This week in creativity, I’ve been wrestling with characters shaking/nodding their heads. Human communication relies heavily on head nods and shakes. We all do it, and we do it constantly.
While characters may bolt, dash, dart or flee rather than simply running away, there is no other way to say nod or shake his/her head. At a pinch, you could say, ‘made a shaking notion with his head’ and…
No, you couldn’t. It sounds ridiculous.
What’s a writer to do? So far, 34 head shakes and 38 nods have popped up in the 64,000 words I’ve written so far. That’s five head bobs too many*, though on the plus side, at least my characters are more positive than negative.
Other physical actions that are difficult to describe in any other way include:
Raised his/her eyebrows (quirked them?)
Shrugged (raised her shoulders up and down?)
Grinned (the corners of his mouth lifted upwards?)
Smiled (as above)
Opened/shut the door.
Here’s an illustration…
Nell opened the door. Daniel glanced up at her and smiled. “Are we going out for dinner?” she asked. Daniel shook his head. “Too busy, sorry. How about tomorrow night?” Nell shrugged. “Let’s see how I feel after work. I might be too tired.” He raised his eyebrows. “Too tired? You do nothing at work.” He grinned to soften the insult.
Or,
Nell fastened her hand to the door and swung it open. Daniel glanced up at her, the corners of his mouth tilting upwards. “Are we going out for dinner?” she asked. Daniel turned his head from side to side. “Too busy, sorry. How about tomorrow night.” Nell lifted her shoulders up to her ears. “Let’s see how I feel after work. I might be too tired.” He piqued an eyebrow. “Too tired? You do nothing at work.” He widened his mouth to soften the insult.
Creativity part 2
After reading a post about Pinterest for authors on a blog about writing, I’m revisiting the platform.
This paragraph stuck out:
For those of us overwhelmed by conversations and connections, Pinterest is a refreshing platform. You can spend hours (or minutes) looking at pretty things and not have to talk to another human. It is an introvert’s dream: a social platform where you don’t have to be social to be successful. This also means that it’s really easy to get started with Pinterest as compared to other platforms.
Kirsten Oliphant, Jane friedman blog on writing
Hooray! Permission granted to ditch Instagram and TikTok, where my feeble attempts to build a platform have failed miserably. Does anyone in the world put down their phone after scrolling through Instagram, and think, Well, I feel TONNES better now…?
So, after spending two years creating zillions of square and horizontally-shaped graphics, I’ve reverted to Pinterest-friendly rectangular ones, like the ones below.
And this one is for a board about my Highland books
This week’s Google searches related to writing
What weekday was May 28 in 2016
Waldorf doormen uniform
Photos of Waldorf reception (hard to come by, but I did chance upon the magnificent ‘swan’ bath towel pictured below)
Industrial estates in Anniesland, Glasgow
Pegasus in Greek mythology
Jobs in tech
What I’m reading/watching
Last year, the book group I belong to participated in a reading challenge set by the Booker Prize’s organisers. You can find out more about that here. We did not win (boo!); however, taking part led to other things…
BBC Scotland consulted us about a new radio programme about books and reading, and as a result I’m reluctantly excitedly taking part in the pilot show, in which a group of us discuss Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
According to the blurb: In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
Fingers crossed I don’t come across as too thick… If any of you have read the book, what did you think of it?
Bank of Dave. Picture: Netflix
Do you need something cheery and not too brain-taxing to watch? The Bank of Dave on Netflix is delightful. The good guys win, the bad buys get their heads to play with and there’s a message about how the ‘establishment’ works only for a tiny minority of the UK’s population. (The Rupert Murdoch-owned Times critic described the film as ‘alarmingly simplistic’, proving the point oh-so-flipping well.)
*Characters in the novel Twilight are notorious for repeatedly nodding/shaking their heads.
You might think for someone who has managed to write a first draft of at least twenty novels, writing the blurb (otherwise known as the book description) would be a piece of cake…
Not so. This week, I’ve been struggling with the blurb for a chick lit book that will be coming out in the spring. For inspiration, I copied and pasted book descriptions from three of Amazon’s best-selling chick lit books into a word cloud generator, which resulted in this image…
Right then, EB, I told myself, try to incorporate some of the words mentioned here into your book description.
A common mistake when writing a book description, especially your own, is to reveal what happens, so my first attempt was to try to focus on what people might feel when reading the book, or what they might be looking for when seeking out books (escapism, romance, etc).
The second approach is more traditional. Which one do you think would would make you want to read the book more?
This week in creativity part 2
As someone who scraped a ‘C’ in o’grade art many moons ago, I’ve never been particularly good at artsy stuff, but this week I also added A+ content to all of my Highland books’ product pages.
A+ content is the information under the book that says ‘from the publisher’ and Amazon allowed indie publishers to use this facility in the same way traditional publishers have always used it two years ago.
Here’s what I created for mine…
This week in creativity part 3
This week, I have also been doing some creative accounting, ensuring that I cling on to all my hard-earned dosh as tightly as I can…
The Stephen King quote above shows how books differ from films and the intimacy of reading. When you read, your imagination that fleshes out the world and the characters in your head, which is why no two people will read the same book in the same way.
What I’m reading this week
Still ploughing my way through A Place of Greater Safety and have now reached the part where journalist and politician Camille Desmoulins delivers his impassioned call to arms, which inspires the Storming of the Bastille a few days later.
What I’m watching
Happy Valley, which as discussed with one of my fellow bloggers last week, is SO GOOD.
Thanks for reading and let me know in the comments which of the book descriptions you think sounds the most enticing.
In 2018, I set myself the goal of becoming a full-time writer by the time 2022 rolled around (and out). Ach, it happened and didn’t happen… the money-side never materialised. I suck at selling books.
Is the universe trying to telling me something? Tempting to say, yes. The world has spoken:
Emma, thou should put down thy pen and never pick it up again…
Look, the late Hilary Mantel, Maggie O’Farrell and anyone else who appears on Booker Prize/Orange Prize etc or lists has nothing to fear, but I’ve had enough praise from strangers—via reviews/emails/comments on Wattpad—to believe I’m not dreadful and I’ve won the odd prize here and there that spurs me on.
I write all the time. Busy day ahead? I get up early to cram words in. On holiday? I bring my laptop (or even my cheap, crappy Kindle along with a £10 keyboard) and tap the stuff out in hotel rooms. Christmas, New Year, birthdays and holidays? Pah! The words are squeezed in.
So yes. Goal accomplished, though perhaps not in the way I envisaged. Turns out crafting stories that no-one pays you for isn’t all that bad*.
Recently, I dug out a book I drafted way, way back in 2016. It was easy to write at the time, but when I was done, I shoved it in the metaphorical drawer with a sigh of, Well, that needs a TON of fixing.
And there it sat, accumulating dust over the years. When I re-read it at the end of last year, the errors, and more importantly, the solutions to them, popped up straightaway. Normally, I loathe revising a book but this one has been a pleasure. I scrapped most of what I’d written, and instead used the novel’s skeleton, fleshing it out much more satisfactorily with fresh words, scenes, dialogue and everything else that brings it to life.
It’s so fulfilling.
Otherwise, I’ve spent the week grappling with book formatting for print, much of which has involved swearing at Word.
FFS, don’t start the numbers there. Don’t put them on blank pages! Keep this header, not that one! Look, I want each chapter to begin on the right-hand side. Just do it okay!
Weirdest Google search of the week
The writer’s search engine history is a weird and wonderful list that would raise the eyebrows of many a psychologist.
‘Names for parts’ is something I frequently Google. Settle down there at the back—I’m not alluding to anything filthy, just wondering what this bit of a vending machine/car/key/Calor Gas heater is called.
But recently, I was curious about how to get out of ankle tag. My main character had been tagged and needed to flee. Is such a thing possible?
Reddit (where else?) had the answers, and my favourite was—do your time and then it magically falls off. But, for dramatic purposes, I settled on the poster who suggested slipping a plastic bag over your foot, slathering it with lube, and wriggling out that way**.
Is it possible? Doubtful, but including it in the story allowed me to add an awkward conversation with the neighbours in which my main character knocked on the door and asked if they had any KY Jelly to spare instead of coffee…
What I’m eating/cooking
We booked a late lunch at La Barca, a tapas restaurant in Helensburgh for Hogmanay. Tapas is food for gluttons—why try one dish when you can have three or four? The place was also buzzing, which I hope indicates that it is recession-proof in these high cost-of-living times.
At home, I’ve eaten a lot of this Rainbow Plant Life’s mushroom soup. If you love mushrooms, this is most mushroomy experience you will ever have…
Returning to the quote of the week… My first date with my husband took place in a pub. He recalls nipping to the loos and returning to find me engrossed in a book. (Manners prevailed; I put it away again.)
The world is divided into those who always carry a book with them—which is easier these days because those books can be on tablets or phones—and those who don’t.
But seriously, opportunities to read books while out and about arise on a regular basis. On a train, on a bus, in a GP’s waiting room, at the hairdresser’s, in a long queue, lunchtime at the office, coffee shops… why risk not being able to take advantage of them?
Which brings me neatly to…
What I’m reading
The Ministry for the Future
Re-reading this mahoosive whooper of a book for our book group. (I chose it—592 pages, small print. How to win friends and influence people…)
If you spend a lot of time fretting about the environment, this book might be for you because of the optimistic solutions it offers.
A Place of Greater Safety
In honour of the late, great Ms Mantel, I decided to re-read A Place of Greater Safety after watching Marie Antoinette on the Beeb this January (watch it, I beg you—the costumes, the sets, the acting).
What are you reading at the moment? Let me know in the comments… and if you’ve got a weird Google search, post that too!
*I say this from a position of extreme privilege. I have a part-time job, a partner with a full-time job and no kids.
**Please note. I am NOT condoning criminal behaviour.
Happy 2020—I’m far too late with my new year wishes, but the nice intent is still there. May the new decade bring you what you want (so long as that doesn’t harm others).
The bed is a bit crowded these days…
In Chez Baird-Birnie, we are adapting to life without Freddie and with two cats. One argument cat lovers always put forward for the adoption of new cats post the previous one’s departure is that cats all have their own unique personality. You don’t take on a new one, find yourself endlessly comparing its traits to its predecessor and finding the replacement wanting. Our new two stimulate endless debate, especially because we now have a boy and a girl.
I think Lucy is the smarter cat (feminist bias here, definitely), but William is far bolder and keen to venture outside whenever he can. He’s also much stronger, leaping higher, further and far more often. Ms Lucy, I sense, looks at him rather like modern-day baby boomers regard their grown-up children. “FFS, I thought I’d got rid of you ages ago, but you’re still at home/have returned here again?! Why, why, why…?”
The nippy sweetie
There is a Scottish description ‘nippy sweetie’, used to describe someone who is sharp-tongued or peevish. (And usually used in a faintly misogynist way just for women, but that’s a whole other conversation.) Lucy is a literal nippy sweetie in that she does bite. They are not painful or aggressive, but little nips to warn you to back off. William ‘proves’ my not particularly scientific theory that neutered males are more affectionate and softer than the ladies…
Feed me!
And she is the boss, except when it comes to food. With two cats, you usually need to supervise meal times to stop one stealing from the other. William gets super-excited at food times and once he’s wolfed his, his mother’s helping is fair game. She’s a much slower eater, a habit I find interesting as shouldn’t life with William have taught her to eat more quickly?!
As per instructions for new cats, we kept them both inside for two-plus weeks so they got used to the house. Thought to themselves, “Well, this is a nice place. Hot and cold running humans happy to let us sleep on the beds and not too cross when we decide the wallpaper is much better than a scratching post.”
I’ve always put collars on cats and I suspect Lucy and William weren’t collar wearers previously. They don’t like them very much but the collars operate the cat flap. If it is not magnetically controlled, two of our neighbour’s cats would come in.
Cat invaders
In the Freddie days, I didn’t mind Mr Biggles and Loki visiting us because he wasn’t bothered. My new pets, on the other hand, are not confident enough to deal with that kind of encroachment on their territory. As they bicker among themselves in the house anyway, it would be silly to add another cat to the mix.
Mind you, neither cat has worked out how to open the cat flap from the outside yet. Next week, I’m going to have to squat in front of it waving something super-tempting. A bit of raw steak, perhaps…
Aside from cat caring, I’m in the midst of typical start a new year activities—yoga and sauna sessions, culling spending on silly things, reducing my meat and fish consumption, and going for plenty of walks. This post’s featured image is a squirrel I encountered in the Kelvingrove Park. They’re bold fellows who will come within a foot of you, especially if you rattle a bag of sunflower seeds at them.
I’m attempting to write another book in the Highland Books series, number four… At some point soon, I’m going to run out of ideas for what I can do with the characters but I’m good for another 160,000 words (roughly two novels).
I published a box set of books one to three this week and I’ve already sold a few of them. A bonus—if the box-set sells in decent quantities, I get 70 percent of £7.49, instead of £2.99 and £3.99 and the only money I spent on it was the cover because the editing/proofreading had already been done.
Another January resolution was to use my local library more. In the last couple of years, I’ve grown lazy ordering far too many books on my e-reader. Libraries struggle for funding these days, so it’s important for them to demonstrate use in communities. As a lifelong voracious reader, libraries have provided me with tonnes of free entertainment over the years. I’ve been to Dumbarton Library three times this month already and picked up The Testaments by Margaret Atwood via the order service. (It’s much better than the TV series, which is now beginning to feel far too dragged out.)
A cool fact for you… I publish my books wide, i.e. not just on Amazon but through Kobo, Apple, Google Play, Barnes & Noble and more. Because of this, my e-books are available on OverDrive, an online repository for digital content. If you ask for one of my books in your local library, I’ll get a bit of money and you’ll get my books for free. If you’re so inclined, I’d be grateful if you could ask!
Oh readers, where art thou? I finally got to experience a bit of the ol’ algorithm magic (does anyone else always get that word wrong when they attempt to spell it?) on Wattpad. I’ve been on the story-telling and reading platform for four years, drifting along mainly unnoticed.
This week, reads of my book Highland Fling leapt from 3.5k to 11k* in six days and every time I open the app, I have 50-90 notifications awaiting me and my phone beeps all the time. (This is why, I guess, many people who experience online popularity burn out. It’s overwhelming. Either that or they hire a virtual assistant…)
The success is bitter-sweet. If only I was getting that many reads on Amazon, I would be raking money in! But it is gratifying to the ego.
Writing failures
As I’m British, I’m now duty bound to tell you about my many writing failures to make up for the above boastfulness. Social media often creates an unrealistic portrait of people’s lives—their successes and triumphs held up there; failings hidden from sight.
Here are mine:
A) My first book sold less than 70 copies, with about half of them coming from sales to my mum. Boxes of that ruddy book still sit clutter up my house. Always, always opt for print on demand as a self-publisher and concentrate on the e-book.
B) I have spent so much on advertising Highland Fling, my profits on the book are titchy. It feels like running to stand still. (Unfortunately, it is now almost impossible to sell on Amazon unless you advertise.)
C) The stand-alone books I wrote get very few sales. Mainly, this is due to a lack of advertising but stand-alone books are notoriously hard for unknown authors to sell.
D) I keep trying to carry out all the steps ‘proper’ self-publishers do—setting up a mailing list (mine, 11 subscribers, killing it), being active on social media, hashtagging left, right and centre, having a professional-looking website, etc., and am useless at them all.
E) I have been rejected by numerous agents.
F) I have entered a good few writing competitions and got nowhere.
G) Whenever one of my manuscripts comes back from an editor/proofreader, I am horrified by how often I repeat myself and my ignorance of correct comma use.
Why it’s worth it
So why continue? I love writing and have harboured the desire to be one ever since I won a national poetry** competition when I was seven years old. As I got older, writing books seemed like an impossible dream. I chose jobs I thought would be about writing—journalism, contract publishing and press and PR management, the latter absolutely not, and bumbled along. My 40th birthday came and went and I took stock. Emma, you can work in unsatisfying jobs for the rest of your life or you can take a chance…
I quit and started writing on a freelance copywriting basis, scribbling my first novel in between times.
Full disclosure. I’m married and I have a husband who is happy to shoulder the bulk of the bills. And I inherited money when my beloved dad died, so the path I’ve chosen isn’t available to everyone. I recognise that privilege and I am thankful every day.
I do not make a lot of money and it is supplemented these days by a part-time job at a university. The odds of writing success are stacked against me as it’s such a competitive industry. Finding your readers is difficult and exhausting. I’ve netted myself a fan club on Wattpad, who send me lovely messages. Will that translate to sales? Most likely, it won’t.
On the other hand, I grew up with optimists. My parents were/are sunny-natured folks who tended/tend to look on the bright side. A lot of that happiness rubbed off. And realising a childhood dream is… amazing, fulfilling, exciting, glorious… I plan to write for the rest of my life successful or not.
Thank you for reading.
*In Wattpad terms, 11k is nothing. The popular books on there have hundreds of thousands even millions of reads. I’ve a long way to go before I reach Wattpad star status.
**I went through a period of writing turgid poetry in my early 20s. Luckily for the world, the internet was in its infancy then so they can’t be found anywhere online.
Selling books… sort of. To date, I’ve ‘sold’ 465 copies of my free book, Ten Little Stars. I ran a promotion for the book on Kobo* (£3 for a week) at the start of March and downloads have been consistent ever since, averaging 15 a day.
So far, it has translated into one sale of one of my other books, though I can’t prove the two are related, but no sign-ups to my mailing list yet (I advertise both in the free book). I think, however, this is a long-term process so I’m not discouraged. And it is gratifying that at least someone is reading my stuff.
The fab thing about publishing a book yourself is that you do get to change it easily. Seeing as Ten Little Stars is doing so well on Kobo (#361 in fiction and literature anthologies), I added the first chapter of my about to be published rom-com, Highland Fling, to the book in the hope that I can fix it in folks’ minds. and they will rush to buy it when it comes out…
The picture at the top of this post is an extract from Ten Little Stars. I’ve been experimenting with images for Pinterest and Instagram. I’m a words woman, rather than pictures so I took an extract from the book, blew up the font size, used the snipping tool to make a file in Paint and voila – a neat little extract in a picture.
#amwriting update
Finishing off the sequel to Highland Fling. Stand-alone books don’t work as well in the indie world as a series, so I took two of the support characters from Highland Fling and gave them a story of their own. It means I get to stay in Lochalshie, the Scottish village I made up which is based on the town of Arrochar in Argyll and Bute. If Highland Fling is loosely based on Pride and Prejudiceas most romance novels are, Highland Heart is more along the lines of Persuasion, thank you Jane Austen.
Celebrating my mum’s birthday. Brenda B celebrated her birthday on Friday, so we gathered together at my sister’s house for a family celebration on Saturday. My sister outdid herself with the food – pulled pork, two different types of salad, sausage rolls, sausages (get the feeling we’re pig mad in my family?!), potato salad and a birthday cake made from individual chocolate brownies.
Sleeping with your cat is good for you. Fact.
Spending quality time with the cat.
Well, why wouldn’t you? He’s a lovely bundle of furry fun.
*May the universe rain down blessings on Kobo and the excellent tastes of Canadians in general, to date the biggest proportion of the Ten Little Stars down-loaders country-wise.
Found out more about the Tudors… My friend bought me a couple of tickets for events at the annual Aye Write festival, a reading and writing festival that takes part in Glasgow every March/April. We’re both big Tudor fans; the fact that none of them were nice people and some of them downright dreadful doesn’t deter us.
The first talk was by the historian and broadcaster, Kate Williams, discussing Elizabeth and Mary, the rival queens. Throughout her life, Mary was betrayed by those around her—from her half-brother, the lords at court, her husbands and finally Elizabeth herself. Kate Williams pointed out that Mary adopted many of the same statesmanship practices as Elizabeth and yet they didn’t work in Scotland for various reasons. The historian felt her mother’s sending her to France as a young girl was the first mistake, and if she had a time machine Kate Williams said she would have gone back to the 16th Century and stopped Mary going to England after her lords revolted against her.
Henry VIII
The second event focused on Henry VIII and the men around him, where writer Tracy Borman argued the king wasn’t “the one dimensional monster” he is often portrayed as. I’m not convinced, but her talk was fascinating and I loved her suggestion that Henry’s father was a long-lasting influence on his son. Fact fans—Henry VIII died on what would have been his father’s 90th birthday.
Friends, I’m not terrible cultured. I love book events because they are… er, short. Yes, and thought-provoking too but my focus isn’t required for too long and I have been to few book launches or events that I haven’t found worthwhile. I like hearing a writer read his or her own work as it adds something special to the experience. Some years ago, I heard the late author Andrea Levy read from The Long Song and it was spine-tingling.
Bird-watching in the Levengrove Park. So far, no-one’s told the weather spring is upon us. The daffodils have poked their heads out only to find themselves battered to bits by wind and rain. However, on Sunday the rain and winds took a well-deserved rest, and I took myself to the local park nearby for a bid-watching session organised by the local rangers. Since taking up bird-feeding last year, I’ve discovered a new-found appreciation for the birds of this fair island, whose numbers have nose-dived in recent years. As usual, humankind and its greedy acquisition of everything around us, is to blame.
Book sales
And finally, I’ve saved the best bit for last—selling books. In the last week, I’ve sold 107 copies of Ten Little Stars. Some qualifiers dear friends; the book is free. I paid £3 for a promotion deal on Kobo*. But I think any writer will tell you, the currency of readers often feels more precious than hard cash. I’m not that altruistic. My long-term aim is to be able to write full-time and make an income from it. I have four books for sale and only one of them has made me money so far. My years of not selling fiction don’t discourage me—visibility is my main problem—but the 107 sales in one week are gratifying. The Kobo dashboard tells me the bulk of them are in Canada (home of Kobo), but I’ve sold in 19 other countries too—from Latvia to Turkey, Australia to South Africa, the Philippines, the UK, Spain and others.
I’m one year older this week. Inside, my eighteen-year-old self survives though she objects to the wrinkles and grey hair, and sometimes pipes up, “Still, Emma? You keep doing this and have yet to get the message it doesn’t work?” To celebrate, Sandy and I went to Inverary for the night, travelling through snow-topped hills and past sun-danced lochs, ate sublime food at the Inverary Inn and drank wine. As birthdays go, it was hard to beat.
*Dear other writers—Kobo promotions and ads are three hundred times easier and more effective than Amazon ads.
This week, I decided it was about time I became a Patreon. For those of you who haven’t heard of the business, Patreon offers artists, writers and other creatives payment through a voluntary scheme where you can sign up to pay the person regularly.
YouTubers, podcasters and bloggers often use Patreon, and Patreon subscribers get extra material such as additional audio content, Q and A sessions with the creator and more. I’ve been listening to The Creative Penn podcast for two years, and I’ve learned a lot from Joanna Penn and her guests.
The podcast is aimed at indie publishers, but it doesn’t concentrate on the marketing part of the business. Marketing is crucial for any self-publisher, but entire podcasts on the subject become dull after a while. They target a certain audience too—the people who have enough completed projects to market, when many of us are looking for advice about creating covers, finding a good editor, creating the right author mindset in the first place.
All aspects of writing
Joanna’s show talks about many aspects to writing—from growth, to protecting your intellectual property, scaling up your business and the craft of writing. Every podcast begins with news about the publishing industry which is always fascinating and useful.
Joanna is known for content marketing. Her podcast is a prime example. The aim behind content marketing is creating a relationship with audiences—in the hope they buy something from you, eventually. My two years’ free listening to the show needled my conscience. If you enjoy it and use it, pay for it…
I listen to a lot of podcasts and many of them are also Patreon-modelled too. So far I’ve ignored the pleas, though occasionally I unsubscribe, deciding that if I’m not willing to pay, I shouldn’t listen. The same applies for online news sites that ask for subscriptions, such as the Guardian. As I’m too mean (and also poor) to pay, I try not to read them.
Advice for diabetics
I’d love to make one of my blogs Patreon supported—the Diabetes Diet one is the more likely candidate as I write this with a doctor and we have useful advice to offer. (In contrast, this blog is a collection of witterings, the majority of it irrelevant to most of you.) But the Diabetes Diet website would need a design overhaul first, and some thought put into how you work a blog for Patreons so they get more than your average viewer. The idea is something to consider for 2019.
One of Joanna’s oft-repeated messages is the importance of multiple streams of income, so you aren’t dependent on one pay master. I have multiple streams of income; it’s just that none of them make me big sums of money. On the other hand, a varied working life makes me very happy. Picking the hours I work or don’t is another bonus. If I weigh up money versus happiness, I come down hard in favour of the ‘h’ word.
On a separate topic, the week kicked off well when my sister sent me a link to a Wikipedia page that mentioned me. My alma mater’s notable alumni included Emma Baird, author. (It’s an awfy wee school.) Whoop, whoop.
Mum and I had family business down south. Britain may be a small island, but travelling there from our part of the world isn’t easy. For me, it involved a half-hour walk, one hour and twenty minutes on the train, 15 minutes on a tram, one and a half hours on a plane and another two hours in a car until we arrived at the marvellously named London Apprentice village. The best bit of the journey? The car part from Exeter, driving on the road that passes alongside Dartmoor. Wild country and fabulous skies—folks, that bit of sky they use in the BBC Poldark production is representative. We drove into the sunset and talked about anything and everything.
On the way back, my mum and I stopped off at a truckers caff for lunch, Tanya’s. We opted for the mega breakfast, pictured here. And this is the receptacle (below) they used for my diet coke. I want one. Audrey Hepburn Breakfast at Tiffany’s pictures cover the place, and the tables are littered with pretty tea-sets. Not your typical truckers’ caff—though I’d hate to stereotype a trucker. Perhaps he or she raises a dainty wee finger as they sip their tea. And tucks into a mega breakfast of bacon, sausages and a couple of fried eggs whilst reading the meaningful quotes on the walls.
Made pickled eggs
I adore eggs. Poached, fried, scrambled, omelette-d or, my favourite, hard-boiled and mashed with mayonnaise, they are brilliant in any form. So far, I’ve given the pickled egg a wide body swerve. Then, I ate one in a gastro pub that had been pickled with beetroot. And I cursed my younger self. This form of the egg could have been part of my life eons ago. What a waste.
Reflected on the force for the good that is the worldwide web
Yeah, yeah—social media pressures, Twitter trolls and fake news aside, when you add up the pros and cons the scales tip in the balance of favour for the internet. I’ve met so many wonderful people online—and later in person too. Lately, I’ve benefited hugely from two online connections. I wrote a book, Highland Fling, and one of those connections—an editor with many years’ experience—volunteered to be a beta reader. He devoted far more time to my project than he should have done, exfoliating his way through my book so the rough scrubbing reveals a far more polished piece.
I posted the book on Wattpad and a reader stumbled across it. She made suggestions for improvement. My book featured a graphic designer and my reader was—a graphic designer. My book included a New Zealand character and my reader was—from New Zealand. Bear in mind that my following on Wattpad is pitifully small. The odds I attract someone who a) comments and makes useful comments, b) has experiences that relate to what I’m writing about are stacked against me. Oh universe, thank you for your kindness.
Watched a critically acclaimed film
Not. The reviews of Mary Queen of Scots have been… mixed, to put it kindly. I saw it and read the user reviews on IMDB afterwards. An awful lot of people didn’t like the colour-blind casting. The predictability of the ‘PC gone mad’ type statements depressed me. Professional critics didn’t touch on this, thank goodness—slagging off the pace and disjointed story instead. Me? Bits of it appealed (and Saoirse* Ronan steals every scene), but as a whole—ho hum. If you love scenery, cinematography and costume, though, you will be in heaven. I thought of Dartmoor and the journey I’d made with Mum and the tumultuous times our wee island has experienced in the last two thousand years.
And yet despite the doom and gloom we have now—Brexit, climate change, the rise of the far right that threatens the freedom of us all and the weird isolationism promoted as the answer to all our woes—I love my life. I’m thankful for aspects of it every day. I do my best to limit the damage I do to our beautiful planet** so I can pass on what I can in good conscience to whoever comes after me, and the little things bring me joy:
Pickled eggs
A lovely review
A sunset that holds your gaze too long
An actress who invokes a massive girl crush
The kindness of strangers I’ve never met.
Blessed.
*for the love of God, can anyone tell me how you pronounce the name?
**apart from the diet coke consumption, Millennials and Gen Z, I am SORRY about that.
What do you learn about yourself if you decide to embark on a fool-hardy challenge such as committing to writing 50,000 words in a month?
Yes, folks I’m the sort who over-promises and under-delivers to herself all the time. What does November lack, I pondered, what with the part-time job going through its busiest month of the year, my freelance clients all ramping up the work they need and TV not helping by adding distractions to my life such as the premiere of Outlaw King* on Netflix and The Little Drummer Girl on the BBC?
Obviously, I should add writing a rom-com novel to the month’s to-do list, cross my fingers and hope for the best.
But NaNoWriMo has surprised me. Forcing yourself in front of your laptop every day as a blank page blinks at you and your fingers hover above the keyboard refusing to do anything has proved enlightening.
Here’s what I’ve got from the experience so far:
A sense of perspective. Forcing yourself to write 2,000 plus words every single day makes my day job, copy writing, seem a dawdle. What, you want 500 words for your blog? Is that all? Easy-peasy.
You have to tell your inner editor to jog on. Nothing to see here, dear. Come back some other time and tweak that sentence, copy and paste or add in the correct punctuation but at this moment in time YOU ARE NOT WELCOME.
The inner editor isn’t invited but the inner geek pushes her to one side. The dashboard on the official NaNoWriMo website throws up figures that change every day. How many words you’ve written, numbers needed to finish on time, average length of each writing session etc. And if there’s anything I love, it’s personal data. The NaNoWriMo dashboard has just joined the Fitbit one as things I spend too long swooning over.
The value of plotting. As anyone who has read my previous books can attest, I prefer throwing things at a book and seeing if they stick to working out what MIGHT happen in advance. This time I’ve outlined every chapter and am now a convert. Plot outlines work! Who knew?
Abandon all social life all ye who enter here. Yup, that kind of writing schedule takes over your life. From taking your laptop on trains as you commute, to knocking back invites, switching the TV off at night and turning down offers to test out the offerings at a gastro-pub in Glasgow, my life is deadly dull. Temporarily, I hope. Otherwise, I’m not going to make a convincing writer in the future if I have no interesting life experiences to draw on.
And the biggest revelation of all? I’ve fallen back in love with writing. I’m head over heels. Before this, I was plodding my way through re-writing a book I’ve never liked. Ye gods, it was tedious. I’ve been forced to abandon it, and now switching on the laptop every day to fire off 2,000 words or so never feels like a chore. I look forward to it and at the end of every session, I know I can keep going if I want. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s heady.
It’s still early days. By week three, I’ll probably reach the bit where I hate the book, think it’s the worst thing anyone has ever had the misfortune to write or read and wish my characters would just sort themselves out with no help from me.
In the meantime, chapter 10 beckons…
#amwriting #nanowrimo
*I was forced to commit Netflix infidelity for the first time to watch the film but blimey it’s immense, ladies and gentlemen. The scenery will blow your socks off.
Aside from cat caring, I’m in the midst of typical start a new year activities—yoga and sauna sessions, culling spending on silly things, reducing my meat and fish consumption, and going for plenty of walks. This post’s featured image is a squirrel I encountered in the Kelvingrove Park. They’re bold fellows who will come within a foot of you, especially if you rattle a bag of sunflower seeds at them.
I published a box set of books one to three this week and I’ve already sold a few of them. A bonus—if the box-set sells in decent quantities, I get 70 percent of £7.49, instead of £2.99 and £3.99 and the only money I spent on it was the cover because the editing/proofreading had already been done.
Oh readers, where art thou? I finally got to experience a bit of the ol’ algorithm magic (does anyone else always get that word wrong when they attempt to spell it?) on Wattpad. I’ve been on the story-telling and reading platform for four years, drifting along mainly unnoticed.
Emma Baird - author 