When was the last time you took your demon for a walk?

Although not much writing has happened this week due to lots of different events happening I found this article on the BBC New site that has prompt my blog this week. The article talks about the links between creativity and mental illness, especially in writers. For those who want to read the full article, you will find the link at the bottom of the page, but here's a passage from it:

Writers had a higher risk of anxiety and bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, unipolar depression, and substance abuse, the Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute found.

Without scaring anyone, I totally don't find this too shocking, as when you think of how a writer works; alone with voices in their heads of characters who can be so varied in their role within a novel. When people talk to writers, they always ask about where they have drawn inspiration for the hero of the novel, but how much do interviewers ask about where the baddies have come from? Angels and demons running around their heads, creating characters for books, living in their imaginations it is easy to see where the link.

I know I'm a head writer, long before I write anything on the page, my mind will play out the scene in my head to the tiniest of detail to check whether it makes scene, which can be intense, especially when I am writing the main antagonist of my book, because he represents all my darkest fears and concerns inside of me. Hopefully it will make good writing when I finished, but I do realise that in writing him that I have to remember that he is just a fictional character. Also, I know that some of my own writing cuts close to the bone, I don't write romantic fiction where it is all flowers and champagne, I try to write about hard hitting situations, which draws on emotions, and that takes mental energy. So really I totally agree with the Karolinska Institute finding.

So am I worried about my own mental health? No, but I do look after it as I know that it needs as much looking after as my physical health and I think that is where people are often short sighted in their views of mental health and mental illness. Mental health is everyone's concern as we all have mental health and it needs protecting, regardless of whether you've ever been depressed or not, because our brains are the most fundamental parts of our body, and they need fed to keep them alive and happy. 

I know for many the whole subject of mental health is difficult. If you've never been depressed, it can be really difficult to empathise with people who do have mental health problems, and mental health is an individual illness in how it effects one person. But it's important to recognise that people are different and they shouldn't be labelled because they deal or handle life differently from you.

As you can probably see this is a soap box issue for me, as a writer perhaps I am closer to my demons than other people. I think that the fact  I allow them to jump around on a page and dance into characters is an health outlay inside of being locked inside my head is a health outlay. I know their effect on me and how to protect myself against them, which gives me strength. 

When was the last time you took your demon for a walk? Stay safe out there.

The article on the BBC website can be found here 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19959565

Notepads and books

It has been a while since I sat and wrote my blog. The excuse? Maybe I needed robe motivated or just needed a break from everything to refocus. Anyway I'm back to hopefully to a more robust and regular schedule of blogging.

In the last part of September we were away on holiday and as part of them, I had a brilliant time reading. Stormy, wet weather lends itself very well to reading. It is something I love reading but I don't often do it when I'm working full time. I listen to music more than I read when I am working as my eyes get tired.

Anyway I always think of holidays as reading havens as it brings back memories of school holidays when I used to read five books at once. Maybe that why I'm good at multi-tasking or maybe it makes me a bit jumbled.  While although I didn't read five books this holiday, I read two very different books. The first was KiwiTracks by Andrew Stevenson. As the book title suggests  the book is about the author's four month journey through New Zealand. Reading about New Zealand always gives me a sense of homesickness, which is really odd for someone who has only been there for 3 weeks of her entire lives.But those three weeks changed me and the effect those three weeks had on my character and the direction in which I have taken my life is something I revisit from time to time. There is something of the independent traveller that should be experiened by everyone. Even if it is not to the other size of the world.  Also I have a New Zealand connection  in my novel that didn't make sense until the Holiday and reading the book.

The second book was Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, which has been in the bookcase since John Sergeant    Talked about it on a programme about the greatest novels of the 20th Century. The characterisation of  Yossarian and his commarates on the airbase is vey emotive. And as well as the humouristic view of life on base, the prose show the horrific reality of a bomber in WWII.  The passion of the book entrancedme to finish it and I feel richer that I have finished it. A good writer needs to learn from books - something I intend to do more off. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene is next.

All the reading has reawaken my creative soul.  There is pieces of chapters and new stories everywhere. I have pieces everywhere and realising how much prose there is in my flat.  It has also brought to my attention that I have a note pad fetish. Whenever  there is a new project or something I'm working on out comes a new notepad.  I think I had bought a new notepad for the wedding before we had picked the engagement ring. Each notepad is also like a diary of what been going on and I like to look at them and find new pieces or things that I have forgotten I've written.

And this is where things are exciting, because I'm on this amazing journey at the moment both personal and hopefully in my creative live. I feel that my dreams are opening up and blossoming in front me. The next few months is going to be very exciting!!

Walking with fiction on my mind.

So  another Sunday night flies in and a muggy Edinburgh night draws in. Ernest has taken to sitting on the laptop so I'm on the IPAD. It has been a great week and one where I feel the writer muse is back with me.

How do I know this? It is more to do with a feeling deep inside me and also I have been writing lots over the weekend. About two weeks ago, a voice came out to through my pen whilst sitting in Writing Group. I don't know quite who the person is or where it is going but it is a strong one. I probably shouldn't be working on anything else but maybe it will help if I can start focusing on a routine for writing then perhaps the work on the novel will start to flow. I think the story will be called "Not without my notepad."

So you maybe thinking "yes Julia", we've heard this before, but you are no where nearer getting a book published than a new born child. I will happily take this on board, but I was able to get some writer's dust which is a bit like fairy dust for Peter Pan's ability to fly. What is writer's  dust?  For me,  it is going to the Edinburgh Book Festival for a couple of hours. The book festival fills me with my dream, which has been the same dream since I was 15, to be published. I'm a geek when it comes to writing and it is my belief that one day it will be me at the book festival as the author and not just the spectator. It is also the place where, over the last ten years, I have seen some of the greatest story tellers the world have seen.

The second feeling this week happen because of a question I was asked at writer's group. The conversation had been on how people at the group write and edit as one of my friend is very worried about the process they are using to write. The  question was put to me tohow I write? My answer is that I am a head writer. What is a head writer? For me it is about playing my prose around in my head as though it was a song on loop and I had to learn all the words. When I am about 90% there in my head, I will transfer this to page and screen and build it from there. there maybe only 500 words on paper but that is enough for me to turn it into chapters and chapters of prose.

Being a head writer means finding the time to listen to the voices in my head  which is where the walking came in. Hours and hours sent walking around playing out scenes it my head and facial expressions. I am used to getting weird looks as I tend to look at people and drift away to fantasy lands. In fact I still get looks today as I am always doing it. Today I had one of those walks on the way to lunch with friends, one where I got slightly lost, walked a bit too far and didn't feel the pain in my legs. I was thinking about my new character, thinking of next opportunity to write, thinking about the words singing through my head. Oh yes, I am possessed.

So in the city of the biggest arts festival in the world, with the paraolympics around the corner and weddings being the hot topic of conversation. The future at the moment is very inspiring.

To inspire a generation

To inspire is to stimulate to activity, encourage a feelings, cause to feel uplifted.

Inspire a generation was the strapline to the olympics games and unless you are completed blind to sporting achievements, this is exactly what the Olympic Games have achieved in London 2012. It made me think  about my own life and the same time what mental speed everything seems to go at. The fact is we spend too much time working and not enough time concertrating on our dreams. Some people may say that you need to be a teenage to have dreams, but I say that you are never too old to dream and the power to follow your dreams lies within you.

So with this in mind, here's what's been inspiring me over the last 7 days:

The Olympic spirit and watching so many people achieve their dreams over 16 days. There are some many medals, it is impossible to pull out any one person, but Tom Daley's bronze medal stands out because of his incredible journey being tinted with so much sadness with his Dad's death. Something, I can totally understand. Also, anyone who knows me will know the idea of jumping of a 10 meter platform is one of my worst nightmare.

Staying on the Olympics (sorry but I must say this), Oscar the Southern African runner - he showed that there is no barriers if you dream hard enough.

My friend Ed, who is writing a book on Gleneagles for the Ryder Cup. I know how much that means for him and his commitment to his dreams is awe inspiring and makes me realise how lazy I am about writing.

Foundationbridge Writing Group published Bleeding Ink this week - a collection of short stories and poems. It maybe small and just a drop in an ocean to the amount of published material out there, but part of being a writer and having a voice is sharing it. This is what we have done.

Finding Poems - it sounds such a cliche to be reading poetry, but I do and every time I do, I find something amazing in the prose. On Sunday it was The Raven by Poe. The rhymes are amazing - here's one of my favourite lines: "On the cuishon's violet violet lining that the lamp-light gloating o'ver." You may not read poetry but sometimes you can find magic there. I am loving the fact that we have one of my own poems to read at the wedding.

Knowing that good friends are just a stone throw away and there are some friendship that run deeper than the blood of family.

All of the above inspire me. To inspire is to stimulate to activity, encourage a feelings, cause to feel uplifted. I know I need only look to my friends and family to feel inspiration, and the fact they are there to catch me makes me feel as though I can achieve anything.

                                                                                                                       
 

Chapters, Ghosts & Treadmills

Chapters and Ghosts

A wise woman once said "No one can help everyone, but everyone can help somebody." I love this quote as the first time I read it was after walking 26 miles in a pink bra for Breast Cancer. It always makes me slightly tearful because it reminds me of how far I have come in life.

I have taken the time to read it tonight as it has been a funny old week in the life of Jules. How to describe it - at times it has been like having my back against a wall and hungry bears (and not Winnie-the-Pooh) coming at me. I have found myself somewhat anger-upset at things, which is not like me. I had a long chat with Chris about maybe slowing down and not doing as much. But then now that I have had a look at everything I do and I love it all, and I think I just have to learn to live with the frustrations and give myself a break for five minutes. Sometimes I have to be delivering 120% to be happy with myself for what I am doing, and I have to give myself a break and maybe recognise what I do, not what I have still got to do! If I sound as though I am lecturing myself I am, I am because I'm my own hardest critic.

There has been something else going on in my head - I been trying to talking to ghosts, which  is possibly a reaction of opening a new chapter in my life by becoming engaged, which I'm very excited about (although I hope I don't turn into a smug couple person who forgets what it is like still searching for mr right). I suppose it will be no surprise that the ghost of the my wedding is my mum. It is funny that I have known for nearly 20 years that she wouldn't be at my wedding but actually announcing the engagement and talking to parents about weddings, has reminded me how much I miss her. For me, these emotions together with ones of complete happiness is complete contrast to each other, and really hard to explain. It is although in times of amazing exciting of happiness, I miss her the most, because she's not there to see where life has taken her little girl, and so much of my adulthood happiness is down to the qualities and values she instilled in me. Oh boy, I think I have to take this up a notch before everyone is crying with smiles on their faces.

So this weekend for me has been about how to move myself forward and put the last week behind me and I think the only way to do this is to remember to take time out for me, by writing and by getting fitter again, because life is full of events that you can't control, but there are always things that can be done to change perspective on things.

Getting fit is something I have been running away from since coming back from South Africa and I don't know why because when I am on the treadmill with my earphones there is something so pure about that moment. It is a place to think and let go of everything. I think somewhere in the last four years I have got scared and found comfort in a sofa and bad television, and I don't want that anymore. I have protection in life, I don't need padding around my bones to keep me safe anymore, and if people look at me at the gym and think I am fat, I won't mind because I am there trying to do something about it, rather than sitting in the dark pretending that a fairy will grant my wish to be thin (I've tried and it doesn't work).  I have been twice in two days - good start - lets make a pack that in a month - I will reveal how many times I have been. It will also help when I start looking at wedding dresses - not that we are at this stage yet, but it not too early to start putting your health first and all the rest will follow on from there.

And yes we are back to the writing (and the lack of it), although that is not really true. I am writing and working hard on the ending of my book as it didn't add up in terms of the pace of resolutions and consequences of what had happened. But it is starting to take shape again. Perhaps now because I see the difference between myself and the main character, which for a long time it got a bit blurred and messy. But this book, the one we have all been talking about for nearly 10 years is going to happen because I am a storyteller with a mountain of stories to share with the world. Maybe one of the stories is of my life, but, for now, I will keep writing the blog and sharing the world through my eyes.

Engagements rings

Life is all about timing, when a couple of weeks ago, I found myself watching the Friends Episode where  Monica & Chandler getting engaged. It was adept for that nights as I sat there looking at an engagement ring on my left finger. The jokes about never getting married now seemed to be on the other foot.

I felt odd sitting there alone, the king of my heart at work. We had promised to wait to spread the news. Something that was hard but necessary. I think girls tend to be more hyper about weddings, due to the Princess stories in Disney digging the foundations. My favourite disney is Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Snow White being banished and then finding home with the outlaws until her prince comes. I've never been one who believed in the whole needing a man to rescue you.  But sitting in my flat with a diamond on my finger, I did a security, which is different to what I have felt before.

Does this make me a princess as I think two hearts are better than one? I don't think so. There are plenty of tales I can share that prove being single is as an exciting time as it is now. I've lived and travelled. I have created a life of independent living but now the journey ahead is about the two of us. It is not going to change me or my personal goals, it just means that the book has a new chapter on man and wife! And I felt a different contentment where being poker faced for a weekend allowed me time to think about the future, our future and I can start to learn how to cope with all the happiness that is welling up inside of me.

The number 18

The number 18, it is the age you officially become an adult and start taking responsibility for yourself. I suppose this weekend I am thinking about an event that changed my life and my family life forever.

How do I feel about it? It  still doesn't make sense and I think I realise now that something like that will never make sense of. But it how we use the most painful points in your life and turn them from thunderous rain clouds to wonderful sunsets. It is finding that place in your life where you are happy. I think we sometimes miss that - we run around looking for our dreams and pushing ourselves for successful, that sometimes we forget to be happy in the here and now.

And today, tonight, I would like to say I am happy with my life. Yes, I have dreams, ambitions of becoming published, but if I was asked  about the here and now, yes I am very happy.

My happiness comes from my friends and family who are around me, who support me and accept me for who I am. Even though I am really bad at communicating with everyone at times. It funny, the most valuable things in life, friends, happiness can often be the things we forget to measure when we are looking for things to moan about (not that I ever moan!)

So maybe the fact 18 years have by isn't something to feel blue about, and whilst I can't say I won't shed a tear or two, there will be a major part  by being happy in life, is the best way to cope with the number 18.

What the Dickens?

Okay, so it has been slightly over a week since I last blogged, but I have heard that there are some people who are reading this so tonight, this is for you.

Last week, I watched a programme on Charles Dickens on film and how many of his stories have been adapted to the big screen or turned into BBC dramas. It made me feel a wee bit in awe of Dickens. Characters like Pip, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield - all characters of Dicken's imagination are now household names and fictional characters that the public have grown to love. Oh to have an imagination that can span generations.

If, like me, you studied Dickens at high school, you may have read an abridge version of the original novel or just seen the BBC series,  then I'll give you all a challenge to read a Dickens Novel, because they are rich in words and storytelling. I went back to read Oliver Twist a couple of years ago, and despite of all the version of Oliver that I have read or seen on television, there was still something magically about reading the original prose, and seeing his characters jump out at you.

Then I got to thinking about characterization. I would say that my novel is very character led and half the debating going on in my novel is about the characters and whether they are true to life. It is difficult for a writer when creating character because your characters can do anything they want but in the essence of writing characters have to be true to themselves or they become fake and readers can pick this up. I think one of the endurance of Dickens is because the characters work so well and they are believable. I would be one happy lady if I could create one character that has the power and recognition of one of Dicken's characters.  And do you know the most impressive thing about it - all these characters came from one person's imagination.

Perhaps, you don't find that magical and you may think me mad for thinking it is. But I was listening to someone talk about creativity and how important it is to do something creative, because it is part of human expression and it can let out happiness within people. Words, pictures and music can change the world.

I'm going to leave it there for tonight, because I am sure sleep helps creativity as well, but I'll leave you with two gems;

(1) It is Boxer Family Folklore that a Great Granny in one of the generations was partly used for inspiration for one of the characters in the Pickwick Paper. I would like to think this is true, but I know that there are probably a number of families with similar stories.

(2) A Dicken's quote from Great Expectations, Chapter 3. "I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief." Simply lovely.

Good night.

2012 - a year to be a little bit braver

Happy new year folks - yes I do remember how to write.

Somehow we have got back to January again and there is no new best seller by Julia C. Boxer on the shelves. Somewhere along the line, I have let six years come between finishing the first draft and doing the rewrite. Yes I coughed somewhere, lost some confidence and didn't really believe in how to finish the book. Do I know how to now? What has changed?

Can I finish my book? Yes! And although I don't know whether it will ever be published, there would be something deeply important to actually not look at the piles of paper in the flat and think, if only if I change this/that then it would be finished. Boyfriend thinks I should send it off, but there is nothing worst for me than thinking that something was right and to be honest, there are some gaps and jumps in the prose that don't make sense even to me. There is a part of me who thinks that after all this time perhaps I should just rip it all up and start again - new year 2013 - we could just have a big bonfire on Arthur's Seat. Tempting??

Okay, I am not being serious, there would be nothing worst, and even if I shredded every last page, the words would still be burning in my soul and I would be tortured by my own stupidity!  I know it is down to confidence and putting yourself out there. It is about turning over the new leaf and believing in yourself and your ability to achieve what burns in your soul on the list of achievements you want to have to your name.  And this nicely, links into the new year, how many people out there has set new year resolutions, only to have broken then in day sixth of the year?

That is the trouble with new year resolutions - we party up until the 3rd of January and then on  the 4th  we deny ourselves everything as way of punishing ourselves for enjoying ourselves. Why? New year resolutions should be seen as positive goals for the year that inspire in January, one of the longest and darkest months of the year.  Let change resolutions to  goals for an exciting year, and if this year is  anything like past years the ones, then it is going to be a whirlwind 366 days! For me, I don't know what this year is going to be like (I've been told it will be filled with surprises), but I am going to live by the three B's - I'm going to be braver,  going to believe in myself  more and I am going to live brightly in the hope that I can bring brightness to all those I care about! And just maybe Christmas 2012 will bring about a finish book! Okay, lets not get carried away.