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. 

From October,

I do realise that's been almost an entire month since I've posted anything on here and for that, you all have my apologies. I've been having some pretty awesome adventures, been spending some quality time with the loved ones and have also encountered a couple of health problems, but I'm now on the mend, and just in time, as NaNoWriMo2013 starts at midnight tonight. Are you excited? 

I KNOW I AM!! 

I'm also petrified. For those of you who don't remember, I was a stroppy little sod last year after not achieving my favourite 'I have no life' goal of completing a 10k day. It is quite literally as the name suggests, a day where you write 10,000 words. I took three days off last year and finished on the 20th of November - definitely an 'I have no life outside of NaNo' achievement, but I couldn't quite feel satisfied. This year my goal is to have that 10k day. Maybe even have two, one for this year and one to heal my wounded pride from last year....I'm kidding. I think....

I've already had one of those nutty 'OHMYGOD IT'S NEARLY NANO; IMMA DIE!' moments yesterday, so it's probably a good thing that my housemates are in Portsmouth and there's possibly a strike of our uni lecturers, because I don't cope with people very well the day NaNo starts and I get the same sort of look as a piece of flat pack furniture with no instructions. (The best description of it is, I don't know what it is, and I have less idea of what to do with it. That kind of a face.)

On the plus side, I have an idea, a vague form of a plan, and a freezer drawer full of homemade ready meals, so that I don't just resort to pizza and coffee. I am also, because of my recent health blip, required to eat at least once a day so I can take my medication. It also requires me to consume vast amounts of orange juice, so maybe I won't end up with too dreadful of a NaNoFlu this year - trust me, it's a thing - but then again, who can know what November will bring? 

I have two gigs planned, can hopefully throw in a trip back home to see Jamie, Dean and their lovely cohort of Manchester WriMos, a rugby game this weekend (no, I'm not playing, look at the size of me for Pete's sake. :')) lectures, assignments, my family, my friends, my job, my amazing boyfriend :), and the general things of life like cooking, cleaning and the wonders of the ASDA weekly shop. There's Christmas shopping, sending Christmas cards and all manner of stupid things to think about, but they can wait, because it's coming, it's starting. 

REAL LIFE ENDS TONIGHT, 

Welcome to NaNoWriMo2013

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...