Really Crappy Decisions,

Surprisingly, this is not about the myriad of really crappy decisions I make on a weekly basis because I hate making decisions sometimes. I have a couple of very crappy deicisions to make at the moment about the future of "the" book. Thee is in ""s because, as I think I have either stated or eluded to before, I work on a few at once. The one I am talking about was supposed to be around 31000 words by the end of Camp NaNo and to say that that did not happen is an understatement. 

This is another of these things that I've been trying to write for what feels like something close to forever. It is something that I love, have tried out before and then either gotten annoyed with a character or took a stab out, the middle came out gooey and I figured it needed another few minutes (well, months) to stew and take shape. The first iteration of this thing was started in tiny notebooks bought from a giftshop because it was the only thing available and I was bored with time to spare. The characters are sweet, the storyline feels beautiful and half of it is set in Manchester reliving some of my favourite parts of childhood. And writing it hurts. 

People that don't really write (and some people who do write, but are built differently) don't understand how much it hurts if you feel every emoition of the characters. I would hate to think of them as flat,, emotionless pawns which are used to narrate and navigate a story, but the problem is that I draw on experiences I've been through to fuel the characters feelings and going back over some of that can hurt like hell. I've already been struggling with my mental health for the last couple of weeks, and last week was just heinous and I know that I just, if I put myself through too much of it at the moment, I will suffer and those around me will, too, and I've leaned on them a lot these last few weeks. 

Here in lies the problem though. Even when I am as close to okay as I ever get, this novel hurts. I'm not sure I can count on only one hand the amount of times that this novel, in it's several forms, has had me in tears already. Granted I wasn't always sober, but that's not the point. It seems ridicuolous to try and write it whilst knowing that parts of it will hurt, and they have the potential to make me struggle and I find it hard to knowingly do that to myself. That being said, it is really hard not to write. No matter how uncomfortable, one day I will have to come to a decision as to whether to just do it, or just drop it and it feels pretty crappy. 

On that note, I should probably go to sleep, but I think the writing bug might have paid a visit. God, he's an inconvenient git! Catch you later. 

Holier Than,

Back in Manchester I got one of my piercings done in a place called Holier Than Thou, which for a piercing place is either the best or worst pun in history. Personally I adore it. 

I'm not really sure as to where my love of piercings came from, but it certainly went into overdrive earlier this year when I decided I was going to get two of them at once. 

My nose has settled, quite happily, but my latest cartilage piercing is a different story.

Granted, I was a silly sausage and got it on the side that I apparently want to sleep on most often, but I was concerned that getting another on the same side that I have a helix piercing might look a little crowded since I only have quite small ears, though if I decide to get any more then this might have to be forgotten. 

I tried explaining this to a friend, but "sleeping on it" doesn't sound like the sort of thing which does a lot of damage to you.  It is one of the worst things you can actually do on a healing piercing because the pressure can damage the shape of the piercing... or something crappy like that which means you wake up with ear ache, a headache and general grumpy-arse tendencies. 

When I first got it, as with when I first got my helix done, I went without wearing headphones for about three weeks because I know the pressure and the reasonably air-tight environment is just not great for piercings. Unfortunately I am far too grumpy and anti-social to be able to survive for much longer without needing to plug myself into my music and ignore everyone. Thankfully a conversation with one of the piercing people in the clinic where I got this one done has told me it is no longer infected and will hopefully heal fine if I just stop sleeping on it. It just might have a couple of bumps on it.

I started writing this blog post a few hours ago and have forgotten my point several times over between then and now... I'm also watching A Knight's Tale for the first time in years, and I still find my favourite line hilarious "It's called a lance - hellooo."

Ah, yes. So, the advice was, do not sleep on it. 

Do not sleep on my right side. It sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Let me tell you, it is not so simple. 

I am the sort of person who moves a lot in my sleep and so saying stay off an entire side is a bit difficult. I have to somehow drill it into my head not to sleep on my right so that even my unconscious mind holds onto it. I'm pretty sure that it means I don't sleep as deeply as I really should, but I know I need that my ear does need some serious healing time. Once it has settled itself in and healed I will be fine, it's just annoying that it might be quite a long time until that happens. It's supposed to be between ten and sixteen months of having it put in, but I'm sure that this will take longer now that it's been a bit messed up. 

In a way, piercings are like novels. It is a slight pain getting through the first part, a little/lot more as you look after it, and then smooth sailing, for the most part, after that. The healing part, or the editing with a novel, can seem tedious and annoying and lots of other negative words, but I think that is the wrong attitude. The care and nurturing that you put into both processes shows a commitment to something and for my piercings, it's not just that they kind of look pretty, but that they become a part of me, like edits become a part of the novel. They become so integral that it is almost impossible to think of it without them.

I best go look after my little addition then - catch you later. 

Sometimes, I Feel Like Screaming,

It should comes as no surprise to anyone that I am quite a stressy person. I like things to go right first time, and they rarely do, and on those regular occasions that they go wrong, I get quite frustrated and don't necessarily know how to react. It's a bad habit that I am trying to break, but it takes a lot of time to retrain yourself, particularly from something that seems very instinctual. 

Part of the problem I have is that when I get stressed about situations, different things go, 'I did not sign up for this sh*t, I'm leaving' so my immune system ends up in the toilet, or I end up dizzy to the point of not knowing where the ceiling is. I had one of those last night/this morning, partly because one of my piercings is not overly happy, and I don't recommend them. 

One of the major problems is that I do not help myself at all. 

Aside fron all the normal joys of a 23 year old (working, Netflixing, saving up for a deposit for my own place, eating, sleeping etc) I am a fully certified crazy person for trying to write a novel in a month, and then have all the palaver of finishing and editing etc that comes along with it, a write in group who also have movie nights (my poor social calendar :P) and have signed myself up to learning to drive again (as in, I am again attempting to learn to drive, though the sucess of this is yet to be measured) AND, this is the big one, I am one of the new MLs for London.

Now, for those of you who aren't down with lingo, an ML is a Municipal Liason Officer. MLs are not only responsible for dragging their own sorry behinds through November alive, well and with 50 thousand words under their belt, but also hauling ass and getting as many other people there to. We set up write ins, send pep talks, moderate forums and are generally there as the wall to wail to and shoulder to cry on when we are needed.

London, as you can well imagine, is a massive region, so there are four of us sharing the load like a lovely pack of Greek donkeys trotting up the side of Santori with a tour load of American's suitcases strapped to our backs, but it is truly an amazing egion to be a part of. We're asked to attempt to provide a write in at least once per week, but we're going to aim at 4+, a Kick Off Party and a Thank God It's Over, because I need sleep and the Red Bull ran out party... As well as an overnight lock in and a walking tour of London with writing stops built in. *BIG BREATH IN*

It is insane to think that it was only 7 years ago that I was preparing for my first NaNo competition. In facct, this time 7 years ago, I'm not sure that my friend who introduced me to NaNo had even done so yet. I came out of that competition devastating at what I percieved as losing. It was an eight month slog that turned my 22,500 NaNo peice into a full length novel that, warts and all, I am still proud of, and it provided the UK size 13 boot up my butt that spurred me into my next NaNo where I managed the 50k and wrote Fairies.

Every year, I have attempted to up the ante. Last year, it was wanting to achieve the 15k day, and I was beyond proud when I realised that goal. I am hoping that being an ML will help me to help other people, not just in the London region, reach their own goals, as well as being able to set and smash some more of my own. The ground work is being laid, the countdown is on. Are you with us? Are  you ready?

Too Much To Do Does Not a Life Make,

I keep getting really annoyed that I haven't really been writing any blogs for a while, but I have so much to do that I haven't even played Sims 4 or SimCity for a month, and they're my destress things, so I'm sure you can imagine that I'm a little bit of a X Track 2 (I'm a Mess - for all those who didn't get the Ed Sheeran reference). 

So, what's been happening? Well, more doctor's trips because I've been having inconvenient stomach pains - not that any stomach pain is particularly convenient if you actually like doing your job and are no longer in high school wanting to miss PE - getting infuriated at the library in my university when people are requesting books that I'm using for my dissertation, getting a bit panicked by essays and deadlines, going to see Ed Sheeran in concert (twice :P) and watching the filming of Russell Howard's Good News last night. Why does life always seem to fit much more nicely into timeslots when you list it all out? I always feel so busy!!

What am I currently procrastinating from (I don't care if that's incorrect use of the word, you understand what it means)? Well, I have to choose between two really fun essays: One about HIV and contraception, the other about the ethical status of natural family planning. Considering this is one of the courses I am technically resitting - not that I failed, I just didn't do the course first time... - I would rather do the second option, as I attempted the first last time, and I don't think it went so well...

In other news, I've finally reached a decision concerning National Novel Writing Month this year, and I have decided I'm not doing it. I'm sick of the amount of Facebook spam I get about it and, quite frankly, the pressure to focus that much on my novel writing at the moment would not be a welcome thing - I actually can't think of anything worse. Last year was amazing - 3 10k days and I finished within 19 days, beating my personal record (previously 20days) - but I kicked my own ass so hard because NaNo was the centre of my world; this year it can't be, and I don't know any other way to behave with it, so rather than make a royal fluff up of my last year at uni, I would rather put NaNo onto the backburner for a bit and focus on the stuff that I really need to do.

It's been a bloody hard decision, and it's not like I'm walking away from it for good, but I guess that at some point I have to see that NaNo doesn't and can't own me, and I don't need it, I just want it. If I never go back to it, it has been extraordinary for me - not just for the writer that I want to be, but also the person that I am. I've met some amazing people because of it, and I hope to stay in touch with a lot of them for a very long time, but like I said, I have far too much else going on at the moment to be able to afford the time to it that I spend on it. 

Best of luck to all those competing this year.

Anyway, best get back to it. 

In The Wake of NaNoWriMo,

So, it's now over a month since NaNoWriMo ended, and I can quite honestly say I haven't touched what I wrote since the day I hit fifty thousand words (19th November 2013). While that isn't a bad thing necessarily - I know many people that think the draft of a novel is like red wine, you have to give it time to breath - the fact that all I have done since then is a couple of handwritten pages in a notebook that seems to be going on forever is sort of playing on my mind. 

My thing is I have a very active imagination, and when I don't force myself to sit down and let some of the ideas come out in a constructive way, they form some pretty vivid and often pretty confusing nightmares. Now, you'd think that being used to this would mean I would convince myself to sit down and force myself to write for a set amount of time per day, but even during NaNoWriMo that's simply not how I work. Additionally, when I do decide to write and get very drawn in by something, I always have to go to bed before finishing writing something, because I'm too tired to carry on, and that also influences the things I dream about. 

Oh, and I always feel pretty burnt out after NaNo.

I am however thankful that now my urge to write has naturally returned, though I'm still struggling with convincing myself to edit Yours,. I feel like there is almost a fear surrounding it, and I'm not sure exactly what's causing that fear, because I accept it could be a great many things and most of them are pretty common to other writers as well. 

Editing means finally finishing something. In a way, it's the same as reading the last chapter of the book. Whilst you are still reading the book, the characters have an existence, they have a life, but as soon as the book is finished and put back on the shelf, whether the characters were living or dead by the end of the story, there existence ceases in a way. It's the same with writing.

I've been told a great many times that it would be a mistake to pick up a book you once wrote and re-read it, because for whatever good it could do you in identifying your style, your characters and all that sort of thing, you'll find bits you aren't happy with and things you could have done better, so when you finish the last edit on a book, it should be the last time you look at it, which can be quite saddening. 

Though characters are more like an early kind of Sims characters than most of us would like to admit, it is possible to become rather attached to them, and I very often do. There are definitely times where I have an intense amount of hate for my characters, and other times when the things I write about them make me want to have a little cry in the corner. I know that it's strange to try and understand, but they have an importance in my life for a while, however long or short, and then as if in a puff of smoke without any real provocation, they are gone. 

Then again, it's possible to say that I'm fearing the day that the printed copy of Yours, arrives on my doorstep, because as much as that day will mean to me, I then have to find a way to accept that it's no longer mine. When you first start a novel, or first write it, it gets to be all yours until you let someone read it. Unless you tell them, no one else may even know of it's existence. As soon as the printed copy arrives, it has already been through countless hands and you've had no say in where it goes, and as soon as you push the button that starts all the commands to do something with that book - whether it be load it into the Kindle store or Amazon, or even upload it to somewhere completely free - you are letting go of any sort of control of it. Anyone who wants to can access it, and say what they like about it, and you might hear it and that's a scary thing.

Which leads onto the inevitable really scary thing. Someone might call it trash. Someone might insult it or upset you, or use it against you, or see things in it that you think have no basis. Essentially, people can think and say what they like about it, and there's nothing you can do about it. 

Tough. 

I think most of you reading this will know that I've been in this position before, and I know how scary it is. The fact is, though it's going to take me a while, I'm going to get to the point where Yours, is out there and there's nothing I can do about it, and I'm going to be happy that it is.

I've been in the position where people have said things about my novels that I don't like or that hurt, and sometimes it's been by people who were pretty close to me, but the thing is, I know I have to take that with the good things that people say too; you can't close off your ears to an entire half of the argument. If you're sat teetering on the edge thinking should I, shouldn't I? The answer is going to be, yes, you should, because most of the time, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than you regret the things that you did, so go for it. Publish a novel, or a group of poems or short stories, or even just one. That thing you can do?, show it to people, because it is impressive and it is real. 

I know I need to give myself a rather large kick in the bottom to get this ready and finished, and I will, and you should to. 

Be proud of your wordsmithy. 

Conducting the Internal Orchestra,

Whilst NaNoWriMo was rolling along - by which I mean my own submission, as I know the competition continues for another 7 days - I was attempting to write a blog every day, however I obviously failed in this endeavor. I should also admit that I failed to write anything towards my NaNo project every day, however the important part to me is that the 50'000 word target was reached, and it was reached in 19 days, because I had a bit of a roll. 
I managed two days that were over 10k and one day that was only about 90 words short. Trust me, that's pretty special after I didn't have a 10k day last year. 

Granted, this is not the standard of Yours, which admittedly I do still need to finish editing, and I was sort of distracted by the fact that all I wanted to do was sit down and write more of my new favourite project, Dreaming in Colour, but the beauty of it was this. I proved that I can force myself to sit down and write 1667 words+ in a day. I proved that I can function within my friendships and my relationship and, in some ways, in my studies whilst also working on a novel which has taken over 99.9% of my brain. It's just a shame that that can't continue after my piece of writing is finished. 

Most of you probably get that my life is a very fast paced mash up of a lot of things. At the moment, I feel like I'm trying to perform the circus trick of spinning plates on the top of sticks, but instead of performing it like a total Master of the Trade (Mistress sounded too suggestive...) I'm letting my very Greek inclinations come out and instead of spinning the plates, I'm dropping them or throwing them to the floor, then dancing around clicking my fingers in this sort of fashion. 

In a way, getting through life is like conducting this internal orchestra, getting all the timings of things right, telling which voices in your brain are allowed to pipe up at what time, because it's slightly ridiculous to be worrying about certain things now when they're bloody months away, right? But currently, I'm trying to do this conducting with a tea spoon and a bar of chocolate, because it's about the only way I can stop myself blowing a fuse of biting people's heads clean off.

The fact is, university is stressful, even when you only have lectures for six hours a week, there is more to it than that. Work is stressful, especially retail towards Christmas, and having to think about all the things you have to do for the role you're currently doing, and a role you may be looking at, and fitting it around everything else in your life. My health is currently stressful, and I can't wait to see if and when my medication kicks in and I start feeling less ill and sleeping better without taking Nytol. Being in therapy is really stressful, because things that are wrong with you now are mostly caused by things that happened in the way back when of your existence and going back over that isn't something that's easy. 

Do you know what else is stressful? Writing. It is really stressful, because you'll be constantly thinking your're spending too much time on writing or observing and not enough time on the other. Even when you've finished something, you have to think about editing it, what you want to do with it next and then getting it through a whole different process, which in itself is another stress, because it's like a birth, but you have a choice in it. Mother's have no choice in giving birth to the baby they have been nurturing, but as a novelist, you have to bring yourself to give birth to your creation, to give it life and let it leave you, and let the world think what it will. When your writing is your art, that is a very difficult thing to do. 

The point of this blog is more than venting, in a way, because I want anyone who is still battling through the trials of NaNo and all the lovely winter diseases and distractions and procrastination stations to know that it is possible, whether it's your first or your fourteenth, it's easy to think of this as one of the labours which Heracles was spared from, but it's not.
It would also be nice if some of those annoying people who bitch about students without knowing anything about how trying it can be read it and either shut up or lowered their voices a little bit. It also might be nice if the same happened to a few of those lovely buggers who don't think of writing as a profession. 

But even if not, I've done something today. After a day with my boyfriend and a shift in work, I've sat down and I've written something, with imperfections, and given it out to the world. Today, for the first time since I published the last blog on here, I gave up something I had written, because it's not just for me. 

I can't wait to be ready to do that with Yours,, and for other people to be ready to do that with what is their's. 

Welcome Back to the World,

I got back from Greece on Sunday to something amazing. 

God knows I have complained enough times about the state of my laptop - teetering on the edge of existence ready to fall off. I'm not sure if I actually informed you all that a week before I went away, it fell rather violently. The hard drive stopped playing dead and instead was dying rather rapidly, and there was seemingly nothing I could do about it. Admittedly, that is partly because I'm not an IT genius, but thankfully, I know someone who is. :)  

Not only did he stop the hard drive dying before the only existing copy of the novel I was trying to write to NaNo targets was destroyed - it was the only thing which wasn't on the back up drive, since I forgot to turn the computer on to do it's scheduled back up - he also got me a new hard drive that will probably outlive the rest of the laptop by a couple of years, which is pretty awesome. 

Not only does this mean the Craptop is back in action; it also means that it's not acting like a craptop. It's running faster, it hasn't crashed since Sunday and it almost looks prettier, too. Probably because I'm not directing my hatred at it anymore.

Admittedly, this means I no longer have the excuse of "the Craptop" as to why I'm not getting things done towards publishing the next novel, but I have the excuse of uni has started up again and I'm in lectures for a while SIX HOURS A WEEK (that was sarcasm by the way, but uni does take up more time than just the lectures) and I also have a new job, which will be keeping me pretty busy. 

It is however, only 27 days until my favourite day of the year - the wonderful launch day of National Novel Writing Month - and as usual, nothing will get in my way of celebrating that joyous event, so at some point during the time between now and then, Yours, needs to be edited and emailed to the two lovely people who have agreed to read it, and tell me how much they either love or hate it. It's a pretty scary moment when that happens. After that, it's ready to go into print and a touch of reformatting will make it ready for being an e-book.

Lots of Swear Words,

I'm a grumpy sort of person anyway, but when I have to be a rain soaked grumpy person and the rain soaks through to my pants, you're really going to know I'm in a bad mood. 

Anyway, we went to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Kew Gardens as part of the summer screenings and if nothing else it came as a confirmation that summer is most definitely over. It was cold and wet and rainy, so the only time I felt like I had any life in my limbs was when the Time Warp came on - I could be on my death bed and I would still get up and jump to the left. We were all in agreement that had the ticket prices not been so expensive we would have just gone and got on the next bus home, but after paying nearly £17 excluding the booking fee, we all took the British approach and just got on with it. Thankfully the girls and I had pizza and the heating to come home to. 

As if that wasn't great enough, the Craptop is once again playing Knock-a-Door-Run on death's door and thinking it can win, when it so clearly can't. I know it's four years old, but the hard drive being knackered is about the last thing I need right now!! Thankfully though there are almost an infinite amount of tech savvy people in the world who know far better than me how to fix these things, and one of them in particular likes me enough to help - even though I turn into an insufferable B1tch when this sort of thing happens. 

Despite best efforts, I have unfortunately lost some of the novel I was working on, though due to my worst efforts towards a NaNo style deadline in the past four years, it thankfully wasn't that much and there are still roughly 5600 words to work from, which is pretty good. 

Anyway, I'm apparently having a social life tonight, so I guess I better sign off and get back to writing, although even I admit that my original deadline is making very pretty circles in the toilet bowl right now... 

2617~

For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter (@CharliesWrite), I decided on the 9th September to start my own little thirty days of writing, using the word count targets which are set in NaNo. 

It works out at 1667 words a day, and while I managed Day 1, Day 2 has been a bit of a flop. 2617/3334 words is still 2617 words, but falling behind in the early stages never bodes well for a participants prospects of finishing. The first few days should have a heavy momentum - but if that lapses by the middle, that's okay, because it's pretty normal. 

Also, it seems that there are just millions of things to do at the moment. Today, my house mate and I tripped to Asda - we wanted to get paint, but they didn't have the colours we wanted - cooked twice, washed the curtains in our new house mate's room and started to touch up the painting with the paint we did have before ordering new. I even went to work in the evening. 

Even still, a packed day doesn't have to mean no time for writing. I have this amazing habit of writing whilst on buses or generally when I'm out an about, either on the notes section of my phone or in an email and then I can just send it all back to myself and paste it in. In a way it's like I never left the house. Anyway, before I need an almighty ass kicking, I'm going to hop to and get some work done this evening as tomorrow looks as though it will be equally fun packed!! 

~

Running With It,

I'm starting to wonder if running in the mornings is detrimental to everything else I do in day, because it seems as though I'm so knackered that all I want to do is crash on the sofa watching television for the rest of the day. It's gruesome, because I spend only half an hour running and then it becomes something which takes up my entire day. I'm glad that I only go running once every two days, or I would get nothing done. 

I've just had a look over the old blogs, because I knew that when I had got through formatting the latest novel, I had put down a provisional date (two, in fact) as to when it would be released, the first of which was going to be on the two year anniversary of the CharliesWrite blog (7.3.13) the second being my 20th birthday (19.3.13) neither of which actually happened - obviously. Anyway, for those of you not connected on Twitter (@charlieswrite) or Facebook (search: Charlie Yarwood Author) I'm now not working to any sort of provisional dates, BUT the initial formatting is now done and so is the first edit where most of the problems have been ironed out. All that needs to happen now is a little bit of moving words around and then a proof read and then it will be arriving onto the Kindle AND Amazon.com AND Amazon.co.uk (+++all of the European Amazon sites!!) Everything is designed and ready to go when the content is ready! 

Anyway, I'm going to make myself another mug of tea and start work on something different, because I would rather avoid having a typo on the front page of the first edition this time, because that would upset me...

Manchester Part 2,

Now that Craptop is behaving itself I can finally get this written, but first, a couple of moans:

1. The transport system in Manchester is a pile of ___________ (insert favourite profanity)
2. I think I need a children's Snuggie, since the sleeves are too far apart in mine 
3. My laptop sucks 

Anyway...since I've been back in Manchester, I've been meeting up with a lot of my old friends, and also running into people I haven't seen in years, which has been pretty odd, but ultimately interesting. Yesterday, I saw one of my old friends who essentially looks like he has a whole new face (it has been AT LEAST a year and a half, probably more like two years, since I've seen him though) and it was like, oh, hello beautiful. Interestingly though, I feel like nothing has changed. We still play video games together, I still suck at them, and they still - very accommodatingly might I add - set up the game in a different way so that it's almost impossible for me to lose. By the way, I love you guys! 

Today then brought about my very geeky side. Since the destruction of the blanket I have been OBSESSIVELY knitting to try and replace the patches that were essentially mashed and had to go in the bin, but that does mean I do things like knitting on the bus to town or in the cinema or watching the TV (or all of the above....guilty) I also hang around comic book stores and spend too much money on graphic novels, but if you've ever seen how beautiful The Watchmen and Kingdom Come are, you'll have to understand. 

Even better, Josh and I both proved our age (in our heads, somewhere between 62 and 90~) by sitting through another film, verbally tearing it apart and then admitting to having thoroughly enjoyed it. Jack the Giant Slayer and Warm Bodies (it's really odd that both films we've chosen to see recently have the same male lead) have both received the same treatment, but as I said, we really enjoyed them. 

Now if only I could find some time to edit that blasted novel!!!

P.s. CELEBRATING THE 1500 views!!! :) 

Writing Restraints,

In theory, the novel entitles 'Yours,' was meant to be coming out on the 7/3/13, which for those of you who don't know, is the two year anniversary of the CharliesWrite blog being up and running. There's a new problem with this though...

Well, no, it's not a particularly new problem really, it's an old problem revisiting.

Some of my joints (mainly my wrists and my knees) have a pretty bad habit of playing up, and rather than accept that, I just try and get on with things as I would without it happening. Now that would be fine, if I wasn't changing keyboards every five minutes and doing extra damage to my wrists.

If you've never used a manual typewriter, take it from me - DO NOT START! They have very powerful mechanisms in the keys, which you won't be used to if you use a computer or laptop. (I, of course, swap between the two). Then there's the keypad on my iPad - whole new kettle of fish, the time I spent testing Aphri (one of the electric typewriters - who lives in London) and then also Hephi (the other electric typewriter - who is currently living in Manchester with my mum). PLEASE NOTE - NONE OF THE TYPEWRITERS ARE CALLED CLICKY!

Anyway, the last few days my wrists have been in and out of compression bandages and I've been in and out of pain with them. They seem to have cleared up now, so I'm going to spend the next few hours trying to get some work done and see how far I can get with sorting out 'Yours,'. In theory - and this one really is just a fleeting theory which may not happen - all three of the books COULD go into paperback this year, but I don't know. I'll have to think about it and see what else comes up.


UPDATE: Well, that was the theory, but as I'm sure most of you know: theories evolve!

Unless I was willing to stay up all night today and tomorrow and live on coffee, ignoring everything else on my social calendar, there is no way that Yours, would be edited in time for release on the Kindle on 07/03/13, which I do apologise for. However, as a treat for those of you who do want to celebrate the birthday of the CharliesWrite blog, Fairies and Insanity Breaks will both be FREE on the Kindle again from 07/03/13 until 10/03/13.

You're welcome :P

That's Kind of Gross,

This whole thing with finding horse meat in Beef Lasagne makes me really glad that I don't eat meat anymore. Also, just so that you guys are aware when I get really grumpy - and it will happen - my intention for Lent this year is to be a proper vegetarian (Oh yeah, I'm going to become one of those annoying as packet readers!!) and to attempt to spend a week being vegan. I don't know how well it will go, and it definitely won't stick because I Love cheese and milk and eggs too much, but perhaps I can manage a week?

We'll see.

Also, I figure I should let you guys know the date of this, because it is what I am working towards. 7.3.2013 will mark the two year mark from when the CharliesWrite blog started (originally over on webs, before I realised this was infinitely better). I'm intending that day to be celebrated by the release of Yours, onto Kindle and also - possibly - into print. It all just depends on how all the editting and such goes, but keep your fingers crossed. Since Kindle Select gives you the option of five days free out of every three months, I think it might launch with a couple of days being free on the Kindle, but we'll just have to see about that one. :) I'm actually a little be excited. The problem with sorting out the print version is going to be writing the dedication, I feel. There are two different ones I want to write and I don't know which to choose! Argh. As the Platypus says, deal with it. (The Platypus is, of course, SpoonThePlatypus aka Sophie Greene)

Now I'm off to look into buying some of the new make-up I want from Illamasqua. Why is everything that is so beautiful, also so expensive?


P.s. Started writing the sequel to Fairies. This is going to be fun!

On Tone of Voice,

One of the things which people always comment on about my writing is that I apparently have a strong narrative voice. I do have a list of habits as long as my arm, including (my very favourite) a tendency to describe the mundane, but here's the reason. You know all that time we spent talking about how English teachers make too much of what an author  meant by something? This sort of idea: 

 I've found that they can, to a certain extent anyway, be right. 

If you ever decided, for what reason I don't know :P, to read Insanity Breaks then you'd see that throughout the book the character explains different things to do with her smoking habit. The same is true of Iris' (the main character from the soon to be released novel Yours, - more details coming soon) love of drinking tea, but here's the thing - when I write, I'm writing what is pretty much a dramatic monologue of a characters life, so the things which have importance in their lives will be included, and the things which don't will be left out. Pretty simple, right? If I've put it on the page, there is generally a reason, and granted that reason is sometimes just a vast description which some might call unnecessary, but mostly there is a reason. 

I will just point out that until midnight on 10/2/13 PST (8am 11/2/13 GMT) Insanity Breaks is available to be downloaded completely FREE onto Kindle or any Kindle app compatible device. For those who don't know what it is, it's the first novel I ever finish (Fairies was just the first I had the balls guts to self publish) and from start to finish it took me about 9 months. Fairies was written in one month and Yours, was written in 20 days. Those three, plus a monstrosity named As Yet Untitled (which went straight into my computer's recycle bin!) which took a month to finish, represent my four NaNoWriMo years. :D Useless piece of trivia...

Back to what I was saying about voice: I write what I know, from the perspective I know. All my characters are different, they do have different attitudes, different beliefs, different experiences, but their fundamental nature, THEIR VERY EXISTENCE, comes from the noise in my head. I would agree that my characters often speak from a very similar perspective - they tend to be lower middle class, reasonably well educate women who are either on their way to university or have been to university, they're normally some form of creative and they pretty much always believe in love. Now, I don't see this as a bad thing, because the fact is that most authors do it. Nicholas Sparks makes millions from writing pretty much the same novel over and over with different characters, in a different city and with a slightly different ending. His lead male tends to be a poor boy, with intelligence, but the girl's parents always see him as a whim, because he's sexy and from the wrong side of the tracks. The women are always beautiful and unobtainable creatures, but they have a young summer romance anyway -Yeah, this is the trash I read in the bath :) - and then they get separated. John Green (maybe I'm just a reflection of a teen cliche but I do love his writing at the moment) tends to write from the perspective of a fringe dwelling, witty teenage male (except A Fault in Our Stars, which pretty much made me cry all through it, but then the difference is only that the character is female...) My point is simply, if you like one of the novels, you're likely to like all by the same author, because it's from a perspective you can understand or relate to. Is that so bad? 

I will say one thing, author's voices develop and change over time. Our narrative voices are shaped by our experiences just the same way that we are. Things which seem of an immense amount of importance in what we write when we are sixteen (Insanity Breaks) will look quite different from the things we write at nearly twenty (Yours,) and everything that comes after will be different because every day that we open up our senses to the world, we see a little something we never saw before, or we hear something, or we feel or understand something in a different way and it's important for that to happen, because otherwise, we're not learning anything and if we're not learning anything, what do we really have left to say?