Life Is Like A Butterfly

The past few years have been very up and down for me and what with bereavement and ill health, mostly it’s been more down than up. 

At the beginning of this year I really felt that the dawn of a new decade was going to be a fresh start. Well, COVID certainly put paid to that for me as well as the rest of the world.

 

It’s strange to think how the world has changed this year – who would have thought back in January that wearing face masks would become the norm?

 

In many ways life for me hasn’t stopped since COVID. I’ve worked all the way through it and at first working from home was a bit of a transition – especially with everyone in the house at the same time.

 

But you have to try and look on the bright side and the lack of a social life has certainly benefitted my writing and I’ve tried to carve out a little bit of time each day (even if its not much) to write.

 

I’m a bit of a butterfly in my writing, flitting from one project to another, so this year I decided to change my tactics and focus on one project at a time. 

 

You may recall that in February 2018 I suffered from an unexpected brain haemorrhage and ended up having surgery at The Walton Centre in Liverpool. I’m so grateful to the staff for saving my life, and I think that during this crisis the NHS staff have certainly been recognised for the fantastic job they do.

 

But it did take me a long time to recover and for a while I had to put my writing on hold. The whole experience was completely out of my comfort zone and I decided that I would write a memoir about it. I’ve always kept a journal so on days when I couldn’t manage anything more creative at least I had an outlet and it also helped to keep me sane.

 

So when NaNoWriMo came around last year I decided to go for it and by the end of the month I had completed a very rough first draft.

 

This year I’ve spent a lot of time editing it and managed to get to the point where I was ready to submit it to an agent. Unfortunately, when the first agent came back to me she told me that it wasn’t right for her. But on the plus side, she did say that it was well written so that gave me something to hope for.

 

I dusted myself off and have since sent my manuscript out to five more agents. How I selected them is another story and now while I’m waiting for them to get back tome, I’m carrying on polishing the rest, just in case I get asked to submit a full manuscript. I’m also thinking about my next project.

 

Wish me luck.

The Merrie Month of May

May has always been one of my favourite months of the year, not least because my birthday falls in the middle of it. But to me its when the country properly comes alive after winter.

From March onwards things start to change, trees and borders bloom with colour and the weather gets warmer and the nights lighter.

But by May it often feels like the beginning of summer and we can celebrate the joy of being outside without having to wrap up against the cold (not always of course because we do live in England).

This year we are of course much more restricted but having a bout of good weather does ease the isolation and I'm eternally grateful that we do have a garden and are so much more fortunate than those who don't.

Sadly this May I won't be celebrating my birthday with my extended family or by going out for a meal, but I will make sure that I will find some quiet way to celebrate - we do still have a lot to be grateful for.

V E Day Celebrations

It was wonderful to watch the VE celebrations on Friday although it was such a shame that they had to be carried out in isolation.

One of the streets in Chester (above) actually made it to be shown on national TV with their music and re-enactment of the day 75 years ago.

Nothing quite as dramatic happened on the street where I live. In the most part people seem to keep themselves to themselves although we are becoming friendlier on our daily walks and when we all come out on Thursdays to show our appreciation for the NHS and key workers. 

It was wonderful though to watch the celebrations on Friday evening. This could be the last time  that we have a chance to thank the brave men and women who gave up so much to make sure that our country was spared the dictatorship of Hitler. 

They fought to keep this country free and we all owe them such a huge debt. The sacrifices of everyone who went through both world wars should never be forgotten.

And yet now we are fighting a war of our own. A very different kind of war but the song 'We'll Meet Again' bears resonance today. I'm sure we all have loved ones whose we would love to hug and spend some time with. I haven't seen my mum since the middle of March because she lives too far away and contact with my gorgeous grandchildren is sporadic and only through a window.

But I consider myself lucky. I'm living with my family and for the most part we are all getting on well - so much better than I thought we would, being cooped up all together. 

And so we might have our freedom restricted for the moment, but we all know that this time will pass. Those who lived through the two world wars didn't have such security and still they fought on bravely. We have so much to thank them for.

What Strange Times!

First of all I hope all of you are surviving these strange times and managing to keep well and safe with the large part of your sanity intact.

Its incredible how quickly we have all adapted to a completely different way of living in such a short space of time. 

Thankfully I've been able to work from home, which as I'm freelance is a godsend because at least I'm still earning some money. I like being at home so its not that great of a hardship for me although it feels very strange having all the rest of the family here and finding a quiet space in the house is proving to be quite a bit of a challenge.

Its strange how going outside has become such a scary prospect. Its only a few months ago that I didn't think twice about jumping into the car and nipping to the shops for a few odd bits. Now shopping is a once a week event, filled with anxiety and to one shop only. Yesterday I did our food shop and it took me two hours - one hour of which was spent queuing to get into the shop. Not that I'm complaining, if that's what it takes to keep us safe then its a necessary precaution, it just goes to show how quickly we can adapt when we need to.

The photo above is one I took years ago. I've been trawling through my archive of photos taken locally and thought that this might add a bit of brightness to the day.  As lockdown goes on, I think I might post some more - photos taken when we could go out and visit different places.

Without the daily commute, being mum's taxi and always having to be somewhere else, I'm finding that I have some time on my hands. Time to do all those jobs that I never usually get round to - well sort of. I have a long list and am gradually working through it, but what I'm also doing is writing more - or rather editing. I've decided that I want to make the most of this time. I'm a big believer that out of negative must come something positive. And this is going to be my positive.

What about you? What are you doing to while away the hours?

Work In Progress

As ever I started off the year with good intentions and I made some initial progress writing and submitting a couple of short stories. Then I turned my attention to my current novel in progress. I had rejoined the Romantic Novelist’s Association New Writer’s Scheme, and my aim was to edit a mostly complete first draft into something I was happy to submit for feedback. 

Unfortunately this took a lot longer than I had anticipated. There was a lot to rewrite and some holes in the plot which needed some serious rethinking and which involved large amounts of writing from scratch. The novel is set in my home town, Chester, but takes place during the first few years of World War II. It follows the story of two sisters as they reach adulthood, struggling against the backdrop of war and the difficult relationship they have with each other.

By the time I had completed it, it was early August. I was happy with what I had done but was equally as happy to send it off and start work on something fresh. As it was close to the RNA deadline I anticipated a long wait for the feedback but this wasn’t a problem as I felt I needed some space from it. To my surprise the feedback came back only a week later. Not sure if this was a good sign or a bad sign, I nervously opened the document. Unfortunately, I think it was a bad sign. I’ve submitted a few novels though the NWS and always found the feedback to be detailed as well as constructive. Sadly, I found the feedback this time to be rather harsh. I’m not saying it was wrong, although there were some points I didn’t agree with, but I can honestly say I was devastated by how flawed she thought the novel was, both regarding character and plot, bearing in mind how much time and effort I had already put into it. I metaphorically put both the novel and the feedback away in a drawer until such a time when I can view it with more objectivity. When I do look at it again I’m sure I will be able to gain more from the feedback but at the time it just floored me.  At the same time the short stories I had sent off earlier in the year were also rejected.

Maybe at this point a saner person would have decided to give up writing altogether but maybe I’m not sane. Instead I went back to my short stories, editing earlier ones and starting to write some new ones. I’ve also started to write a memoir on what it was like to have a brain haemorrhage and the effort it has taken to overcome it. I’m not sure the latter is something I will submit for publication or even self-publish but at the moment its something I feel the need to write. In order to get something down on paper I signed up for NaNoWriMo and so far it is working well for me. Eight days in and I’ve written 12,000 words.

As well as all this I dug out feedback from the NWS on a previous year. The feedback on this novel was much more positive and offered detailed suggestions on how to improve it. Its given me the inspiration to do some work on this too and so at the moment I’m feeling very positive.  Long may it continue.

Time Flies!

As you get older there is a common feeling that time passes by more quickly. Well, it must be true because it seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating Christmas and forming New Year’s resolutions and now its November. Very scary!

As ever this year has been a busy one and I’m afraid most of it has distracted me from my writing.

Last year was dogged with my own health issues and whilst some of these will be ongoing for the rest of my life, this year more problems were added to the mix in the form of my husband’s health.

My husband is self-employed, often working six days a week and he’s alien to the concept of his own ill-health. But in June of this year everything changed and he ended up having two hospital stays over the summer and various appointments both with his doctor and the hospital to find out what is wrong with him. We still haven’t got to the bottom what caused his illness but at least the medication allows him to live a normal life, albeit slower than he has been used to. 

I’ve also changed my job which has caused some upheaval but which hopefully will give me a bit more time for writing. One of my biggest struggles is developing a consistent routine for it in what is already an overcrowded life. In many ways time isn’t the issue – we all have the same twenty-four hours in the day after all. The problem I need to overcome is my attitude to prioritising writing in my life and placing it further up the list in importance. Easier said than done but I’m working really had to improve my mindset. Having a long term illness I struggle with fatigue, especially after a day’s work, so I don’t find it very productive to try and write in the evenings. My aim now is to carve out some time in the mornings before work, when my brain (hopefully) is at its freshest.

The other thing I need to do is find some focus. Rather than flitting from project to project I need to complete one at a time. Then maybe I will see some progress. So I’ve formulated a plan and this time I intend to stick to it.  Wish me luck. 

A New Year

Last year was one of my least productive writing years but I’m not going to beat myself up about it. It was a very traumatic year to live through, and to be honest, I’m just pleased that I made it!

Sometimes life comes along and pulls the rug out from under your feet. But you can’t do anything about that except get on with it when it happens.

But there are some things you can control in life and I’m determined that 2019 is going to be positive with regard to the things I can control. Number 1 on that list is how much writing I do throughout the year.

With a busy life and an illness which brings with it a lot of fatigue, I often find it difficult, not only to find the time to write but the energy.

It’s easy to let one day slip by without writing and then another, and before you know it, time has slipped by and you are out of the habit.

So this year I’m determined to start off with good habits even if it’s just a few minutes each day. To help me do that I have written a specific list of immediate tasks so that when I do sit down to write I know exactly what it is I want to achieve from each writing session. Even if I don’t have the time or energy to do much, the hardest part is actually beginning and by having a plan, I'm hoping that this will make it easier to get that bum on seat and fingers on the keyboard. What I’ve also started to do is write a list of everything I achieve each day so that at the end of each week or month I have physical evidence of what I have achieved which will hopefully spur me on to do more.

So here’s a question. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and keep on writing?

The month has certainly got off to a good start with an email from The People’s Friend to say that a story of mine which was accepted last year will be published on 26^thJanuary, so I’m really looking forward to seeing that, and, fingers crossed, many more throughout the year.

So here’s to 2019 and may it be the best writing year ever – for everyone. Good luck, best wishes and happy writing.