In my last blog, I wrote about my newfound and inexplicable desire to run and how it was a great distraction from writing-induced-waiting which is so painful it probably should be an actual medical diagnosis. This time I want to talk about something else which has been occupying me: clothes. I know that sounds ridiculous – everybody wears clothes – but picking outfits and creating new combinations and looks has started taking up more of my headspace than you might imagine. It’s probably (definitely) taking up more than is strictly necessary but it’s fun and frivolous and I’m about to lay out my justifications for why you too should have some frivolity in your life (and maybe wear more colourful clothes).
I saw a tweet the other day in which the tweeter was complaining that you follow a writer on social media and all you get is selfies. I had a snort to myself because that is absolutely me and I make no apology for it. It all started when I finally succumbed to Instagram and got a sudden urge to post a picture of my outfit every day. It wasn’t really for anyone other than myself – I kind of liked the challenge of never wearing the same outfit twice and I was probably bored or hemmed in by a pandemic or something at the time. I’m not sure there was much deep reflection going on about the decision, more of spontaneous snap and post situ. However, I quickly realised that not wearing an outfit twice was quite a weak and environmentally unsound premise. Of course we should be wearing our clothes multiple times, preferably until they fall apart. So I tweaked the concept in my mind to maximising the possible combinations and permutations of outfits to make your wardrobe go as far as it possibly can without the boredom setting in. (This sentence has just given me an unsettling flashback to A-level Maths and I can’t remember the actual ins and outs of what that means mathematically so for any pedants out there please only take this sentence literarily!). What I mean is how many ways can you style a dress? You could change the shoes and make a different look. What about adding a necklace? Or some knitwear? You could highlight a specific colour from the pattern with your accessories or go for a striking clash. You could wear the same colours head to toe. You could go tonal. You could add a head scarf or a neck scarf or a waistcoat or a coat or earrings or bracelets. You could add socks. I love adding a sock. There are just so many options and I was quickly addicted to exploring them. I don’t think the posting part was/is entirely necessary except for using it as a record of what I’d already done. I did go through a phase of curating my feed by colour – just how many different pink outfits could I come up with in succession before moving on to red then purple then blue etc.? I realise it was entirely pointless as projects go but it gave me a weird sense of satisfaction. Or was that pointless? Do projects actually require themselves to have a point? I’m increasingly thinking it’s healthy to do things just for the fun if it sometimes. If I like thinking about outfits and it scratches some sort of creative itch and it gives me a little bubble of happiness, then isn’t it exactly what I should be doing? For some reason which I think might lie in my schooling, I have always struggled to prioritise creative pursuits. I’ve always had a significant creative streak which has displayed itself in various ways from painting to interior design to writing to fashion but I have always tended towards the apologetic about it. I still prioritise pretty much everything else over these types of hobby despite not believing that’s the right thing to do. I suspect this needs further unpicking but I like that putting outfits together is a creative thing to do just for the fun of it and something which can be done every day. Not with an aim like getting published and not with any pressure associated with it to do it a certain way. I just put different outfits together because I like it. And don’t we all need that freedom somewhere in our lives? (Also, it has to be prioritised because one shouldn’t leave the house unclothed, unlike writing which can easily be pushed to the side in favour of other arguably more pressing tasks.) It seems, on the surface of it, a superficial kind of pursuit; vain even. But I genuinely believe in the power of clothes to uplift. I do think that floating around wearing bright yellow is more likely to give others a moment of cheer than being dressed head to toe in black, even if one approach is generally considered chic-er than the other. My husband’s gran, Thelma, was a very warm and immeasurably likeable person. Everybody liked her. I loved nothing more than visiting her flat and having a good chat over a tiny cup of tea. We bonded over several things but one of them was clothes. She hadn’t always had many and had often made her own through necessity. So, in her later years, when things became more possible for her on the retail front, we often shared an intense trip to Marks and Spencer’s. I was regularly out-shopped by an eighty-something year old while we wallowed in the beauty of print and colour and pattern together. Then later, when she became unwell and couldn’t really wear anything other than her nightie, I purposefully wore different and exciting outfits whenever I visited because I knew she’d get vicarious joy from them. I knew she’d beckon me over so she could get a better look at a collar or rub a material between her fingers or more closely admire a print. If I could cheer her a little, just by getting dressed, why wouldn’t I? Even after we lost her (and everyone wore bright colours to her funeral), I continued to associate dressing with mood. When I very angrily turned forty, I wondered whether wearing clothes I didn’t associate with mid-life would help me embrace the new decade more easily. I think it has. If you’re uncertain about something, the answer frequently is power dressing, I find. A smart outfit can make you feel confident, powerful, capable. I often consider my approachability as an adult when I’m working with children - I don’t power dress for them but I do find they’re often intrigued by an unusual ring or lobster-shaped earring and it helps them feel comfortable with this new adult. If I have a meeting I suspect will be challenging, I one hundred per cent do power dress – it makes me feel as though I’m armoured and not to be messed with. If I’m a bit fed up or under the weather, I love a comforting knit or a shiny and soft combo. I don’t know why that’s comforting, it just is. And I always wear colour. I definitely use clothes to affect my mood and to impact those around me. And it isn’t just friends and family who notice – strangers often talk to me about my clothes. So I don’t think we should be too quick to demean a fascination with fashion – it can definitely be about more than the superficial. I’ve realised that I’m spending more and more time rummaging in my wardrobe or on Vinted or thinking of outfit combinations and in analysing why and if this is healthy, I’ve realised it’s often born out of me sort of wanting to write but getting caught in a negative thought cycle. It goes like this: I should write the new novel. But I’ve lost my momentum and got out of the rhythm. Yes, all the more reason to get back in. But what’s the point? What’s happening with the previous novel and the one before that? Weelllll…. The first one is with a really amazing agent who may or may not love it. We don’t know yet. When will we know? We don’t know. How long’s a piece of string? Write this one anyway. But… what if they don’t like the first one or the second one? What’s the point of writing another to gather dust? You know the answer to this. Persist, remember? Yep, must sit down and try. Can’t make myself sit down, brain starts drifting to what I might wear tomorrow or how essential it might be to acquire a trouser suit. Off I trundle upstairs to rummage in the wardrobe instead. I was getting quite irritated with myself over this but then I thought that perhaps I ought to cut myself more slack. Waiting to hear about the novel and holding onto the faith to keep writing are very challenging pastimes. If I’ve found another creative outlet to tide me over in the meantime, surely that’s a good thing? Does is matter that it’s shuffling clothes around on hangers and turning the bedroom into a boutique? I hope not. I think creativity comes in many forms and the more of it you have in your life the better. I think for people who crave visual stimuli especially, but maybe for any people, a creative outlet is nourishing. I think it’s good for your mental health to be able to express yourself without limits. Maybe sometimes you can offload difficult feelings through your creation, like an emotional purge or cleansing. When it comes to fashion, I really like the term ‘dopamine dressing’ – literally being able to boost your neurotransmitters (and those of others) by wearing something bright or beautifully clashed or madly patterned. Sometimes, of course, in being experimental, some bad creations are made. Some bad outfits are paraded. But there’s no real consequence of a dodgy outfit – maybe creative outlets are a good place to safely push boundaries and safely push yourself. I think many people don’t experiment with clothes, or with colour in particular, because they’re frightened of looking or feeling silly; perhaps of standing out from the crowd. I have never wanted to be in the crowd so I don’t really concern myself but maybe for those people, painting or writing or singing are more palatable ways to experiment. There is never just one way. But I definitely think there are benefits to engaging in something in which there are no real rules. I happen to like creating outfits. Maybe it’s a creative outlet and guilty pleasure rolled into one. Either way, as long as I can rein in the associated shopping addiction I’m claiming it’s more constructive than it sounds. (Re the shopping addiction which I’m well aware is bad for the planet and my bank account, perhaps everyone also requires a vice?!) I’d love to hear what other creative outlets you have and if any of them are guilty pleasures too. Secret graffiti habit? Tell me. Addicted to scrap-booking hot celebrities? I really need to know. And if you’re feeling a bit fed up, why not reach for something colourful to wear? I dare you to try it and see how it makes you feel.
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It’s a long time since I’ve posted anything on here and that’s mainly because I have dedicated this year to submitting my novel. Things are all quiet while I try to make headway. But instead of just staying quiet myself (I’m a writer after all) I thought I might share some posts about the other things I’ve been getting up to while waiting. Because there is an awful lot of waiting involved in trying to make a career of writing and a high risk of losing one’s mind. One has to find other things to do.
The most surprising thing I’ve been doing is running and I don’t think anyone is more surprised by it than me, with my long and dedicated history of non-running. In fact not just non-running but an actual life-long hatred of exercise – the getting sweaty, the feeling of breathing so hard you might puke or die, the increased requirement to shower. The general hassle and discomfort of it all. Even as a child I wasn’t very keen. I did do sport, particularly netball, but even then I preferred being goalkeeper because you only had to run around one third of the court. On sports day I preferred 100m because it was over the quickest. I could just about stretch to 400m if I really had to but that was my absolute maximum and I still probably would have chugged in last trying not to vomit up a lung. I do not have an impressive history of exerting myself physically. So what on earth drove me and my 42 year old peri-menopausal body to suddenly start running? Well. It was partly a hill, partly a man and partly too much cholesterol. I started the year unfit. I didn’t look especially unfit – I have always been an averagely sized human who would not have fallen into an overweight category except on the harshest of measures. A solid size 12. Perhaps that led to some complacence about my actual fitness. Early in the year, we went for a walk. My husband has a friend who is a very outdoorsy kind of guy. My husband and our boys and his friends and his girls have over the years formed a kind of Gang For The Intrepid. They go off adventuring with canoes and up hills and with camping equipment. They like a tarpaulin. Our friend has a grappling hook and he knows exactly how to use it and he would. Just so you can picture the level of intrepid we’re talking. I would equate it to Military. Anyhow, I think it’s pretty obvious by this point that though I am very fond of all the members of the gang, I am not actually in it. They adventure and I stay at home and read a book. Recently, they all went camping in torrential rain and high winds and I went to Book Club. If that doesn’t adequately sum up our differences I don’t know what would. But this one day, they persuaded me the walk was “easy” and I mistook military-standard easy for an amble around a country park easy and somehow agreed to it. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. I thought I might die and I’m only slightly exaggerating. The incident played on my mind – not just because I felt like a tit, but because I am only 42 years old and how could I find walking up a hill so difficult? It made me feel bad about myself – not just about my fitness but somehow the whole of me as a person. I felt like I’d let myself go. I felt like I was failing at being a functioning, healthy human. But although this was enough to make me feel miserable, it wasn’t actually enough of a kick up the backside to get me running. That came later when I eventually went for my over-forties free NHS health check. I was anxious about that because like many people who have lost someone to cancer, my health anxiety is now a little out of control. In my mind, blood test obviously equals shock cancer diagnosis. I would have thought I was a little insane for making this leap but my best friend who’s been through a similar experience does it too. It’s cancer’s fault. So when I got a text message the evening of my blood test, my heart did a little fear-induced leap. The fear quickly turned to outrage when I discovered the problem was my cholesterol. And no, it wasn’t the good kind. As a teetotal vegetarian, I was fuming. How could this possibly have happened? Surely I wasn’t your obvious high-cholesterol candidate? I kept chunnering about it over the next days in ongoing outrage. But that hill-walking incident kept coming back to haunt me. I didn’t exactly exercise, did I? Could it be that I actually was a prime-candidate for clogged arteries? The daily dose of full fat yoghurt wasn’t helping either but perhaps I really did need to get my daily step count up. I started power-walking the dog. I stopped avoiding the village hill and purposefully included it in the dog walk. For the first while I predictably hated it. Bloody hills! Horrible things really. But I’m very stubborn when I set my mind to something and I wasn’t going to be beaten. Least of all by a hill. I had absolutely no intention of running. I would power-walk and tackle hills and do more steps and ta-da! I’d be fine. That was the plan. Until one really weird night when I hadn’t done as many steps as I’d wanted during the day and I got a sudden desire to jog around my living room. The thought came to me tentatively, creeping into my conscious. Could I, maybe, despite everything become a runner? No! Absolute lunacy! With this body which at certain points in the month was struggling to get off the sofa? No! At forty-two? Don’t be ridonculous! I wasn’t a running kind of person. My husband is. He always has been. My son is – he’s a budding footballer. But I wasn’t. I was a stay at home and read a book kind of person. Wasn’t I? Thing was though, did I want to be her? The person who couldn’t walk up hills? Could you choose who to be? Did I have a fit version of myself buried deep inside somewhere? If I tried really hard, could she be found? The next thing I knew I was huffing and puffing my way around a field. It was awful. Really horrible. I thought I might die. I was sweaty. I couldn’t really breathe. The whole thing was one enormous battle. Did people really do this voluntarily? Did they enjoy it? What was actually wrong with them? Then I did it again. And again. And for some reason that I don’t understand but was probably stubbornness, I kept doing it. I found a Fitbit in my son’s bedroom and started wearing it. I could just about run 300m and then I thought I’d die. I could run for about 3 minutes with some walking in between if I tried really hard. It was all very unpleasant. That was April. I kept going with the hope that I’d get better at it and maybe I’d feel better about myself when I did. If I could just make it to 1km I’d be pleased. It’d be the furthest I’d ever run in my whole life and surely things became a bit respectable when they ended in a km and not just a m? And I did make it to 1km. It took a while. I had to settle my panicky breathing and override the urge to just get it over with but I got there and I was so bloody chuffed with my previously non-running self. And I think it was maybe at that point when I began to see that running could be a really good counter-balance to other things in my life like my writing career. With running you could progress relatively quickly. You could set yourself little time or distance or speed targets and when you hit them, you could feel good. You didn’t have to wait months or years for something to maybe, possibly, hopefully happen – you could graft and make it happen yourself relatively quickly. You didn’t need to beg for tiny scraps of positive feedback, you just had to glance down at your Fitbit. Despite not enjoying physical exertion, I am suited to working hard or dedicating myself to something. It wasn’t long before I wanted to go further but I got a bit stuck at about 1.5km. A chance chat with my brother about heart zones was transformative and by keeping my heart rate purposefully lower, I could suddenly run 2km. I have since extended it to 3km which involved running non-stop for about 25mins. And I wasn’t even dying at the end. What has happened to me? I don’t even know who I am anymore. September me is literally running ten times further than April me. September me can keep going for more than eight times the duration of my first close to death attempts. And, whisper it, I think there’s more in the tank. I’m not quite sure what’s happened to January-couldn’t-get-up-the-hills me. I think what I’m saying is that running can make you feel differently about yourself in the best possible way. It’s a great counter to slower moving, more soul-destroying things like writing. It’s made me feel more capable as a person, at times even powerful. It’s helped me to gain some control over my hormones. The perimenopause supplement I’ve started is also a major game-changer but between the two of them, my energy levels are completely different. This is probably over-sharing but this month I have ran three times during my period – I can’t overstate how impossible that would have been for January-me. I was finding even daily tasks an uphill battle and would have laughed you out the room if you’d suggested I went for a run. (I wouldn’t have just laughed, clearly there’d have been swearing and hormone-fuelled derision. I may even have been tempted to launch something at you. Hard). And probably because I feel so much better in general, I’m coping with the lack of writing developments better. I still find the rate of progress and the over-whelming silence difficult but it isn’t as all-consuming as it could be. I’ve just survived the world’s longest summer holiday without losing my mind too. So, somehow, despite all the odds, I’m pro-running. I’d recommend it, especially to those absolute non-runners out there. If I can, you can. Plus, it makes you wonder what else can be accomplished if after 42 years of dedicated non-running, someone like me can suddenly become a runner… It’s that time of year when we all typically turn to reflection – how has this year gone and what, if anything, would we like to change in the year ahead? When I reflect on my writing progress in 2022, in theory it has been a bumper a year. The Anatomical History of Violet Vee, my second novella-in-flash, was published in August with The Alien Buddha and then, two months later, along came my first flash fiction collection, The Art of Escapology with Bearded Badger Press. So far, so amazing. Cue two book launch parties, two outfits matched to book covers, two seasons of over excitement.
But… I don’t know. If you’d have asked me a couple of years ago how it would feel to have three books out, I’d have said it would be amazing; all I could hope for and more. I would have thought that having three books published would make me feel successful, like I’ve got this whole being a writer thing nailed down. Like I’m living the writing dream. Only, we are where we are and it doesn’t feel like I thought it would. And I think the reason for that is book sales. How do you measure whether sales are going well when you’re an indie author? Do you need to make a solitary sale? Or ten? Twenty? Fifty? One hundred? Thousands? How do you know what good is? When Mae In Quinquennia was published, she sold out within twenty four hours and maybe that gave me a false perspective of what selling books can be like. And then she sold out a second print run and a third materialised. She hadn’t sold in large numbers by typical publishing standards but she’d done well for her small indie. I had no idea at all how many copies I could expect to sell when she came out but selling what the publisher had deemed a sensible amount to print within one day felt good. And I suppose because she kept selling, I kept feeling encouraged. Obviously when I found out Violet and Escapology would be published too, I was over the moon. Just because one publisher believed in you and your work once absolutely doesn’t guarantee future publications. In a competitive market, any publisher willing to risk their money on your work is a huge deal - one that I need to remind myself of perhaps more often than I do. Someone accepting your work with a view to publication is extremely encouraging. Finally holding your book in your hands, your words all bound up within gorgeous custom created artwork, is hugely encouraging too. But then what? Well, then you need to sell some books. Sales of Violet and Escapology have felt sluggish in comparison to Mae and as we say goodnight to 2022, I’m left feeling a bit flat about it all. If I’m honest, I’ve been very unsure about whether to write about this because it doesn’t quite feel the done thing for a number of reasons, but I always feel honesty is important because perhaps my truth will resonate for others, so rightly or wrongly, here I am writing about it. My reservations about doing so are that in order to sell books, you almost have to pretend that you are selling a lot of books. After all, people don’t generally want something no one else seems to want either. People prefer to buy into hype. I worry that in being honest, it will also seem like I’m moaning and not sufficiently grateful to be in the seemingly enviable position of having books published. (For the record, I will be forever grateful to Selcouth Station, Alien Buddha and Bearded Badger for everything. I have nothing but gratitude for all of them.) But the counter to that is maybe others looking in see me cultivating a seemingly perfect little literary world which in turn makes them feel lesser by comparison. It’s the whole thing about social media just portraying glossy images and none of the mess behind the lens. This post is the mess behind my publications. Perhaps some people will assume that my sales aren’t going swimmingly because my books simply aren’t good enough. Some days, I can buy into this idea but mostly I try to remind myself that they wouldn’t be published if that were the case. And anyway, I love all three of them, they’re my literary infants, it’s just that I want other people to love them too. Not all the people, gotta be realistic, but more of the people would be marvellous. But as a newbie writer and an indie writer in particular, there is a constant query over how to know if you’re a ‘proper author’ yet. Sluggish sales do little to reassure me on this point. I see a lot of people with a book out, now offering advice to others, as though getting published has raised them to a higher, more expert level. I feel I missed that part of the game – maybe there was a doorway I didn’t see somewhere - because I don’t feel any more qualified than I did before. I try to tell myself that sales don’t matter; that you don’t measure writing skills in that way. I think as a creative-type you aren’t meant to care – your work is out there, it will find its readers in due course on the winds of time. But I do care and I do get frustrated by it. There is of course a small concern that I’d never be satisfied – at the end of the day how many sales are enough? – but at the moment, each and every sale is hard won. Self-promotion is a tricky old beast at the best of times but I really feel I’ve pushed myself to maximise all opportunities, almost to the point of selling my soul to Santa. Which raises the question, just how far am I willing to go to sell books? It can feel a bit like you’re publicly begging for people’s approval at times – a fairly unpleasant feeling, especially if you don’t receive any. If you post on social media but no one responds or if your books are in a shop but every time you pop back in no one has bought any, how are you supposed to feel? Even the most Teflon-coated would surely feel a bit deflated over time. They would surely be tempted towards self-doubt. And there’s something else which keeps entering my mind as we end the year. If it’s this hard to sell books, what’s the point of writing more? I’m well aware this is a bad attitude and its one I’m having stern words with myself about but part of me wonders if this writing business is all a bit self-flagellating. It seems to be a constant carousel of picking oneself up again. The thing which will undoubtedly carry me through though is my stubbornness. I have two novels in various states of being re-written or looking for publication and I’m very much not ready to give up on them. I still have hope that sales of Violet and Escapology will pick up. I really hope so. In a Cost of Living Crisis there’s no guarantee and maybe it’s the climate which has changed around me. Or maybe that’s a handy excuse. It’s so very hard to say. What I will say is that if you know an indie author, please buy their book. If you can’t buy their book, tell other people about it – the hardest thing is breaking out beyond the circle of people you know. If you read someone’s book and you like it, leave them a review. One positive review will keep me buoyant for days. Reviews, in many ways, are better even than sales. Reviews are where you turn when sales dwindle, when you’re having the kind of day where you question what the point of it all is, why you’re bothering anyway. Reviews are an infinite kindness that gives and gives. I’m sorry for being a bit maudlin. This isn’t the kind of end of year round-up where I get all excited about prizes won or bestselling statuses. This is me, laying it all out there, in the hope that writing it down will make me feel better. An end of year palate cleanser perhaps. Here’s to feelings of progress in 2023. Here’s to getting even more creative with book promotion. Here’s to everyone who has bought, shared or reviewed. You are infinitely kind x With just a week to go until the publication of my next book – The Art of Escapology – I thought it was high time I talked about it a bit.
I’ve mentioned before about always having a flash collection or novella-in-flash on the go so that I feel as productive as I can. And that’s really how The Art of Escapology came about. Whatever theme was mentioned for a competition or submissions window, I would add the idea of escape to and, slowly, over time, a whole collection appeared. I tried to be as broad and creative with the idea of escape as possible. I didn’t just write about people physically escaping but mentally too. It’s probably not that shocking that I wrote much of this collection during the first wave of the pandemic. I also considered different ways of escaping – for example from expectations heaped on a person by gender or sexuality or circumstance. Some characters are not escaping from terrifying circumstances but from an unbearable emptiness. I considered imagined scenarios like being able to grow your own escape pod, or sea creatures who wanted to live in space. Some of the stories are more realistic than others. It’s probably ironic that, while trying to navigate a global pandemic and my own mum’s illness and death, I was writing so much about escaping, when really, I was probably writing to find that emotional escape myself. It’s like those pictures of a picture of a picture. It’s hard to say what caused what. There is one particular story in the collection, ‘Maria Hopes For a Future’, that is very personal to me and very caught up with the loss of my mum. The story is loosely based on the true story of what happened to my grandmother (my babcia), my mum’s mum, during the Second World War. It’s told through letters she writes to the future while held in a concentration camp. I think there’s something about losing your mum that makes you think of your whole lineage and your culture and the things that have conspired to make you you. I know that’s what I was thinking about when I wrote this piece. The story of how The Art of Escapology then went on to be published feels quite incredible given the story I’ve just told. Bearded Badger Press, a very proud Derbyshire-based press opened a submissions window for anyone with links to the Midlands. Now, I was born in Melton Mowbray and that fact alone allowed me to submit The Art of Escapology and ultimately have it accepted for publication. It could theoretically have been picked up by any publisher, anywhere, but it was Bearded Badger in the midlands that saw its potential. Back in 1945, my Polish grandmother, having escaped from/ been liberated from the concentration camp met my grandfather, a soldier, who took her to safety. They quickly became a couple and shortly afterwards, in 1946, had my mum. When she was months old they immigrated to the UK and settled in the midlands town of Melton Mowbray where they lived for the rest of their lives. My parents stayed with them while they got on their feet and I was born there. It’s like my lineage runs straight through me, through the book and back to the place it all began - one of those weird, slightly unexplainable life happenings and clear evidence I’ve been blessed with the most perfect publisher for the book. Whilst Maria Hopes For A Future is born from traumatic events – the concentration camp and the loss of my mum – it is ultimately a hopeful tale. Maria can’t see her future in the story, she isn’t sure she can see a future at all, yet she does eventually escape her seemingly hopeless circumstances. She does have a long and happy future. This book would not have existed if she hadn’t. And that strength she had to persevere through impossible times wove its way through my mum, becoming even more apparent in the stoicism with which she faced her illness, and on to me, allowing me the strength and resolve to find a way through recent challenging times. Those traits are core to my personality and are only reinforced by being able to recognise them in the generations of strong women before me. I hope that this book could be similarly galvanising for anyone else feeling trapped. Perhaps it can offer some hope. And if not, a temporary haven at least. Pre-orders open: www.beardedbadgerpublishing.com/ I generally like to have a flash fiction collection or novella-in-flash on the go at all times. It means that when I see a flash fiction competition I want to enter, I can write something to enter and grow a book at the same time. It feels efficient. And I’m all about feeling productive.
So, after Mae in Quinquennia (available here) and The Art of Escapology (coming soon with Bearded Badger Press) were completed and in various stages of being published or seeking a publisher, it was time to start something new. As any author does (I think), I keep an eye on what else is being published, trends etc. I noticed a few calls for submissions about the climate emergency. Obviously this is something which concerns me. I’m an almost lifelong vegetarian, driver of an electric car, staunch recycler and gardener. The last part has me thinking about biodiversity and the extremes of drought and other weather occurrences. Perhaps this was what I should be writing about? At the time, I was grieving and took enormous comfort from the natural world – perhaps it would help my writing resonate? I set about having the rough theme in my mind of how we interact with the world and the ways it interacts with us - the generosity it has for us, such as soothing our mental health, and the ways we abuse the relationship through pollution, over-consumption, carelessness. This was a political idea, neatly seated in the zeitgeist. This would surely find its way to publication, wouldn’t it? But… I wrote a few pieces, then I found that whenever I thought about writing some more, I mostly stared at a blank piece of paper instead. I didn’t have that desperate yearning to crack on with it. If anything, it was more reminiscent of being back at school and not wanting to do my homework. I was dragging myself through it because I thought I should and not necessarily because I wanted to. Needless to say, as a collection it didn’t progress quickly. Usually, if I get in the zone, I get quite consumed and have to press on until it’s finished. At the same time, I was getting increasingly frustrated with my writing career. This happens fairly frequently – I’m not suited to the waiting or constant rejection parts, though, really, who is? I took quite a few breaks which wasn’t really like me either. I think I finished The Art of Escapology early in 2021 and by Christmas of that year I had a few climate flashes and a novel in progress. I was mostly okay with the novel. I was quite out of love with flash. By Christmas, there were tears and moaning to the husband. All the usual: I’m never going to make it/why do I bother/am I throwing my life away?/are people getting sick of me blathering on with little to show for it?/ are people laughing at me for calling myself an author? Etc. Anyway, it was one of those chats where it became clear I had lost my way. Did any of the above even matter if I was enjoying myself? Because surely I was doing that? Wasn’t I? Was I? No, I clearly wasn’t. I wasn’t enjoying my flash work in progress at all. Clearly, as described above, it is all too easy to forget about enjoying yourself. We’re a bit weird about it, us humans. We can get so caught up in getting things done or progressing that we forget we’re meant to like the process too. Or maybe that’s my own personal tendency. Still, I realised I was not meant to write a political collection however well it sat in the current zeitgeist. Yes, that collection should be written. Yes, we do need to put these issues on our collective conscience but does it have to be me that does it? Well, err, no. I guessed not. No one had a gun to my head and it wasn’t exactly coming naturally. So, if I wasn’t meant to be doing that, what was I meant to be doing? I thought back to my favourite projects so far. They all had strong female characters. Real women, with flaws, but women who had a determined or naughty or rebellious streak. Quirky women. Funny. A bit weird or different. Maybe sarcastic. Stories that could make you laugh and make you cry. Stories with unexpected elements to them. God, I really wanted to write a rebellious, ballsy woman! I also loved the novella-in-flash form. It’s a hard form which provides a lot of challenge. But it’s also a brilliant form for getting creative with. And the last time I wrote one, it was an accident to Mae (blog). Maybe this time, I could do it on purpose. There were, at this point, three weeks to go until the Bath novella-in-flash deadline and I thought, should I? Was it possible? To write one from scratch in three weeks? As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I knew it was a challenge I’d have to rise to. There’s a certain thrill to having the pressure of a deadline. And, pretty much overnight, Violet Vee was born. It was so long since I’d felt so excited to write. It would have been harder to keep me away from the laptop. I wrote with no expectation that anyone would like it. That was the whole point – I needed to write whatever I needed to write. I needed to enjoy writing it. And I really enjoyed Violet. Like Mae before her, she pretty much appeared whole and I sort of consider her a real person, even if that’s a bit odd. She probably represents a lot of traits I wish I had more of. She’s certainly aspirational in the way she grabs life by the balls, even if her morals are sometimes questionable. But she isn’t a hard woman. She’s loving and caring and passionate about the things that matter to her. But she has a delectable naughty, unpredictable streak which was so much fun to write. I guess what Violet has taught me is that in a difficult world, with very serious concerns, with wars, climate emergencies, pandemics, serious threats to our very existence, it is extremely important to have a mental escape. We don’t just need serious books about serious issues. We also need books that we can curl up in a comfy chair and laugh and cry with and perhaps occasionally squeal with shock with. We need books that lift us and revive us. We need books that remind us to grab life with both hands and wring every last scrap of enjoyment from it. And maybe that’s what I’m supposed to write. And maybe that’s okay. Violet Vee is now available on Amazon. Ooh I’ve been a naughty author-website keeper-upper this year. I have to confess it isn’t my favourite task – my website seems to have a life of its own and I spend a lot of time shouting at it while it moves pictures to places I don’t want them and shrinks text. But I am between writing projects and have told myself I cannot progress with novel 3 until this site is sparkling and up to date.
And really, I shouldn’t be so reluctant because I have plenty of exciting things to talk about. I think it’s safe to say that 2021 has been my best writing year so far because I have (finally it feels) got a book out with my name on the front! Mae In Quinquennia is a novella-in-flash about the titular Mae, telling her life story in five year intervals from conception to old age. I didn’t initially set out to write a novella-in-flash. It was only when I was sitting in a café, working on some flash, staring at the butcher’s shop opposite, that I had a lightbulb moment. What if all the recent flashes I’d written had the same protagonist? I mapped them out in age order and realised I had accidentally written the skeleton of a book. I went back, filling in the gaps with new flash pieces as needed – including one called Love At The Butcher’s Shop (I wonder where the inspiration for that came from?!) - and suddenly Mae became very real to me. She’s a strong, mischievous character who suffers and overcomes much in her life. She does it all with this naughty, dark humour and I love her for that. I suspect it’s a bit weird to say you love your own characters but I never feel like I’ve invented them – it’s as though they come to me whole and I just write them down. Mae was an absolute pleasure to write so I was over the moon when, back in March, I found out she was going to make her way in the world with Selcouth Station. It wasn’t the straightforward acceptance and jubilation story you read of. Initially, Mae did get rejected. She had been rejected by eight or so other places by this point so, although disappointed that after squeezing Mae tightly into the submission guidelines this wasn’t the one, I just accepted it. The rejection came with an offer of feedback though and sensing I needed all the help I could get, I accepted this. However, this proved to be a turning point because when the editor re-read it to give the feedback, they decided they did want to accept Mae after all. I think Mae was different to most of the novella-in-flashes submitted and perhaps this initially went against her. I don’t know, but her charms evidently won out in the end. Even though this was amazing news, I found it hard to feel it. It was still early days after the loss of my mum and I was struggling to believe the world held good things for me. Even when supposedly good news came, I didn’t really trust it, waiting for what felt like the inevitable sting in its tail. But that sting didn’t come and somehow, miraculously, Mae is now a real book sitting on my desk. As the publication date grew closer, my excitement began to grow. I loved working with the very talented Kerry-Anne Mayes to bring Mae to life on the cover. We chose to portray Mae at her eldest. She’s eighty and naked because she poses for a life-drawing class in the final story, Masterpiece. We see her tattoos, her wrinkles, her scars, her belly-rolls. It felt important to me that, when given the chance, I could choose a realistic image of a woman and an older woman at that. Mae doesn’t disappear into obscurity as she ages as society would have us believe - she only grows in strength and power. I wanted to show that. Uncharacteristically, I decided to have a launch party for Mae. If the loss of my mum taught me anything, it is that life is short and you must grab opportunities with both hands. I don’t know if I’ll ever get another book published - I’d love to but the universe is fickle – so I wanted to make the most of this. We had a brilliant night in our garden, with friends and family – some of whom we hadn’t managed to see for ages, eating, drinking, chatting and admiring Mae. She was the star. I’m not particularly comfortable in the limelight so requests for a reading were futile but I did enjoy signing books. I could get used to that. I have enjoyed all of the marketing a lot more than I thought I would. I like the creative challenge of finding new ways to get Mae out there. And unbelievably, something must have worked because Mae sold out online in 24hours! I was worried at points in this process that because I am not agented and Mae is a little book with a small indie publisher, I might still not feel like a real author. But I do. There’s nothing like seeing your book flying off the shelves to give you a bit of a confidence boost. I absolutely love seeing pictures of Mae being read and getting messages from people who’ve read her. I could get pretty hooked on the experience. Perhaps this is why I went back to my slightly abandoned novel 2 in June and became completely addicted to finishing it, which I did just a few weeks ago. The fresh enthusiasm and belief in my work has certainly brought some momentum. I am currently allowing novel 2 to sit. It’s being read by a couple of people and perhaps I’ll be ready to start submitting it soon. My brain gave me approximately three seconds peace before it began nagging me about novel 3, which is as yet a kernel of an idea but the main protagonist has once again come fully formed. I may go on to love her as much as Mae. Novel 1 is still out on submission with no one really biting but I think I know why – I just don’t think a traumatic novel is what people need during a global pandemic. Novel 2 is uplit and I hope that will have greater appeal. Anyway, that’s me. If you have bought, shared or tweeted about Mae, I am extremely grateful. A massive thank you to Haley at Selcouth Station for loving Mae too and allowing her to make her way in the world. If you haven’t read her yet, there are still some copies of the second print-run available here:www.selcouthstation.com/product-page/mae-in-quinquennia-by-nicola-ashbrook No matter how dark times can feel, do persevere. Do wait and hope. Good things will come. Nicola x What a year! I began it thinking about my age – the last year of my thirties - and as such, how I ought to be making the most of it so as not to have a midlife crisis at the start of the next. But, the universe and other unknown forces had alternative plans for me, consorting to make 2020 one giant ongoing crisis. A global pandemic would have sufficed but on top of that I was thrown the loss of my mum.
Admittedly, I was worried about her as the year began, but not so worried that I envisioned myself ending the year visiting her grave. The crisis began in earnest in April, at the height of the first wave of Covid19, when she ended up in hospital with breathing difficulties. We were unable to visit due to the restrictions and she ended up spending a week there, alone, getting the news (alone) that she had an advanced lung cancer. Over the weeks that followed, it was especially difficult to process the news, because, having been terrified by her consultant and told to shield, we couldn’t go into my parent’s house. The conversations we needed to have were far harder for being yelled twenty feet through barely open windows. There were times during those weeks I didn’t know what to do with myself and at those times, I picked up a pen. I wrote down the things I couldn’t say. I wasn’t sure if I would ever show anyone those pieces or even if they had literary merit, I just needed to write them. Later, after many more things had happened, I felt brave enough to send them out into the world. One is up-coming in Sidereal Magazine (‘1 in 10’) and another found a home in www.ellipsiszine.com/eight/ (‘Another Crossword’). Eventually, at the start of July, needs became such that I was finally able to cross the threshold. It wasn’t anyone’s intention for me to stay but when it came to leaving, I couldn’t. Both of my parents needed me and I knew by now that we were on borrowed time. There was nowhere else I could have been. So, for nine weeks, I didn’t live with my husband and my boys and I became a full-time, round the clock carer for my mum. That’s not something that is ever in anyone’s plan and is not something I necessarily thought I was capable of, but it turned out to be a privilege and something I would absolutely do again tomorrow if needed. When I turned up with my suitcase, I also dragged along my laptop and notebooks. Initially, this was naïve. Caring was a full-time, not really ever sitting down kind of pursuit. And when I did sit, my mum needed my full attention. Sometimes I read to her, and I did read some of my own stories (though I filtered them for darkness as, it turned out, I had somewhat of a leaning towards a sinister or disturbing tale and they wouldn’t provide the uplifting distraction we required.) Inevitably though, she began to sleep more. Generally, I didn’t want to leave her side, even when she was asleep, so I’d frequently sit beside her, writing micros or flash for competitions. I found that having a prompt took away some of the mental load for me, making it easier to get pen to paper. One such piece – ‘A Woman’s Guide To Breaking The Glass Ceiling’ – is upcoming with Storgy over the festive period. I also wrote the odd piece of CNF but I found that more difficult while actually at my parent’s. I think when I was there I was in an efficient survival mode. That didn’t allow for too much exploration of my emotions – that would happen much later when I eventually came home. And there was something about sitting beside my mum, writing about my experience of caring for her that felt weirdly disloyal. I made an exception for one piece though, about my relationship with their garden, as, alongside the writing, being out there for little breaks throughout the day was a huge factor in maintaining my sanity and calm. That piece is currently out on submission but I really want it to find a good home. It’s strange how some pieces are more important to you than others – like you may have actually sent out a chunk of your heart – and you really will them to settle somewhere where they’ll be appreciated. ‘Their Garden’ is one of them. As my available writing time increased, alongside my mum’s sleepiness, I realised that if I couldn’t finish my novel now, I never would. Prior to being at my parents, I had been unexpectedly full-time home-schooling my boys. I had surprised myself that despite the world, and my world, falling apart around me, I actually enjoyed the home-schooling. It was an opportunity to get a bit creative with the curriculum and maybe ignite that curiosity for learning my two had mislaid somewhere in the classrooms of their school. But despite enjoying it, I live in a very noisy and activity-filled household which is not in any way conducive to writing a novel. My brain had, for some time, been feeling like it was melting down with over-stimulation. It can be tiring being the quiet one in a noisy home. At my parent’s house, when we managed to get medications correctly balanced, the atmosphere was very peaceful. We didn’t want to disturb my mum when she was sleeping comfortably so we were quiet. My parent’s home is naturally a far quieter one than mine anyway. And I found that, despite the obvious challenges of my circumstances, the peace was restorative. So I fell into a pattern of reaching for my laptop during naps and set about untangling the awful knot in my novel that I had been wrangling with for some months. Once I found my way back into it, I discovered that I could use it to escape from one world into another. I didn’t have to face any difficult realities in there - I just focused on my characters and what they were up to. It was the best kind of crutch. As my untangling continued, my mum made the transition to being bedridden. Caring for someone solely in bed is initially a very steep learning curve. But nevertheless, we found our way and she slept even more. It was only when I finally finished the re-draft of my novel that I realised I had nowhere left to hide from the tragedy unfolding in front of me. I was quite lost without my imaginary world to escape to. I still didn’t want to leave my mum alone and obviously I held her hand and continued to care for her but the hours are surprisingly long when someone is mostly asleep. I found myself asking the question of what exactly you are supposed to do while your mother is dying. I found that the answer did still lie between the pages of a book. I read more but I still wrote. It would seem that I had to. I didn’t know what else to do. In her last days (and I knew them to be as such), I had a really strange urge to write a poem. It was strange because I had never written one and didn’t profess to understand poetry. In fact, most of the poems I read baffled me. I couldn’t figure out if there were rules on structure or grammar or layout. I didn’t get them. But, in the true spirit of my writing career to date, I figured one could just try. I still like to think there aren’t really any rules. Maybe a poem could be whatever you wanted a poem to be? So, I sat beside her, and I let one tumble out onto my notepad. It was CNF and I guess because I knew she was going, that somehow felt ok. Needless to say, that poem holds an extra big chunk of my heart, so I was very emotional to hear last week that it is going to have drawer in The Cabinet of Heed. My first drawer, for my first poem. For about 3 weeks after she left us, I couldn’t do anything. I did the things I had to do but I felt as though I was taking a concrete block everywhere with me. I was exhausted, numb, spent. But it wasn’t too long before I wanted to write again. I found it hard to concentrate and my brain wouldn’t really do what I wanted it to but I was pleased I could still write. I knew by now that I had to; that writing was going to get me through this. Because I still didn’t like getting upset in company, I still found it hard to verbalise all my feelings. And writing was going to be an outlet for all of that. I think writing and I continue to have a bit of a dysfunctional relationship. I know I need it and it has done so much for me. But, at the same time, it can be quite a thankless pursuit. You can give it everything, literally parts of your heart, and when you get rejection after rejection, your heart can feel a little stamped over. But I suppose that is the pay off. Actually, perhaps that isn’t fair. Maybe what I should say is that writing and I are just perfect together, it’s when publication comes into the frame that things get hard. Either way, the year draws towards its close. It certainly hasn’t been the one I hoped for but, somehow, we have survived and although writing has not featured in the way I might have hoped – a big break, a whole book publication, my front cover in Waterstones – its role has been more vital than I could have imagined. When I turned 39 in January and made a promise to myself to seize all the opportunities 2020 threw at me – in order to be the best self I could possibly be by my looming fortieth – I didn’t anticipate anything getting in my way, least of all a global pandemic. Yet here we are.
So things got a bit weird didn’t they? It’s very difficult to know what to say about it all really. We’re all in the same boat after all – or variations of a just-about-waterproof craft anyway. My personal experience began with a sense of impending doom as I watched the virus extending its web out of China and deep into Italy. At that stage, I was checking the news obsessively, growing increasingly panicky at the horror of it all. Around that time I wrote The Place, which was later published in The Capsule Stories Isolation Edition capsulestories.com/isolation-edition/. Strangely, my worry was at its highest before lockdown was enforced – I think because nowhere felt safe. I remember going to the shops one day, alcohol gel stowed in my pocket, resolutely not touching any surfaces or my face. The thing which bothered me the most was that no one else around me seemed to be behaving as I was. I saw hands on rails, on banisters, touching the card machine, the cash point, basket handles, trolley handles, faces, other people. I could almost see evil little virus particles multiplying before my very eyes. We started locking down a good while before the actual lockdown and I got to the point of willing the government to announce school closures. When they eventually did, I was surprised to feel mainly relief. This was disconcerting for several reasons. Firstly because most people I knew were dreading it. Secondly because I’d read about lockdown in Italy and Spain, really pitying those people at the time. And lastly, and most enormously, I have never, ever, ever, wanted to home school my children. It isn’t as though it hadn’t previously crossed my mind - just springing up as a novel concept when Corona arrived – it’s something I’ve given active consideration to in the past and concluded I would never do for fear of my sanity. Yet, here I was, shut inside my house indefinitely, very much about to embark on home schooling. I should have felt the fear, but I didn’t. I don’t know if I went into some sort of survival mode but I was a very jolly lockdown virgin. Us being safe was the fundamental thing and now we were, I saw lockdown as an opportunity. I felt my positivity was probably a bit irking to some people around me, channeling my feelings into a piece called Batten Down The Hatches instead, which is upcoming as part of the 100 Stories of Solitude special feature. I think in order to cope with the strange circumstances, I had to focus in. I had to see my family and our home as the world. I knew other stuff was going on out there but I stopped watching the news. I stopped checking the ever climbing death rate. I shut it out because it was too big. I stopped watching the news properly several years ago and I’ve heard it said that trauma specialists advise this as a good strategy to improve mental health. It has certainly helped me and my relapse in the early stages of the pandemic had set me back. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the things happening to others, but as I couldn’t affect them, what good did it do to expose myself to them and to absorb them? I saved my energy for the things I could impact – my family, my home, my writing. I think to some extent, I knew I was faced with a choice – to rally against this out of control beast which had appeared unwanted and unbidden to wreak chaos in our lives, or to make the most of this new scenario. I chose the latter with very little regard for the former. Occasionally the enormity of living through history would strike me, but I’d distract myself. I wonder whether I’ll look back at this time with shock at how I just adjusted to a new normal overnight; whether the enormity will hit me then. It’s not that lockdown hasn’t had its challenges, because it really has (not least a close family member becoming very ill – an extremely difficult situation only exacerbated by shielding rules), but I/we seem to be quite suited to lockdown life. I perversely enjoy the challenge of cooking up a meal with the random remnants of my cupboards, or finding creative ways to educate the children. I like that we’re all here together. To be honest, I’ve become so accustomed to this new normal that I’m quite fearful of returning to something like the normal we knew before. I think I’ll be like a member of the armed forces who can’t find their place in the world when they’re de-mobbed. I fear I won’t know what to do with myself. I guess the obvious thing I would do more of would be writing. But now that I can only write in snatched portions of time, between home-schooling and heading up the procurement and delivery division of the family, and kind of keeping the house clean, and feeding the troops, I wonder whether I really needed all the free time I had before. I mean, what did I do with it? It reminds me of how I used to think I was busy in my twenties then I had kids and discovered a whole new level of time-management requirements. Post-kids-busy could have eaten pre-kids-busy for breakfast. Lockdown-busy keeps me pretty occupied most of the time. But it feels ok. It feels quite efficient and I like that. I hate to think I’m wasting time. I also wonder whether having less time for writing makes me focus better in the time I do have. About two weeks into lockdown, I had a day off. By that I mean that I hid in my bedroom while my husband did schooling. I wrote two pieces that day. The first was my entry to the TL;DR 1000 word herd competition. It didn’t make the top 20 but the feedback it received was very positive, giving me the impression it had been a close nearly. I sent the piece out again with a tiny tweak and it was quickly accepted by Storgy (it’s upcoming in July). The second piece was Batten Down The Hatches, as mentioned above. One day, two pieces, minimal editing, two acceptances. That’s pretty darn good by my standards. Another day I wrote a piece which went on to shortlist in the Mum Life Stories stepmother themed competition. I just wonder if the time pressure makes me up my game. I’m aware that I sound very chirpy about everything today but it’s only because I’m currently riding a peak in the inevitable peak and trough life of a writer. For the last couple of months or so, I was wallowing in an arid trough, complete with tumble-weed and self-doubt. I was desperate for some encouraging news. So desperate. But as is the way of these things, the encouragement never comes when you crave it. I had a bit of a fall out with flash, deciding not to write any for a while. It was good, in that I found space for my novel again (God, the pace of progress with that is painfully slow) but bad in that no one wants to feel so discouraged that they don’t want to engage with the thing they love anymore. It’s been an odd time. But you get on with it, don’t you? You make the most of what you have. A global pandemic was certainly not on my agenda. But it’s here, we’re doing this. And I refuse to allow it to get in the way of making the most of my 39th year. Yeah the holidays, nights out, theatre trips etc. are cancelled but writing isn’t. Making submissions isn’t (80 + and counting as you ask). It’s harder to make the most of things – you have to get creative. But I like creative. I like a challenge. I guess I just have to up my game. Does age make a difference to the way you write or how successful you are in the writing industry? Clearly, it shouldn’t make a difference – writing is a pastime that can be engaged with at any age, after all. But does our engagement with it differ with age? Are there certain points when we are more motivated by it or more creative or have a greater need for it?
My guess is yes, but the undulations in engagement are probably not universal. They are probably very personal and interlaced with the particular events life throws at you. The reason I’m pondering such things is because I’m on the cusp of a big birthday. I’m all too aware that forty is synonymous with mid-life crises and thoughts of a downward spiral into middle-age, so, to ward off the terror, I’m trying to get one step ahead of it. I’m trying to manage it by making the most of this final year of my thirties, instead of allowing forty to creep up on me from nowhere, a sudden frightening reminder I’m not the twenty-four I still imagine. Some of my friends are there already, and in fact some are fifty and still looking youthful and fabulous, but despite appearances, I know most have wrangled with the concept of entering these decades. Most have at least wobbled, some have felt utterly bereft. Apologies to anyone in their sixties or seventies or eighties or older – I can hear you rolling your eyes – but, you know, forty is enough to contemplate for now. I remember thirty also being a big deal for some. My observations of those who have struggled most are usually that they have been dissatisfied with certain aspects of their life in juxtaposition with their imaginings of how said aspects of their life should be. For example, for some who always imagined they’d be married with babies at thirty or forty, but who found themselves unwillingly single, the jump to a new decade was painful – signifying all the ways they hadn’t met up to their own expectations. Similarly if people want to have bought a house but haven’t or want to travel but haven’t or want to be further ahead in their career than they are, crises at the aging process appear more likely. As that’s my observation, I figure the best way to ward it off for myself is to make sure I’ve tried my darndest to get where I want to be. This is the tricky bit because I also think there is something about having realistic expectations and not setting yourself up for an inevitable fall. The place I really want to get to, at this point in my life, is to a Waterstones store where my book nestles happily on the shelf. However, I really didn’t want to have a ‘I must get published by my big birthday’ aim because the likelihood of me ever realising this aim is miniscule no matter how old I am. I know that the publishing industry is notoriously competitive. Not only that, but there may be an element of luck involved in it actually happening – if, say, you happen to be writing the type of novel dubbed as the next big trend, or your manuscript falls into the right agent’s lap at just the right time etc, etc. What I mean to say is, you do yourself a disservice by aiming for something out of your own control. Of course that leads to a high likelihood of perceived failure. So with that in mind, I decided my aim should be to turn forty knowing I have taken every opportunity that could lead me to my goal. There is undeniably something about a new decade which calls to mind your own mortality, whether you wish to consider it or not. Increasingly I’m of the opinion that it is not this accolade or that success which signifies a life well lived – it’s knowing that you tried your best. You were the nicest you could be, you worked the hardest, you did the things you wanted to. You didn’t fritter life away. This is probably quite a maudlin line of thought but it turns out that brains that naturally tend to ponder such things lend themselves to creative writing – it is never a great leap to conjure bizarre scenarios on paper when they’re happening in our heads anyway. Still, I digress. Back to the not frittering. It seems to me that when people talk about ‘living life to the full’ they generally mean running marathons or skydiving or traversing the planet. I have always felt a little lacking by such standards. But, now, with the wisdom of my late thirties (!), I feel it is much more about doing what you want to be doing. I will never be a marathon runner – frankly I can think of little worse – and perhaps I’ll travel more when the children are older but for now, my passion is writing. And that’s ok. For me, approaching forty, I want to know that I’ve genuinely committed to my writing; that I’ve tried my best to reach that faraway aim I can only dream of. That I’ve worked my hardest. That I’ve enjoyed my day to day. That I have allowed myself to be creatively satisfied (not as easy as it perhaps sounds within the context of other work and motherhood and running a home). Maybe some of this drive comes from discovering writing later than many (though obviously not that late in the grand scheme of things). Though I was prolific in my teenage diary writing, I didn’t ever contemplate I could be a writer until a couple of years ago. It’s still a bit of a surprise if I’m honest. So there is an element of making up lost ground but mostly I have discovered I just really, really love it. And I want to make the most of this passion, now that I know I have it. So, forty minus ten months or so is all about seizing life by both hands – not, I hasten to add, through getting sweaty or taking up circus skills – but through writing and submitting with fervour. So far in 2020, I’ve made forty submissions. That does sound a little excessive, especially as that would lead to 240 over the course of the year were I to keep it up, but I’m only going for journals or competitions that feel right for my writing. It can’t be helped there are so many great opportunities out there. I’m still employing my ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ approach to subbing, which has really helped me to put to continue putting my work out there. The worst thing that could happen is editors might not like it and might say no. But that’s ok. Equally, they just might say yes. So far this year, a few really encouraging things have happened. I have had four acceptances which feels great because I only had three in the whole of last year. Two are in print anthologies which somehow seems even more exciting – nothing beats seeing your words in an actual paper book. The first can be found here: www.amazon.co.uk/love-Nightingale-Sparrow-Literary-Magazine/dp/B084P24666/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1D8ONP14VTJIX&keywords=nightingale+and+sparrow+literary+magazine&qid=1583357585&sprefix=nightingale+and+sparrow%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-1. The next three are upcoming. Competitions have also being going fairly positively too – with long and short listings in the Retreat West micro competition and, most recently, a long-listing in the revered Bath Flash Fiction competition. Apparently this had 1367 entries so to list in the top fifty was massively encouraging. Of course there have been many rejections and many competitions where I didn’t list as well. Perhaps most disappointingly, after working hard to complete my novella-in-flash, it didn’t list in the competition I sent it to. But I’m getting better at accepting rejection and moving on. With such a high rate of subs, there will inevitably be a large number of rejections. And that’s ok. Usually I rally myself by sending pieces straight back out again - another way of seizing the day – the novella included. It isn’t all about the writing – I am intent on seizing the day in all regards. We have booked more tickets for things, more nights away, just got stuff happening. But, sometimes, making the most of a moment means doing less - letting yourself sit for a minute in the sun, really enjoy that piece of chocolate, cuddle your children. I want to know I’ve given everything to my writing, but not at the expense of quality time with my boys. So, here’s to making the most of ends of decades, making ludicrous numbers of submissions and hopefully averting midlife crises. But, I suppose if I do end up having one, all wouldn’t be lost - I could always write about it. No, I haven’t been wandering around all year in a long raincoat being entirely inappropriate, just in case you wondered, but I have been very busy feeding my addiction of teeny tiny stories. As a new flash author, this has been my first full year of writing and entering competitions and submitting my work to literary journals so, as it draws to close, it feels appropriate to reflect on how it’s all gone.
Reading back through this blog gives a pretty accurate reflection of how I felt at the start of the year and how I feel now. The whole reason I started this blog in the first place was because I was feeling pretty rubbish about my new wannabe career and needed somewhere to moan. Or lament, or explore my feelings. Think of it however you prefer. The essence of my problem was that I’d found something I loved doing and desperately wanted to be good at but had experienced very little success at. With constant rejection and no positive feedback and hours poured into trying, I was feeling depleted. I felt embarrassed to tell people what I was trying to do. Without signs of success, such as publication, I struggled to identify as a writer. Fast forward most of the year and I’m happy to say I’m ending 2019 feeling much more chipper. Getting my writing out into the world through competitions and submitting to journals has been by far the best way of moving forward. Once I embraced a ‘if they don’t like it, what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen?’ attitude and just merrily sent stories out, the better I felt. I felt better still when I started to get the odd long-listing. I somehow also managed to get a couple of ‘highly commendeds’ and a ‘runner-up’. I think the key thing these achievements have done for me is to validate my work. I know I shouldn’t need someone else to validate it for me, but I kind of did. I had no idea whether I was any good at writing or not and certainly not whether my words would ever be good enough for publication. That external validation has helped enormously; each little success making me braver to try something else or enter something else. It also gives me confidence that the way I write is a good enough way to write. It stops me thinking I should make my stories more like x or y’s stories; that my stories are ok as they are. It makes me braver to push deeper into my weird imagination and to be even less cautious in how I express myself. I’ll always be grateful for the competitions that are available and the literary journals who do accept open submissions because without them, I would still be weeping and wailing and may well have given up. I certainly wouldn’t be as creatively satisfied as I currently feel. I like all the tweets writers are doing at this time of year to share their statistics. When you are a very new writer, you have no idea how many stories people write or submit or how many rejections they get or how many stories they get published. It’s all a bit of mystery and it’s tempting to think people are getting hundreds of things published and are never being told ‘no’. When authors honestly share their stats, it busts those myths which can only be a good thing. So, in the spirit of myth busting, here are mine for my first year of flashing: I made a total of 76 submissions – 26 were to competitions, the other 50 to journals. For some reason that I haven’t quite figured out, my success rate in competitions is far better than it is for direct submissions. I honestly would have thought it would have been the opposite, but there we are. Of those 26 comps, I have been long-listed 7 times. Of those long-listings, 2 pieces went on to be highly-commended and a further one was runner-up. A couple of the competitions are not yet closed. In terms of direct submissions, of the 50 I made, only 3 resulted in publication. That’s a whopping 6% success rate! Or, more hilariously, a 94% rejection rate. No wonder I wasn’t feeling good about my new career. It makes little sense then, that my success rate for competitions based on the same year is 27%. Though I am very happy indeed with that figure, it still goes to reassure anybody new to this that most of what you do does get rejected and I assume that to be normal within this industry. For my first year of finding my feet and figuring out how it all works, I’m very pleased. Obviously I haven’t actually won anything and that still feels a fairly out of reach notion. I’ve been published 6 times, which again I’m very happy with, but it is a small number compared to some and something I’d ideally like to build on next year. Whilst the figures do fascinate me, the most important thing for me, is how I’m feeling about it all. I think I’d sum it up with the word ‘hopeful’. I’m hopeful I can build on what I’ve started this year. I’m hopeful I’ll get my novella-in-flash and my novel completed in 2020. And I’m hopeful that they might make it. I’m not delusional – 6 published pieces of flash does not a novelist make – but hope is important in this career. If you don’t hope you’ll get there one day, how do you keep coming back to the keyboard or keep picking up that pen? Hope is a far better feeling to take with one into the New Year than despair. I hope you all have a lovely holiday season. I’m planning plenty of family time, dog walks and, hopefully, some snatched hours of writing. Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy & hopeful 2020, Nicola xx |
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September 2023
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