George's War

Hello everyone, isn't the year just flying by? Crazy times - I've been out of Uni for nearly three weeks now, and what do I have to show for it? Well, quite a lot actually...
I've recently been reading a book about the occupation of the channel islands during the second world war. As a Guernsey girl myself, I found this fascinating, so many things I didn't have a clue about. So of course, as always happens: when I read, I write.
So that's what 'George's War' is about. A short story (though, glancing over the pages in my notebook, I don't doubt it's a good few thousand) about George Carre and his struggles, not only because of the war, but also just growing up. A lot of the facts are based on the research I red in the book, and the case of the Anne-Frank-esque secret lodger, though fabricated, it entirely plausible for the time. I love to think that things like that really happened, but we just don't know about it. Like Anne Frank, I bet there are loads of other people who have similar stories to tell, but for one reason or another we've just never got wind of it. Are those stories even meant to be told? Who knows.
So yes... still typing up the novel, got a few chapters to go but doing well, then onwards with redrafting. I kind of want to take a break from it, but I'm so enthusiastic about getting it actually finished I know I can't afford to take a break - woe is me!
So, that's the situation.
Oh...and in October, I shall be meeting STEPHEN FRY.

Life. Is. Awesome. Over and out.

Isn't this year just soaring by?

Well, into March already and I can't say I'm glad...though of course I am really because the weather is FINALLY brightening up in drizzly old Bath. But where does all that time go? Not on writing my novel I can tell you!
So what has been going on recently? Right now it's the Bath Literary Festival, and I'm sorry to say that I haven't actually been to anything to do with it yet (apart from the poetry pub crawl, which was indeed a groovy night out). Nothing has caught me eye really, not compared with seeing Wendy Cope last year. But perhaps I shall force myself to go see something unusual, I might even have fun! My main news involving the Lit Fest is that they are publishing a daily poem, as a way of exhibiting the work of local people, and on Tuesday this week, I was their daily poem with my piece 'The BBC Stole My Crocodile Clip'. So I was very please with that indeed!
Other poetry news, I just received my latest rejection slip, this time from 'Magma' magazine, one of the most prolific poetry magazines in the country. So that is disappointing, but at the same time I wasn't really expecting to get in anyway, them being so good and all, so chin up and carry on. Every time someone says 'No' I am one 'No' closers to someone saying 'Yes'. :)
There are a few other magazines I have lined up to look into, so maybe I'll try them out next, see if I fare any better.
Bath Spa is indeed keeping me busy with assignments at the moment, they've all sort of crept up on me! But I'm not too worried about any of them, despite being surprised that they are finally here I have been, on the whole, keeping up with things and so it's all manageable. I'm very much looking forward to Easter, obviously so I can relax and spend some lovely time with my family, but also to get a lot of work done when I don't have to timetable it around lessons and jobs, etc.
But Easter is still a long way away when I think of all the assignments I need to hand in first, not to mention another bout of car journalism, woe is me!
Who'd want to be a writer? Tish.

Happy Valentines Day!

Hello all, hope you are having a lovely valentines day!
So what is my writerly news? I wrote half a chapter of the novel this week gone, and am planning on finishing it off this afternoon. Only a few more chapters to go and that's the first draft done and dusted, so really excited about that.
I sent off some poetry recently to some magazines, got a rejection slip from Smiths Knoll this week. I wasn't expecting them so accept me, the standards are very high there, but all the same...sad face. Fingers crossed I get a better response from Magma and Mslexia. If not there is another magazine I've got lined up to apply to with things that get turned down.
Been attending a fair few writerly events in Bath, lots of poetry readings and performances. It's the Bath literary festival coming up. Haven't got any tickets yet but hopefully I will managed to catch a few decent things. Last year I saw 'Shakespeare on Toast' which was great, and the guy that did it is back this year so, fingers crossed I can see him! I also saw Wendy Cope, one of my favorite poets, and she was brilliant. I was very chuffed, as I went on my own and I normally get very embarrassed in front of crowds, but I stood up and asked her a question and everything. Aren't I awesome :D
Nearly finished reading Dawkins, like...80 pages to go. It's been SUCH a struggle, but I hate giving up on books, they haunt me for years if I don't finish! SO... time for a valentines pamper session in a nice warm bath with a...umm...not so nice book, lol!
Toodles for now x

Prose Poetry

Hello, hope everyone is well and having a grand start to the year. Nearly February already - isn't it going quickly?
Well, so far this year my writing has been dominated by prose poetry, which I am really getting into at the moment. I am reading 'No Boundaries' which is a collection of prose poems by 24 American writers. Almost every time I read it, I come away inspired to write my own... which I do :D I really like Russell Edson, he is one of the best prose poets of our time. A fair few of the poems in the book are quite abstract and don't make a whole lot of sense. Some tell more of a story. I like the ones in the middle, that tell a story by sort of hinting at it rather than detailing every little things, the poems that encapsulate a mood or feeling. Oddly, I've noticed that loads of them include Eucalyptus plants... strange!
So, some works in progress? Not sure if this is a prose poem or just a poem, until I've edited things to death I'm never really sure, but this one is fresh of the page:

---

Camomile tea was rare and exotic. It came in ornate tea cups, thin handles flecked with gold. Pure as raindrops. Honey dripping from a spoon. God nectar.
Then I grew up. Camomile tea was bought in boxes, square tea bags. Drunk often until the taste is no longer there. Just a sour sense of regret.

---

What else have I been writing? Still working towards some travel writing, I have two pieces in mind. The first is a short (500 wc) piece for a competition that is run weekly, and that one is going to be about Wales, where I spent a week at the start of this year. I have a first draft, but it needs much work as I've never written travel stuff before, so it's pretty sketchy at the moment. The other will be longer, more of a feature, for a magazine I quite like called 'The Peoples Friend'. I haven't started that one yet, I'm currently just deciding what to include in it. I'm writing it about my home so, it's difficult to pick out just a few things to mention!
The novel has been on hold for a few weeks, just because I've had essays and things to do. I'm hoping to get more done very very soon, I really want the first draft finished by Easter, then onwards with redrafting. Feeling a bit deflated about it really, in some one of my creative writing seminars I was reminded how authors tend to write a few rubbish books that never get published before they write the good ones, and although I've already written a novel that I consider to be my 'rubbish novel', it just got me thinking, what if this is my rubbish novel too? What if I have two rubbish novels before my good ones, and this is all just a waste of time? Then I think, what if I only ever write rubbish novels and never a good one, what then?
These are my thoughts.

Trying New Things

So it's still 2010, I figure that it being a new year I should probably try some new things. So what have I been writing recently? Turning my hand to travel writing at the moment, just short pieces, target markets I will be submitting to are a magazine that mainly publish short stories but tend to have one travel feature each issue, and also there is a continual competition I've found for travel writing, which picks a winner every week, so looking promising :)
Also been writing a bit more prose poetry, think I've got another one fixed for my next publication, hurrah! Only...say...20 more to go :D

And a Happy New Year

Hello hello, hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and a fantastic New Year...onwards into 2010. What does the year hold for my fantabulous writing career? Well, this shall be the year I finish writing my novel. It may even finish it much much sooner if all goes to plan, I've written about 2/3 of the first draft, so depending on how long editing takes...who knows! Also this shall be the year that I find myself an agent to promote and guide me in writerly things, and this year I will be publishing my second collection of poetry, prose and other fun things, hurrah.

Didn't quite finish Dawkins in time to make it onto my 2009 list, but there are indeed many other things that did so, keep your eyes peeled for my soon to be appearing book review list from last year. Lots of children's books in the latter months - judge me not! I study 'writing for young people' so its'...err... research? :)

Have a grand start to the year and all the best

So here it is...December

Doesn't time fly? Deadlines upon us and all that jazz. I do like winter though, it's nice to be able to sit indoor reading or writing, locked up in the dark without thinking 'I really should be outside enjoying the weather'. So roll on those dark and dingy months.
What have I been up to recently? This week it's been all about the submissions. I entered a competition called Bright Young Things, which is being set up by the Eden project to showcase talent of all kinds. In the creative writing section, I entered a poem about global warming, from the perspective of a polar bear. I had most my information from watching David Attenborough's 'Life on Earth' series, but I also did a bit of specific research for it, which was good. The final project wasn't fantastic, I don't aim to win the competition, it's just good to be doing things really. Make me feel like I'm achieving. The other thing I entered this week was a competition run by the 'Writing Magazine', which was to write the text for a picture book aimed at very young children. This was a bit of a sneaky bonus (or so I thought) because I was writing one anyway for my writing for children class, but as it turned out, the competitions word limit was 200 words, whereas my piece was into 400 words. Eeep. Editing is easy...to a point. But when you have to cut out over half the material, that's pretty difficult! 200 words is nothing really. But I managed to do it and keep the main structure of the story together. So I've sent that off too. Hurrah. Looking forward to seeing what reaction I get for the full piece, as I haven't really written things for children before.
What else? Well, reading, I've been reading a lot of children's books (which I'm allowed to count on my reading list as it's not for fun, I'm technically studying them, so naaah). In January I need to write an essay on a theme or some such to do with children's writing, and I've chosen to look at books that help kids come to terms with death. So I've been looking at things like 'The Sad Book' and 'Badgers Parting Gifts', lots of lovely morbid books for my back round reading. On the whole it's fun though, and it's interesting looking at it not only from the perspective of how a child would see it, but also how adults do too.
No closer really on the completion of my next publication, though I have a fair idea of the things I want to go in it, so it's all about getting more work shopping time to fix things for it. Busy busy, as always.
Oh yes, and of course, Christmas is super soon. YAY!

Editing for England

Hello there.
I've been a pretty busy bee this evening, been going through lots of older work from a few months ago as well as more recent things, just editing and reprinting for hopefully more work shopping and feedback. I'm trying to put together a collection of work for my next book which will be about 40 pages long. So far I have two poems that I am happy with to go in, so a fair bit of work to do yet! I've plenty of material, it's just getting it to that top notch standard at the moment. It'll be a mix of page poems, prose poems and maybe short short stories too. So fingers crossed I can continue to receive feedback on my stuff and get it all sorted out.
Looks like I'll be spending this weekend indoors anyway as I'm coming down with a cold :( so plenty of time for reading and writing I guess. Still cracking away at Dawkins, fun fun fun, as well as several other titles.
Fingers crossed, more updates soon!

Friday Morning

Hello there.
Yesterday I attended a reading by the poet Luke Kennard. I was very impressed. Sadly a lot of the work he red were things that I had already red myself, but it was still nice to hear him read them aloud. It always changes the poem to how you imagine it, like when you pronounce a character's name from a book one way, when others say it differently. He didn't put the pauses where I thought they'd be, particularly in the murderer poem. I would have left pauses in different places for effect, but he seemed to power through these bits I would have treated delicately. But hey, they're his poems so I shan't complain!
What am I reading now? Well I'm hitting a bit of Dawkins, couldn't get a copy of the selfish gene out the library so I've opted for the blind watch maker instead, which is just as good I'm sure. I studied the watch maker analogy (william...paley?) in A level philosophy so I feel I have a heads up for getting to grips with all of Dawkins sciencey stuff. So far...very interesting, and I'm disappointed to say (as a christian and a soon to be conformed (maybe) Dawkins hater) that he is coming across and witty and very clever indeed. But there we go.
Writing? Well I've written chapter ten of the novel and typed up to and including chapter six. Those first typed chapters are totalling about 10,000 words which is okay-ish. I was hoping for a little more. But never fear, I have a three part plan. 1. Write the first draft, which will be the bare bones, coming in seriously under word count. 2. Bulk out the entire thing with a series of re writes where I focus on adding. 3. Proper editing, which consists of course mainly of cutting things out. So I'm hoping the end product will be of a reasonable word count :)

Dawkins and coffee are calling...

Springing up like daisies

It's great to see so many people (as in, my Creative Writing buddies from Bath Spa) getting blogging accounts and Twitter, etc, but there is also that innate human pang of jealously that stabs in when I see another friend has joined the networking world. Competition, I guess, but luckily that feeling quickly evaporates and I am very proud to see them stepping up their game. It's second year now, things are getting serious I guess.
I don't know about you, but I often feel very torn between books. For example, there is a book I have to read (Stuart, a life backwards) for one of my courses at uni, and a book I want to read (Nation). Of course I am more likely to read what I want to read, after all its the book I picked for myself rather than having it forced on me. It's probably my own fault for reading two at once. If I had only stuck to one then the other, I wouldn't be feeling this resentment and boredom when I pick up the book I have to read.
I remember quite vividly when I was younger and going on a family holiday, I was given two books to take away with one. One was a Jacqueline Wilson - I red almost exclusively of her for a time - and another by Michael Ende. Naturally I wanted to Wilson, but my Dad insisted that I read the other first - with it's boring cover picture, lack of pictures throughout, it seemed far too grown up. So I ploughed through against my will, but found the book to be surprisingly...fantastic! Momo by Michael Ende has remained one of my favorite books of all time, and I can't even remember which Jacqueline Wilson book it was that I coveted so much. I always this of how things can surprise you.
Battery low....taaraa! x

Welcome to my blog spot!
This is where I will be telling the world about my writing, and hopefully getting feedback on it. This blog will be acting as my 'writers diary' so I can keep up to date with what I've achieved lately (if anything) and let people know about what I'm up to. So without further adieu, let me tell you how it's all going...

At the moment I am working on two novels. They are my first attempts at a full length piece of work (so why, prey tell, am I attempting two at once?!). The first is as of yet untitled, but I call it the 'transplant' novel, as the main character has a heart transplant that changes her life. I've been writing this since Easter and have written the first five or so chapters. I write everything by hand primarily then copy it onto computer. At the moment I have the first three chapters typed up, so I may be uploading an extract from this in the near future.

The second novel I only started about a week ago and am still in that primary 'fired up' stage. I have written the first two chapters and am starting the third today and it's going really well. The main characters spend a lot of time jumping around in the beginning, so I haven't really established any firm secondary characters yet, but I'll get onto that soon enough.

The bit I'm not looking forward to both of these is the middley bit. We are often told that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end, and the bit I find most difficult is between the beginning and the middle. It's that stage where you've already had the fun of establishing plot and introducing character, but before the main drama has started yet, which makes it a bit uneventful. Sometime I think, why not just skip to the action? But this being my first full length piece, I am determined not to rush to the good bits and thereby compromising the length of it. So fingers crossed I'm not too plagued by 'writers block' before I get to the exciting bits. (What am I on about? Every bit is an exciting bit!)

Thanks for reading, I hope to post again soon!