Go The **** to Sleep

Every time I hear the above phrase, it's in Samuel L Jackson's voice. It's a thing, but I kind of love it. 

A couple of days ago I said about priorities; honestly, sleep is a priority to me, but sometimes it seems that that doesn't communicate into every one of the corners of my mind. Yesterday was a day where I just felt tired All. Damn. Day. I think that was, at least in part, because I didn't get to sleep until four in the morning, but that's just life with anxiety as well. I get a running commentary of all of the things I need to get done in my life, so occasionally have to go tearing out of bed and across the landing to scribble something across my notebook to remember to do the following day. 

There are some amazing techniques out there and apps which help guide you through them as well as tools like eye masks with bubbles for your eyes so that it doesn't crush your lashes against your face and weighted blankets which promote relaxation and can stop physical symptoms like restless leg and also can help panic subside which is really good for trying to stop all of the nightmares. Most of the time that's enough to help, but not completely alleviate my sleep issues, and what is worse is that sometimes it does less than nothing to combat the issues that I have. 

When you haven't slept, your brain doesn't function the same. Occasionally, I write when I'm too tired to have any business writing, but if I then read back over what I wrote, I can see the parts where my brain went to sleep so many times because I miss out words or just get the word completely wrong. It's normally close or connected, but it's not the right word. 

So why am I telling you this, dear readers? Well, there's a really simple reason, actually. Some of us can crack through twenty thousand words in a day and it's not so painful. Some of us would have to stay up for twenty-four hours to do that. Some of us aim at twenty-four hours of writing to see if we can finish the whole of a NaNoWriMo challenge in a day or two, but there are some who are not built for that kind of sleep deprivation and sometimes, I am one of them. At the moment, I am definitely one of them. 

I'm back to being able to sleep for about ten hours and still be tired. I have people telling me that I should just set an alarm and sleep for eight, but trust me, I can't get up, and even if I did, no amount of coffee would stop me falling asleep at my desk. It's not worth it unless there is something really important for me to do early in the morning and even then it takes medication for the sleep and a high dose of caffeine for waking up and I will still cling to my bed until the last minute. So even if you don't want to, you need to remember to sleep as long as makes sense for you. You have to try to function the way that you function and not the way that the insomniacs do, or those people who can be all alive and hyper on three hours of sleep. Think of it in terms of your spoons (an excellent metaphor for how much energy we exert doing daily things) and remember the number of spoons you have and the number of spoons they have are different, so you'll approach this challenge differently, and that's okay. Admire it, appreciate it, be a little bit envious if you feel it, but let everyone do this their own way and congratulate them for their achievements and commiserate with them over what they see as their failings. Everything about this competition is personal. 

Charlieswrite; Sporadically Yours. 

Why are you writing romance novels in a dating draught?

Some people called the UK lockdown the sex ban, and others looked for ways to date without being in the same room as the other person. I'm a big fan of the arrange a phone call before an in-person date because I have been on BAD DATES before partly due to not having done this. When a guy can't carry his end of the conversation, it's going to go badly. (I'm definitely not referring to the guy whose only activity outside of work was apparently sitting in the pub with his friends talking about what other people do with their lives and then had the cheek to say there was no spark. Seriously, apparently wasn't even into traveling or anything generic, just work, same friends, same pub, same drink, home, then back to work...) When lockdown started, I headed back to my parents' place to have some company through the worst of it and also try and recover my mental health a bit from a battering due to work, medication and a very crappy ex-partner, but it has made even the idea of Skype dates kind of awkward. I love the idea of either getting a takeaway or cooking something and then having a Skype dinner, but I'm not doing that with my parents in the background and there is a rule in this house of no food upstairs, so I can't even escape to the office for some privacy. Maybe if I said, Mum, going on a date there might be a relaxation in the rules, but then we'd also have to discuss that my shirt was too low cut and my lipstick too red, and everything about the guy afterward and honestly, I don't have the energy, so I kind of put even the idea of dating onto a hiatus, however...

...I'm writing romance novels... 

Seriously. I have previously written novels with another storyline and the romance just trots along the side because I like writing about the characters meeting and falling in love and having happily ever afters, or not, but recently I seem to be addicted to writing books which the main storyline is boy meets girl, or girl meets boy, or whatever. And I'm going to be honest, it's starting to grate a little. 

Maybe it's just frustration with life in general. Maybe it's frustration with everything that has changed because of the virus. Maybe it's because most of my friends are engaged, announcing pregnancies, having babies or whatever and I'm still sat here feeling like the singlest of single Pringles, but writing romance is starting to great.  It doesn't help that the last couple of these blogs I have been writing, after some sentences, my anxiety adds the words 'I don't know diary' onto the end and makes me feel like an angsty teenager... Maybe I actually sound like an angsty teenager. The last time I lived at home I was seventeen and a very angsty teenager and it's really easy to slip back into those old roles and patterns, so it's possible. 

Anyway, my hands are really sore thanks to an allergic reaction to something somewhere between last night and this morning, so I think I'll sign off now and just have a read for a bit, whilst I hope that the antihistamines and the E45 do their work and stop my hands from feeling like they are on fire. 

Charlieswrite, Sporadically Yours. 

The Things We Idolise as Children

Something I really enjoy is when kids tell their parents that they don't want to eat animals. People say it's straight from the mouth of babes, others say that it's orchestrated. Whatever, I love it, but there are so many things I've had to look back on over the years and realise are problematic. Mrs. Doubtfire was a big one, but I still love it, and just try and appreciate it is something that was a product of its time. Some of Meg Cabot's books are very similar. Hell, there are things in Fairies that I read and think holy crap, I wish I could re-write this whole thing and take out the parts that make me wince. I'm writing a sequel and I'm hoping that will address some of the issues, but Dios Mio there are a lot of them out there in the world.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll be really glad to know I'm not going to go through an itemised list of all the things I enjoyed as a kid that are now problematic (jeez, that would be boring for everyone involved!) so instead I'm just going to talk about the one that came to me most recently and everyone can think I'm a sad sap. I've been watching Pitch Perfect 2 today and doing a lot of singing, and this was marginally better than singing Beca's lines from Before He Cheats repeatedly, though that also happened so feel sorry for my mum who had to hear it. 

The song that came to my head was from one of the Swan Lake cartoon movies. I want to say it's from Secret of the Castle, but I also don't because it makes me sound like I know those movies backward (I don't, but I did watch them a lot as a kid). Anyway, Prince and Princess have a fight and then he starts this solo, when she's gone off-screen (or off-page, I guess) with the lyrics, 'Why must I always get down on my knees and apologise?' so he basically sounds like an immature ass at this point... and then goes into 'Because I love her and need her like the...' whatever. It trails off into pretty poetry about how much he loves her and how no man has ever loved a woman the way he loves her. Yeah, sure, fine, but looking back on it now I realise something... he never actually admits he's wrong. There is this implication that he is apologising because of the whole idea of a happy wife, happy life, or she's a woman, she has these fits and I should just apologise. Let me tell you something, it's really grating! 

My ex was one for throwing a tantrum, and inevitably, even when I was right, I would apologise, because of that fear of losing him. Maybe that's the flip of the genders, but it's still a problem. 

Yes, there are going to be things in relationships where no one was right and no one was wrong. Yes, there will be times when the other person was wrong, and yet the way you reacted was also wrong, but it's why apologising and doing it right is so important. If I was going to apologise about Fairies, I would say I'm sorry that the character of Harry plays into so many gay stereotypes and uses words like camp that I wouldn't now want to associate myself with the use of. I'm sorry I wasn't more sensitive in the way it addressed the issue of suicide and I'm sorry that some of the characters were childish brats. I'm not sorry that I wrote it, I'm not sorry I self-published it and I'm definitely not sorry that I revised the ending, but I'm sorry that there were things that I did wrong with it and if I offended anyone with it, then I really couldn't be more sorry for that, but I have learned a lot from my experience over the ten years since I wrote it and I've read a lot, about writing and other things, I studied a degree in Philosophy, Religion, and Ethics, and I'm actively trying to make sure that when the sequel makes its way into the world, it's a lot more accepting and inclusive and it's a better novel. I hope it's everything I've learnt in the last ten years and that I don't look at it ten years in the future and my cheeks flush because there are more things that I should have done better in. That's my hope, that's my wish, but we'll see how that pans out, won't we? 

So, what does that mean for other writers? 

One big piece of advice I would give anyone is don't be afraid of making mistakes. Mistakes aren't a bad thing as long as you learn from them, but the flip side of that is something else I truly believe in, and that is, Own Your Mistakes. Be strong enough to say, I said or did something that was wrong, I learned from my errors, such a person told me I was wrong, and now I am doing this to make up for it. It's a cliche to say that no one is perfect, but it's true. No one walks through their life and makes zero mistakes. I hope that one day, people like J K Rowling can stand up and say the things I said were hurtful to other women. Whilst their experience isn't the same as mine, their experience does not invalidate mine and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to accept and admit that. In the future, I won't use my massive platform to spread offensive views about trans people and will fight for the rights of others, not against them, even when I don't share their experience. There are plenty of us who make mistakes and they fall under the radar, there are plenty of people who make mistakes and it's all over the media and there is noise against and there is noise to support, but what's important is, when you know it was a mistake, say it, own it, and do what you can to make up for it, because there is nothing worse than trying to pretend like you never made it in the first place. At least if you apologise, that's something people can trust. 

Charlieswrite, Sporadically Yours.

Everyone Says 'Happy Friday' Like It's a Given

I'm going to have to edit the message that prompted this blog title, but surprisingly it is not the rambling upset of a person who works shifts. I am a civil servant doing the usual Monday to Friday, but more like ten til six, because screw being up and functional at nine am, or so says my brain. 

"My Friday sucks. I wanted to finish early to get working on a website for a project but I can't because my job is too busy :') also I'm making loads of masks this weekend, so I think I'm going to be snowed under, unfortunately. This whilst trying to fit in Camp NaNo writing challenge and Twitter Sprint Leading because I've not even taken a shift yet and whatever else comes up. I don't know if I want to scream, cry, be sick or go for a really long run, but it's raining so probably not the last one."

I know I was the one that said you have to work off of priorities, but gods and angels it is busy up here in my life right now. I'm also working on a whole other bunch of stuff which doesn't get mentioned, so yeah... 

It gets to Friday and everyone from work is all, woo, it's Friday. Clearly, your weekends aren't busier than the actual week at work, so Friday can only be a positive thing, right? Yeah, so wrong. Unfortunately, this is my circus, so the monkeys on my back are going to stay there until I finish all of the things I need to do, and I'll just have to keep juggling everything until there are fewer balls or pins or whatever it is that people juggle, though knowing what I'm like, I'll probably just pick up a couple more and the whole cycle will start again, but I want to do that because I want what people call a big life. I want to forge ahead doing all of the big things and the scary things and getting through it, even if it takes some tears, some tantrums, and a few tablets of Valium to get there. 

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will have seen this coming, but this is it. 

Charlieswrite, Sporadically Yours. 

I Got My Priorities

I get that I sometimes make obscure references, so in case this one has gone over your head, it's a play on some of the lyrics in a Ben Folds song that I love called Philosophy. It is beautiful, but then I'm a big Ben Folds fan, so I would think that. Anyway, to the blog. 

This month I have already seen the posts on the Facebook page of people asking whether there are other people in the same position as them, like who is a mother, who has to care for elderly relatives, who is in school, who has a full time job. The only issue that I have with this whole thing is, irrespective of everything else you are and everything else you have in your life, Camp NaNo is not about all of those things, but it is about priorities. Even if writing can only be your top priority for twenty minutes a day, whether you have to write in short bursts when you run to the loo or you are in the bath, whether you have to spend hours staring at the blank screen, Camp is about reminding you to prioritise. When I was editing a novel one, I was also babysitting, so I sat by the cot of the child I was minding and I read it to her whilst she fell asleep. Reading it out loud can help, and tiny children like the sound of a voice speaking to them to fall asleep to as opposed to a giving too much of a stuff what that story is. I get that that only works for children of a certain age and may only work for certain genres, but it can work. 

When we're talking about priorities, it doesn't mean that everything else in the world has to be de-prioritised and it doesn't mean you need to choose between a child or a caring responsibility or your job and writing, but it is about looking at what is the priority in that moment. 

I spent today prioritising certain cases, because I knew that I needed to get through them. In that moment, work had to be the most important. After I was done with work, I prioritised myself and my wellbeing for a bit, taking my dog out for a walk and getting out for some fresh air myself, then writing became my priority. Getting this blog written became priority one, because it's my Camp goal to write a blog about writing every day. Writing every day with 4thewords has been a long term goal for this year as well and it's going okay. I'm onto a 178 day streak so that's pretty cool. Next on the list of things that becomes my priority is getting a few more masks sewn together, because friends from my dad's work need a few more of them to be able to wear one a day and wash them as much as they should. 

One of the biggest changes with the masks is that, since Macmillan have moved me across to London Marathon 2021, I still have a lot of fundraising to do, so I decided I was going to start charging for masks when they're not for family. Part of that is also because I'm spending a lot more money on things like elastic than I had intended to, and also spending money on cooler material, so part of it is to cover some of that cost so I can keep making them, but part of it is also to continue raising money for Team Macmillan. 

Tomorrow will be pretty much the same. I will do the same thing of making work a priority, then myself for dinner and a walk, then writing and then masks, because a lot of people need them these days, and I have some seriously cool fabric so might as well get on with it, and when all that is over, my priority will be sleep, because grouchiness is the least of my issues when I don't get any sleep. 

I know my life isn't complicated by a lot of care for my elderly relatives or for a child or even myself sometimes, because my mum does the cooking and most of the cleaning and almost everything else, but I have a very serious full time job, I have my writing and supporting the writing community around me and also everything I have committed to like making all of the masks, so fitting time in for writing is challenging, but it is also possible, because it's a big priority for me and if I didn't find time to fit it in before mask making duties, I would end up staying up late to fit it in then, and there isn't enough coffee in the world to keep me sane through that. 

Catch you later 

Charlieswrite

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 

It's Been 10 Years, But I Just

Over the last few weeks, I have been itching to have another crack at writing the sequel to Fairies, because it's been ten years (almost) since I wrote it, I'm back in the place I wrote it (mostly) and I feel like it's about time. As in, it's about time I wrote it, the novel isn't about time. That would add a whole other level of complicated I can't deal with right now. 

4thewords is continuing to be a helpful beastie, because it makes me write at least 444 words a day, and sometimes the hurdle is just starting and putting pen to paper... well, fingers to keys. Once I get going, I'm not anywhere near NaNoWriMo personal bests of 20k days or writing 100k in a month, but I can crack through between 1.5-5k words a day without it interrupting my day too much, so where is the problem? 

Part of the problem is the characters. **If you haven't read Fairies, this is going to contain spoilers, so please consider this your alert.**

Fairies finished with Nate, Adamson, Louie, and, I want to say Felix, but who knows at this point!, returning to the fairy world because an eternal life as a fairy was better than a limited human life. They could make an impact on the lives of humans and they were important there. Seemingly simple? 

It's really not simple. 

Following on from their return to the fairy world, things change around quite a bit, so there's some of the sequel which is about them, some which is about Frank as my favourite person who was left behind in the human world (and someone who crops up into another novel I've been writing for just next to forever but needs a bit of character development in between the two!) and two new characters. One of the new characters is 'evil' and in league with the imps and the other is the one causing me the most problems, as she's Felix's (he's definitely called Felix - I checked) daughter. Originally I intended the story to be just about her, but every time I start writing about her, she seems to find some sort of tangent to go on and finding the way to make the actual storyline (and the reason I'm writing the book in the first place) to happen seems to be beyond me at the moment. 

Ah well - I've had a moan about it, and now I can get back to writing it, even though it's been at least five years since I read Fairies over again (only cringing most of the way through it) so the details are a little hazy and I have no idea where either the .pdf file or the proof copies are, but that's just a bit tough, isn't it?