenly being freezing and rainy. Not only are you inappropriately dressed for the weather and almost duty bound to get sick as a result, you look pretty ridiculous, too. 

On a more serious note for women, the fact that a nipple slip was the central focus for articles regarding a female celebrity heroically saving her child and her child's nanny from drowning is not only ludicrous, it's also offensive. If I was trying to save the life of my child, nay, any other human being, I would hope that the exposure of a nipple, or any other body part really, would be quite far down my list of priorities, because the heath and safety of those people (or animals, to be fair) would be the most important thing for me. There seems to be a completely inappropriate blurring of priorities happening in the media here, and it's difficult to accept really. 

Now I understand that for some people, it can seem like equality is something which has already happened in this country and the rest of the west, and there are women supporting this position as well as men, but there is still an intrinsic inequality that we are dealing with that is not just concerned with the pay gap. 

I get stared at when I do my make-up on the tube. I've had men feel that they can tell me that I look beautiful without make-up and I shouldn't wear it, which on the one hand is something I want to say thank you to, because the compliment is nice, but the issue there is why do they feel it's acceptable to comment? If I were wearing it for their approval, I would have put it on at home. I'm doing it on the tube becayse it fills up what is essentially dead time there, and because I want to wear it FOR MYSELF before I get to the place I am going to. I know there are big campaigns on the internet trying to get people to be nicer to each other, but I don't need you to make a decision as to whether I should wear make-up or not.

Similarly, I felt like arse when I was going to the doctors last week, and this guy decided he was going to compliment me on the way I looked. Now I was suffering from a pretty bad virus, and I wouldn't have been out of bed if I hadn't needed a note and antibiotics, so I told him to leave me alone. (By which I mean I croaked at him, because I was in too much pain to actually speak properly). Now you would expect that this man would have understood I was both ill and not interested, but instead of walking away and leaving me alone, he felt the need to follow me and pester as to why I told him to leave me alone when he complimented me. 

I have two objections to this - I am not a peice of art. I don't generally put that much effort in when I leave the house, and the only reason that this was an exception was because there was even less effort than normal I was visiting the doctors for Pete's sake. Point being, I am not there for you to admire/compliment/judge. Whether it is positive or negative, you might have an opinion, but that doesn't mean I want to hear it. The second objection I have is, once I have told you I am not interested in hearing your opinion, walk away. You have no business trying to force me to say thank you for your opinion. 

This is actually getting out quite a bit of my frustration with situations at the moment, so let's get into a little bit of the politics. Not the Junior Doctors contract though; I'm not touching that with a barge pole!!

During the budget, George Osbourne announced that there would be funding made available for schools to keep children in for longer hours. Now there are a lot of issues with this policy, like teachers having to work longer hours and plan more lessons and the fact that this will likely not be reflected in their pay, the fact that this time is supposedly being allocated for sports and arts activities, and also the fact that it is only available for 25% of schools. 

How does this come into equality, I'm sure some of you are asking. One of the big issues we have in trying to provide true equality for women is that there is no way to change our biology. If you want to have children, a woman has to carry that child. This is the same for hetrosexual couples, homosexual couples, single parents, children who are born to their natural families, adopted children, those born from IVF and from surrogacy. There is no way to avoid that a baby begins its life inside the body of a woman. Whilst it is true that there are millions of uncomplicated pregnancies where women are able to continue working into their third trimester, it is also true that you cannot know that you will have an uncomplicated pregnancy until you are into the pregnancy. 

Complications can be as simple (simple, but not insignificant might I add) as pelvic or back pain, or they can be aggrressive morning sickness that lasts throughout the whole nine months, they can be diabetes in pregnancy, they can be as serious as your body simply refusing to adapt to the pregnancy. All of these provide complications for women staying in work before the baby is even born and there is no way to plan for them. You also can't plan for early or late delivery, you can't plan for a complicated delivery, the damage that SVD (Spontaneous Vaginal Delivery for those not working in healthcare) can do to your body or how long it will take you to recover from this or the fatigue which can be associated with delivery. Legally women are required to take 2 weeks away from work following child birth, but you are entitled (in the UK at least) to up to a year of paid leave. 

If as a woman you are then the single or the primary parent to that child, getting back to full time work can be diffcult at best. Yes, the government offeres nursery vouchers to help with the cost of childcare, but before the budget this was only 15 hours. It has now been extended to 30, but full time work is normally considered between 35-40 hours. 30 hours a week free nursery also doesn't mean you are available to work for 30 hours. Even in a best case scenario where the nursery is within the same building or street as your workplace, you can't drop the child off and be at your desk within seconds of each other, so you would only be able to work around 25 hours a week. This doesn't improve much, if at all, when the child starts school because of factoring in travelling times. Children in school longer meands that single and primary parents are able to work longer, potentially even working full time hours. 

Now this might not mean a lot to some people, but it's not just an increase in your pay because you free to work more hours, but it's a reduction in childcare expenses (during term time) and a reduction in need for income support. It's also an increase in your employability. 

Personally I would rather have seen a review of the holidays that children get in school, because like the Victorian school times, the six weeks holidays hail back to the times when children of farmers had to be available to help bring in the harvest and hold no real necessity these days, but it's a start. The problem is that there are a lot of issues in education, and what is being addressed is either not a problem or not what, in my opinion, should be a priority. 

Rant over. Catch you tomorrow.

Getting to Know You,

I'm going out and doing fun things in London today, which will be amazingly good fun, I know, but I can't guarantee what time I will be home/what I'm doing later, so I wanted to post this now so it's my goal out of the way. 

The naughty thing is I actually prepared this last night, but I don't really feel too guilty about it, because I knew I still had a few bits to do before posting it, and technically I am sat here writing and posting today, so I am going to count that as a win. 

Back when social media was in it's reasonably early stages, and the days where Bebo was a thing, we used to do these quizzes all the times and you can tell that not everyone is honest with them and some of them are better than others for how much you learn about a person, but I've chosen this one because this month is about camping and goals, so Day 1 was camping and today, Day 2, can be about goals. Loosely. 

Hopefully it gives you a little bit of insight, or at least is a bit interesting and I will catch up with you tomorrow!

If You Could:

1. Travel anywhere, where would it be? I want to go to China and see the pandas. I know I just saw them in Edinburgh, but I really want to see the babies and see them in something more like their natural environment. I love them.
2. Meet anyone, who would it be? Up until a few weeks ago it would have been Harper Lee. Since that's no longer possible I would go with Lemony Snicket.
3. Bring anyone dead back to life, who would it be? Harper. I'm changing my answer to question 2 now. 
4. Be anyone for a day, who would it be? Myself, without an anxiety problem!
5. Get anything for free for the rest of your life what would it be? Books. All of the books. I love my library (even though it's split between London and Manchester).
6. Change one thing about your life what would it be? If I could own my flat rather then renting it, I would be pretty happy with that.
7. Have any superpower what would it be? I think I would like to be able to do that thing of setting myself on fire; at least then I wouldn't be cold all the time. I know, that's kind of selfish. 
8. Be any animal for a day which would you be? I think I would like to be a sloth bear in Whipsnade. 
9. Date anyone who would it be? I'm not going to write that on here. ;)
10. Change one thing about the world what would it be? I think I would stop there being global warming, because I love polar bears, and people. Global warming is affecting everyone and if you believe Kingsman (and the actual theory of Gaia) we're already screwed.
11. Live in any fictional universe which would you choose? The one from Sunshine by Robin McKinley. If you haven't read it, do.
12. Eliminate one of your human needs which would you get rid of? I think I would get rid of my need to sleep. Only because I spend/waste so much time doing it that I know I could be a lot more productive without it. Well, without the need of it.
13. Change one thing about your physical appearance what would it be? Like many women I wish they were a couple of letters further into the alphabet.
14. Change one of your personality traits which would you choose? Again, anxiety. It's not something I love.
15. Be talented at anything instantly what would you choose? Drawing. I have always wished I could draw, but I am so bad at it.
16. Forget one event in your life which would you choose? A motorcycle accident I witnessed when I was about 13. It made me terrified to be on a road (but not a motorbike, strangely).
17. Erase an event from history (make it so it never happened) which would you choose? That could be a few things at the moment: Holocaust, Twinkey defence, Donald Trump's birth...
18. Have any hair/eye/skin color, which would you choose? Ginger hair, blue eyes but my current skin tone. Not quite pale enough to be alabaster, but too pale for any kind of mainstream foundation colour :)
19. Be any weight/body type, which would you choose? I like my current weight, but I wish my body type was a bit more balanced, rather than me resembling a pear. 
20. Live in any country/city, where would you choose? NEW YORK
21. Change one law in your country, which would you change? It's not really a law, but I would be tempted to change the way that the prison system works so that offenders were paying for it instead of tax payers. I don't get why they should get to break the law and us pay for it.
22. Be any height, which would you choose? I like my height (about 5"7) because I can still wear heels.
23. Have any job in the world, which would you choose? Writer. Clearly.
24. Have anything appear in your pocket right now, what would it be? Bernard's Watch (if you grew up in the 90s, you know).
25. Have anyone beside you right now, who would it be? Well, that would be telling. 

Top Bunk,

Part of my issue with attempting to write a post every day is inevitably going to be the question of about what shall I write? Today, I was at work from 9 am until 5.30pm. Yeah, I could moan about work and all the BS that comes with it, but it's a very negative feeling which is unhelpful for creativity and I'm either going to edit tonight or write something, so I need my creativity. The other issue, of course, is that it would be boring to read, and then there is no sense in me writing it because it has no purpose.

Having been at work all day, I'm struggling, so asked hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator for some camp related topics. The only one it gave me was about worst camping advice I had ever received. Hmmm, well, I don't remember the bad ones. The top three though were:

• Don't get changed in your tent with the lantern on, unless you can get changed in your sleeping bag because it's basically like a naked shadow puppet show. It's also freezing, so getting changed in your sleeping bag has the added benefit of not allowing you to freeze your vital bits off. 
• Don't wear jeans. Yes, they're comfortable. Yes, they can be warm. And yes, in a well-fitting pair of jeans, your butt can look fabulass, but Christ on a bike if they get wet, they're staying wet and then you will be cold. Some people need to learn this for themselves, though, and then will swear that they hate camping as a whole because of it...
• Just because you can set it on fire, doesn't mean you should. Around a camp fire you will hear a lot of horror stories (ghost stories, too, but they don't teach you much) of different things which peopel have put onto a campfire from fireworks to the plastic from their new lighter. If you listen to these stories, they give you the best advice of what not to do around fires. My biggest one is scredded paper - it flies around too much and risks spreading. Not good. 

Not all of these are going to be camping related, but hopefully some of them will be and it might keep things a bit more interesting. 

Catch you tomorrow.