Here's to the End of 2011

I've been thinking that before the end of this year I need to have a proper sort out of all my writing things. In my room there is this stack of notebooks, folders and loose pieces of paper which all seem to have amassed and landed into this limbo land which I need to somehow organise.

My Nana always used to say that you should start a New Year as you mean to go on. If you have an untidy house on the 1st of January then it will be untidy for the rest of the year. This has always been true - but I think that's because in essence we are relatively untidy people so it was never miraculously going to transform itself into a tidy house just because one day of the year we blitzed the whole thing.

However, I am willing to adopt this theory when it comes to my writing. I'm going to organise my bits of paper; I'm going to sort out my notebooks and I'm going to properly file my computer documents so that I know where to find them. By the 31st of this December I'm going to have the neatest writing nest that the world has ever seen. I'm going to be so impressively organised that people are literally going to faint with shock when they see my writing space! Alright, well maybe they'll faint with shock for a few days and then no doubt it will return to normal.

See I like chaos. Chaos helps me write. I like chaotic characters and complete and utter madness. I need a huge plethora of ideas that swirl around and around until somehow - magically - a story starts to form in the middle of them and then a miracle happens and an actual plot appears. That's how I write - the age old blain splurge phenomena.

Don't get me wrong! I have a lot of respect for organised writers who plot plan, polish every word until it shines like a little gem. I wish, in some ways, that I could be precise and like the Mary Poppins of writers, but I'm not, I'm more like the Indiana Jones of writers who flies by the seat of their pants and rescues a story from the jaws of madness.

But one thing is definitely for certain - whatever kind of writer you are - adopted from my beloved Strictly Come Dancing - KEEP WRITING!

Balloons

It's been a strange few weeks. Winter is the time of year when there are a lot of opportunities for happiness: Halloween, Bonfire Night, Christmas and the New Year but also the darkness can take its toll on people who suffer from SAD, like my sister. It's hard watching someone try desperately to be happy but then still be suffering. I find the main way to help is to just plan exciting things, keep them busy and make them realise that there is happiness out there just waiting to be discovered.

I took part in Nanowrimo this year. It's my second year and I finished my novel in just over 15 days. Quite an accomplishment, although I'm confident in saying that probably the majority of my just over 50000 words are absolute drivel. I do what I call 'mental splurging' which is when I just let my ideas erupt into my netbook and then I sort them out when I rewrite the whole thing actually knowing the plot. My new novel currently has two titles: Damaged Smile or One Of Those Ghosts - I'm not sure what to go with. It's a novel about mental illness and coping with someone who has a mental illness. It's such a hard topic but because I've been through it personally I hope I can do it justice.

With 2011 drawing to a close I'm looking back and thinking that although it's been a pretty dramatic year it's also probably been one of my best. After nine years of feeling like every day was getting more and more difficult my new beginnings have started in 2011 and I'm feeling positive. Some of my friends have got publishing deals, signed with agents, I've written a manuscript I'm proud of and so roll on 2012 and a publishing deal of my own (fingers crossed)!

Learning the Hard Way

As a writer there are a lot of valuable lessons to be learned even from rejections and failures. Recently I pinned all my hopes on a writing competition that I had entered, one that in the past had resulted in large publishing deals and even awards. I even planned in my head what I might wear should I make it to the launch. Dreams are really important and as a friend pointed out to be this week self belief is one of the most important things to keep.

In a desperate attempt to keep my spirits high and my writing going I've been working on a new website, furiously working out how to write a good synopsis and editing my novel with blue sticky notes and a lot of biro.

Not every great writer gets published. That's just a fact. Sometimes they languish at the bottom of slushpiles and yet the enjoyment they get from writing can be enough. Yes I'd love to be published, of course I would, but for now I'm happy trying!

Hello Again

It has been a while since I felt comfortable blogging. I think sometimes we forget that once we have put something down and published it to a blog it is there for everyone to see. I view my blog as this private little journal that only a few people bother to read but that isn't necessarily true. If someone googles my name they will find it and as a writer seeking publication it can be dangerous. A bad day resorting in a grumpy post could give an agent the wrong impression about my character. So I've been having a think about how best to use my blog and whether it is a good tool at all.

My conclusion is that social networking is a valuable tool and a blog can be too. You have this space that you can use however you like, write whatever you want on and you are responsible for making sure that it reflects the real you.

Now to news.... I am on what I like to think is my penultimate draft of Tattooing Angels. It's been a lot of hard work having started it last November for Nanowrimo and probably having worked on edits for the past nine months at least but I'm hoping it will pay off. I'm currently going through the whole thing with a fine toothcomb, getting rid of unnecessary waffle and tightening bits up. I think because I've already entered the first few chapters of this novel into two competitions I'm a little nervous about its reception. I love it but that doesn't mean the rest of the world will too and that kind of freaks me out. I always seem to get good comments at crit groups and web postings but that doesn't mean that industry professionals will see the good in it. I remember taking the first chapter to the York Writers Festival back in March, I had two one to ones and both seemed to love the idea and the first chapter but is it strong enough to stand out in a competition! I for one am not so sure.

It Has Been A While

I've been avoiding writing for a while now. Mainly because I feel like I'm stuck in this limbo where things aren't quite happening. On Saturday I phoned my mobile broadband provider, upgraded my package and signed up for a new netbook in the hope that it might get me writing again. I've also had some great ideas for the Puffin competition which I would like to use. So, hopefully once my dizzy head and nausea disappears its back to writing.

I guess I also need to drag myself away from the Supernatural box sets that I have been watching way too much of. I had to stop after Season Three because it started to walk dangerously close to blasphemy, but the first three Seasons were mine and my sister's favourite. Sam and Dean were so like us, their childishness, their devotion to each other. It read like a guide to every sibling relationship that is really close and I miss watching that.

Weekends

Weekends always feel like you did nothing and at the same time like you never stopped. They are my down time, I watch DVDs, eat far too much and forget that I'm ill. This weekend I had a terrible headache all weekend and pain in my hip, its weird how at weekends you push through it whereas during the week you feel like you should just stop. Surely it should be the other way around.

My favourite time is the hour or so I get in Starbucks every morning to work on my edits. They are going slowly at the moment. I'm not rushing anything but it feels like I'm working harder on them than I ever had. I think I'm in this haunting period. Rewriting feels like that sometimes, you aren't working on anything new but going over old ground and mending the mistakes. It feels good though and have been getting some new ideas.

I'm determined to write something about mental illness. My sister has been suffering with severe clinical depression for years and seeing her change from the person I knew before to this shell that can't function needs to be documented and appreciated somehow. I get glimpses of the old person now and again before she collapses inward again. This affects so many people and it needs to be appreciated and understood. I have a title and an idea, now I just need a protagonist who can do it justice.

All I Have Is Time

Editing is making me feel a little more positive this morning. Despite the fact that editing usually makes me feel like Sweeney Todd, murderously cutting bits of my manuscript. As I read through it I can see it getting lots better. I can see the actual shape of it, the drive pushing its way through and I'm really pleased with how it is going so far. It's a good few months of being ready to submit anywhere.

On another positive note I have found a way around a dilemma at the end of the novel. Death is not always the end! Well strictly speaking it kind of is but not if you find a clever way around it!

Had a quiet weekend watching Box sets of House compulsively. I do find that I have a lot in common with the main character in House. I love the way he says inappropriate things that are shocking but hilariously funny at the same time. My favourite was this comment to his african american colleague who tried to write on his white board: He said "there's a reason they're called white boards. It wasn't my idea I'm just saying". Then his colleague said "give me the black marker" and took the pen off him. Hilarious, not pc but hilarious!

It's Okay To Go Slow

After feeling a little bit down about not doing much writing these past few days I've discovered that it is actually okay to go slow and do other things. On Saturday I went to watch an amazing production of Pride & Prejudice in an outdoor theatre in the grounds of Dunham Massey. It was wonderful, despite the fact I'm not a great Jane Austen fan I really enjoyed it. We had a picnic, sat huddled under cardigans as the night set in and I watched loads of rabbits and squirrels tearing around the garden not caring that there were over 500 people sat not one hundred metres away.

On Sunday I watched the Wimbledon final (sorry Nadal didn't win Sam) and then had a barbecue. Despite being absolutely exhausted it was really nice to have a packed weekend and just enjoy myself doing things that didn't include obsessing about my writing.

On Thursday night I went to The Octagon theatre and watched Sweeney Todd. The main reason I went was because my sister had designed a poster at Uni and it was displayed in the bar. The production was actually really really good (if it hadn't finished I would recommend it to anyone) and my sister's poster looked amazing on the wall. She was so proud of it I couldn't help but smile. My sister is a true testament to the fact that eventually you can pull yourself back together after falling apart.

Starting Again

I've finally reached the editing stage with Tattooing Angels. I did a first draft, which was basically a brain splurge - the words just poured out onto my netbook. I printed it off and re-typed the whole thing trying to expand on characters and plot so that it was an actual book. Now I'm at the technical edit where I have to look at everything and make it a hundred percent better. It won't be the last edit but hopefully it will be the major one.

One of my bad habits is that when I'm editing I just start adding bits. I don't take a lot away but I start adding paragraphs and then expanding on this which can err dangerously towards repetition. I'm trying to knock that out of myself. If I see a lame paragraph or a part that doesn't quite live up to expectations then its going!!!! I am a harsh critic of my own work - or I will be with a little practice.

I'm reading a book on writing young adult novels at the moment. It's actually a brilliant book called : Writing Great Books For Young Adults by Regina Brooks. I do highly recommend it. What I'd say is its good if you have a first draft and you're ready to start seriously getting it ready for submission but you have to open minded, editing can mean complete rewrites, it can me axing bits that you personally love and it can make you doubt the greatness of your work. In the end though (I'm hoping) it will lead to a polished manuscript that will be hard to refuse.

My sister has finished her University course for the Summer, enviably coming away with A's in all her modules and being on course for a First (fingers crossed) when she graduates next year. I find that my sister makes me really proud. She's my big sister and she's always been someone that I've found impossibly endearing. She's one of those people who rarely lies, never bitches or says anything bad about anyone and doubts her brilliance. She's like this little doll that you just want to put somewhere safe but she's bloody brilliant at nearly everything she turns her hand to (apart from cooking -which of course she'd argue with). So over the SUmmer and because I'm working part-time I've promised to entertain her with exciting happenings so here are my plans:

a) York for the weekend (which was last weekend). We stayed at the Royal George and ate a three course meal and drank way too much.

b) Cinema to watch X-men on Friday

c) Chester Zoo (date to be confirmed). I got a camera for my birthday and am dying to try it out as I am hoping to design an inspiration board of pictures.

d) Sweeney Todd at the Octagon. If you go and see it check out the posters by Bolton University students and look for my sisters. It's a really hot male torso with a tattoo on the arm.

e) Pride & Prejudice at Dunham Massey - an outdoor play with picnic

f) Ireland to visit our friend Erin for a long weekend.

g) Fingers crossed the Moscow Circus at Tatton Park!!!!

h) A couple of dog shows because Darcy is going to explode onto the Dog Scene

i) more to come.

Okay I'm getting back to editing. My boss is away for a week so I'm in charge!!! Which basically means drinking a lot of coffee, designing a lot of marketing materials on Powerpoint and generally coming up with ideas to attract clients.

Reminded

One of the most important lessons that I have learnt recently as a writer is that it isn't just about our writing, its about us too as people. We need to be likeable, appealing, fun and above all else easy to deal with. Sometimes I'm none of those things. I'm angry, I'm bitter and I'm frustrated but deep down I'm actually the easiest person in the world to deal with because I'm polite, thoughtful and I hate upsetting people! Fact.

What I decided to do was write myself as a character! I'd be tall, dark hair, big eyes, long eyelashes. I'd have a favourite catchphrase of "awesome doofus". I'd sit in Starbucks tapping away on my netbook in a world of my own. I'd be a daydreamer, prone to internalising everything. I'd suffer from M.E. and be constantly weary. A collector of broken things because I hate seeing imperfect things and believing nobody will want them; i'm the person who buys the dog ornament with the missing ear or the gingerbread man with the missing smartie button. I'd believe in one soul mate and be waiting around for them. I'd believe my soul mate would have purple eyes. I'd love Victorian things and antique looking clothes with lace and ribbon. I'd collect antique things like old Victorian umbrellas and hats with little black veils. I'd have a pile of shoeboxes on top of my wardrobe filled with memories and my old journals that make me cringe when I read them. I'd love my pets and confide all my secrets to my dog Rex. I'd have about forty pairs of shoes but only really wear one. I'd have blue wellies up to the knee that I'd walk directly at puddles when I was wearing. I'd have my Nana's wedding ring which I'd always wear. I'd have a handbag filled with bits and pieces I didn't really need to carry around with me like the wooden dolphin my Dad carved out of a bit of wood and the bean filled lizard he bought me when I was about twelve. My ipod would be full of music that didn't go together yet when I pressed shuffle it all suddenly started to make sense. I'd have a compulsive personality where I'd throw myself into an idea without really thinking but love it deeply until I lost interest.

Friendship

I have made a lot of disparaging comments about friendship lately. After being hurt by someone I considered a close friend I guess I forgot how lucky I actually am with the real friends that I have, so this a post to say THANKYOU to all my good friends who have stood by me through my constant moaning and seemingly ridiculous bad luck!

This picture is of two of my closest friends (three if you could Darcy) - my sister Samantha and our friend Erin. I don't have pictures of some of my other really good friends like my Mum, George, Lois, Marnie and Wendy but I love you all anyway. Sorry if I've forgotten anyone, but if I have then you know how much I love you!

Friendship is so important. In all the bad days there is someone at the end of an email, text or phone who can make you feel better with a few of the right words.

I suffer badly from anxiety and these past few weeks it feels worse than ever. My friends have been there for me, saying all the right things and making everything feel a little less bleak so a BIG THANK YOU (and keep it up lol). x

The Rainbow Girl

One of the hardest things for a writer to take is criticism. I've taken quite a lot recently but to be honest its all been really helpful. Perhaps my toughest critic is my sister Samantha. I let her read things and she rips them apart as woefully melodramatic and repetitive. I have been reworking an old novel for submission to an agent recently, feeling like it was almost there Samantha asked me to read her a little bit. At first I refused point blank, a tirade of tough criticism from her and I wouldn't ever send the book off, but then I came to the conclusion that if my writing had improved then she would be the one to notice it. A no holds barred review is sometimes just what we need.

So.... i sat down to read her a chapter from 'The Rainbow Girl', formerly Being Lucky. She listened, changed a couple of words and then said "Stephanie can I tell you something!" My heart practically stopped. This was it, she was about to completely crush me. "Okay." I braced myself for the death blow. "It's like a thousand times better than it was before. It's really good!"

Fireworks went off. I sat in stunned silence and just stared at her waiting for the 'but'. There was none.

Okay so The Rainbow Girl still needs a few tweaks here and there. It isn't perfect yet and it needs to be but man, if my sister can see how far I've come then surely I'm progressing.

With a week's holiday just around the corner I can happily get my entry ready for Undiscovered Voices, work on my new novel 'Tattooing Angels' and just relish the newfound knowledge that slowly I'm becoming a real, bona fide writer.

My sister has been there for me through a lot of bad stuff recently. She has forgiven me some really massive errors in judgement and she has ultimately been my biggest fan. This photo is of a plate that she bought me in the Lake District earlier this year. I was going through perhaps one of the toughest times I've ever been through and she handed it to me and said it was for inspiration, that it was to help me with my writing because that was where my future was. I hope she was right because I want to prove that by having faith in something that seems almost impossible it can happen.

Writing a Patchwork

Writing is like making a patchwork quilt. You have all these things that don't seem to go together and yet when you put them together they somehow become beautiful. You put your characters in situations that they don't seem to completely fit into and yet the more you write the more they just suddenly seem to belong.

I've been really struggling with an edit that I've been doing. There is this one scene, right near the end of the book that just hasn't been working. It needs to be dramatic, heartbreaking and yet real but at the moment its falling really flat. I've drawn on experiences as much as I can but its kind of out of my expertise. I've rewritten it time and time again to make it work but its eluding me. I need it to be perfect but the characters seem resistent to part and they need to in order for it to work.

People say that you should write what you know but this seems like the actual point of writing. JR Tolkein didn't know hobbits. JK Rowling didn't know wizards and Stephenie Meyer didn't know vampires. We just know people. We know how we feel and we react. We understand the complex network of human emotions that control us and no matter how different we are from the people that we write we know how people feel. SO I guess after that observation I should be able to go back and write the perfect scene. I have to be both characters. I have to feel what they feel and I have to make it work.

Here goes........

New Beginnings

It's really strange starting again. I worked in my last place for eight years and recently started a new job (recently being last Friday). Eight years is such a long time and the place kind of became my prison but it also felt like somewhere that I knew and understood completely. The new place is strange and alien to me. I feel like a fish out of water just flapping around. I had these routines. Every morning I would go to the same Starbucks, would sit in the same place to do some writing and then I'd walk into work. I thought I had friends there, people that I could talk to and tell secrets too. I revealed far too much of myself and that is something I really regret. Now I'm in a new Starbucks, a new seat and I'm still writing. I don't intend to make any of the same mistakes though. A new start means a new perspective. When things go bad you have to look at why they went bad, at where they first started to go wrong and how you can stop it happening again. I think I've pinpointed my main problem. I put too much of myself out there and trusted people too easily. I'm all for trust and honesty but at the end of the day you have to keep a little part of yourself back because not everyone really deserves to see everything. Maybe my writing will benefit from these new changes. There is nothing worse than becoming stale and stuck in the same place but it takes time. My wounds are still fresh and incredibly painful so a new beginning feels like too much too soon.

You Have To Kiss A Lot Of Frogs

As a writer when you are working on a novel your mind doesn't stop working, the creative impulses don't leave you alone just because you already have the plot you need. At the moment I feel like some kind of schizophrenic, I have all these characters buzzing around in my head demanding I write their story even though I'm trying to concentrate on rewriting an old manuscript to submit to an agent.

In light of all the terrible things that have happened over the last six months I have decided that my only option is to really throw myself into being a writer. I have a new part-time job which gives me more time to concentrate on what means the most to me, i.e. my writing.

Last Friday I attended the York Writers Festival. It was my first writers festival and it was awesome. I had signed up for an afternoon course with Julia Churchill and I had two one to ones with Agents from London. It was a fantastic experience, getting feedback on a work in progress and finding out whether it was marketable, well written and where to go next. I came away feeling really energised despite the long drive home.

Writing can be really solitary, sometimes its good to step away from the computer and actually go out and meet other writers. I have made some of my best and closest friends from joining writers groups and meeting other writers on the internet. I'd encourage any writer to get out there and join critique groups, book clubs, writers forums, etc. Don't let it cut into your actual writing time but make time for it.

Long Time No Speak

It has been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened. On a positive note I won a writing competition as part of the Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators and am now working on a rewrite of one of my novels for an Agent to look at. It means I have been pulled away from writing Tattooing Angels for a little while but hopefully it will be worth it. The rewrite has been just what I needed to get my mind going again and although I feel the story may have lost some of the soul that was in the original, I also feel it needed to lose a little bit to stop it becoming overly sentimental.

On a negative note I resigned from my job. I had worked at the same place for the same boss for over eight years and had reached a level of comfortable unhappiness (if that makes sense). I wanted to leave but was too settled to force myself to move. In the end it wasn't my decision, I was stabbed in the back yet again by a person who I had been struggling to justify even knowing for some time. I was let down by people that I had thought were good friends and I learnt a painful but valuable lesson about loyalty and trust.

I will never forget how I was made to feel or how I feel now, because I think it is important to hold on to things that cause us pain so that we don't make the same mistakes again. Also because as a writer these things give us a lot of material. I'm pretty sure a few of the people will feature in future novels in some form or other as malignant, despicable villains with few redeeming features.

There is always a silver lining... I don't miss the place at all. I have no regrets about not being there and would never go back. I have had few weeks of semi-freedom to do some writing and some recovering from a long and ongoing illness. I have a new job which starts next week that I am looking forward to the challenges of. I have met some wonderful people as a temp and I have found out that being a home typist isn't as wonderful a job as it sounds!!

When life hands you lemons throw them on the floor and stamp the life out of them! That's my new philosophy. I got sick of hearing the phrase "when one door closes another one opens" when I lost my job. There were no doors open at the time but everyone who said it was right. Another door opened, someone pushed open a window or two as well and the world started to look a whole lot better. I felt free of some peope who had held me down for a long time, the constant nagging pain in my head was gone for the first time in forever and I felt like there were actually possibilities. Money holds us prisoner, we rely on it and we need it so we base everything else around it but it actually isn't worth it. I'm surviging on very little and I'm happier. Go figure!

Re-Assessing

When you are writing I think its easy to write a character that everyone can love and feel sympathy for and its strange, because what should actually be easier is being able to write a realistic character that is flawed beyond reason and that requires a lot of work to like. That's what people are.

I've been researching the back story of a character I have created for my current novel Tattooing Angels. I wanted to create someone who wasn't instantly lovable, someone that people would hesitantly identify with. I've mentioned that Wuthering Heights has been an inspiration for this novel before and Cathy is one of those characters who is hard to love and easy to hate. We don't always understand her motivations or why Heathcliffe keeps coming back but it doesn't stop us envying her her freedom and her abandon. That is the kind of character I want to write, someone who isn't instantly likeable but despite all that the reader sees little bits of themselves in her and realises that it isn't easy to hate her either.

The best research for this character has come from taking a long hard look at myself. Despite how hard we try to be good and to do the right thing we are human and human nature requires us to make a lot of mistakes. We are selfish, thoughtless and even cruel at times. I'm not always proud of what I've done and said, I doubt that anyone really is. I don't look back over the last few years and see myself as blameless in all the catastrophes but what I do see is that I'm human, that I made mistakes and even though I didn't always move past them I still recognised them for what they were. When someone hurt me then often I lashed out and tried to hurt them back; I let people down because I was too exhausted to make the effort or too protective over my own time.

All these things make a real person, a real character! Nobody wants to read about someone who never makes a mistake or puts a foot wrong, who never has a selfish thought or says something cruel. These aren't characters these are just images of what we hope one day to be, characters do everything wrong and they put it right, they fight and struggle and eventually they become something really really great.

Too Much

I've been working really hard on my new novel Tattooing Angels. I wanted it to be a wild, rebellious novel about outlaws and self-destruction and it kind of is but at the same time the age old question of how much is too much starts to creep in. There is a lot of violence, necessary violence granted but sometimes I read a bit back and I wonder whether you can actually go over the top in a young adult novel quite unintenionally.

I want my novel to race with emotion and excitement while remaining true to the fact that at the heart of it is a love story and a murder that both need resolving. I want the intensity of the love between the two main characters to be impossible to ignore, but at the same time there has to be that innate selfishness that flawed the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights.

Okay so this is what I am aiming for. Ambitious? Definitely but with commitment and a lot of time I know it can really work.

What has made it a little harder to write this weekend is our new recruit to the family... Darcy. An eight week old Jack Russell who was marketed as quiet is in fact a complete ball of madness. He loves feet, chasing them, biting them, anything really!!! Rex, my dog, isn't all together taken with him at the moment and they have to be constantly watched in case Rex decides that enough is enough!