When You’re Struggling…

I’m not telling you anything new when I say it can be a massive effort sometimes to stay motivated. The key is how to solve it.

When I’m struggling I take time out. I know that’s not always possible if you’re working under pressure but usually I’m okay at getting stuff done if there’s a certain amount of pressure. The problem comes when no one is there to press you to do something, when it’s all down to self-motivation.

For those who don’t know, for the last few months I’ve been working on a novel, something I’m choosing to do for my benefit alone. In other words, it’s totally down to me to get the thing written.

Progress was going well both in terms of character development and plot, then, quite suddenly, I stopped. (You might have noticed because it’s been a while since I last blogged too). There wasn’t one particular reason for this sudden apathy, things were just getting too much and I was struggling to find the time. Now I’ve taken just over a week off writing.  I know this will set me back because I’ve lost the thread of the bits I was working on, but it was so completely and utterly necessary. Sometimes taking a break will do you more good than anything else. I now feel refreshed, revitalised, and have a whole bank of new ideas to bring to the table. I’m excited to get these new leads down on paper and even more excited to tell you all about them, but I won’t spoil the surprise just yet.

I’ll keep you posted. Over and out –

 

The Good, The Bad and The Average

From where I’m sitting there are three types of books in this world: the books you stay up all night reading and just can’t bring yourself to put down, the books that you’re tempted to toss aside right from the very first chapter, and those in-between books that are fine, just fine, but maybe a tad bland.

The last book I just couldn’t put down was Gone Girl, and I know I’ve raved about this book to death but I just found the pages disappearing as I got deeper into the story. This was a true show-stopper; I felt like I never wanted it to end. I love Flynn’s writing style and I was completely taken in by her characters. I don’t think I’ve ever connected so much with any book before and I doubt I’m ever likely to again (until I get around to finishing my own).

The most recent book I just wanted to junk was Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson. I hate giving up on a book; I always feel like I owe it to the author to see it through to the end, just in case there’s something spectacular waiting for me there. The thing is, nine times out of ten I remain disappointed and then feel that I’ve wasted my time giving it a chance.

The in-betweens are undoubtedly the largest category. Here I could list The Grown Up, Me Before You and Girl With A Pearl Earring to name just a few books that I’ve read recently. These fill up the majority of book shelves; they are the true definition of the word ‘average’. There’s nothing wrong with them but there’s also nothing special about them, so I’m not exactly going to recommend them all to my friends.

I guess what I’m trying to work out, both as a reader and as a writer, is what makes a novel ‘un-put-downable’ and ‘easily-put-downable’. What do you think fully engages a reader? What books have you fallen in love with recently? And what books have you wanted to chuck out of the window from the very first chapter?

Over and out. M –

The Garden, Part III

Read the first part here,
and the second part here.

The next day I resume my position in my chair. The clouds have knit together across the sky causing a gloom I don’t believe will never shift. It’s funny how much the weather seems to affect my mood. I flick through the latest copy of Gardener’s Weekly but soon the neighbours’ voices become intertwined with the words on the page and I pause to listen.

“Can’t you find some way to forgive me?” he asks.

It’s as if the conversation is continuing from yesterday. An electric blue butterfly catches my gaze.

“I don’t know. The kettle’s boiling, come inside.”

The butterfly, with all its exotic patterns and intricate filigree, flutters away.

I don’t know what’s going on between them. I’m not usually one to pry, and I am content in my little sanctuary, but I feel as if I need to know.

Watch this space for the next instalment.

1 Year, 5 Years, 10 Years

I now find myself only a couple of weeks away from graduating University. This is a scary time but what makes it even worse is that the question on everyone’s lips seems to be what am I going to do with my life.

In case you’re new to my blog I’ll spend a second filling you in. I’m a Literature and Creative writing joint honours student at the University of East Anglia, Norfolk, UK. It’s a three year course, most of which is spent reading and writing essays on books (and I don’t just mean classic texts but all manner of things). However, towards the end of the degree in particular I’ve had the chance to practice my fictional writing skills through taking more creative writing modules. I chose my university not just because the Creative Writing course at UEA is the top in the country but because I love Norwich as a city. And I wanted to study a joint degree so that I could practice not only my analytical skills but also my writing skills – which are probably more important in the real world, right?

So that’s me. Now that my years in education are nearly over I’ve got to start thinking about my next steps. I’ve always been one of those people who plan things meticulously (probably to the great annoyance of others who are not like me) and so I’ve always set myself goals. I wanted to get good GCSEs and achieve solid A Level grades, then get into UEA and receive a 2:1 or better for my efforts. All those targets were pretty easy to set. Education is arranged to push you through to the next stage, it’s effectively done for you, so it’s all pretty simple to plan. Now the world is my oyster and I don’t have a clue how to plan the next bit on my own.

Where do I see myself in 1 year from now?

1 year isn’t actually a very long time. I see myself living at home and working. That doesn’t sound very interesting I know but after moving away (300 miles away) for 3 years I feel like I’ve lost touch with not just friends but where I come fro. I’d love to spend some time reconnecting whilst earning some savings. Maybe I’ll try and spice things up with some summer plans, who knows.

Where do I see myself in 5 years?

In 5 years time hopefully I’ll be well on the way to having a successful career. 5 years sounds like long enough to get my foot in the door. I have quite a long list of places I’d like to visit – Paris, Venice, America, Iceland and India to name and few – and hopefully I’ll have managed to tick a fair few off. In fact I’d really like to spend some time working abroad, most likely America, but I’m not sure how to organise that yet. Hmmm.  The next thing is that I’d like to  have bought my own home by 2021 since paying rent is such a waste of money. Then I’ll decorate it with all manner of cute things and place Yankee candles in every room and have a huge bookcase library where I can store all my precious books. That’s domestic bliss right there.

Where do I see myself in 10 years?

After 10 years it’s really quite hard to say. It’s difficult to imagine myself as a 30/31 year old. I suppose the main thing is travel. By that time I hope to have seen a large proportion of the places on my list now. I’m sure I’ll add more with each passing year but it would be nice to have done the initial stuff by the time I reach my thirties. Hopefully I’ll be living and working somewhere far more spectacular than Taunton so I’m surrounded by interesting people and places to write about. I’d like to have at least one novel written by the time I’m 30 and maybe have it published, who knows. Perhaps I’ll have read 1,000 books on Goodreads too, that would be wonderful. More than anything though I hope to be happy. That’s all anyone can really wish for in life, to be wonderfully, irrevocably happy.

The Garden, Part II

Read the first part here.

It’s a Friday afternoon and I’m sitting in my chair, a straw hat firmly atop my head to keep the sunlight at bay. Sparrows flutter in and out of their nest and bees hop from one milky buttercup to the next, but that’s not what holds my attention. There are voices on the breeze. One the jagged tones of a man’s speech, the other a woman’s, bright as a dropped gem. Some of the words blend together, a myriad of textures overlapping. I uncross my legs and lean forwards.

“Why would you do it?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

A door slams and the words are pinched from the air. I turn back to the swallows. The life of a bird must be so easy. I envy them and their simplicity.

Watch this space for the next instalment.

The Garden

I push open the gate, the white paint flaking off in chunks, and walk into the garden. I remember when the lawn used to be freshly trimmed, now it’s an overgrown haven for voles and mice. They scurry about beneath the foliage, the leaves trembling as they pass. Birds nest in the trees overhead. When they hatch I will watch as the mother regurgitates food for them. When they are strong enough I will watch as they make their first attempts at flight. I watch everything from my garden chair. It’s a deck chair really, one of those pink and white stripe ones meant for the beach, but I make the rules here. This is my safe place. This is my sanctuary. This is my Eden.

Seasonal Creativity – My Writing

Apparently seasonal creativity is a thing. Artists – of all descriptions – apparently have periods of creativity that align with the seasons. Productivity increases in certain months and lessens in others. It’s different for everyone when these peaks are, and I suppose it depends on what kind of material you are trying to produce (I’m just assuming here that gothic literature for example would come easier in the depths of winter with a blustering storm outside your window).

For me writing comes more naturally when I’m happy and my happiness is undoubtably greater in summer months. I love feeling the warmth of the sun on my face, having longer lighter evenings to spend with friends, day trips to wonderful places like the Valley of the Rocks etc. Being cold and damp from the rain all the time (I live in the UK, it’s always raining) isn’t a pleasant experience.

Now that Spring is finally upon us – which incidentally coincides with me finishing my degree- I’m ready to begin writing again. I haven’t exactly taken a break but everything I’ve been doing has been for coursework and my dissertation. Now, with the evenings getting longer and a big bank of spare time coming up, I want to start writing for me again.

It may be ambitious but I want to write something longer. I want to write a novel, maybe a novella, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll keep you all posted! xoxo

The Makings of a Good Book

I wasn’t sure about making this post because everyone has their own opinions and everyone is capable of deciding what makes a good book, but I’ve slated a few novels over my blogging-life-so-far and feel obliged to explain why. I hope to clarify what I’m looking for in a book and explain why certain reads turn out to be big disappointments. Don’t worry, I’ll make it snappy.

1. It has to teach me something new. By this I don’t necessarily mean it has to be factual or historical but I have to feel somehow intellectually better-off after having spent hours of my time sifting through its pages.

2. It has to be well written. If I feel I could write the book better myself then it’s not a good book. Before I Go To Sleep. Cough. The language has to have some thought behind it. It has to be interesting. I have to notice it.

3. The plot has to keep me engaged. Of course there will be moments of tension and times where things sort of plato, that’s natural in every story, but there has to be constant progression or else I (and many other readers I suspect) will get bored.

4. The characters have to be well-rounded and developed. They also have to be believable. If a character’s actions do not seem to suit his or her personality then I seem to lose any connection I had with that character; I no longer understand them and I no longer care. They have to have layers and they too need progression. Also, a good book needs at least one likeable character, if I hate all of them I’m likely to hate the book. This is really important. The Girl on the Train. Cough.

And I think that pretty much sums it up. If a book is well written with interesting characters and an engaging plot – and I have like I’ve gained something from reading it – then I’m bound to like it. Hopefully this somewhat justifies me slating the odd book. A bit. Sort of. Maybe?

Newspaper Feature

Now I know this isn’t anything to brag about but since I’ve just worked out how the link works, and it’s proof of my writing being out there in the big, wide world, I thought I’d share it on my blog. Just a couple of weeks ago a short story I wrote was featured in the student newspaper at my University. If you’d like to read my piece simply turn to page 12. Enjoy.

 

My Writing Journey

Writing is something I have always wanted to do. When I was little and mummy asked me what I wanted to do with my life I answered I wanted to be an author (I also wanted to be a pop star and model on the side but let’s face it, no one is that talented).

I admit I wasn’t much of a reader when I was at school. I liked books but they took me such a long time to get through I got frustrated with them. I even struggled to read the Harry Potter series – although let’s face it, JK Rowling doesn’t exactly write manageable stories for child readers, as original and fantastical as they are. I didn’t start reading until out of the blue I decided I wanted to study English Literature at A level – when I was already in my second year, may I add, and had to do it at double the speed. A Level English Literature isn’t exactly heavy going when it comes to reading, but it gave me a good start. During the whole course I only read Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby, Measure For Measure, Macbeth, Atonement, Lord of the Flies and Never Let Me Go, alongside a handful of metaphysical poetry and the dreaded Carol Anne Duffy. (Someone take over as Poet Laureate PLEASE).

Then I chose to study English Literature and Creative Writing at University. In 2013 I found myself at UEA, the home of creative writing in ‘the city of Literature’, as Norwich is known. With Angela Carter, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro all alumni how could I fail?

The journey I have been on over the last three years has been quite remarkable. My writing in my first year showed all the typical beginners mistakes, but then, in my second year, I had an amazing teacher. That was the pivotal point where everything changed. I got vital criticism on my work. In Creative Writing class we ‘workshop’, we read each other’s work and pluck it to pieces. People ask ‘why’ not just about your characters, their motives and reasoning, your plot points and overall structure, but about your specific word choices, syntax, grammar and punctuation – the whole shebang. The pieces I turned in as coursework weren’t groundbreaking but I was growing as a writer, I was learning, and that’s more important than anything. This year, what with my dissertation and the arrangement of my modules, I haven’t had a lot of Creative Writing classes, but still I have learnt a lot about my personal writing process.

Necessary to good writing is copious amounts of reading. Obviously my degree had me reading approximately 50 novels a year, but even that isn’t enough. Doing a Literature Degree also has your reading specific ‘types’. You find you’re suddenly an expert on Tolstoy, Austen and the Brontës, but what about contemporary fiction? This is what I’m now ploughing my efforts into in my spare time. Hopefully with this bank of knowledge within me my writing will grow every day.

The next thing is practice. Not a day goes by that I don’t write something, even if it’s rubbish. Sometimes that rubbish will trigger a better idea, sometimes it can be edited into something worthy, and sometimes it needs to go in the waste paper basket, but it’s all good practice.

My degree is over in just two months and I can’t wait to get started on what life has to offer. Hopefully I will have just as much time for writing when it’s all done as I do now, but I somehow doubt it. Nevertheless I will continue to make an effort and I will continue to learn and to grow. Hopefully within a year or two I will be ready to send something to an agent. We’ll see.