What happened in June and July?

Life happened in June and July and I haven't been blogging for a while as life burst open with new opportunities and challenges. Great, I hear you say that just means it is going to take you even longer to finish your book. But the strangest thing is when I find myself facing changes in my life, the characters in my book become the cement in the madness and the familiar when everything around me is changing. I shouldn't admit hearing voices but when they are the voices of my characters that's a good thing, isn't it? In fact, I believe it to be a good thing so I don't care what others think.

I am definitely on the cusp of my dreams at the moment, and it is brilliant, exciting but also scary as there are some demons that I have had to talk to and square up too. Sometimes, we hold onto beliefs that were never true in the first place, but we foolishly let them circle around us for too longer. Never let people tell you that you are too old to dream, because dreams are important to everyone and some we will see be fulfilled and some will always stay out of reach but whatever their conclusion, they make us who we are. i have been writing since the age of 8 and I still don't know whether I will see my name on a front cover of a paperback, but that will not stop me writing, it will not stop me from enjoying the sheer pleasure of reading.

There have also been some very humbling moments as well as some very sad ones with the passing of people, I wish I had known better and had spent more time with, but know I was lucky to know them in the first place. I have friends flying to Australia and giving birth to beautiful baby girls so it has been a really circle of life over the last couple of months.

We've (boyfriend and I) have increased our Apple family with Ipad and Iphone joining the family. Unfortunately, I found angry birds and we have played it so much that we have completed all 15 levels. Okay so the writing had some competition but I do feel it is back on track (nearly)!!!

The word diet

Here's a thought - let's say that I am a highly creative person (I would say I am but I don't like blowing my own trumpet) and my creativity is like a hunger that is there waiting to be fed. If this is the case, then the cravings for words must make me hungry all the time,  almost like having two stomachs. (Okay I think I just liken myself to a cow!)

Then the lack of writing can explain why I have put on weight as I am trying to feed my creativity with food, not words! So maybe to help myself loose weight, I need to write more, i.e. writing keeps the hands from eating chocolates, crisps and all those items which are great to eat but not great for the hips.

I know this is a different take on diets but you have to give me credit for my originality in diet techniques!

Talking about hunger always makes me think of the following quote from the Nigerian author Ben Okri, taken from his book The Famished Road:


In the beginning there was a river. The river become a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river, it was always hungry. 

Spring Cleaning

With everything poised in the bedroom to start the wardrobe spring clean, I am safety sitting in a coffee shop feeling wonderful. You're probably thinking that I am procrastinating but I have already started. I have got rid of my hair!!

Well not all of it, but gone are the long straights locks that carried in the wind like leaves longing to be free from their branches. Like most things, I am not a normal girl when it comes to hair cuts. I don't have them regularly - it normally depends on the finances that are available. As, even though I am not a regular customer, I am brand loyal to Paterson SA in Edinburgh, who I have been going to for the last 15 years and I have never left disappointed. I do believe in getting the best with hair cut and something I think that is down to a stubborness in me who remembers watching her mum lose her hair because of chemotheraphy and how difficult it was to watch. It is also the reason why I would never shave my hair for charity.

So you see even though I don't go often, hair cuts for me means something more than just losing hair, it normally also means there is change a foot inside of me. It is a sign that I am ready to shake up the world that I live in and make  a move in a slightly different direction.

Having written this down and finished my coffee, I feel that I ready to continue with Spring Clean Saturday!

With March comes motivation and a straight jacket!

March come with a cough and a sneeze, and a pray that this awful cold will disappear soon.  Although physically I am not feeling at my best, I would say that my brain is hyper active and very creative - it is just a shame that my body can't keep up at the moment.

March brings with it hope, hope that the weather will finally get brighter, the nights will get longer and that we might feel that we have a bit more time on our hands to do things. Although in my case, I need to get a little bit more organised, as I have had some diary misfunctions lately that have left me feeling guilty. Also, this damn cold just encourages me to slump infront of the television, which only leaves me disappointed in myself for wasting valuable spare time.

It was funny this week, I was reading a blog of a fellow writer, and I could wholeheartly agree that it is easy to say that you are going to do things, but a lot harder to actually make something happen. The goals of writing for yourself are different to the work deadlines and are easier to break. I am a week later in finishing my characterisation piece for my novel, but there will be no harsh words said to me, as it is on my timescales. It is good, but it is also sad that we sometimes loses the power to motivate ourselves to follow our dreams, because real life takes over.

Recently, my quest to move away from being a womble was dented by the arrival of my father carrying a box, four folders, a childhood doll and a horse. Remains of my childhood coming out of a mouse ridden attic. The folders were filled with Julia Boxer's short stories - everything from an alien from Pluto to the Down with Swots Bridge. With my boyfriend literally shuddering with fear of even more paper entering our flat, I made a rash promise that I would sit and type up all these stories into the computer so that they can go into the time machine.  Some would say that I should just throw them out, but they are part of my development of a writer and of a teenage coping with the world around me. Perhaps one day, I will be able to share them with my niece and nephew or my own children, but what ever happens to them they are too precious to just find a black bag after all this time.

But the trouble, with typing, editing, sorting through the ramblings of a teenage girl, is that all this work goes on behind close doors. No one is enjoying my writing, because it is all locked away and as a writer I find myself talking to myself, living on coffee and zoning out of everything around me. It sounds a bit lonely, but I just end up talking to all my characters in my book.

Seriously though before somebody puts me in a straight jacket, I have been thinking about how to make the writing a bit more mobile and viral rather just me sitting in an ever increasing junk room and there just might be an event being planned... watch this space folks.

Happiness is waking up in your dreams

"The real definition of girl power is having the strength to be vulnerable and trusting" Jill Cuniff

It isn't going to be long one tonight but I needed to share this thought.

Life's a journey and I think we are always looking for the next adventure that we never stand still. Today in between looking at brand values and IA on websites, I stood still and realised that I am living my dream at the moment and I am only just getting started. I can't really say much more than that without reliving about 19 months of back story, and sometimes you just have to let go and accept the journey even on those days when you wonder what on earth it means. We aren't here to understand everything, we are here to live and support the ones we love.

Remember me and smile

This week I have been reminded that we all have demons, and I think it is good to have demons as they remind you of things you may want to change, things you wish never to relive and they give you the edge. I think someone wise once said that you should do something everyday that scares you, because sometimes being scared reminds you that you are alive.

Tonight, I am happy to admit is the eve of one of the days that will haunt me forever. I am not going to say what because I think the ones who know me the best will know what I am talking about. I had a wobby in the week, because I have been running around trying to live a mad life the last few weeks and I probably not been appreciating friends and family enough, which I feel really bad about.  Anyway the wobby was, what if no one remembers her. Remember this wonderful person, who gave me courage and a place where I fitted in. There is not a day when I don't think about her and want to share my life. What can I say I miss my mum.

Then I remembered the most important thing in the world - if you love some one, they never really leave you, because they leave a foot print on your life that will always be there. Somedays it will make you laugh and other day it will make you cry, but whatever happens in your life, if you have love, there will always be a path way forward in what ever direction you take.  I leave tonight with a poem that is a take on a famous one,

I will remember you
When bluebird flys, and my heads in the clouds,
And I am living my dreams in a cloud free sky
I will remember the days you helped me to walk

I will remember you
When it thunders and rains, and nothing is bright
In the bleakest dark night, where nothing seems right,
I will search for the light and I will remember you.

When I look at my book, and start to believe that
It should all be firewood,
I will keep the ink going
And I will remember you.

You're in my smile, you're in my tears
You still listen to my fears
And when I whisper I love you into the wind
I know somehow those words you'll hear

I will remember you and I will smile
I will be strong because I knew you
And I got to be part of you life
And part of you lives on in me.

A biazzare top ten

The words aren't coming today so I'll just post the following:

(1) A motivation quote

"Within each person is the potential to build the empire of her wishes, but don't allow anyone to say that you can't have it all. You can - you can have it all..."
Estee Lauder (1908-2004)

(2) Don't mess with the past.. especially in Literature.
I still can't believe that Mark Twain has been rewritten for schools in America. I cannot believe anyone would mess with a classic. Some words aren't nice,but they have a place in history to remind us of what society was like. 

(3) Even when things seem familar, every day is new
Sometimes it can be hard not to believe that you are falling into the same places and faces again. But always remember, that every day you live - the experiences changes, and just because situations are the same, you aren't the same person as you were the last time around.

(4) Believe in love

(5) Find a good music song and use it as your theme tune. I have over 2,000 themes to my life.

(6) There is a time when all the 'to dos' or "I was just about to start" have to actually be done.

(7) Time management can be tendious and fun at the same time.

(8) Go and see the King's speech and remember how important it is to everyone to have a voice.

(9) Remember where you came from.

(10) If nothing else, stay true to yourself and keep believing in your dreams.

  One last quote:

"You were once wild. Don't let them tame you!"
  Isadora Duncan

Happy new year

Dissolving days

Quietness all round, another year dawning

Nothing moves, no noise, none of last night’s clatter

Nobody stirs, people sleep; shattered

Dreaming memories of the night before

Last year, never again, will open its doors.

Whenever you rise on the First you’ll hear,

Tick-tock, tick-tock, the constant tick of time

Showing no mercy, no solace, no rhyme,

Draining our lives, slipping away,

Showing too quickly how quickly we can turn grey.

Time frightens us; it lengthens the gap.

Between the places we’ve been,

And the place we’re at.

Maybe it’s true, time does take away.

A second here, a minute there.

A couple of unwanted days.

But important events are locked away

Safe from time-dissolving days

Life-changing events touch our souls

Keeping us warm when we grow old.

Memories stay vivid, never to die?

Bringing our hearts together where memories lie.

Time cannot erode memories

Give it year, a decade, memories with weather

Against periods of time if they are to measure

Memories and time will matt together.

So come this year, next and beyond

Tick time out on the ever beating drum

You can make us older, wiser and fatter.

But you cannot take the memories that matter.