When Your Brain Says You Failed, Part 2,

 I meant to post the first part of this just after returning home on weekend one of Camp NaNoWriMo but then I didn't because there was a feeling of my whole world falling down and I wasn't sure I was actually going to be doing any writing what so ever. In my life, there are a pair of Shih Tzus, Teddy, who has been around for what feels like just short of forever, even if it is only five years, and Chai, who arrived just last year (with me, though she is nearly six years old). The idea of them not being together for playdates or for when my parents are away or I'm away (they swap houses so they're with whoever is around) is unthinkable, but the worst, or one of the worst things, imaginable happened and when Teddy went into surgery for the removal of two lumps that we thought were giving him problems pooping, we found out they were cancerous. 

In a way, it's a good thing that they were where they were. He has had lumps since the day we got him because he has these cysts on his skin that fill to a point and then, essentially, burst everywhere and are a bit bloody, a bit chalky, but ultimately no harm at all. Anywhere else on his body lumps would not bother him at all, and we and his vets would just assume that they were more of the same and leave them be. It was only because we were not sure if that was creating some bum related issues that we decided to go for them being excised, and then the pathology on them was a huge shock. 

Having had the shock of it's cancer, we were pretty relieved to know that the lumps were gone which meant the tumours were gone, but that was short-lived as the vet told us it was a nasty and aggressive tumour, and it's location would make it very tricky if it came back because removing tissue on what is essentially his buttock can affect the motor function of the back legs and the tail as well as continence, particularly for his bum. None of us wants to lose him, but doggy diapers aren't the sort of thing that is conducive to a good life for a dog. The only option we really had was for him to go back into surgery, to have the margins on the tumour widened from almost nothing to as much as they could (although with this sort of tumour it's supposed to be an inch either way and that was simply not possible) in the hopes that it would prevent the regrowth of cancer and give him his best chance to be happy, healthy and cancer-free. 

Before he went in for surgery, I wanted the pups to spend time together and honestly, I wanted to spend some time with him, too. He's been my baby since we got him, not as much as he is my mum's baby, but he's my baby, too, and he's considered an older dog now, since he's eight, and older dogs and anaesthetic isn't something you mix for fun. I was concerned about the anaesthetic but also concerned about what happens if the surgery doesn't cure him? What happens if we have weeks of recovery only to find out he's not fully recovered and he won't be? I wanted to get in some good days with him in case they were Chai's and my last good days with him, so that had to be before surgery, and then when he had surgery I knew my mum was going to need some help in nursing him back to health, so I decided to just move - temporarily - back to my mum's. 

Generally, being back at my mum's is really good for me writing because my mum takes her mum-ing seriously. She does all of the cooking, she cleans, she does the laundry and she even makes me regular brews when I'm working so that I can just keep cracking on. I guess what I'm saying is I'm massively spoiled when I'm here. This time though, with worrying about Teddy, caring for Teddy and the lack of sleep and general tiredness affecting the whole house, I've been skipping more days than I have been writing, because it's just not happening easily, and I don't have it in me at the moment to grind through writing a few hundred words a day without a particular reason to. 

Caring for Teddy is meaning carrying him up and downstairs at the beginning and end of the day (he's also spoilt and sleeps on the bed), picking him up to put him outside for toilets and picking him up to get him back in, cleaning his wound regularly (especially when he's been sat on it outside with no concept of the kind of germies he could pick up out there!), giving him his medication, of which there is quite a lot!, and also trying to stop him from getting stressed out. It was a big operation and a lot of trauma for the poor guy, and he's still not really come to terms with what happened. He keeps whipping his head around trying to look at it, and probably bite it, but he has a big inflatable collar on so he can't get to it to bite or lick it, and he can't see it either, and even if he could, there is no way for him to understand what it is and why we have done it to him. He cried a lot the day we brought him home (and so did we if we're being honest) but being at home seems to have settled him and he's been to a wound check with the vet where they said he was doing well.  Whilst things are looking up for him, it does mean that during this Camp NaNo, I haven't dropped everything to just get some writing done, I haven't been trying to plough through and finish in a couple of days and honestly, it's made me realise again that Camp does not have the same sort of effect on me that November NaNoWriMo does. And that is fine because I can plan for November being super busy with NaNo, but letting it take over three months of my life just doesn't work. 

The upshot is I'm writing when I can, but that's not much at the moment, because the doggies come first. 

Reasons I Don't Want To Write During Lockdown

 There have been a few reasons why I haven't wanted to write during the current UK lockdown and surprisingly one of them has actually been a lack of time. Juggling life (or dealing with the lack of one), work and assistance of other people as well as socialising with the family I live with and a few other things, it's somehow felt busy despite not actually knowing what I have been doing for the past year, but it's not even that which is currently making me not want to write. Currently, it's my completely scrambled vocabulary. 

I occasionally, in the non-COVID affected normality, make some great gaffs where I use a word and then either think it was the wrong one or completely forget the meaning of the word I just used. I thought it was mainly when I was speaking, but no, it happens regularly when I'm typing as well. Previously they were an odd but amusing occurrence and they were, probably at most, weekly. These days, it is not even weekly, but hourly that I completely lose the word I am trying to get to and can't recall it, or my mind is reaching to recall a word and it kind of does a Groot from the second movie; if it's in the vague vicinity, we'll give it a shot. No prizes for guessing what the last word in that sentence turned into, though I think that was just a bog standard typo.

An example of what I mean was the quiz I was a part of this evening. The answer was wrong anyway (it was actually Pulp Fiction) but I was trying to think of the name of the film Reservoir Dogs, but what my brain spat at me was Riverside Dogs. It's close. It is body of water-related, has similar letters and is a similar length, but no, the film is not called Riverside Dogs (especially not because we were talking about Pulp Fiction, but even if it was Reservoir Dogs...) 

With this happening a lot, I'm assuming it's because my brain is under stress. There's a global pandemic going on; stress feels like an appropriate response. I have a few 'life goal' things happening, and still, stress feels like the appropriate response. Writing, though often cathartic, is likely to lead to me putting more stress on my poor, fragile, broken little mind and I am worried about what that kind of stress is doing to my body, and to my mind. It's certainly not helping my anxiety levels, but I know stress contributes to other things as well, so when I feel like writing, I write and when I don't, I don't get too up my own butt about it, because there's a lot going on that I need to be stressed over, or I can't help but be stressed over, and I don't need to give myself anything extra. 

I have set myself a goal for this month of around 10,000 words and quite frankly, I'm not too worried if I don't make it. Whilst it would be nice to add to my NaNoWriMo lifetime total, I'm most concerned about keeping myself happy and healthy for the moment and everything else needs to come secondary to that. If it doesn't fit with the goal of being happy and healthy, it has to be less important, or it might have to go.

I'm a Freaking Terrible Vegetarian

I'm a terrible vegetarian. 

Today, as we were tearing up some of the garden to make room for the greenhouse, I was having an internal debate about how terrible of a vegetarian I am. I'm not talking about an American vegetarian, which I think is veggie except for bacon sandwiches, or people who think chicken doesn't could, or even pescetarians who still eat fish (although I did have phased where I did that to make life easier for my ex-partner - obviously before he was the ex) but it's more everything past the not eating meat things. People think it's more treading into veganism, but personally, I disagree. 

Prior to moving back home, I was off milk, which was good for me, because I'm either lactose intolerant or lactose sets off my IBS. I found this out when I was about fifteen and something with a really creamy sauce made me violently ill and I wouldn't go to Pizza Express for a while. I was drinking my coffee with either oat milk or almond milk, and honestly, I was happy to pay the extra for the really good alternative milk, because it didn't make me feel ill and it didn't taste like crap like most of the cheap ones do. Unfortunately, my mum shops at Aldi and they only do the cheap alternative kinds of milk, and, to be perfectly honest, I would sooner go without milk than drink them and I have an at least five cup a day tea habit I can't sustain without milk, so compromise, I'm having red milk whilst living at my parents' place. 

We're also growing our own veggies and things in the garden, however, there are aphids on some of the plants and cabbage looper caterpillars on others and they're trying to massacre the plants, so I spent some of today getting rid of the little yellow eggs off of the cauliflower plants and spraying the other plants down with a bug spray to try and save them from the insects, however when we ended up with stray worms in the gravel we were moving or on the concrete base where we were trying to clear to put up the greenhouse I was picking the little guys up and putting them in another part of the garden where they could run away into the soil and be happy and alive, but, on the other side, a spider was squashed because after me screaming at one of it's distant cousins for getting a bit too close that one decided to try and make a run up my arm as I was clearing a plant. There's another in the garden that I told my dad was going to get hit with whatever was closest if I saw the little sod again, but that was mainly because I ****-ing hate them, it was a Cupboard Spider, Cupboard Spiders bite and it gets nasty if you don't go to A&E and have it treated. I'm not going to the hospital any time soon if I can avoid it, so I'm not having one of those little ****houses bite me. I know I should live and let live and I know spiders help control the other bug populations, but there are rules around here. Spiders that try to/ get into my bed, dead, spiders in the house generally, probably going to get slipper-ed, large ones around me when I'm freaked out, likely to be ground into the carpet, in the garden, stay away from me and the worst that will happen is I'll scream because they're not socially distanced enough... 

There is the whole argument as well of the number of animals that die in crop production and the production of pet food and all that jazz, and I know I have some work still to do on no eating sweets with gelatine in and not eating Milky Ways and Mars bars because they're made with rennet (which I only found out a few weeks ago) as well as making sure the cheeses I'm buying are actually vegetarian, but after fourteen years of this, I think I'm doing pretty okay with it. And most of my main characters in anything I write now are vegetarian, so I think that should score me some points...

What Else Are You Doing?

Okay, it's day one of Camp NaNoWriMo and I haven't even announced my project on the website, because I have a million things going on and in all honesty, this kind of crept up on me. I'm an ML, I should know better. I'm a Twitter sprint lead, I should know better. I've been a NaNoWriMo participant since I was sixteen years old, I should really know better, but right now, I don't know better, because this year has been intense. 

We're all at very different points in our lives - that's a given. That's an every year occurrence. That's April, July and November every year, but this year is different, because we're also at very different points with this virus. Here in the UK, people are starting to go back to work, things are reopening, but we're still social distancing. The social distance restrictions in place at the moment mean that the London MLs cannot in good conscience invite people to physical meet ups, because as much as our Mental Health has been taking a full frontal assault, we're not willing to put our participants or their loved ones, let alone ourselves, at risk when there is so much we can do online. We're going to focus on that. 

That's not the only question of what else are you doing that's being asked though. Some people are furloughed and there's been a really damaging meme heading round the internet which suggests that not coming out of this period with a new skill or a novel finished or something to show for it means that you failed. They could not be more wrong. Whether you have a pre-existing Mental Health condition or not, this has been a tough period. It's not as though our employers just decided to give us a bunch of paid time off - we've essentially been told it is not safe to go outside. That is difficult for anyone. We're also being told it's not safe to see friends and family. There's a little voice that is always there which is saying 'You are not safe' and the only way you can make sure you're safe is to stay at home and don't allow anyone to come to your home. Wash your parcels, wash your grocery delivery, wash your hands until they are raw. This is not an easy time. Yes, that pressure might mean some can write, but there will be a lot of us struggling to get through the day of getting up, getting dressed, doing chores, feeding ourselves and keeping ourselves healthy. If that is the bare minimum you can manage, that is enough. That's a massive achievement in fact, so keep going. If that's a challenge, use nudge theory, or something else that's small steps to get yourself back. 

In this time, we also have a whole lot of people who have taken on extra roles (and extra rolls, but let's not talk about that). Maybe you're volunteering for your local food bank, maybe you're assisting elderly family or neighbours. Maybe, like me, you've managed to beg and borrow a sewing machine to get sewing Make It Yourself masks to keep you and your family safe. I don't know about you guys, but I was never furloughed, so I have to find time to do all of my work work, my mask work and all the other bits and pieces of life admin I have to do. The idea of fitting in writing, MLing and Twitter sprinting as well, is exhilarating and exhausting. I'm looking forward to the challenge, but I'm also wondering how on Earth I'm going to juggle it all, but the good thing is that writing a novel is taking a back seat this month to writing a blog each day of whatever length to talk about writing, life and anything else that pops into my head. I hope that you enjoy them. I'm more than happy to discuss them in the comments section below so feel free to leave a message in there or get in touch with me on Twitter. 

Catch you later, 

Charlieswrite 

A Walk To Remember,

Now, I know that I am obviously biased, because I love Nicholas Sparks, however I have just finished watching the film adaptation of A Walk to Remember and it made me want to set something on fire because it was SO BAD. 

SPOILER ALERT - If you have not read the book, and intend to do so, stop reading here.

AWTR is one of the best books which Nicholas Sparks has written. It bares a vague resemblance to the story of The Fault in Our Stars, though it did come out a few years prior to that. It is a beautiful story of two teenagers who fall in love and one of them is terminally ill. It's set in small town America a few decades ago and the narrator is looking back at his life from more than thirty years on. One of the most touching parts of it for me is the ending where the man, now in his fifties, is still wearing his wedding ring because he never saw occasion to take it off. His devotion to the love of his young life is admirable and beautiful. 

IN NO WAY WAS HE THIS YOUNG OFFENDER THAT THEY MADE HIM OUT TO BE: Hollywood, you have been a bad bunny. Go to the naughty corner and think about what you have done. 

No really, 

The thing that annoys me is that they changed parts of it for no logical reason. His dad is supposed to be a congressman who is away in Washington regularly, not a cardiologist who left his wife an shacked up with another woman. This was not another story to vilify men who leave their wives and children - what is your obsession? Stop making out that dad's leaving automatically makes their children (particularly the boys) awful people, because it just gives it more weight when people try to use it as an excuse. 

Just to temper that, yes, there are people with legitimate issues because of things that their parents did and did not do, but that's not what Hollywood displays either. 


In other news, it would appear that I have decided that my challenge for Camp NaNo is something along the lines of writing a blog a day. Yes, that was my plan last year and yes it epically failed, but we'll see how well it goes this time.

Catch you later. 


Oh, you do drugs because mummy and daddy

Woo!,

I've been pretty vocal about the fact that this week has been busy, and I was well prepared for the fact that my word count was going to kind of tank. (Well, not tank, but not quite get on the ladder really.) It's been difficult to see where I would be able to fit in writing and I really have been struggling with getting any sort of word count recorded. 

Thankfully (really?), well, thankfully yesterday I spent a scheduled few hours in hospital being poked and prodded and spun around at low speed with lights flashing. It was quite as *fun* as it sounds. The good thing is that between all the bits and pieces I was getting tested or questioned about, I was able to sit in the reception with my iPad and type furiously to try and catch up. I'm pretty blessed to have a myriad of writing tools and several of them are actually very portable which does help when I have spent 90% of the time I've actually been in my flat this week asleep. 

It's been annoying because I really want to work on the novel that I decided would be my project this time around. Thankfully I got well enough into it today that I've managed to not only get to the 10k I was aiming for this weekend, but actually caught up with how many words I was supposed to be on today - 11290 (and a little bit more). 

I'm going to try a little harder this week in order to get some words in on the train in the morning and on the way home, and maybe some at lunch time, too (though that might be pushing the boat out a little bit) because I really don't want to fall behind again. 

As much as it is Camp, and Camp is a lot more laid back in terms of deadlines and such than November, I don't want to fail when I've decided to go for a little bit less than the November target.

Ah well - we'll see how it goes. Catch you later. 

Well, That's an Unfamiliar Phrase,

Even though I am exhausted, and it's been a long week and my mouth has been in pain many times where I am missing a tooth, I can honestly say that I love my job. 

I started my new job on Monday morning and it is a very steep learning curve, believe me, but knowing a lot of different things for my job is not the problem. The "problem" which isn't really a problem per se is that I went into my last job with at least a small amount of knowledge, whereas with this I am learning pretty much from scratch. 

To say that I have not got as much writing done as I might have hoped would be the understatement of the century. I barely got a few thousand words done after the weekend, which means that I am struggling in terms of word count. It always seems that drafts of my novels end up as a sort of Frankenstein's manuscript with bits and pieces here and there that need to be sewn together. Part of the reason that they all need bringing together is because otherwise, I have no clue what my actual word count is; it's all guess work and underestimations. 

I don't miss my old job, but I do miss having the time to write whilst doing my job. Whilst in the call centre it was more than possible to be scribbling a few paragraphs or drawing up a little plan or something, but my new role is much more intense, and I don't have that luxury. Granted, having a few canine compadres wandering around more than makes up for it. Then again, I'm biased. I prefer most people's fur babies (dogs, cats, rabbits etc...) to actual babies because generally, they don't make quite so much noise - though I do love a terrier more than anything and they can be yappy little sods. 

So I have a million and one things to try and get done and nowhere near the amount of time I need to do they, but I'm just going to try and get stuck in. 

Catch you later

My Own Limitations,

Camp started a few days ago now and I can't say that I'm where I wanted to be. 

Last year I had this great starting day of fifteen thousand words, and yes, it nearly made me keel over, but it was excellent in terms of how much I got done. 

This time around I started in my sweat pants, so lord only knows where this is headed. I've also had to head to the dentist to get a tooth out. And I'm starting a new job. And trying to find a new place to live, too. 

We're only three days in and I'm already dressing like a hobo, but thankfully still making normal foodie things. 

And I really need to sleep. 

Erecting the Tents,

No, like actual tents. Well, metaphorical...

It's 10 days until the second Camp of the year kicks off and this time, I definitely feel a lot more committed to it, which is probably because I actually have a project on for this one. 

Yesterday I mentioned having finished the first draft of the first volume of The Single Girls' Collective, and the plan for Camp NaNo is to carry on with this project and produce a solid 35K as a draft for the next volume. I'm referring to them as volumes because I don't know right at this moment if they will be novels (50k+) or novellas. I'm just trying to run with what they are at the moment and then the framework can come later.

With Camp looming, we've all been talking about cabins, and events and such, which has been wonderful. I'm helping to organise a London based cabin, and there should be some really fun goings on. Also, there are five weekends in Camp this year, which is beautiful, because it gives me more blog time (if I stick to just Sundays, which is obviously the commitment I made at the beginning of the year) and also because, for those of us who work office hours, it gives us more time for solid writing!! 

Now don't get me wrong - Camp is still going to be intense and my estimate of 35K is still a daunting thought because it is a lot of work. It still takes a lot to drag your butt home after a day of work and sit and work or to do it before work, or on your lunch time. After NaNo, I know that it's easy to fit in about a hundred of so words whilst you go for your pee break from noveling, but still, it's intense. 

So the rest of this month is probably going to be making playlists, stocking up on snacks and making sure I have enough coffee to hit the ground running with this.  

I will be staying up from midnight a week on Thursday to welcome this into my life, and hit the ground running. Feel free to join me, one and all.

Catch you later.

Ready for NaNo,

I'm normally the worst person for being ready for NaNo. I start the competition sleep deprived and end it like a little zombie. I eat quick food and a lot of snacks and drink far too much tea. I know what I do to myself, truly I do, but I do it regardless. 

What is disappointing is that this month is not one of the Camps. I always thought it was April and June. However I was apparently wrong and it's April and July (or is it August), but the problem there is that I'm ready now. I am sitting here ready to write and with a project to work on, but I know that the competition helps. I also know that I will not be feeling like this next month, which really sucks. 

I think I'm in the mood for doing something crazy, like attempting another 15k day, or attempting to push it past that and see how far I can really go with it. That is always an option. It might, of course, include me finding other more magical and inventive ways to write for longer periods of time, or prepare myself so that I have a full 24 hours of awakeness to work.

I might just make myself an Excel spreadsheet and get on with it myself. Have my own little camp in June and hopefully, maybe, have another novel under my belt by the end of it.

Catch you later...

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...

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.

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. 

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.

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.