A Fetish for Stationery

All year I’ve been a very good girl and have resisted the urge to buy stationery – my not so secret addiction. In an effort to de-clutter I’ve been using old notebooks and work diaries for my writing.

 

I do have a particular thing about notebooks – all those lovely blank pages on which to imprint my handwriting. There’s something rather romantic about writing longhand into a special notebook; something about the connection between mind and hand. Although I am a touch typist and writing straight to my laptop would be so much more efficient, I always prefer this old fashioned method. Maybe it’s because it’s slower so that it allows the words on the page to be more considered which appeals to me. Or the fact that you can write anywhere with pen and paper (not that there have been many places to go for the last eighteen months). No need for power, charging cables or wi-fi to distract you. All you have to do is pick up pen and paper and you can carry yourself away into the world you’re creating. 

 

So when I do go into any shop that sells stationery, my first point of call is the section that sells notebooks. And for the whole year (when we’ve not been in lockdown of course) I’ve shoved my hands firmly into my pockets and walked away. 

 

But last week I fell off the wagon. In an effort to get organised I’d decided that I needed some new files and then I saw these and all my willpower deserted me.

 

Do all writers have a fetish for stationery or is it just me? And how do you prefer to write? Longhand or straight to screen?

 

Covid and My Work In Progress

Despite still being in lockdown, 2021 seems to be rushing along at a breakneck speed. I can’t believe that this weekend the clocks went forward and the nights are lighter. (Let’s hope the weather continues to improve).  

I’ve been working hard on my writing so far this year and one of my goals was to get one of my long standing works in progress to a stage where I can submit it to agents. But I’ve realised there’s a major snag in my plot – and it’s all thanks to Covid – the gift that keeps on giving.

 

My work is a contemporary novel based around a professional woman who is desperately trying to balance her marriage, being a mother to young children and her career. 

 

My heroine is the breadwinner of the family as her husband has recently become a full-time student to retrain. On her return to work from maternity leave after having her second child, she finds that her lovely boss has been replaced with the boss from hell. He’s a bully and seems intent on pushing her out of her job, something she absolutely cannot allow to happen. 

 

And here’s my dilemma. On her return to work she asks if she can be allowed to work flexibly so that some of her hours can be worked from home. Of course her boss flatly refuses believing that working from home is a euphemism for watching daytime TV. Now that Covid has put paid to that kind of attitude, the premise that she wouldn’t be allowed to work from home is redundant. 

 

So now I’m a bit stumped about what to do to fix this. Covid has changed our way of life so much that the dilemma is how do we reflect this in our writing? Do we set our stories before 2020 at the risk of them being automatically outdated, do we ignore the impact Covid has had on our lives or do we try to imagine a life post Covid where we hope that life will return to something that resembles the life we used to know? Bearing in mind the length of time it takes to get anything published, I’m tempted to move it forward to a life post Covid, keeping it similar to how we used to live but adding in the change in people’s perceptions. In doing this I can only hope that I get it right. Or at least close to it so that a further edit isn’t too onerous. So now another major edit is needed. Thanks Covid.

21 Years Today

 Today is my 21st wedding anniversary. I can't believe I've been married so long!

Like any marriage, we've had our ups and downs and life hasn't always been easy, but thankfully the hard times have brought us even closer together and we are still very much happily married.

This is our second wedding anniversary in lockdown, so a takeaway meal and not having to cook will be the biggest part of our celebration! But hopefully these strange times will all be over soon and we will all be able to go out and celebrate everything we've missed in the last year.

We also missed celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary but by some kind of strange premonition we went all out for our 19th and spent a lovely weekend in London. We'd done the same for our 10th anniversary and were looking to repeat it for our 20th, but after my illness I decided that life was short and we wouldn't wait for the next year. So spooky!

Although only March I remember having a mini spring heatwave in the run up to our big day. We were married in Chester Town Hall, had our photographs taken in the gardens of Chester Cathedral and then travelled round Chester in an open topped vintage car to the Guildhall where we celebrated until the early hours of the morning with all our family and friends. 

So today I'm feeling very grateful for my lovely husband, my two boys and all the family and friends who make my life so special.

Book Review - Shiver – Allie Reynolds

Before I review this book I’ll come clean. I 'met' Allie several years ago through an online writing group, writing short stories for womags.

The group grew to be very large and we drifted off to a smaller groups. The group I stayed in touch with, and am still part of today, currently has five members including myself.

 

Finding the right writers’ group is not an easy task. I have been to a couple of physical groups but never found other writers who were on the same wavelength as myself and my writing until I met these girls.  Over the years we have come to know each other really well and provide constructive criticism and support. I know that I wouldn’t have had the stories published that I have without their help and advice. It’s just a pity that we can’t meet up in the flesh as geographically we are just too far apart, especially as Allie lives in Australia. 

 

Allie has recently had her first novel, Shiver, published in hardback and on Kindle.  Right from the beginning of her submission to agents, Allie has had brilliant success, with several agents wanting to represent her, followed by a bidding war by publishers. The book has sold internationally and she even has an option on a film.  Not bad for a first novel!

 

And it is deservedly so. I’ve just finished reading the complete novel and I have to say that I couldn’t put it down. I’m not just saying that because I know her. If I didn’t like the book, I would just keep my mouth shut.

 

Shiver is set in French resort of Le Roche, where five friends are invited back for a reunion, ten years after they were last there. They were all competitive snowboarders competing in the ‘half pipe’ which seems to me to a be a truly dangerous sport and something I would never have the guts to attempt. 

 

There is tension from the beginning as no one knows who has sent the invitations and there is also an atmosphere of mistrust as the last time they were together, one of their friends, Saskia, went missing, presumed to have become buried in one of the treacherous crevices which form on the mountain. No one really knows how much each person was involved in Saskia’s disappearance.

 

An “icebreaker” game turns sinister and then they realise that they are trapped in the out of season ski lodge. Everyone begins to doubt the other as they try to work out who has trapped them here and why?

 

The story alternates between the past and the present as we gradually learn that each of the friends has secrets they would rather keep hidden. The tension never lets up as we are drip fed information and try to solve the mystery as we read.

 

Allie was former competitive snowboarder herself and she uses this to bring the atmosphere of both the setting and the sport alive. 

 

If you like page turning thrillers, I would definitely give this book a go.

 

Well done Allie, and good luck with next book. Can’t wait to read it.

It's Been Three Years

 

    Three years ago today I suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage, more commonly known as a brain haemorrhage. It came completely without warning and for nearly twenty-four hours I didn’t even realise what had happened to me. It felt like the worst headache I’d ever experienced and being a previous migraine sufferer, extreme headaches were something I was familiar with. I took painkillers and went to bed, little realising that this was the absolute worst thing I could do. I was told later I should have called the emergency services straight away. But who dials 999 when they have a headache? 

It was a Saturday evening and I was going out with my husband to celebrate his birthday which would be on the following Monday. I was feeling tired but didn’t want to disappoint him. We went to our local pub and had booked a table at our favourite Italian restaurant. As we were walking across the road from the pub I felt a sharp, sudden cramp in the back of my neck. Mike asked me what was wrong but I brushed him off and continued on towards the car. As I got into the car I felt a splitting pain across the top of my skull as though I’d been hit over the head with a hammer. Apparently these are classic symptoms of a brain haemorrhage but I was completely unaware.

I’m sure everyone has seen the adverts to spot the symptoms of a stroke, telling them to act FAST. A brain haemorrhage, is also a form of stroke but who would know how to spot one? Only fifty percent of people who suffer from a subarachnoid haemorrhage survive long enough to reach hospital and of those who do, there’s a high risk of dying within the first three weeks or of becoming permanently disabled.  

I, though, tried to continue with my evening, even though my husband tried to persuade me to go home. Eventually I had to admit defeat and drove home. Can you believe it? I actually drove home. I hadn’t had anything to drink and it was only a headache after all. 

The next morning, when I was lucky enough to wake up, the pain was worse, my neck was stiff and the light hurt my eyes. I began to think along the lines of menigitis and phoned 111. They sent a paramedic and then an ambulance and it wasn’t long before I was being blue lighted to hospital. A CT scan revealed that I’d had a brain haemorrhage and from there I was blue-lighted to The Walton Centre, which is a specialist neurological centre in Liverpool.

The next day, a further CT revealed that I had suffered from a ruptured aneurysm.An aneurysm is a blister which forms on a blood vessel leading to the brain. If it is weakened in any way the blister can burst and the blood which is pumped from the heart to the brain bleeds out, potentially causing death. 

Aneurysms can develop in anyone at any age but are more common in people, especially women, over the age of forty. I was forty-nine. I realised I could have had this unexploded bomb in my head since birth.  The aneurysm in itself isn’t dangerous, it’s only when it ruptures that causes the problems. No one really knows why an aneurysm might suddenly burst: high blood pressure, physical exertion, stress. The doctors told me that they wanted to operate. Small metal coils would be inserted into the pocket of the blister to seal it and prevent any more blood from escaping. After that, only time would tell. I was stunned and couldn't believe that I was about to have brain surgery. This was on the Monday, the day of my husband's birthday. My phone had run out of charge so I couldn't even let him know. What a conversation that would have been. 'Hi Darling, happy birthday, by the way, they're just going to operate on my brain.'

   They explained that the surgery wouldn’t take place through my skull. Instead a catheter would be inserted into my groin up to my brain and the coils would be guided by ultrasound. Isn’t that amazing? I remembered being relieved that I wouldn’t have my head drilled open. Obviously the operation was a success and I spent the night being monitored in intensive care, where my poor husband spent his birthday evening. 

Ten days later I was back at home, but it took me months, if not years to fully recover. In those years I suffered from severe fatigue, memory loss, brain fog and loss of confidence. A form of PTSD kicked in and I couldn’t get rid of the thought that I might have either died or being left permanently disabled and had mild panic attacks whenever I saw blue lights on an ambulance. 

But recover I did, and have now written a memoir about my experience. It took me a while to be able to get my thoughts down on paper and NaNoWriMo helped me by giving me a deadline. I’m now at a stage where I am submitting to agents whilst further polishing the rest of my manuscript. Feedback so far is that it is good read and well written but no bites so far. Perhaps it’s completely the wrong time to be trying to get a book like this published but I’m very aware of the passage of time and will continue with my efforts. After enough tries, if I can’t get either an agent or a publisher, my aim is to get my manuscript professionally critiqued and then self-publish. 

More than anything, I’m now just glad to have survived. I was one of the lucky ones, thanks to the NHS and the fact that I lived close to a specialist centre who knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

It’s been a long road, but I want to let people know that symptoms of a brain haemorrhage should be taken seriously and should be acted on straight away. Also, that although recovery can take a long time, it is possible. You just need to persevere.

Take care everyone.

Goals and Hibernation

January was good month for me writing-wise helped by the fact that my social calendar isn’t exactly bursting at the seams at the moment and the cold weather always makes me want to hibernate.  

For the new year, I set myself my goals for the twelve months ahead, as I do every year. I’ve realised that it’s not enough just to set these goals but that I also need to make a plan of how I’m going to achieve them, otherwise, the time drifts and I before I know it, it’s the end of the year and my goals have slipped through my fingers. 

So I wrote down everything I wanted to achieve this year and then I broke them down into smaller sections. I read somewhere about breaking tasks down into seasons. In reality this is the same as quarterly but somehow the idea of working with the seasons seems much more romantic. Also it means that I can plan everything that needs little or no input with the outside world into the winter months. (That’s assuming we ever get out of lockdown!)

 

I then broke down the seasons into months and so I have a set list for each month. It might sound a bit rigid but it’s the only way for me to keep on track.

 

I’m pleased to say that I manged to achieve all my goals in January and even had some time left over for extra reading and “fun” writing so this has spurred me on.

 

January is always an easy month to achieve goals set at the new year, its keeping it up for the next eleven months that’s hard. But I remain determined!

In the spirit of aligning with the seasons I've also been venturing outside (when it's not too cold as I'm very nesh.) I've taken some photos which I've posted here. One of my goals is to improve my photography skills - well you have to start somewhere.

How are you doing with those new year resolutions?

 

Reading During Lockdown

 

I’m just wondering if the kind of books you read changed during lockdown? I think mine did.

 

For Christmas I received the book, Just My Luck by Adele Parks, which was a book I very much wanted to read after listening to Adele Parks’ interview on the Richard and Judy Podcast.

 

However, when I did sit down, looking forward to a satisfying read, I’m afraid I was disappointed. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Adele Parks and the book was well written, as to be expected, but I actually found the subject matter to be quite uncomfortable.

 

The story centres around three couples who have known each other since their children, now teenagers, were born. They were part of a syndicate, buying a Lottery ticket using the same numbers each week, and gathering at each other’s houses on a Saturday night to see if they had won.

 

However, the week before the story begins the friends fell out and two couples dropped out of the syndicate. The woman who had always been responsible for buying the tickets, though, bought a ticket the following week, using the same numbers. And of course, this week, the numbers came up and the winning ticket was worth £18 million.

 

Naturally, after all the years they had invested in the syndicate, the other two couples felt that they were entitled to a share of the winnings, but the husband of the winning ticket, in particular, felt that they were not entitled to anything and a Lottery investigation ensued. 

 

So, what made me feel uncomfortable when reading this book was how winning that kind of money changed people’s personalities and broke down relationships – more than just the three couples involved. I’m sure that’s exactly what Adele meant to convey but I found that I didn’t like reading about such greed and the lengths people were prepared to go to, to get what they wanted and felt they deserved. I did read to the end of the book although I had to admit that I turned the last page over with a sense of relief.

 

My reaction made me think about the types of books I’ve been finding enjoyable recently and it was only then I realised that during lockdown I have been seeking out books and authors to make myself feel happy, rather than books that present a challenge. I’ve even revisited books I’ve previously read and enjoyed to be certain of a happy outcome during such uncertain times.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I have read a few thrillers and particularly enjoyed Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce, Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell and The End of Her by Shari Lapena but on the whole I’ve tended to favour more feel good books by authors such as Lucy Diamond, Debbie Johnson, Fiona Gibson, Cathy Bramley, Veronica Henry, Erica James and Karen Swan. That’s not to say the characters in these books don’t experience hardship or emotional trauma, it’s just that I know that it’s all going to come good in the end.

 

I did read some new authors and enjoyed The Flatshare and The Swithc by Beth O’Leary and In Five Years by Rebecca Searle, but overall I’ve felt that I needed to find comfort in my reading matter.

 

What about you? What have you been reading over the last year and have your tastes changed during lockdown?

Its Life Jim But Not As We Know It

First of all, a belated happy New Year to everyone, and let’s hope that it does turn out to be a happier year than the one we’ve just left behind. Although as we’re back in lockdown again, it hasn’t exactly got off to a promising start. 

Don’t get me wrong, this new lockdown is certainly necessary, it just seems such a shame that nine months on, and despite the fact that we now have a vaccine, we don’t seem to be much further forward than we were last March.

 

2020 was a difficult year for all of us and whilst we can hope that things will be very different in the not too distant future, we still have many challenges ahead of us.

 

I’ve never been a fan of the dark winter months at the beginning of the year and usually wish I could hibernate. So trying to see some positives to this awful situation, lockdown is probably the nearest I’ll ever get to that.

 

Since March I have largely been working from home and whilst it took some adjustment at first – especially with a house full of people – I have, just about, got used to it.

 

Since July I had been going into the office one day a week on a rota basis so that everyone’s not in at once and that we can maintain socially distancing. Going to the office is a welcome break from the mundanity of working from home, but the thought of working in the office the whole time seems a very strange concept. I’m sure I’ll adapt though when / if the time comes again.

 

These are certainly scary times where nothing is certain and fear lurks outside our doors. All we can do is try not to fear the uncertainty too much and concentrate on the things that we can control.

 

So, at the start of 2021 I’m concentrating on being grateful for the things I do have – namely my family, a job and a home. I have a certain degree of financial security and in these uncertain times that is something that can only be a blessing.

 

The plan is to use these winter months of hibernation as a means for me to concentrate on my writing. I’ve set my goals, and given myself timescales for each month, and now all I just have to do it stick to it. I’m doing OK so far, I just need to make sure that I keep it up once January is over. Wish me luck!