Hello Sunday,

I'm well aware of the fact that I had said I was going to take this year as it comes and three days in I am still committed to doing that, but I'm also committing myself to a couple of other things. Thankfully it's too late for me to commit to dry January, but I've realised recently that the amount I drink is not really a problem; I just need to remember train times when I'm out and that, when I don't drink for a while,  have a very low tolerance for alcohol, but that's not too much of a big deal. I'm not the sort of person who has to drink to have fun or to relax, I am by no means a person who comes home and opens a bottle of whatever before they unwind for the evening, I just really really like cocktails, and I figure that in the grand scheme of things, it's not such a bad thing.

The big one I'm committing to is I'm going to be submitting chapters to a publisher this year. I have already started them, I know where I'm going with them and I'm just trying to plod along and get it done. It's kind of terrifying because I don't have any clue as to whether or not they will be accepted, and I don't know how I will take it if they're not, but I don't try I'm never going to know. I don't want to spend the next few years thinking about how things could be if I actually did it, so I'm going to try and just do it. It's a terrifying thought, though. 

The second biggest one is I'm committing myself to one blog a week, every week, until the start of 2017. I'm going to aim for doing on a Sunday, and I'm not putting a word limit on it, but I know from experience that the act of sitting down and focusing my mind on writing something is a good thing. It is what National Novel Writing Month teaches me every year, and yet every year I seem to be able to kid myself into thinking that there's a Writing Fairy who hibernates for 11 months and then pops out in November, screams da-dah! and suddenly a novel pops out of my ridiculous little hands as if by magic. It's not magic; it's hard work. Come on. 

The last thing is I am going to spend time reading this year and thank the gods it is because I want to be reading and not because I have essays and exams to write, and that's a beautiful feeling. It's so easily possible to get addicted to reading when it is a good book or story or poem or anything really. If van Houten wrote a shopping list, I would probably be inclined to read that to. The fact is I have a love for so many authors and I read very, very little in 2015. I watched all of the films, but books didn't go so well. Especially not finishing books. My God, I started 1984 again, but then stopped past halfway through to pick up To Kill a Mockingbird so that I could finish that before reading Go Set a Watchman, and then didn't finish that because it's no To Kill a Mockingbird. I also started countless philosophy books for exams and thought, oh, this is very interesting I shall have to read more when I graduate. Well, Charlie, your diploma is in the drawer and those books are still gathering dust. 

Anyway, I'm probably just spouting the same New Year idealisms as most people right now, because apparently the changing of one calendar to a new one, a night of fireworks and the changing of the last number in the date make us feel like we ought to be wildly different than we were just a day or a week earlier. For some, New Year holds a lot of meaning. I know of a person who seems to wait until New Year when we fall out to try and fix things because New Year was important to us 9 years ago, but for me, it is not special, it is not magical, and it's only real significance is that it marks a passing of a lot of times since everyone last got hysterically reflective over their lives. I can't hide away from these reflections and I can't stop myself looking at the good and bad things that have happened between one loud, drunken celebration and the next (even though I have only celebrated one New Year in such a way and the rest of them I have been in my pyjamas). What I do think though is that New Years Eve makes an excellent bookmark. People ask me when I became a vegetarian - when did I make this Massive decision which really impacts my life and I do my best impression of a goldfish, attempt to remember how old I am and subtract 13. If I ever get the opportunity to be asked he question, when did you decide that you were serious about a career in writing, I want to know that answer almost to the minute. This is not a whimsical decision. This has been a part of my life for a long time, but now it's more than that. 

Also, if you want to see one of my favourite photos from graduation, check out my Twitter profile. @charlieswrite

2 Months, 2 Days

In 2 months and 2 days, (19th of March for any of those struggling... :P) I turn twenty, and that's making me look at everything going on in my life and wonder what on Earth I'm doing. 

I just managed to punch my ceiling and skin my knuckles (thankfully it was my left hand again so not the world's biggest catastrophe really, in fact, something of a regular event) while dancing on my bed. I know, stupid, right? I need a trampoline to get rid of my energy...

I wish that was the most silly thing though, because it's really not. 

Each time I get into writing or editing, something else in my life seems to pop up and scream at me that it is meant to be higher up the priority list, and while I am good at putting the novel down and getting on with whatever else is required of me, it's a pain!! All I want to do is focus on what I love, and when I have time, I can't focus and when I can focus, I have no time. I'd call it a catch-22, but it's just life really, but I don't want to be only able to produce a novel every November. I want to do more than that. Even if everything I write is romantic-y trash written from the same perspective, I DON'T CARE!! 

What would be really nice would be getting other people, as in people other than my friends, to read my stuff. I don't even want there to be a lot of them, just a few would be really nice!! After writing that I decided to see the results of having put Fairies on the Kindle FREE for a day and have subsequently found out that roughly 183 people took advantage of that offer. THAT IS SO COOL TO ME!! Seriously, thank you all so much.

 That has actually cheered me up quite a lot. 

What I had been planning to write was something along the lines of how daring I think some people are to just jump into things when they know what they want. I have so much respect for people who didn't choose to follow a path they were sort of channelled to, who went off and carved their own damn path. For now, I'm happy to be living in London, thankful I have my job and supportive parents and sort of mildly entertained and motivated by my degree (although not motivated enough to actually spend an indecent amount of time studying to ensure I leave uni with a First. New things have become important now.) 

Anyway, the way forward is going to come in pulling my head out of my ass and actually paying attention to whatever is going on in the world around me, and maybe even going back to having COFFEE SHOP TRIPS with all that beautiful people watching and writing and editing and lattés and ahhh, it's going to be soooooo good. 

I guess I should also divulge that I am also planning a couple more days of the FREE download promotions for both the novels which are currently residing on the Kindle, and also getting them both redone into paperbacks asap. I can't decide whether that should come first, or editing Yours,

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, but then I would first concern myself deciding which one is in fact the egg....

Whatever.

Night-y night my currently pyjama clad readers!

Charlie x 

:)