Love of the Written Word

I am now employed, dear readers. With university behind me and who knows what ahead, one thing is fairly certain: I have a job. Yep, I got the job I interviewed for on Friday! I am now a care assistant at a home for old people. To everyone who's wished me luck, thank you!

Getting the job made me think of writing. Pleased to bits though I am about this, when I think of what I am, I don't think care assistant. I've never thought tour guide or researcher or any of my other jobs, either. I think I've gone too long thinking writer to think of myself as anything but when the thought slips in.

I've been writing so long, it's second nature now. I was four years old when I started, so that's eighteen years of my life now - too long to separate writing from Sangu. It's what I do.

And why do I love it?

1. Escapism. The same reason I love to read. When I write, I can create my own worlds, my own rules, my own people. Even when my characters are at their most headstrong, and the writing at its most frustrating, it's still mine. It's the place I go when I'm frustrated by something in the real world, because in fiction I can fix it. It's a place where unicorns and fairies exist, and little girls can become archaeologists or troll hunters if they want to.

2. The actual words. I'm a geek. I've always been a geek. I'm the one who tells my friends when they misuse or mispronounce a word. I'm the one who says things that, my oldest friends complain with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment, 'no one actually says in real life!' 

It's because I love the written word. I love how stringing sentences together can sound beautiful. It's not always just about plot or characters for me. It's also about how beautiful words can sound and look.

3. I'm good at it. I don't mean that in a boastful way! You know how at school, some kids take to maths and science really quick, and others take to art? Well, I was the kid who always took to English and to literature. Maths? I'm terrible at it. Science? I just about understand (some) of it. But give me a book or a creative assignment, and I loved them. There's a lot of pleasure to be had at doing something you feel proud of at the end, even if it's not a remotely perfect piece of work.

4. I have to do it. This isn't so much a question of why I love it, as why I do it at all. I simply have to. Whether or not I'm thinking of getting published, whether or not I see a character or story going somewhere, I still write them. When a story pops into my mind, I write it, even if I never finish it. It's like an itch. I have to do it.

I'm surprised I can only think of four reasons right now, but I think I've covered my love of writing pretty well here. Ultimately, I guess it comes down to number four: it's just something I have to do.

Why do you love what you do?

Crazy Days

It's a crazy day today, so I'm just dropping in to say hello. Steve and I have friends coming over today, so I'm off to fetch them from the train station in a bit, and it should be chaos tonight (read: hangover tomorrow). Whoopee!

I've also just had the job interview I mentioned a few weeks ago. It got delayed and I had it today. I think it went well, but I guess I'll only know how well it went when I find out if I got the job or not. Should hear by the end of the day, so I might have good or bad news for you this weekend, dear readers.

I also want to boast about something Alesa gave me-

 

Isn't that amazing? It has my name on it. I'm so proud. Thank you so much, Alesa!

What has everyone been up to this week?

Routines and Rituals

Today's been such a lovely relaxing day. I slept in late, then went to lunch with Steve to The Whiffler, somehow managed to eat almost an entire mixed grill by myself (accompanied by Pimms and lemonade, of course), and then went into town for an ice cream and to buy a desk.

We've spent the last hour or so assembling said desk in the corner of our tiny living room, so that I can have a creative space to launch full-throttle into Book Worlds. I've been using the coffee table until this very moment, and it's a dreadful height to work at because I end up hunched over the laptop with a sore neck in about five minutes flat - not a good way to write novels (or blog posts), I promise.

Thinking about how difficult it is to write regularly (or work) without a desk made me think about other rituals and routines involved in my creativity. For instance, before I can settle down to writing fiction, I have to check my e-mails and make sure there's nothing new I don't know about.

Why? *shrugs* I have no idea.

I also have to skim over the last thing I wrote in the specific story/file, even on those occasions when I remember it perfectly. I have to read through it anyway - and often, I have to stop and tweak so that I can move on feeling good about what I've written thus far.

Often, I have to have music playing - whether instrumental or not. It helps pull me into the mood of the scene(s) I'm writing before I start writing them, which is why I usually create my book playlists before I've written much of each. The music helps with my outline, helps give me an idea of the moods and changes through the text, even if I don't know exactly how things will go or turn out. Other times, I have to have silence - but truthfully, when I'm really and truly absorbed in writing, there could be a baby screaming three feet behind me and I probably wouldn't notice.

Doesn't bode well for any kids I plan to have, does it? Ah, well. Cross that bridge when it comes and all that...

The point is, these are some of my silly little kinks, little things that help me work, rituals and routines I need to let my mind journey to all the brilliant, sparkly worlds I long to do justice to on paper. These are a few of the things I need to tell a story.

So what do you need? What are your routines and rituals?

I'm back! (nope, can't think of a fancy title)

Dear readers,

I feel obliged to say it again: I'm back! Look! Me! Online, on the blog, I have returned!

Yikes, I've been gone a ridiculously long time, haven't I? For me, that is. Weeks. An absolutely mad few weeks too, I might add. I moved to a house in Norwich, I did (most of) the million and one things you've got to do when you move house, we've settled in, I've started writing again when I've had spare time, we've explored the city, I've looked for and applied for tons of jobs, I've even had a job interview, and we've been up to Lancaster again for graduation and back.

Highlights:

• Moving house
• Getting my first post-university job interview, for a job as a supervisor and shakemaker at a milkshake shop (fun!)
• Writing 1500 words of the second book in my ECHOES story, and finally getting its outline done 
• We've had a ridiculously hot summer so far. I mean, we actually had a heatwave last weekend! (This is England. Heatwaves are about as common as people who don't like dogs.)
• Erm, have I mentioned moving house? We have a house. Yay!

Yeah. Busy.

That said, I probably would have had time to blog plenty of times over the last few weeks... had we been possessed of that wonderful thing we call the internet. Sadly, we only got our internet set up in the house this Monday, so I've been pretty much stuck tweeting and checking emails from my phone (which gets somewhat exhausting on the ol' eyes after a while).

But here I am again, and I can't begin to describe how happy I am to be back in the blogosphere, and how much I'm looking forward to reading all my favourite blogs and talking to all of you again! I've managed to talk to a few of you over the last couple of weeks, which has been lovely, but it'll be so nice to read your blog posts again.

I was originally planning to tell you all about my time away in this post, but I've realized it would turn into a ridiculously long and unwieldy post. So if you happen to stop by over the weekend, I shall be throwing a

PARTY!

A blog party, that is, which will involve cheap wine, cookies, and lots of photos and grand tales about the new house! This was actually the brilliant Elizabeth Mueller's idea, and she's so incredibly sweet, she's soon going to be hosting her own 'celebration' of sorts on her blog too!

And now I'm off to read lots of blogs and then complete the glamorous task of, ahem, washing up.

A series of (unfortunate?) events linked very loosely together

Well, after a long and exhausting weekend involving house-hunting, I've returned to the blogger-world. House-hunting is so much fun, but also very stressful because there's so much you have to think about, you have to face the possibility of loving a house but not being able to get it, you have to face that all-important fear of what if I can't find a job? and so on. 

Conclusion? Being a Real Adult in the Real World is scary. Personally, if an agent would get back to me, say he/she loves my novel, wants to represent it, and somehow wrangles me into a situation where I can be a Real Author Who Lives in Fictional Worlds, I'd be very happy.

Fingers crossed. Still haven't heard back from anyone who has my manuscript. When does it become okay to write in and say 'just making sure you received it...'? After eight weeks? I'm not quite there yet!

I bought another load of books last night, and am so excited to get to them! Well, actually, Steve bought them for me, which made me very very happy. Ah, he knows me too well. Among them were two books I've already read before, but don't own: Agatha Christie's The Labours of Hercules and Georgette Heyer's A Civil Contract. If anyone likes mysteries and a nice dose of humour (Christie), or historical novels and a sweet and also bittersweet love stories (Heyer), I'd highly recommend these!

Lately I've been doing more revisions on ECHOES and writing bits and pieces of HALF and TEA WITH DEATH, DESIRE AND RAGE. In an earlier post, I mentioned my dilemma about going back to ECHOES when I'd already worked it to the bone and it was out on submission. In the end, I decided to make the small revisions that were keeping me up at night, just because if I felt that made the story tighter and better, it had to be the right thing. I've resisted the urge to pick at things too much, though, so as not to lose the book entirely.

I guess that means that while I haven't quite achieved the frenzied writing state I usually work best in, I'm not living in my totally dry spell anymore either. So, woo!

Monday seems a strange day to reflect back on things that have been happening of late, but apparently it's what I've done. Ah, well.