Hiatus

It's no shock that I haven't been posting here very regularly, and while I'm sure most people either haven't noticed or don't particularly care either way - that sounds very self-pitying and I don't mean it to, I just know how many other blogs there are that are updated far more than mine! - I think it's only fair that I announce I'm going to be gone for a little while.

I moved to a new city for a new job in February, to a place where I know absolutely no one, and the move and the new job have taken up a lot of my time. Not only that, but I've been reading both more than I feel like I was last year and not as much as I'd like to be and, most importantly, I've been writing my own fiction far more regularly now that I have my own space and a desk where I can work.

I've fallen in love with writing fiction again, and at that same I've also fallen out of love with blogging. The worst thing I can possibly do is force myself to blog when my heart's not in it, so I'm going to go ahead and give myself a break from it. I love blogging and I love talking to other people about books, but my focus right now is on my own work and that means I'm in less of a mood to read lots and write lots of reviews.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to, this definitely isn't a permanent goodbye, but I'd rather let people know that I'm fine and that I'm going to return when I've fallen back in love with blogging than leave my blog to stagnate. I'll still be reading blogs and commenting on them when I get the time, but for now I'm going to focus on my own work and enjoy it! I'm taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo this month as I work on the first draft of a novella that's been bouncing around my head for a while now, and very recently some plot threads finally came together and I feel excited to work on it.

Until next time, ciao!

I Want to Be Brave

Since I finished university I've had to get used to doing things on my own. I know, bring out the world's smallest violin.

I'm not saying that to beg for a little sympathy because it's a fact: I really have had to get used to doing things by myself. For me one of the most important relationships in my life are the ones I have with my friends, and I'm sure that's true for lots of other people, but in my family there seems to be a trend of people losing contact with people they were once very close friends with when they settle down to start a family of their own. I can't ever imagine doing that, because to me my closest friends are part of my family and I don't care how cheesy that sounds. There are some close friends I just couldn't be without, but I'm nowhere near them; the majority of them live in the North of England while I live in the South of Wales, and one close friend of mine I've never actually met in person because she lives all the way over in Texas.

I loved my years at university; I made some wonderful friends that I have stayed in contact with, and I did so much with them during my years as a student. Now, as an adult, I suddenly find myself in a place nowhere near any of my closest friends and I don't find it easy to meet new people. My colleagues are lovely, but all of my colleagues already have their own families and friendship circles because they're either older than me or they've been lucky enough to stay in the city where they studied. I tried so hard to stay in the city where I went to university, but no matter how hard I tried nothing worked out. It got to the point where it felt like some other force was literally keeping me out.

I don't mind being alone, I like my own company and I've never been the kind of person who has to be with someone else 24/7 - in fact if I don't get time by myself I get quite cranky. But there's a big difference between being alone and being lonely, and I've done a lot of being lonely since I graduated. Friends of mine ask me 'How do you manage to read so much?' and I can't quite bring myself to say 'Because I'm lonely.'

I have issues with anxiety that I've only really acknowledged in the past year, but it's actually something that's been affecting me for a long time. When I go somewhere new I panic when I don't know exactly what it's going to look like and what's going to be expected of me when I'm there - what if the door I need to go through is a push door and I pull? I'll look like an idiot and everyone will see.

As you can see, anxiety's not fun.

But I want to be brave. I don't want to be angry about my situation anymore, and I don't want that anger to make me miss out on opportunities or excuse my lazy creativity. I barely wrote anything last year and I blamed it on anything else I could when in reality it was only my fault. Yes having my own writing space would be great, but there's no point in me not writing at all until I have that space. I'm a writer, and so I should write.

This year I want to write more. I want to finish all those unfinished short stories and see if I can get them published by entering competitions and submitting to magazines and anthologies. I want to write that novel I've been too scared to touch for fear of it not being good enough. I want to go and do things even if that means doing them alone, because I'd rather do them alone than miss out on them altogether.

It's the very first Bare Lit Festival this month and there's a panel I'd really like to go to, but no one else I know is interested. So what? I want to go alone. I can do it. I want to go the Hay Festival this year but I don't know if anyone I know does. So what? I'll go alone.

I don't want to buy into this idea that doing something alone is shameful. Why shouldn't I treat myself and enjoy my own company? Why should I miss out on something exciting just because there's no one to experience it with? Imagine all the stories I'll have to tell when I do see my friends again.

I already made some New Year's Resolutions this year, but this is more of a Life Resolution. It's not going to happen overnight - I'm still going to have days where I feel down and it's just as important to acknowledge those down days as it is the happier ones - but I want to keep working at it. I'll open my arms to the world, and there's no telling what might happen.

Upcoming Hiatus... Sort of!

As you can see above, I call myself a writer. I am a writer. Recently, however, I've found myself writing more blog posts than stories - in fact I've struggled with fiction since I finished my MA.

For any of you who don't know, in December 2014 I graduated with an MA in Creative Writing, a year in which I dedicated my time towards a 30,000 word portfolio with a 5,000 word reflective essay. I chose to work on a historical/speculative fiction novel involving witchcraft in Tudor England, and I really enjoyed it.

The MA was fantastic because we had two two-hour workshops each week in which we critiqued each other's work, and my MA group were an amazing source of support and encouragement. In the end my work paid off because I came out of my MA with a Distinction, but since then I haven't touched my novel (one of the main reasons being some big aspects of the plot are undergoing a major overhaul, so I need to pretty much rewrite a lot of the stuff I originally wrote anyway) and I've barely written any short fiction either.

As I'm sure you can imagine, this sucks. I love writing, and I hate how frustrated I become when I find it difficult to write. I have so many ideas, and then when I sit down to put them on paper it's like my brain leaks out of my ears. Also, let's be honest, I've also become a bit lazy since the completion of my MA. Because I no longer have a group to submit my work to I've found it more difficult to write, and I hate that; I should be writing purely for my own enjoyment, not because other people are going to read it, but I can't deny that knowing other people would be reading my work made me work my butt off to finish something even when I thought it sucked. Now if I think I'm writing something crap, I just let me convince myself it's crap and that I have no talent whatsoever and I might as well just quit while I'm ahead.

Not only that, but now that I'm working full time I have even less time to write. When you work eight hours a day five days a week, it becomes more difficult to dedicate your time to writing everything you want to write, reading everything you want to read, and then still trying to have a social life and me time somewhere in between. And I'm currently learning how to drive and applying for a PhD... I have a lot going on, though I know that's no excuse.

So no more! Because I am a writer, and at times I'm even a good writer, and I want to work at becoming a better writer. The only way to do that is through practice, so in August my blog is going to take a backseat.

That doesn't mean I won't be posting anything because I already have some things scheduled, and I like to write book reviews soon after finishing a book so my feelings are fresh in my mind. All this really means is that I won't be taking part in posts like Top Ten Tuesday or My Week in Books throughout August, and if I go the odd week without posting anything I'm not going to let that freak me out.

So my blog's not going to be dead because I don't like extremes. If I say 'I'm not going to touch my blog once throughout August!' all I'll be thinking about is my blog. What it means is that from this post on and throughout August I'll be a little quiet, but I hope you'll stick around! If you leave me a comment (please do, I love reading your comments) and I don't reply I'm not being rude. I will reply to you, even if it isn't straight away.

I've found a few anthologies currently looking for submissions and a couple of competitions I'd like to enter, and I have a whole pile of unfinished short stories that I want to finish. I want to get more of my work out there and continue to build up my writing portfolio.

So yeah. This is just a little note to say I may be quieter than usual during August and I promise I'm not ignoring you. I'm just going to take some time to get myself back into the swing of writing regularly, and get some of these stories finished!

My 2014 Writing Plan!

Unlike previous years I have something of a writing plan for 2014. This is pretty unusual for me because I have a very good track record of planning to do things and then not doing them because something always ends up going wrong.

I don't know for certain this year is going to be any different, but I feel like it will. As I've mentioned in previous posts I'm currently a Creative Writing student, which means I basically have until September to write as much as I like. I can't take that kind of time for granted, not when there are people out there who work full time jobs and still write more than I do.

My plan isn't a specific, day by day rota by any means, instead it's a list of six things I'd like to complete in 2014:

1. Finish writing Bloodroot and Bracken - This is a simple enough aim. I'm currently working on a historical/paranormal novel that I want to finish (and will finish) this year.
2. Plan and (maybe) start writing the sequel - Again, simple enough. I have a sequel planned for Bloodroot and Bracken that I'd like to plan and perhaps start writing this year if I can, even if it isn't until the end of the year.
3. Plan a fantasy/post-apocalyptic novel - Last year I stayed up all night writing a scene that was in the middle of something, I just didn't know what that something was. I let it stew and then near the end of last year I had a story for the two characters who'd popped out of nowhere. I'd love to plan it this year, and perhaps even start writing it if the year goes well!
4. Plan and write a fantasy children's story - When I was ten I wrote a short story at school that involved unicorns and I was very proud of it, I'm proud of it now even though if I still had it I'm sure it'd be bloody awful to read. I can still remember the story, and I'd love to turn it into a children's story - maybe a novella!
5. Write a sci-fi short story - You wouldn't think writing a short story would be such a big deal, but sci-fi is a genre I have no experience with whatsoever. I've never really written it before and I've never read much of it either, but I've had this particular idea bouncing around my head since my first year of university. I've wanted to write it for so long but I'm always afraid of hardcore sci-fi fans pointing out everything that might be wrong with it, so this year I'm going to stop being so frightened of angry criticism and just write it.
6. Write a collection of poetry - I'd never call myself a poet by any means, but one of the poems I am most proud of writing is a poem I wrote about Inês de Castro; a woman who became the Queen of Portugal after she died. Since then I've found that I most enjoy writing poetry when I write it about women in history - I guess it's just the nerd in me exploding from brimming under the surface. My aim this year is to write a collection of poetry based around various women in history from all over the world. It should be a lot of fun!

Those are my writing aims for 2014! It looks like it'll be a busy year, but I'd rather be busy than have nothing  to do!

I suppose I'd better get started...

It's 2014!

But you already know that because you're all clever.

What does 2014 have in store for you? For me it's what I'm pretty sure is going to be my final year in full time education when I finish my MA in August/September. The impending completion of my MA will also mean that this year I'll be beginning my search for full time employment. Aah!

This year I'm also aiming to complete my current WIP Bloodroot and Bracken. This is my historical/paranormal novel, and extracts of it are going to make up my MA portfolio. I'm thinking of writing some regular updates of my novel's progress here, not only to keep my blog constantly active but also to encourage me on those days when writing isn't coming easily!

Speaking of this blog, one of my New Year's resolutions this year is to make sure I post something here at least once a week. It could be anything from a book review to a personal post to advice for people looking into postgraduate study - anything!

This shouldn't be too much of a problem given that 2014 looks like it's going to be a pretty busy year. Along with my novel writing, MA pursuing and job hunting I also have some work experience in the publishing industry lined up, so that's very exciting! So far I have two placements, and I'm hoping to hear back from a possible third soon.

All three of these placements are in South Wales, where my parents live, until I have the money to afford work experience in one of the publishing houses in London. But the way I see it experience is experience, and I'm really excited!

And, of course, I'm looking forward to what I'm sure is going to be a year of great reading!