Progress

Next week is half term.  As ever, I am longing for it.

I don't have an awful lot planned for the week yet, other than a trip to the dentist on Tuesday, the prospect of which is naturally filling me with so much joy that I can barely contain myself.

What I do hope to do is plenty of writing.  I am making progress with book 3 - what with my don't-break-the-chain writing - but it's pretty slow going at the moment.  Only about a chapter a week.  I think I can do better, but I'm so weary by the time I get home in the evenings (and generally by this I mean in the psychological sense) that all I want to do is consume stories rather than create them.

But I'm hoping that in the bliss that is half term I'll have more mental energy to get something really substantial done.

I used to be able to churn out thousands of words a day.  Probably not very good words but still.  Now I consider it a productive day if I manage anything above six-hundred.

So that's my plan.  It'll be great to feel excited about something again.

Author Talk - Rebecca Alexander

After the cheap and easy therapy of last week's blog post (apologies for the excessive grumpiness there), it's nice to have something more positive to talk about this time.

On Thursday 30th January published author and writer extraordinaire Rebecca Alexander came to the college to do an Author Talk about her brilliant debut The Secrets of Life and Death, and her craft as a professional novelist.

I met Reb while doing my MA at Winchester Uni but haven't physically seen her since that time.  We've kept in touch via the wonders of the internets, beta-ing each other's work and chatting about our writing.  It's something I highly value.  Without it I could easily feel cut off from the rest of the writing world and I'm far too insular as it is.

And now that Reb's published, with a three-book deal from a major publishing house (WOO!), she's in the perfect position to impart her wisdom to the next set of aspiring authors (and I'm including myself in that group along with the students).

There were two sessions and though the numbers weren't huge, I felt they went really well, chiefly due to Reb's skill as a speaker.  She oozed confidence and ease, keeping all of her words relevant, helpful and entertaining.  If I'd been in her position I know I would've been an incoherent wobbling mess.  The whole thing took me right back to my uni Creative Writing classes and I loved it.

Ahh - University Nostalgia.

So I say thank you to Reb for a lovely day and urge the rest of you to go and buy her book immediately.

Seriously.  Off you go.  I'll wait.

Grumpy Bugger

Work has been pretty stressful lately.  Not the librarian stuff really - that I like - but the other part.

Student. Behaviour. Management.  *shudders*

If the idea of making hundreds of teenagers be quiet for the entire time that they're in your vicinity sounds awful, it's actually worse.  It's confrontation and argument all day, every day.  And it gets wearing.  Very wearing.

In a way, it makes it worse that the librarian part of my job - by which I mean the books, the research, the displays etc - is enjoyable, because if I only disliked it, I could quit and find something else.  But there's variety and I get to use my brain for a good proportion of the day - and I'm pretty sure this is the first job I've ever had where this applies.  I don't want to quit that part of my job - but with each day that goes by, I really want to quit the other half.

Of course then comes the question of what I'd want to do instead, and beyond library-work-where-all-the-patrons-behave-themselves-in-a-reasonable-manner *, the only other thing I can imagine right now is writing.

It's my tiny bright spot throughout the bulk of the day (when the clock reminds me that it is in fact not time to go home), where I get to go on my tea break or lunch break and write.  I can sink into another world and let the other one fall away, if only for a few minutes.  There's a kind of peace which comes with writing, when my brain just focuses on one thing and all the other noise fades into the background.

I wanted to try to update my blog more regularly this year, especially as I failed so miserably during various times in 2013.  I couldn't think of much by way of sunshine and daisies this week, so I apologise for all the gloom you've just read (if indeed you managed to stick with me 'til the end).  I'll try to be better next week, pinky promise.



* I here feel obliged to make the point that not all of my current patrons make me want to tear my hair out.  There are many polite, well-behaved students - I just don't get the chance to notice them.

Letters

I'd written a draft (a second or third, I can't remember) of a letter to an agent last year.  I read it through the other day but found it so unutterably dull that I didn't actually manage to finish it.

Right.  Maybe I won't be using that one then.

I figure it's probably better to start from scratch, but staring over is always hard - that huge, white expanse of blank page, so completely devoid of the words that you just know must, surely, be rattling around in your head somewhere.

They say that this letter has to be the best piece of writing that you have ever produced in the history of ever.  Ever.  So, naturally, no pressure then.

And I was never really any good at non-fiction.  The whole form for me just seems to lack creativity, although I know this is down to a fault of my skill rather than of the form itself.  I did, after all, take a module for my MA called 'Creative Non-Fiction' so such a thing must be possible.

I'll have to start trawling through the interwebs again, looking for hints and tips and how-tos.  I know from past experience that it can feel like running through a bog but I suppose it doesn't much matter how fast I move so long as I am going forward.

2014

2014 has arrived in all its glory, thunder and lightning joining in with the New Year fireworks as the clock struck midnight.  I'm trying not to see it as some kind of demonic omen.

Instead, I have decided that 2014 is going to be a good year.

Regular readers of this blog - or just people who know me well - will probably be aware that optimism isn't usually my style, but this is more of a decision than a wish, so I figure I'm not straying too far from the norm.

(You can all breathe sighs of relief: I haven't been kidnapped and replaced by an alien clone.)

Some, but not all, of my good-year-decision inevitably revolves around my writing (as, indeed, does a hefty proportion of my life).  I've got myself a nice new shiny 'Don't Break the Chain' poster (left) downloaded from the wonders of the internets (link here).  I'm all set to crack on.

So maybe I'll finish my first draft of book 3 this year (sounds doable - I'm currently on chapter 7).

And I'll write to agents, pitching my book with the kind of verve and vivacity I've not yet managed to accomplish.

And maybe, just maybe, if my good-year-decision is strong enough, I'll get picked.

I'm terrified.  Naturally.

I'd say keep your fingers crossed but that sounds too much like a wish, and I've no time for such nonsense, thank you very much.

2014.  Bring it on.

Well that's that then

I haven't been longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition.

Because I am obsessive (checking my email, asking after the post, looking at Mslexia's website over and over), I searched online for any mentions of someone being longlisted for the competition - and found a blog post by a person who had.  Written almost a month ago.

She'd been notified by email right at the beginning of November.  It feels like a heck of a long time that I kept hold of my false hope, but now that I know for sure I kind of miss it.

Probably not a healthy attitude but hey, this is my brain we're talking about.

I knew early on that I was placing too much expectation in this competition but no matter how hard I tried to stop I just couldn't help it.  Now the disappointment has put me in something of a bad mood, with that annoying voice in my head whispering that it must mean my best writing's not good enough.

I try not to listen - because I love writing, I really do.  I guess I just need to go back to doing it for me now, not some faceless professionals at the other end of the post.

Right, I'm going to bugger off now.  I promise next time I'll try to be less pathetically morose.

Toodley-pip!

Limbo

I've been feeling a little bit in limbo these past couple of weeks, and it's all Mslexia's fault.

Obviously it's really my fault but it's easier to lay the blame on a faceless external entity.  And if we're being truthful here, I would admit that - despite my best efforts otherwise - I have placed far too much hope in this novel competition.

The longlist is due out this month and since the deadline in September - or probably before that - I've held it up as The Standard at Which to Aim.  If I get longlisted, my brain says, my writing is good enough.

All attempts to get my brain to shut the hell up have thus far been in vain.

I am perfectly aware that the Mslexia competition isn't the be-all and end-all.  I know this.  But it doesn't stop the brain and it doesn't stop my first thought on reaching home in the evenings from being 'has there been any post?'

I need to think about something else.  I need a distraction.  And a useful, productive distraction (for all that watching cat videos on youtube has its appeal).

Book three seems like quite a good option.