Blue Monday And On.

What is it about January and even February that leaves me with this feeling that I'm carrying around limbs and a head full of lead, or have heavy clouds floating comically around my head similar to the seeing stars effect, but especially made for January?

Blue Monday was named so by a publicity campaign which said the last Monday of January was the most depressing day of the year. Well I've been feeling Blue Monday for the majority of January and it's following me into February.

I announced on the first of January that was I was taking part in the 100,000 words in a 100 days challenge. That didn't happen. Yes I started and I have my first few chapters, I know where it's all going and the work has continued on in my head, but the ability to sit down at my desk and churn out the words is missing. I know we are supposed to make ourselves sit in that seat and work like any other job, but the way I'm feeling, the words wouldn't be anything like I see in my head and lead fingers would set in.

So, book two is happily running away in my head, that's still classed as working right? I'm also not just giving in to it and doing nothing. I have read more books in January than I have ever managed to read in a month. So again, I'm still working. You can't be a writer if you don't read. I'm loving the time to read and I'm loving losing myself in the books. I keep peeking up though to see if Blue January and February have gone yet, so I'm not hiding completely. I can see those heavy clouds around my head shifting now. Not much, but movement has started.

Do you feel affected by the seasons and if so, how do you combat it?

UK Writers

This post is of particular significance if you are a Twitter user. Personally I love and adore Twitter and will bore you with all the reasons why in another blog post at some point in the future, but for now, I want to talk about the hashtag #UKwriters. If you are not a Twitter user, please don't run off and hide under the nearest rock and quiver until you think the awfully invasive T word has disappeared, pull up a seat and see what all the fuss is about and maybe by the end of the post, you may have just a tinkling of interest that may prompt you to check out the phenomena that is Twitter. 

On 28th December I read a post on Rosalind Adams blog about a new hashtag she created, that is circulating on Twitter called #ukwriters. Below is an exerpt from her blog explaining. (I feel she can do this much better than I can.)

@mariaAsmith and myself, @RosalindAdam, thought it would be useful for UK writers to have a tag so we can link up with each other to share news on Twitter. The news can be writing opportunities, competitions, conferences, in fact anything that's relevant to UK writers. 

If you're interested then please tweet ‘I'm in #UKwriters’ to @mariaAsmith and she'll include your twitter name on her UKwriters twitter list. If you're already on the list and want to follow more UK writers go to Maria Smith UK writers list where you can check it out. Do please use the #UKwriters tag whenever you tweet writing advice etc. Who knows, we might even get it trending.

I think this explains it brilliantly and what I love about it is the ability to share what you are doing and what help/support and general all round friendliness towards writers, there is out there. We all know writing is a very solitary thing to engage in, so for a few characters you can engage with like minded people and know you aren't so alone. Yes we have blogs, but Twitter is quicker and more instantaneous. If you use Twitter, join in, if you don't use Twitter, why not pop by and give it a try, you already know some of the users now. 

For anyone who doesn't know how the hashtag (#) works, it's simple. Add the # to a tweet you are making and your tweet can be easily found by people who are interested in it. 

Here's an example;

Hey, there's a uk competition at blah blah blah. Free to enter! #ukwriters.

Anyone following the hashtag chat will see it and you have informed a bunch of fellow writers of something you think they will be interested in. The hashtag doesn't have to be a part of the sentence. It's simply tagged to the end.

You'll find me @RebbecaJBradley I look forward to seeing you there. 

A Review Of 2011 And Further.

We're rapidly approaching the new year 2012 and it's often a time where we reflect on the past year and look forward to the year ahead. This is going to be nothing different.

The last blog post of 2011 was a list of 11 goals I was setting myself to achieve in this year. Now is the time to see how I've done and assess what goals I need to look at for the year ahead 2012.

1. Read 40 books 

I completed this. Though my Goodreads ticker only stands at 41, I know I have read at least 3 more that for some reason Goodreads didn't want to acknowledge. I'm not sure what that says about my taste in books!

2. Complete first draft of novel and subsequent edited drafts

This I did! And I'm thrilled with the fact that I did. It was hard work. I've had a lot of other things going on this year and I work full time, but regardless of that I still kept pushing myself, sitting down at my newly acquired office space that used to be a spare room and I wrote and I edited and I kept doing it and novel number one was born.

3. Query agent with completed novel

Believe it or not, I even managed to do this. I'm still in the anxiety riddled stage of waiting to hear back, but I'm pleased with what I achieved.

4. See a musical

Unfortunately this one wasn't completed. My other half lost his job earlier in the year do finances restricted social plans like this.

5. Lose 1.5 stone

Mmm. I can't seriously remember what my starting weight was when I wrote this so I can't say either way. That's not a get out clause. I genuinely don't know. I have lost some weight but I don't think it was in this ball park.

6. Start yoga

Oops. I forgot this one.

7. Submit 12 pieces of writing to competitions

I changed my mind about this one early into this year as I decided I needed to focus on the novel.

8. Write at least 6 blog posts a month.

In the main I managed this, other than September and October when I was in that last push to completing the novel. I'm happy with this one.

9. Be more organised. Set goals. Write things down.

This, I think I managed. There's still room for improvement but I'm getting there.

10. Raise the profile of the blog and have an extra 12 followers by the end of 2011 (one a month. Today it stands at 15)

See, I should have done the bracketed thing with the weight loss goal. Ha! Not really. Who wants to put their weight in black and white for all to see?

Anyway, I think I successfully managed to do this. 195 followers! Bear in mind my last post where I discuss quality over quantity. I do want to improve my jnteractions.

11. Push Doctors until a final diagnosis is agreed for son and I.

Done. We have hyper mobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and I also have Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Not much to have a song and dance about but the objective was met and we know what we're dealing with.

So with this past year all checked out, what do I intend to focus on for 2012? Lets see.... I'm not sure I can come up with 11, never mind 12, but here goes.

1. Read 50 books and in a variety of genres.

2. Start Pilates and another form of exercise. 
Due to my medical diagnosis's I need to exercise more, but I need to be sensible in the choices I make.

3. Write book two.

4. Have a publishing contract for book one. 
This is out of my hands in the main though. I will work hard but the choice is ultimately be in someone elses hands.

5. Lose a stone in weight.
It's a constant battle, but a smaller goal is more achievable and I don't want to put things on this list just for the fun of it.

6. Make more quality connections when blogging. 
If commenting, to make sure I have something to say rather than a one sentence comment for the sake of it.

7. Keep in touch with the people who are important to me. 
We often let this slide in our lives. We become busy and time slips away. I want to make a conscious effort to not do this.


What do you have planned for the coming year?

Reading by Example

I read regularly. I read books I can hold in my hands and fairly recently, I've started reading ebooks. My kids see me reading and they also see me writing. My love of books and the written word is there in plain sight.



Now it's too late to have much influence on the teenager. I can't encourage her into much at the moment, but it would appear, by the simple act of doing these things in front of him, little man is picking it up.

He's fetching books home from the school library and not just fetching them home, but reading them. I found the teenagers old set of Mr Men books a couple of weeks ago and moved them into little mans room. He's now reading a minimum of two a night. He loves them.

The phrase, lead by example seems to alive and well in our house and I'm so pleased.

Then again, when I asked the teenager if my book was published would she read it, she replied "maybe one day."

Writing is.....

This blog meme has been handed to me by the lovely Patricia from Journey Through the Pages. It's simply, Writing is.....

I'm not sure where to start with this. I've never really considered where I stand with writing or what it means to me. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love doing it. I'm adoring watching my novel progress and I can't imagine walking away from it, or any of the future ones that are already invading my head space.

My head is constantly filled with thoughts and ideas about where to take my characters next or what their personalities are like. But saying that, I'm not one of those writers who say they would die if they couldn't write.

I suppose Its that I haven't thought that much about not writing, so I don't come out with such dramatic sentences. Writing is something I do and something I love doing. I will continue to do it. Even if this book doesn't make it, I will write the next one. I don't feel compelled to write them, it's just there. I have laptop, will write. Simples.

I now have to pass this Meme on to three fellow bloggers. They are;

Talli Roland 
Lindsay at Tiptoe Kisses and
Katie at Reading, Writing and Life

Inspiration

Todays post is part of a blog hop created on a writers group I use on Facebook. You can find the details and the link on Gladiators Pen.

It's a monthly blog hop, on the second Tuesday, where a different topic is suggested each month and participants can write a post, however they see fit, on that particular subject. This months subject is inspiration.

So, what do I have to say about inspiration? I suppose it is something that is personal to all of us. We as people, tend to be pretty different to each other and we work in completely different ways.

We learn in different ways and this is shown by the Flemings VAK/VARK model which suggests there are four ways of learning;

1. Visual Learners who prefer to see images and diagrams
2. Auditory learners, who prefer to be told how to do something 
3. Read/Write learners who does what it says on the tin and,
4. Kinesthetic /Tactile learners who need to learn hands on. 

For me, I feel that these two things can be linked learning and inspiration. 

I for instance am a visual and auditory learner so I find my inspiration tends to come from watching people and situations, and listening to the interactions. Seeing how people genuinely interact with each other and not how we expect them to act. 

For example in a crime scenario, how you expect someone to act, isn't usually the way you are going to get it. Humans are unique and you need to remember this when writing. 

There is a very good video clip out there in the World wide web somewhere of a couple of police officers interrogating a victim of rape and because she wasn't crying and getting upset as they expected, they really grilled her and called her a liar. Now this was many many many years ago and things have changed drastically since them, but it's a good example of how people don't do what you think they might. So whatever your learning style, employ it for inspiration. 

Look at people if you are visual, interact with them if you are kinethsetic, listen to them if you are auditory. But you're writing about people and if you want real in your writing, then employ your learning style to get that realism and find out who people really are for your inspiration. Use what you have to your advantage and all that; watching, listening and interacting will bring you some real life characters you can work with.

Secrets and Lies

This week I had to go on a two day trip with work. The trip involved staying away overnight, a lovely Thai meal and a quiet hotel room. We don't do this very often, just when work necessitates. I love being at home with my family, but the occasional quiet evening alone is a pleasure.

The trip involved three colleagues and I meeting other colleagues from the area we were in. We met and politely shook hands during introductions. Later in the day my supervisor informed me that the other supervisor from the meeting had given him a secret handshake so suggested he was a Freemason. (And my spell checker has just made me write Freemason with a capital letter. Ggrrr some more.)

For some reason this really irked me. My supervisor isn't part of the club but recognised some touch on his knuckles from the other persons thumb. Even though he isn't a mason, he can be given the handshake because he's a male and it's the way they identify themselves when meeting without the need to bring it up in conversation. I'm female so I found this very exclusionary. Not part of the club, and no way of being so, due to my gender. I'm serious when I say I was irritated. Something happened in a meeting I was present at, yet I was completely unaware of it.

This got me to thinking about secrecy, secret societies and what it is about them that people find so fascinating.

There is a lot of information available regarding the freemasons. What is it though that draws us in? Makes brilliantly exciting books with conspiracy theories screaming throughout them?

Secrets. Suggestion and silence. These things really seem to tap into our brain and makes us want to know more. If you're writing, keep something back. Suggest something is there, then go off in a totally different direction. It will drive your audience to distraction. I can definitely vouch for that after feeling the knowledge of secrecy in reality.

Mysterious, sinister and exclusionary or harmless, friendly clubs? Can you fold in a secret to your writing and catch your readers attention?

Finding Time to Write

I'm guest posting over at Nancy Hinchliffe's blog, Business and Creative Women's Blog, on finding the time to write.... 


First of all I have to say a huge thank you to Nancy for asking me to come along and write a guest post for her blog. I was extremely flattered when she asked. 

No sooner had she asked and I had agreed, than things started to go wrong. Nancy requested a personal type post, involving things such as my life, working, kids, mad female dogs with boy names and finding time to write and guess what? I let her down within the week simply because one of the other commitments got in the way of finding the time. Oh the irony. 

But what does that say about my organisational skills?


To read the rest of this post visit Nancy's blog..

Losing Written Documents

For some reason I quite like writing short pieces on a document app on my iPhone, be they blog posts, short fiction or chapters for my novel. This probably works for me as I tend to get ideas just as I'm about to go to sleep which ends in me sitting bolt upright and switching lights on, much to the annoyance of my other half who now just grunts at me and rolls over. 

I recently got onto a bit of a roll and had several blog posts written up and ready to be posted at regular intervals. I also wrote five chapters for my book this way and put some ideas down for shorts. 

For some strange reason I sent the novel chapters to google docs so I still had them if anything happened to my phone, but I didn't do the same for my blog posts. Then something did happen to my phone, I happened to my phone! 

I decided to buy the paid document app that I was using for writing. After I did this, I got a little giddy and tidied up my apps and deleted the free version as I didn't need two versions of the same app clogging up my phone. 

It wasn't until a couple of days later when I looked to post a blog post that I realised I'd deleted it! A week later and I'm still so furious with myself. Ive synched the app back onto my phone, but all that was on it is lost forever. 

It now feels as though I have to write on my blog from scratch and it feels mountainous. I know I will get in my stride again, but that's why the blog has been quiet for a week. 

One lesson I have now learnt, along with putting enough postage on competition entry envelopes, is store written work in more than one place! (It would seem this blog is a list of what not to do's) 

What have you done that you have completely given yourself a hard time over?