Happy New Year - 2016? Really?

Yes, here we are. It's 2016 and, whether we're ready or not, it's happening. Resolutions are popular, and easily broken. I've already broken my one and only, which was to write 500 words of fiction* each and every day.

Why haven't I written my 500 words today?

Because I was enjoying some family time. It happens pretty rarely, these days when we're altogether, so yes, I could have hidden myself away upstairs and churned out 500 words, but what would I be missing downstairs? What fun could I be having?

And that's the point.

Writing is fun, it's wonderful, I love it, but it will always be there. My family won't. One day my little girl will be grown up and living somewhere else with her own things to do and her own life to live, and I'll have more than enough time to do my writing.

So for 2016, I guess me real resolution is to enjoy life, take opportunities when they come up, and cherish my family. And if I get days when I write 500 words of fiction, that's a bonus.

Let's make it a good one!

Oh, and those resolutions that everyone loves so much are listed on www.supplymanagement.com. They are:

1. Get fitter and healthier (63 per cent)
2. Drink less alcohol (57 per cent)
3. Lose weight (34 per cent)
4. Get out of debt (26 per cent)
5. Stop smoking (22 per cent)
6. Find a new job/change career (18 per cent)
7. Spend more time with friends/family (14 per cent)
8. Start my own business (11 per cent)
9. Travel more (9 per cent)
10. Find love (7 per cent)

*I write for a living, so regularly write upwards of 5,000 words a day for other people. My resolution was to write my own fiction, which lapsed a little in 2015.

I Made A Speech... And It Went Well!

The 18th May 2013 was a special day - it was my little sister Amy's wedding. She married Ben, her soldier, at Sandhurst Military Academy in Berkshire, and it couldn't have been better. Really, it was perfect, magical, a fairy tale of a day.

Except... I was giving a speech.

For a pretty traditional wedding, this was not a usual occurrence, but since Amy had given a rather wonderful speech at my own wedding ten years earlier, it was my turn to do the same. As maid of honour, this was an unexpected 'treat' for the assembled guests, who were prepared for the father of the bride, the best man, and, of course, the groom himself to stand up and speak, but who were not aware that I was going to say something too. 

Oh dear.

Oh dear indeed.

A speech, and a surprise one - for most of the friends and family gathered - at that.

The last time I gave a speech was when I was the school music prefect 14 years earlier. And it wasn't particularly good (it was also incredibly long). But I wanted to do this for Amy who had already made me promise that I'd keep it short.

No fear there; this would be a record-breakingly short speech! Or at least that was the plan. But when I read back through the first draft I realised I had got carried away again. Too many words, most of them not needed anyway.

In the bin.

The second draft was a lot shorter, probably less than a third of its original length, but when I read this one through there was no spark to it, no truth. No life.

No.

It had to be better than that. 

So instead of rehashing this poor speech for the third time, I disposed of it in the best way I know how (DELETE! DELETE!) and began again at the beginning.

I had an idea of how to get it just right - not too long, not too dull.

I'd make it a story about two little girls who grew up together and had shared memories about their childhood. 

It worked, too.

By treating such a difficult and personal task as I would any of my writing, I was able to distance myself enough to get the words down, but allow myself to be close enough to make the story real.

And Amy's tearful reaction tells me I got it right after all. 

How Do I Write? Let Me Count The Ways...

Actually, my method isn't that complicated. A bit long-winded, perhaps, but not complicated. Admittedly, this uncomplicated technique has taken me about five years to come up with - before then my writing was a very scrappy affair involving Post-It notes, one sentence emails to myself, and many, many lost ideas. I still wonder whether the germ of my yet to be realised best-selling novel is actually waiting to be found under a floorboard somewhere because it slipped off the pile... I wonder who'll find it? Perhaps that's a book in itself!

Anyway, back to my method. It still starts the same way - I get an idea. It might be a character. It might be a sentence. It might be a vague plot line. Whatever it is, if it excites me I write it down. But no longer on random scraps of paper, oh no! I have a dedicated ideas notebook - a lovely, soft-cover Moleskine, to be exact - and a smooth Uni-Ball pen. In fact, I have nine smooth Uni-Ball pens in various striking colours, from dark green to bright pink! The idea goes straight into the book, safe and sound, ready to be picked up again when it's needed. And if, for any reason, I don't have the notebook with me, I do have a Blackberry. It's old, scratched, held together with tape, but I love it. I love it because I can email myself the idea and when I get home (or out of the bath, or whatever) I can transcribe it into the Moleskine - done!

The writing itself takes place on my trusty laptop. It sits handsomely on an Ikea corner desk in the 'study' (read: back bedroom). It doesn't move. Because this is the 'writing room'. I don't WANT to write anywhere else. And, whether good or bad, I CAN'T write anywhere else... From my corner desk I can see outside, but the view is the corner of my garage and next door's shed, so it's not particularly distracting. This is the one place I have found from which I can GET STUFF DONE. I aim for 1000 words a day. Sometimes I even do it...

Once whatever it is (usually a short story) is written, it is printed out on cheapy cheap white paper, and then it sits in a 'Completed' tray until I remember it's there, or decide to have an editing day. But I won't edit it until at least four weeks have passed since its completion -I just find it too soon otherwise, I'm still too involved.

Editing is fun! No, really, it is. Well, I like it... This is where the second notebook comes in. Another Moleskine. In this one I write out the story in longhand, copying it from the printed sheet. I like the idea of having a handwritten copy of my work, but it's also a great way to make sure everything is as it should be. Because of the concentration involved in the copying out, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, bits that don't make sense, parts where a different word would make more impact and so on, tend to stand out more to me. I mark the changes on the printed copy (and make sure they're written in the longhand version). Then it's simply a matter of going back to the laptop, calling up the file (saved on a portable data stick AND on the computer itself) and changing what needs changing. And that's it!

Did I say my method was uncomplicated? I may have to rethink that!

I Dream A Little Dream

I have a recurring dream. Now, recurring dreams are relatively common, with over half of the human population experiencing them at some time or other in their lives. Most of the time they are confusing, frightening, something to be avoided. Mine, however, is different.

My dream is hopeful. It starts with me standing in a darkened upstairs hallway, in front of a large white wooden door. I reach forward and open it, pushing lightly. It creak a little as it opens, and in front of me, sitting at a small desk in the corner of a large room which contains a high, comfortable looking bed covered with a floral duvet, is a woman, her back to me.

The desk is a cream coloured, spindly looking contraption and holds a laptop computer at which the woman is working, along with a row of hardback books. The chair almost, but not quite, matches. The furniture is old, clearly antique, and I love it.

The desk is set in front of a bay window but I cannot see what is outside. All I know is that it's sunny, and I can smell the summer. The room is a beautiful, high ceilinged bedroom and the windows are wooden framed. This is an old house. It is large, but not too grand. It is comfortable.

I begin to move towards the woman, desperate to see what she is doing, and to look out of the window. As I move forwards, I become the woman, merging into her, and I realise that she is an older me. Now I know what we are doing - we are writing. And the books on the desk are my books, at least five of them, maybe more, have been published, and I am working on a new one. We look out of the window then, and smile, watching a man and two children playing on a long lawn, sturdy trees guarding each side, the sun beaming down. There is laughter and a dog, a Border Collie, appears, bounding energetically as the man throws a ball for it. And there, on a patio that sites to one side, lying on a table in the sun, is my cat, old now, and dozing.

The man looks up and I see my husband. He taps his wrist and I roll my eyes, smiling. Yes, it's time to join them outside. I stand, and the dream ends.

When I awake from this dream I am happy. It's perfect. Is it a taste of my future? Well, that would be nice, and that's what I like to believe. Since I've had the dream more than once - it comes to me every three months or so, and has done for the past ten years now - it must mean something. Perhaps I am wishing for that life so hard that my subconscious is letting me life it, albeit only when I'm asleep.

Whatever the reason for it, I'm grateful. It keeps me writing. It keeps me trying. It's something for me to aim for. And it always makes me smile.

The Genre Problem

Decisions, decisions... When it comes to writing, is there a specific genre for every author, or is it okay to mix it up a bit? And how does one find 'their' genre in the first place? These are the questions that I ask myself every day when I sit down to write. Because every day I pick a different genre to write in, in an attempt to tidy up my TBD (To Be Done) folder. I've got half finished novels in horror, romance, children's fiction, crime, science fiction, non-fiction, young adult and even a full on attempt at a 'proper, literary' novel. I've got collections of poetry, even plays and one TV script. None are finished.

Are they unfinished because I can't settle into which genre is right for me?

Having bemoaned that fact that I can't finish anything, I will admit that I do have two completed novels. And when I say completed, I mean completely completed - they are edited to within an inch of their original incarnations, shiny and new and ready to go. But go where? One is a horror, and one is a children's book. And although I'm incredibly impressed with the fact that I have written two - TWO! Can you believe it? I can't! - books, there's just something about them that displeases me. I'm just a bit... bored with them, if I'm honest. And this prevents me from submitting them to too many places. I don't want to burn my bridges when one day - if I can just settle down to it - I might write a really GOOD novel!

Am I asking too much for my own creations to, after all these years (the children's novel, for example, I started 14 years ago, and it's been an on and off love affair ever since), still make me proud?

Now, short stories - those I can finish. And those are mostly horrors. So is that my genre? The horrific short story? Perhaps. I love to read horror. Perhaps all those Stephen King/Shaun Hutson/Richard Laymon (and many, many others) late nights have seeped deep enough into my brain to allow me to really let go and enjoy the freedom of writing about truly terrible things. Or maybe that's just my nature. Now that's a scary thought. And anyway, is there a market for collections of short stories? Not that I can see, at least not from debut authors.

But I also love murder mysteries, devouring every Miss Marple and Poirot and Morse and so on. And yet, I cannot create one of my own. It really is frustrating.

So I ask myself all these questions every day, and despite not having the answers, I sit down to write anyway. It might be five minutes on a sci-fi novel, or half an hour on a short story. It might just be one sentence that I realise would fit perfectly into my play. Whatever it is, I'm starting to think that the genre doesn't matter. So I'll just write what I feel like. It's more fun that way.