@skylark
Active 6 years agoForum Replies Created
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Posts
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Hi @johnalty it’s good to be back, though it would help if I came back and then didn’t disappear again for months! Sigh. I have good intentions and then life happens…
@squidge hello! Great to hear the Tilda series is progressing. I’ve got the first one in the queue for bedtime reading to the boys and can’t wait to see how it’s evolved from when I first read it years ago on the Cloud. I think I missed that there as going to be a remake of David Copperfield as well. I see most films at our community cinema club which means they have to be out on DVD so we’re usually about a year behind. Just seen Rocketman and Red Joan recently which were both great.
@kazg yes, how I will laugh! I came across my very, very first shitty draft a year or so ago and it was quite something. Good to see how far I’ve come, at least!
@philippaeast Hello Philippa!! Good to see you too. I’m not sure I’m at the elbow-grease point yet. Mostly shovelling all the words into various sorting piles while scratching my head and wondering when the novel will apppear. But it’s all good. Ideas firing off all over the place. How’s it all going at your end? So excited for you. Are you not DAYS away from launching?? Can’t wait to read!!
@raine Hello! Yes, I think I’ve solved it, though it would help if everyone could just accept that in the first few chapters of my novel, Thursday becomes Friday without anyone sleeping 😀
@kazg Hello to you too! I’m feeling a bit of second book pressure, mainly because Home had the USP of a child’s voice and this one doesn’t have that so I’m worrying about whether it can stand strong on its own merits. At the moment, definitely not. It is the shittiest of shitty first drafts. That book group sounds ace – and thank you so much for recommending my book. I hope she likes it!@libby I didn’t for a long time (esp with Twitter) and now I have, it’s hard to switch off from it as it is addictive. But I think I’m learning to manage it better to get the best bits out of it without the worst bits dragging me down.
@janeshuff I’m sorry you and your family have been through a similar thing. It does change everything. I hope your grandson is doing well.
@raine yes, finding the balance is hard but after spending more than a month switched off from everything before Christmas, I did wonder what it was I had actually missed. The news is so repetitive. It would be good to find a way to filter out the noise and only inform yourself of the important bits! And I like that quote whoever it comes from 🙂
@daedalus I like that quote too. Divide and conquer has worked so well in the last few years it’s depressing. I wish people understood it better and could see the manipulation at work.I know that Brexit and politics in general has had an impact on my writing because I found myself getting more and more sucked into arguing on Facebook and Twitter and that, I have come to realise, is the worse kind of political discussion because there is never any nuance. It is all so polarised. But I found it hard to switch off from and it definitely interfered with my writing time. I started to pull away from it all in late 2018 in an attempt to finish my first draft and to some extent it was successful. I set aside time every day that was only for writing and I gave myself permission to switch off from everything else happening. But it was a bit hit and miss and I went round in circles a lot. Actually, it was a massive life event (my son’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment) that properly kick-started my writing again. I’m not saying that I stopped paying attention to politics because that’s not me, but I realised how important it was to prioritise what was good for my mental health and what was not and I started using writing as escapism during some very difficult months. I noticed that when I wrote (often in quiet moments on the hospital ward) my mood lifted and my head cleared but when I spent those quiet hospital moments scrolling through facebook and twitter and reading up on the latest depressing political story, I felt like I was drowning. Gradually over the course of 2019, I withdrew from discussions and chose what I wanted to read carefully. Yes, I still got angry at stuff and depressed and helpless and frustrated, but writing started to balance it out a bit. When the election was announced, I made a choice to completely remove myself from social media and I had one last big push to finish the first draft. I voted. I absorbed the result and then, because the first draft was finally finished, I took time off over Christmas and watched lots and lots of box sets and read lots of books. I’ve been on Twitter and Facebook more in the last few weeks and I can feel all the old depressing feelings sneaking back in but I have a different perspective to a year ago. My experience in my personal life in the last year has shown me that while having political views and paying attention is important, real change can happen from the ground up. My family were supported by so many different people over the last year and I have no idea what all their political views are. The day after the election, our community was represented by a different party than the day before but I still knew exactly who of my family and friends I could count on (and who not so much!) and I still lived in the same wonderful community who had supported us so well through a difficult year. So I guess what I’m saying is don’t let the blues take over. We have very little control over who represents us (especially considering the voting system that we use) or what direction our country goes in politically but we have lots of control over how involved we can be in our local communities and how much we can lead by example fostering good relationships with everyone and kindness towards all and that (not getting a different result on a vote) is what will heal the rifts of the last few years. Yes, I am worried about what will happen in the coming months, but I am also hopeful that in the grand scheme of things, it won’t change the communities we live in, because that’s up to us, not the politicians. Meanwhile I’ve got a first draft to knock into shape and that, for now, is the perfect escapism.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound so plausible! Libby, I agree with Jane – that sounds much more interesting.
Hello, Sandra! That all sounds brilliant! I think I must have missed that last year in amidst the chaos. What are they called? I’ll look them up x
That’s a shame, Jane. What was the basic premise? I’m not that big a fan of war films with a few notable exceptions.
Waving back at you, Janette. It’s lovely to familiar faces here. It’s a shame it’s been quiet but these things sometimes go in phases. It was always going to be hard to build something up from scratch after the Cloud.
I empathise with where you are writing-wise. I got like that in 2012 when my children’s novel just wasn’t getting any interest and I really didn’t know which way to go next. Then, after months of just writing whatever I felt like, Jesika happened out of nowhere. I think when you put least pressure on yourself, good things can happen 🙂 My current WIP is in need of something but I’m at the early stages of rewrite so I haven’t worked out what it is yet. Though I had an idea just as I was falling asleep last night…
Haha, a dead body will certainly shake things up. I’m sorting out all the obvious problems and then I need to pass it on to fresh eyes so that they can tell me all the problems I can’t see. And hopefully they will tell me the story is strong enough…
You’re tempting me with Little Women… Should I go and see 1917 too?
Jane, I’m the opposite as my first draft is very sparse and I need to work out what needs more and what’s fine as it is, plus working out if the story is strong enough which is probably my biggest worry. It’s gloomy here too. Hibernation weather! I’ve not seen Little Women. In two minds about watching yet another remake but it seems to be getting good reports.
Hi Richard! It’s lovely to see all your familiar faces popping up. I wasn’t looking at joining in this time, just checking it was still going. Good to hear it is 👍👍
Hello! I have a first draft that needs some work doing. Tentatively opened it the other day after a bit of a break. Found a massive continuity error in the first two chapters! Ah well. I need to get stuck into some serious rewriting now. How about you?
It was so lovely to catch up with you @giselle 😊😊 Thank you for cheering me on. Hope the edits are going well xx
@philippaeast Lovely to see you too! Was Cynthia the one I was chatting to with you? I’m pleased to have inspired her 🙂
@alanr Ha! Thank you very much, kind sir 😀
@squidge Indeed we do!! 😀Bit late to this but yes, I’ve done (am doing!) a version of this. It works best when I’m trying to finish something. I’ve got a chart with a chain of squares and the idea is to make the chain as long as possible without breaking it. There’s no daily word count to reach. As long as I write a sentence, I can colour in a square. It’s worked brilliantly for me in the past. At the moment I’m at Day 37 with the current book…
Thank you, lovely people! Are you all trying to make me cry?!
@athelstone wish you’d been there too but we’ll certainly catch up another time and you’re not half bad at the encouragement yourself
@janette I laughed about the train once I was safely home! And thank you for not setting me off from the front row!
@johnt3 same fears as me but it was great, wasn’t it?
@alanr thank you! And I hope you got lots of other positives from the festival.
@debi A golden moment sitting up there with you – glad it wasn’t someone else xxxxxx
@daedalus seriously, I’m trying to hold it together here! Thank you for mentioning Stories for Homes – that’s where it all started 🙂
@squidge you’re very generous yourself! Thanks for all the encouragement over many years xx
@juliec I laughed too, in the end! Thank you for all your encouragement and GO FOR IT!!
Right, off to work now. Thanks everyone for giving me the best start to a Monday morning 🙂@kazg Yes! I’ve found several aspects of the publishing industry quite daunting and such a relief to go to my agent and say ‘Help!’ and she’s brilliant every time!
So great to read this! CONGRATULATIONS! You definitely still need an agent regardless of interest from publishers – they do all the tricky stuff like negotiating contracts and mine has been so brilliant anytime I’ve asked her about the bits of publishing I’m not so sure about. Plus she’s helped me stand my ground a couple of times on things I didn’t want to change, and advised me when the publishers is right and I should accept their ideas. It’s so invaluable having that person. Very best wishes for the next stage – can’t wait to read your book!
Still smiling 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’m halfway through a blog post about the festival – but also still catching up on sleep!