Having a little faith…

Something is once again stirring within me. I would like to say that it’s the ‘writing bug’… but it feels as though it’s more than that. It’s more like a primal urge that is getting my creative juices flowing again. The fact that our new daughter is starting to sleep now is probably another thing that is prompting this change within me.

Many things have been circulating through my mind over the past six weeks. What projects I need to complete, what books I need to edit, and what books I need to plan. Believe me – the list seems to be continuously growing. I guess that is what creative people do though– they constantly generate and process new ideas. I know that there are many things that I really need to complete before I start the next new thing.

In January this year I started writing Tijuana Nights. I hadn’t been writing properly for a long time due to my addled pregnancy brain… and I loved writing it. I loved sinking my teeth into new territory, and exploring old and new ideas that I had been stewing on for a long time. And then I had to stop that project because I need to give birth to our daughter.

The other day I was talking to a friend, and she was telling me about her book success. Then she turned around and said, ‘I just know Talent will make waves in YA once you are ready to put it out there.’ Yet another project that I need to complete. I really need to complete this one. It’s been hanging around for far too long. Besides – there is going to be a lot of editing and rejigging once I finish writing the trilogy. All that aside – it was really lovely to hear my friend say that about those books. Really lovely. She has faith in the trilogy.

I also need to do one last edit on The Mediterranean Source. Some readers may remember that I did a really big edit on it in November last year. Well – after that I sent it out to a couple of readers and they provided some seriously valuable feedback on the book. This is the last lot of feedback that I think I will incorporate into the book before submitting it out into the world. But yet this is another task that I need to set my mind to completing.

But I have faith. I have faith that I will finish off these things. I also have faith that whether or not they are ever published in the future, I know that I will be happy within myself just for being tenacious enough to get through these enormous projects. And I also have faith that one day in the future… my daughter may just pick up one of my books and read it. Whether or not she enjoys it will be another story all together.

 

Why I am not an International Spy

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a spy, or something along that line of work.

I am working on a new book at the moment, and I have been thinking a lot about the backstories of our characters, and what motivates them into action. They are the same questions that we all ask of ourselves. Often I pause in the middle of something and question why I am actually doing it. Often I have no idea why, but it always seems like a pretty good idea at the time.

Many of those moments have happened over my 31 years, particularly during my raucous teenage years when I would do many a stupid thing without even thinking about it. Usually it was because my peers were all doing the same thing as well, and the peer pressure or influence was strong on my young mind. And so during those years I took up smoking cigarettes, developing my taste for alcohol, experimenting with drugs, and testing the waters with the opposite sex.

And it was through that experimentation that I wisened up. Not only was I a bright young spark of a thing, but I also became ‘street wise’. I stopped the whole drug-taking thing almost as soon as I started. There was something about not being in full control of myself that I didn’t particularly like very much. If only I had discovered the same with alcohol at the time. The difference with alcohol was that my mind was still my own, and I still had control over it. Sort of. And thanks to the experience of ending up in hospital with a broken nose and alcohol poisoning once, I will never ever again be completely and utterly reckless with it. (I am incredibly lucky my nose healed without even a kink in it!)

I actually discovered that teenage boys were idiots. I am not kidding. The more I got to know them, the more I couldn’t understand why all my friends were falling about themselves trying to get their attention. And because I wasn’t even remotely ‘interested’ in them at the time, some of those teenage boys that hung out with our crowd became my best friends. Even as adults we are all still very close. I still see those young teenagers that they used to be resting beneath the surface. There are hilarious stories that come out when we are all together and chattering about our reckless past.

I eventually got to the point of realising that whenever I did anything even remotely sneaky, I would always get caught. I would try and skip out on school – only for my Mum to walk past me on the street. I would try and sneak cigarettes from my Dad’s packet, and they would always catch me. And at one point (when I hadn’t quite discovered how ridiculous teenage boys were) I even tried to sneak a teenage ‘friend’ into the house at night. Well – it all crashed and burned. And that was when I realised that I would make a pretty crap spy. Spying and being sneaky just wasn’t in my nature. Besides, there was really no point once I realised that I would always get caught!

So I found my direction again. I started surfing, got back to the books, and I put my head down, with my bum up. And without the constant distraction of drugs, booze, and boys – I excelled. I focused on achieving, and started studying Design at the sweet young age of seventeen. All that above? It was all before I was seventeen years old. The only thing I never really wisened up about at the time, was smoking cigarettes. The rest of it? I had loads of will power and stubbornness to protect me – especially for a young female on the surfing and university student scene where drugs, sex, and rock’n'roll (dance parties) are prevalent.

And so, this brings me to character development. I wouldn’t have the character that I have without having gone through what I have experienced. Experiences have shaped me, and the way that I think. They have shaped the way that I will raise my own children. They have shaped the reasoning of why I do things, and why I don’t. Our characters are the same. In order to make them believable, they must have the same steady motivations and reasoning behind them in their backstories.

I would have made a bad international spy anyway. My characters on the other hand… can be whatever they want to be. They just have to have a reason for it.

 

2011 – Over and Out

Goodbye 2011!!

A friend of mine wrote a ‘wrap up’ blog for the year, and I thought it was a great idea – so here is my wee wrap up blog post for 2011.

This has been an awfully big year. I started the year forming a new team at my work, to take over all of the contract management and technical responsibility at my Evil Day Job. While it’s been full of huge challenges, it’s been great. Our team is humming along, and standing strong.

My husband and I at my 30th birthday

Then I turned the big three-oh. This meant having my enormous immediate family staying with us for a week, drinking a heck of a lot of booze in the hot summer sunshine, and generally having a blast. To top it off, we had a big garden party that raged throughout the night and into the late hours of the morning. It was a hell of a bash, and an awesome way to end my irresponsible 20s, and enter the 30s.

Straight after my 30^th birthday, I thought that I better get a little more serious about building my authors platform online. So I started my Parchment Place blog.

The big Christchurch quake rocked our entire world in February. Many dead, many grieving, and many homeless – including my friends, and members of my family. Some of whom are still suffering, due to another series of quakes that hit again on the 23^rd December.

When the February quake struck, two very special people had a big idea. Cassie Hart and Anna Caro put the word out on Twitter to compile a charitable anthology for all proceeds to be donated to the Red Cross Earthquake Appeal. So while our friends and family were trying to sort out their issues in a quake stricken zone, I put my hand up to help them find authors, rally support, and generally be supportive to them throughout this enormous task. And so – Tales for Canterbury was born. Eventually Cassie said that she expected me to submit a story into the Anthology as well… so before I knew it I was dragging an old story out of my dusty and very musty literary drawer, cleaning it off, and sending it through to her. And to my greatest surprise… they accepted it. So then I was officially published along with some pretty incredible writers.

The last time I had a hangover was in May, when I drank a little too much gin and tonic with my father when he was staying with me. Then I found out that I was pregnant, and so I stopped all intake of alcohol and nicotine immediately. Pregnancy wasn’t an accident… but I didn’t expect it to happen so damn quick either. I thought that it would at least take a few months… but I guess our little Bump was in a hurry to get the show on the road.

In the meantime on the writing front, I was busy trying to finishing off a novel, and start the editing of another one. But during this time, I was also quite unwell with the pregnancy, and that seriously hindered all writing ability… and eventually I stopped trying. They say that every single pregnancy is different – and no two are ever the same. It was a bad time for me. Emotionally, I was wreck… physically, everything was changing, and in the middle of all this I felt enormous pressure from my family. Each of them trying to give me advice… ringing/emailing me constantly… and with each passing day, I was becoming more and more reclusive.

Bumpkin's Big Foot

In the end, I didn’t want to talk to any of them at all. I just wanted to hide in my little hole, and wish like hell they would all piss off and go away. I just wanted them to let me be pregnant for a moment and get used to the whole idea that my life was irrevocably changing, and that both my husband and I had to get mentally used to it. But that’s not what families do. Apparently.

So you know what we did? Under the best advice given from friends, and our medical professionals – we ignored them. And this is the same advice I will give to all pregnant women who face the same issues in the future. While family is important… we are growing our own now, and it’s entirely up to us to walk our own pathway when raising a family, not the paths of those before us. I have learnt throughout this time that my wider family are never going to listen to me, since they will always know better (older and wiser, perhaps?), so I will just do my own thing, and learn from my own mistakes. This is the only way I’m only ever going to be fully satisfied as a parent, so this is how I’m going to do it. (Bugger the rest of the world. I no longer give a shit about their grand opinions and ways of how to do things. This is our family, and we will do it our way.)

When I finally realised this, my creative mind started to kick back into gear. I now know that it was the stress and pressure that stopped me from writing… and until I had actually dealt with that, I couldn’t release my mind from its little box and back into the creative world. But I eventually got there, and devised a NaNoWriMo plan to get an old manuscript – The Mediterranean Source edited into a more publishable state. (Don’t get me wrong, this book still needs further work, and hopefully over the next few days while it’s forecasted to rain, I’ll be able to do some work on it.) The point is… I managed to get there, and send it out to three amazing friends in early December for their final opinions on potential changes. It was a big goal, and while I ripped and shredded out more than twenty odd thousand words from this manuscript, I also rewrote just as many in some incredibly major plot alterations.

So here I am now, nearly 33 weeks pregnant, with not far to go. I have just managed to get through Christmas, which we were completely unprepared for… however, we managed to sort it out. Both Mike and I were totally distracted by the fact that Bumpkin will be born very shortly. We are mostly organised now and pretty much have everything that we need (if Bump comes early!). Bump’s room isn’t finished yet, but it’s not far off. Mike and his dad are currently building the wardrobe. The ceiling went up yesterday. And before long, it will be plastered, painted, and ready to rock and roll. Then I will have somewhere to put all of Bump’s stuff, which is currently stored in boxes all over the place. It will be good. A great start to the New Year, and new beginnings in 2012.

Here are some things that I learnt in 2011 that I never knew before:

• Turning 30 wasn’t actually a major. It was more of a great milestone, and one that I have great memories of.
• I never thought that my 30^th year would be such a rollercoaster of a ride.
• Getting pregnant was easy. Being pregnant is hard. Older people forget what pregnancy is like.
• Being published is not a life changing event… but it’s a pretty good one.
• The world is no longer an enormous place. Two of my best mates have also moved to Australia this year as well… and despite them now being in another country – I’m not sad! Well… not really. I’m so damn chuffed that they are living their own lives and dreams, and I’m even more chuffed that by having the internet… it’s almost as if they are sitting in the next room.
• I can do anything as long as I block out the bullshit and focus.
• Stress and pressure are only good in small amounts.
• I no longer have any tolerance for bad or rude behaviour. This is not a tolerance that I ever want to rebuild either.
• My job has been really good this year. I’ve really enjoyed the challenges, and the new team we have. I no longer tolerate the rubbish behaviour from my colleagues either, and they quickly know when they have overstepped the line.
• The hormone – Relaxin – is a total bitch to deal with.
• Taking everybody’s advice so you don’t offend people is impossible. Picking and choosing what advice you take is much more effective.
• It’s lovely getting to know your child as it grows inside of you.
• Three of my unborn child’s godparents now live overseas, and I’m okay with that. I know that this will be a good thing in the future, as the child will have supportive people in its life who live their own life, according to what they want to do.
• Pregnant women are hilarious. They no longer hold back, or have any qualms about saying it like it is. I’ve met some pretty neat people though our parenting class, who I never would have met if it wasn’t for Bump.
• Owning a Kindle has revolutionised the way I read.
• I have met writers who have deeply impacted my life in ways that I never could have imagined. By being with these amazing and incredible people, it has seriously helped solidify the fact that I am on the right career pathway in my life.

So… I think that’s probably it for this year. December has been a slow blogging month for me. I have no doubt that with the continuing distractions of the final stage of this pregnancy, etc, it could get even more sporadic. But I’ll try and keep it up.

In the meantime… I’m really looking forward to starting a new book in the New Year, editing another… and writing on. On the other side of life, I’m really looking forward to meeting our child.

Remember to set goals, not resolutions. J

2011 – Over and Out.

 

Hopes and Dreams

I have been thinking a lot on hopes and dreams recently, and thought that I would have a wee chat about it.

Some of you know that I keep a ‘Hopes and Dreams’ book, where I write down all my hopes and dreams for my life. Not just my writing life, but also my life well outside of the writing world.

Some of the hopes and dreams written down in there are very specific to my writing goals, as one would expect. Most writers I know would like to quit the evil day job with the determination to become full-time writers, obtain publishing deals, and live the writers dream. The sad fact to this, is that many writers never actually get there.

And just to show how much like other writers I am… I pretty much have the same hopes and dreams as they do.

The difference I think though, is that I like to try to turn my ‘hopes and dreams’ into ‘goals and reality’. (Not that I’m saying they don’t or anything….)

Every six months I review where I am at, and I set new goals for the next six months. I was meant to do another review of these goals back in October, but I didn’t get round to it for a multitude of reasons.  I’m alright with that though, since I haven’t met many of the goals I set back in April, that I wished to achieve by September. I think that I’m going to review those goals in December, so that I can leap into some planning for 2012. By that time – I should have ticked a few things off the list, and have a clearer idea about where to from there.

If all goes well, I will be able to possibly plan a few writing endeavours for when I’m on Maternity leave between February and July. Oh, I am more than aware that I will be introducing a child to the big wide world during that time as well, but I would like to actually achieve a couple of other things while I’m doing that enormous task. And who knows – it may not pan out. This child could be more demanding that I expect, or it might be the easiest child in the world (one can only hope and dream )… or I might just be able to achieve a few things that I would like to get done.

My goals, are smaller steps within the bigger hopes/dreams scope. So, to become a full-time writer – I know that I need to have some of my bigger manuscripts published, and preferably more than once for me to justify quitting my evil day job. If I can’t do that, I do have the potential to work part-time, which would suit me just fine… however, this loss in money would have to be offset by royalties (pfft) etc. It would need to be worth my while to take that sort of risk… and all risks in my world at the moment are pretty damn calculated.

In the meantime – I need to keep building and maintaining my networks, reviewing (been a bit slack on that lately), and maintaining/developing my authors platform. On top of all that, and most importantly - I need to keep moving forward with my writing, by editing and writing my little heart out.

So… that’s the big scope of what I would like to achieve over the next couple of years. I always said that 2013 would be the year that I went into writing full-time. This may be blown out due to Bumpkin arriving in the world. But when you set goals, they should never be concrete, and they should always be living so that you can accommodate other wonderful things that happen in your life.

Remember – nothing is ever set in stone. Here are a few of writing goals of mine that I would like to achieve in 2012 (if I can):

1. I have three thrillers that are partially written that need to be finished off. Two of them are close to completion.
2. I have another thriller planned, which is based in Mexico that is begging me to write it. I’m pretty tempted to start in January on this, actually. This is the first book of a potential character based series that I would like to work on.
3. There is a dystopian novel sitting in my head that I would really love to plan out properly. I dreamt about it once… and it’s been bugging me ever since.
4. The third and final installment of the urban-fantasy Talent trilogy still needs to be written. Once this is done, the whole trilogy will undergo some pretty serious editing and revising, and then just perhaps – I might shop it around to publishers. Maybe. Will happily wait till 2013 to do this though.
5. I would like to get a publishing contract for The Mediterranean Source.

“If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place” ~ Nora Roberts

Here are a few other great posts that you may find interesting or helpful on the subject:

• Kathy Steffen: Creative Goal Setting for Writers
• Terry Odell: Resolutions, Dreams, and Goals
• Michelle Muto: Goals and Dreams
• Advanced Fiction Writing: Your Hopes and Dreams file

And as a parting note – I found a couple of quotes on goals that I would like to share. Who knows – they may inspire you:

“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” ~ Albert Einstein

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~ C.S. Lewis

So now that you have read through this post, here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:

• So where are you going with your goals?  
• What have you achieved this year so far that you are proud of?