A friend in need...

I’ve been in London for four and a half months. It feels like no time at all (and I guess in the big scheme of things, it really is no time at all). It looks like the old cliché is true and time really does fly when you’re having fun, moving house, getting to grips with a new job and settling in to a new(-ish) city.

And things are going well. There’s just one teeny tiny blip. And it’s a hard one to admit. But I’m going to put it out there because I’ve a feeling that it might be one of those things that happens a lot but often isn’t mentioned because, well, it’s a bit embarrassing. The truth is, after four months in London, I haven’t made any new friends.* Not one. Nobody.

Why?

Okay, so let’s just get this possibility out of the way first. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m some sort of social pariah, incapable of making friends.  But, I’m reassuring myself that this can’t be true because I already have a truly awesome group of friends: friends from school, friends from uni, friends from my year abroad, friends from Cambridge, all sorts of wonderful friends.

Now, admittedly, I’m never going to win a prize for being the most outgoing, talkative person in the room. I’m quite shy and fairly introverted, especially when I meet new people. When you’re shy, sometimes people just dismiss you as being aloof and passive so I’m really not making things easy for myself.

So, if the problem isn’t (totally) me, then why don’t I already have a whole set of new London friends? Well, as it turns out, it’s tricky finding friends when you’re 29 and working full-time in a super-busy city. The simple days of primary school friendships (‘oh, hey, we’re sitting next to each other, you’re my best friend now!) are long gone. I’m even getting slightly nostalgic for my time as a first-year undergrad when everything was geared around meeting new people (Fresher’s Week, Fresher’s Fair, Fresher’s Ball…there are few more intense friendship periods than that first term at uni. By the second term, of course, you’ve realized that most of your flatmates are, in fact, mad and you wonder what on earth you wrote on your application form to put you in the same flat as them!).

Partly, it’s a question of time. I leave for work at 8 in the morning and get home again around 7ish. Some nights I go to the gym or to yoga, so then I’m not home till 9ish. Now, maybe I just have bad time management but getting in at 9 doesn’t leave me with a huge amount of ‘friend-meeting’ time. So, being an industrious sort of woman, I decided to multi-task. Why not turn the hobbies that I already have into opportunities to meet new people? Good plan. And so…

Will you be my friend lovely zen-yoga ladies?

The yogis would be my friends. Right? That’s the whole spirit of yoga, isn’t it? Peace, love and zen-friendship. And I’m in Hampstead, pretty much yoga-central (seriously, if you’re not toting a yoga-mat around the streets of Hampstead you look out of place). I found a lovely class with a great teacher. But…hmmm…it’s sort of tricky to start a conversation in a yoga class. I mean, there’s a friendly-looking girl in front of you and another friendly-looking girl behind you. But you’re all in down dog and so you feel a bit weird talking to the girl in front cause now you’re looking at her butt, and you feel a bit weird talking to the girl behind because she’s looking at your butt (and you’re worrying that your old leggings might be a bit see-through…or maybe that’s just me!).

And, if you do manage a quick hello it’s normally followed by an even quicker “ssshhh…I’m trying to be in the moment,” from some impossibly zen yogi.

The end of class is no good either as everyone else bounds off to pick up Ethel, Mildred and George (their children, not their grandparents! Turns out this year’s big naming craze is ‘pick an Edwardian name, any Edwardian name. Sure, she’ll grow into it by the time she’s seventy!’). Yep, making friends in Hampstead would be a lot easier if I was part of the yummy mummy brigade but that seems like a pretty extreme solution to the friend problem so let’s not go there (plus, the Hampstead yummy mummies scare the life out of me – so toned, so stylish, so bitchy – actually, they probably warrant their own post! That’s one friendship group I don’t want to join!).

Hmmm. If yoga’s no good, what about the gym? So many group classes, so many potential new friends. You name it, I tried it. Boxfit. Aerobiking. Funky Bums and Tums (yes, really). Pilates. Zumba. And many more. In terms of potential friends, the classes were great. Almost all the classes were filled with women just like me: late 20s/early 30s, all very friendly and smiley. But…problem 1: Have you ever tried striking up a conversation in the middle of an aerobics class when you’re mostly knackered and almost out-of-breath? It ain’t easy. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible!

The classes also threw up another problem. Yes, there were lots of potential friends, but often they were attending the class with friends they already had. Sometimes, there just wasn’t room in the group for me. One day, I was having a really nice chat with two other girls who had arrived early for a class. They were lovely. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself but I’d mentioned that I was new to the area and I did think that maybe, just maybe, I could get over my innate shyness and suggest that we meet for coffee. Then, their other friend turned up. She was basically the Hampstead version of me. The sarky pessimist role was already filled in that little group. No vacancies. The three of them set off to zumba and I decided it was a lost cause and went to the gym instead.

Okay, so the whole fitness-friends thing wasn’t working. Maybe it was time to try a different tack. Welcome to the weird world of ‘friendship-dating.’ It’s basically like online dating, only for friends. You sign up to a website (such as citysocialising or meetup), key in your location and interests and up pops a range of socials that you can attend. So, I tried a few, and I went along with an open-mind.

Well. It turns out that the ‘friend-dating’ websites aren’t just sort of like standard dating websites; they basically are dating websites masquerading under the guise of ‘just friends.’ Online dating for people who don’t want to admit they’re online dating (‘Me? A dating website? Noooo. Never. I’m just looking for friends.’). Harumph. I had a few evenings listening to sad middle-aged divorcees droning on and on about ‘that bitch’ before they segued none-to-subtly into trying to find wife number 2. Urgh. So I’ve given up on the whole ‘online-friendship-dating’ thing.

And that’s it for the moment. This turned out to be a strange little post. There’s no happy ending yet. But I love London so I’ll keep trying. Somewhere in this fabulous city there has to be a lovely group wondering how on earth they’re going to fill that sweet but sarky Northern Irish vacancy.

Right?

*Non-work friends, obviously, I have awesome – and friendly - colleagues but I don’t think I can really give myself any credit for meeting them – they’re sort of stuck with me for 8 hours a day!

A little Easter rant!

I'm in rant-mode today...

This is a little snippet from a conversation I had recently (yes, I realize I’m a sarcastic little madam!).

Nosy acquaintance: “So, you two [that’s my boyfriend and I] are back together.”

Me: “Yes.”

Nosy acquaintance: “That’s great. So I guess I should buy a hat then!”

Me: …

Nosy acquaintance: “A hat! I should buy one, shouldn’t I?”

Me: “Why? Why on earth does my relationship make you feel like you need to buy a hat?”

Nosy acquaintance: “Oh, come on. What’s it been? Three years. Surely he’s going to make an honest woman of you soon!”

Me: “So I’m a dishonest woman at the moment?”

Nosy acquaintance: “Oh don’t be like that. Just tell me when the big day is – we’d all love a day out!”

Me: “AAAAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!”

Ho hum. That’s just one example of the many times I’ve been asked why my boyfriend and I aren’t married yet. The questions – nearly always from friends and relatives who are already married – started after we had been together for all of, oh, six months.

No, this isn’t a rant about married vs. unmarried. It’s more of a random musing on why other people have a bit of an obsession with wanting their friends and relatives to be almost exactly like them.

 My single friends are totally fed up of comments such as;

“Still single?”

And then there’s the classic back-handed compliment:

“I don’t understand it. You’re great. Why can’t you find a boyfriend/girlfriend?”

And yes, these comments come from coupled-up friends and relatives.

My friends who are engaged assure me that the: “So, when are we going to hear the pitter patter of little feet?” questions start before you’ve even made it down the aisle. From, yep, you’ve guessed it, people who are married with children.

And I’m not even going to get into the competitive parenting nonsense that goes on if and when children actually do arrive!

Why?

Why do some people want me to march to the beat of their drum? Maybe getting married and having 2 children before the age of 30 was right for them. Doesn’t mean it’s right for me (and, given that I’m hitting the big 3-0 in just a few months and am both unmarried and child-free, it’s looking pretty unlikely that I’ll be following that particular route!).

Do the nosy couples seek validation of their lifestyle by assuming that all of their single friends are secretly sad and desperate for a relationship?

Do the relatives pressurizing couples to get on with starting a family ever think that a) it’s really none of their business and b) they’re potentially asking a really insensitive question?

Turning the tables and fighting nosy questions with a healthy dose of sarcasm tends to lead to me being accused of “protesting too much” – clearly I’m oversensitive to the whole marriage question and secretly want the boy to put a ring on it as soon as possible.

Erm.

No.

Maybe we’ll get hitched one day. Maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll have children. Maybe we won’t. Hell, maybe we’ll have children and not bother with the whole marriage thing. Or maybe we’ll get married and forget about the whole having kids thing.

Who knows what we’ll do in the future? But for now, it would be great if we could just enjoy the present without being asked about a five-year plan!

Sometimes I wonder if the marriage-obsessed questioners are maybe a bit bored. It sometimes seems to be less about my marriage (or lack thereof) and more about them wanting a “big day out” (or, rather more randomly, a hat).

Well, if you want a big day out, feel free to organize one. Don’t just sit there waiting for a wedding invite to drop through the door.

And, as the saying goes: if you want to get ahead…get a hat!

Excess Baggage

Handbag. Clutch. Purse. Satchel. Tote.

Most women carry at least one of these items around with them on a daily basis.

And usually I’m one of them. Heck, usually I cart around two – a cute little satchel with a shoulder strap and a bigger cloth bag for all the bits and pieces that don’t fit into the satchel.

At the moment, however, I’m going through a bag-free period.

This is more out of necessity than design as I’ve managed to completely mess up my left shoulder.

It’s been playing up for years and I’ve simply been ignoring it.

Except now I can’t ignore it as it’s really really painful and the messed up muscles are causing a fairly nasty and permanent tension headache at the base of my skull.

But I really don’t deserve any sympathy, as this is all self-inflicted!

Recently, as I complained – again – about my poor, painful shoulder, I asked my boyfriend how I could fix the problem. Now, I didn’t really want him to give me solutions. I just wanted sympathy, and possibly some chocolate. But, being both a practical science-type, and a man, the boy sagely pointed in the direction of my bags.

“It would help a lot if you didn’t cart so much stuff around with you every day. If you really need all that stuff then you should think about getting a rucksack that you can carry on both shoulders.”

What?!

What is this crazy talk?!

Stuff. Stuff. It’s not stuff. These are absolute essentials that I must have with me at all times.

And a rucksack. Seriously? Have we wandered back to my high school years by mistake?

Annoyed, and lacking chocolate, I hefted both bags upstairs with me, determined to prove to the boy that I simply couldn’t give up my essential kit.

Now, in my defense, the satchel did contain some must-have items for the busy woman-about-London-town:

Oyster card

Debit cards

House keys

i-phone and headphones

Cash

However, it also contained the following:

-3 small tubes of cold sore cream (yes, cold sores are annoying, but one tube would probably do!)

-3 small tubes of mouth ulcer gel (again, probably overkill to have 3)

-2 empty packets of throat lozenges (useful)

-receipts. Lots and lots of receipts just stuffed into various pockets. Now, I’m a bit pedantic about keeping receipts but really, what use is the receipt for a sandwich I bought two months ago??

-4 different lip-balms. 2 of these were completely empty. 1 is too sticky to be used (it leads to the oh-so-attractive hair-stuck-to-lips look). 1 I actually like and use every day.

-handcream

-a selection of mismatched earrings (nope, I’ve no idea why)

-hankies. Many, many hankies. I’d like to say they were all clean and unused but that would be a lie.

-the remnants of a granola bar that was definitely several weeks old (yuk!)

-e-reader that hadn’t been charged in weeks and wouldn’t actually open

The bigger cloth bag contained an even more random selection of bits and pieces:

-lots of sports gear in various states of cleanliness (mainly tending toward the ‘wash-me-please’ end of the spectrum)

- a pair of legwarmers (for those moments when you just have to get your 80s vibe on and re-enact Fame, obviously)

- a mini make-up counter(foundation, powders, concealers, lipsticks, mascara). I can’t actually remember the last time I could be bothered to go and touch up my make-up at work, and I never wear lipstick so I’m not sure why I decided to cart around 3 different shades.

-A very beaten-up and dog-eared book that I finished reading ages ago

-Two hairbrushes and a variety of baubles, hair grips and hairbands. All a bit pointless given that 99% of the time, I wear my hair down.

And so I decided to conduct a little experiment. Could I go bag-free for a week? Could I pare down all of the above bits and pieces to the bare necessities?

Fortunately, it’s still pretty darn wintery here in the UK and so I’m still wearing my giant quilt-like coat of many pockets. On a cold and overcast February morning, I set off to the tube station without any bags. In one pocket I had my credit cards, Oyster card and keys. In another pocket I had my phone and headphones, and in a third pocket I stashed a solitary hanky and the lipbalm that I actually use every day.

I had made some advance preparations the day before and there is now a little make-up bag on my desk at work, filled with bits and bobs such as a mini-hairbrush, concealer (for those days when my insomnia makes me look like a zombie), spare pair of tights etc...

The first day was odd. I constantly felt as if something was missing, as if someone had snatched my bag. I also felt weirdly light and realized that my bags were much heavier that I had previously thought.

Not having any bags also makes you really aware of the fact that they are everywhere. Most people – women and men – are carrying some sort of bag. And yes, women are definitely more laden with bags, with most carrying at least two (and often carting around a few more plastic bags crammed with shopping just for good measure).

One week on and I’m wondering if I’ll ever be able to go back to my bag-full ways! It’s lovely to be able to walk around without excess weight dragging on my shoulder. There’s a very nice sense of freedom that comes with getting rid of excess stuff that I didn’t really ever use. And, although my shoulder isn’t fixed (I didn’t think it would be – I have many years of bag-abuse to make up for!), the nasty tension headache has almost vanished. Yes, maybe it has simply went away of its own accord, but I do think it’s been helped along by the fact that my back and shoulder are free of excess baggage and I’m no longer holding one side of my body rigid to make sure my bag straps don’t slip off!

No, it’s not for everyone. I realize I’m in a lucky position as I can get through my day with a pretty small amount of stuff. For example, if you need to take regular medication then a bag is probably necessary (fortunately, this doesn’t apply to me). And if you have a baby or small child then again a bag – or two – is likely to be a necessity (and again, fortunately, this doesn’t apply to me!). And, of course, if the UK actually has a summer this year, it will be tricky to get away without a small bag, as most of my summer jackets are pocket-free zones! So I might need to look into that rucksack idea after all!

 

A Quirky Update!

February. What, already? Okay, so my New Year’s resolution to update my blog on a weekly basis hasn’t really worked out so far! But, in my defence, January was one of the most manic months I’ve ever experienced.

Having just survived my first ever Christmas-hosting experience (really not in a hurry to do that again!), I then finished at my old job on 8^th January and, after an incredibly restorative break of, um, one whole day, I started my new job in London*. Oh, and my boyfriend and I moved house from Cambridge to London on 5^th January. All in all, it was a hectic start to 2013.

So, after a month in London and almost a month in the new job, how are things shaping up? [Warning: the next sentence contains very un-Lauren-like levels of positivity!]

London is fabulous and the new job…well, it’s pretty great too! Apologies if this is all a bit smug but large chunks of 2012 were pretty rubbish for me both personally and professionally, so a happy start to 2013 is a welcome change.

So, how did this all start anyway? Well, it was a case of a perfect storm. First of all, in the middle of last year, my boyfriend was offered a wonderful job opportunity in London. He would start in October 2012. And this wasn’t just any job. This was a stunning promotion, a proper ‘excuse me, while I just leap up the career ladder’ moment. We had only recently got back together after a difficult few months and his amazing new opportunity threw into sharp relief the fact that I really was dragging my heels on the job front.

I think I was in a really common situation. I didn’t hate my job. I didn’t hate my colleagues. I had been there for over three years and I knew how things worked. It was a comfy position to be in. But isn’t being comfortable sometimes just a euphemism for stagnating? In my case, yes, it was. I was pretty sure that I was in the right industry (publishing), but was I really in the right area (academic)? As 2012 ticked on, various bits and pieces happened that made me feel that no, this really wasn’t the ideal job for me. But change is hard and I could always come up with plenty of excuses not to start applying for something new:

-“We’re in a recession. There aren’t any jobs. It would be madness to give up an established career.”

-“I only know how to work in academic publishing. They won’t want to hire me to work for a trade house. They’ll think I can only work with academics on textbooks. There’s no point in even applying.”

-“I’ve just been asked to cover a period of maternity leave. I can’t leave now – people would just be left in the lurch.”

However, as some fabulous friends pointed out, these weren’t actually very good excuses:

-“Actually, there are jobs out there. Not a lot of jobs, but a few publishing gigs are definitely available. There’ll be a lot of competition but if you don’t apply, you definitely have no chance.”

-“Maybe. Maybe all the trade-publishing houses won’t want you. Maybe some of them won’t want to employ you. Maybe one of them will – and you really only need one! But if you don’t apply, you definitely have no chance.”

-“There will never be a perfect time to leave your current job. If you’re not covering maternity leave, you’ll be working on a super-important project, or preparing to travel to a busy conference. There will always be an excuse to stay put.”

And so, slowly, I started sending out applications. Evenings were spent putting together cover letters and updating my CV. I developed a minor fixation with checking the Guardian jobs website, and a slightly more serious obsession with the jobs section of the Bookseller.

As any other job-hunters will know, most of my applications received absolutely no response. Nothing. Nada. Not even a ‘thanks for sending in your application’ or ‘thanks but no thanks.’ So even though you know perfectly well that you’ve been unsuccessful, the lack of response gives you just that teeny tiny spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, you might get an interview.

With pretty much a total lack of response, I think I was permanently disheartened for several months. October 2012 rolled around and my boyfriend started his new job, commuting back and forth to London everyday. There were a few weeks when the job hunt slowed, when there didn’t seem to be any new openings.

And then.

A tiny advert in the Bookseller. A small publisher. Looking for a commissioning editor to work on their mind, body and spirit list. Ho hum. Mind, body and spirit. This was definitely my area. Out came the cover letter and out went the usual standard phrases about my academic background, my academic publishing experience. In went the fact that I love yoga, that I’m fascinated by astrology, that I own a scary amount of self-help books.

Click send.

The next day I was invited for an interview.

My interviewers were really friendly. We talked about different yoga styles. We talked about astrology. We discussed cranio-sacral therapy and hypnotherapy. My academic background wasn’t mentioned at all. 

They asked me what I knew about trade publishing. I said not a lot.

They asked me if I had experience using any of their design systems. I said no.

Then we talked about yoga again.

Later that day, I got the job.

I’ve been here for just over a month. I work in a lovely open-plan office in central London. I have absolutely loads to learn as very little about my previous job has prepared me for my new role. Fortunately, I have very patient colleagues who are showing me the ropes and bearing with me as I slowly find my feet.

Over the past month, I’ve also found that the little grey cloud of negativity that I’d been trailing around for a large part of 2012 has disappeared. I’m starting to remember that actually, I’m not a negative person. Sarcastic? Yes, definitely. Cynical? Occasionally. But negative? Well, not so much. It’s amazing what a fresh start and doing something that you really love can do!

Which isn’t to say it’s all flowers and rainbows here in London town. I miss my friends in Cambridge loads and I don’t really know anyone in my new area. I miss my 15 minute cycle to work, which has been replaced by almost an hour each way of rush-hour on the tube (which, by the way, is my least favorite thing about London at the moment, and probably will get its own post on here at some point!).

So that’s a little update on all things QQ at the moment!

Yep, change is daunting. Yep, it’s very odd to go from knowing all the ins and outs of your job to knowing very little and being the new girl. But overall, taking a bit of a leap in the dark and changing direction is turning out to be a very good decision!

And I promise that the next post will be a return to your regularly scheduled dose of snarkiness (maybe!).

*No, this really wasn’t the plan and obviously a longer break between jobs would have been fantastic, however a combination of two month’s notice plus no annual leave added up to a stupidly stressful turnaround!

An afternoon with Clara

With Nano finished and Christmas done and dusted for another year, I finally have a bit of free time to get back to blogging (one of many New Year’s Resolutions is to try and blog more regularly).  The run-up to Christmas is always a bit manic, the big day itself tends to leave me somewhat frazzled – especially as it was my first time hosting the whole shebang this year – and with a new job and a move to London looming on the horizon in the next fortnight, 2013 looks to be getting off to a hectic start too! So thank goodness for the next few days, which are a much-needed holiday. I don’t have much planned, apart from catching up with some old friends. And today, I decided to spend some time with one of my oldest friends. Clara.

I’ve known Clara since I was 11. We met in Surrey and have pretty much gone everywhere together ever since. I don’t get to spend as much time with Clara as I would like, so days like today are a real treat. Clara, as you have probably worked out by now, is, of course:

My beautiful harp.

She’s a clarsach (or clarseach, or clairseach…hence the name: Clara the Clarsach. What?! I did say that I was 11 when I got my harp!) – a concert-strung, Celtic beauty with 34 strings, a maple frame and hand-painted designs on the side.

I’ve been playing the harp since I was 9 and, after 2 years of renting a harp from the local education board (yep, you really can rent just about anything!), my parents decided that the harp and I were developing into a fairly serious relationship and that I should have one of my own. And so we went to Pilgrim Harps (www.pilgrimharps.co.uk) to find Clara.

Over the past 20 years (great, now I feel old!) I’ve played, practised and performed at lots of different events from weddings to corporate Christmas dinners. However, I’m really not a natural performer, so in some ways the harp and I must seem like an odd fit. It’s a flashy instrument, a bit of a showstopper. When people come to visit, Clara does tend to attract attention and I sit there, waiting for the inevitable ‘go on, give us a tune’ comments to start.

And, because people tend to get the wrong end of the stick and think I’m being really precious if I don’t play something, more often than not I’ll pluck a quick reel or jig and hope that will be enough. I’m an introvert – not at all a performer. I love playing as part of a group, or providing background music (that’s just adding atmosphere, people are too busy eating canapés and quaffing bubbly to really pay attention to the music – and that’s fine by me) but put me centre stage and things tend to fall to pieces. Faced with a solo performance, you can pretty much guarantee that my hands will be so clammy they’ll start to slip off the strings, I’ll make mistakes in pieces that I know by heart, and my right leg will start to shake uncontrollably (the left leg never gives me any such trouble!). Really, I would have been better off staying in the background with my recorder!

Of course, there are exceptions and every so often I’ll leap out of my comfort zone and do something like this:

That’s me playing at a (very good) friend’s wedding. I love being able to add something to such a special day and it's always lovely to be asked, but I’ll only do it if I have a) plenty of notice (i.e. plenty of time to practise, practise, practise) and b) it needs to be for a very good friend!

So I love days like today. It’s just Clara and me. I have enough time to tune every one of those 34 strings, replace the ones that need to be changed, and play my way through a repertoire of old favourites and practise new pieces. I’m a fan of mixing it up, so I’m as likely to play Death Cab for Cutie or Bob Dylan, as I am a traditional Irish air.  I’m hugely in favour of everyone having a ‘selfish’ hobby like this. My harp is just for me and it’s really just for my own enjoyment.  Practising makes me happy (and a better harper!) and that’s it. It doesn’t keep me fit or help me to lose weight. It doesn’t make me more intelligent. It’s a million miles away from my 9-5 office life and won’t improve my career prospects. It doesn’t benefit anyone else apart from me.

And, I think that's okay. Sometimes, a little bit of selfishness is just what the doctor ordered and, after an afternoon with my harp, I'm feeling relaxed, happy, and just about ready to start tackling the chore that is packing for our move to London!

Nano - 10 days in!

The Nano challenge: Write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days.

So we’re 10 days in and this is how things are shaping up:

Target word count for day 10: 16,670

Actual word count for day 10: 16,717

Ever so slightly over the target and I’m pleased with how my second attempt at Nano is coming along.*  As with last year, I’m surprised at just how much time I’ve managed to free up and devote to writing. My Nano strategy so far has been to follow the mantra ‘Just Sit Down and Write!’ As with last year, having a specific goal to work towards (those elusive 50,000 words) is providing me with a lot of focus and an unusual amount of self-discipline. I get in from work and I sit down and…I write. There’s absolutely no reason that I can’t do this every other month of the year, but there’s definitely something about the Nano challenge that compels me to actually put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, to be more precise) and tell a story from start to finish.

One of trickiest things for me at the moment is forcing myself not to listen to my inner editor. Given that I work as an, um, editor, this is pretty difficult. It’s hard to allow myself to simply write, to put the words on the page and just get the story down, without checking and rechecking every phrase to ensure that it’s perfect.  I have to tell myself that doing that would defeat the point of Nano (for me, at least). I know that what I’ve written so far is nowhere near perfect. If I get to the end of Nano and I have written something that I quite like, it will need to be thoroughly revised, redrafted and refined before I let anyone else within reading distance of it! For now though, I’m trying to tell myself that it’s okay not to be dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts at this point. Right now, it’s about getting the story out of my head and onto the page. Telling the tale from start to finish. Taking baby steps towards writing a book.

*I have, however, started to realize that Nano-ing and blogging are pretty much incompatible, so I think that blogs entries over the coming weeks could be few and far between!

Countdown to Nano!

Nanowrimo.

This time last year, I hadn’t heard of it.

I was introduced to the idea of Nanowrimo by my friend Sarah. Being a very astute and observant lady, Sarah had noticed that although I love to write, my writing plans are often thwarted by a fairly pronounced tendency to procrastinate.

My writing-procrastination cycle goes something like this:

1- Have idea for story.

Excellent.

2 – Decide to write detailed plot outline for said story (can’t begin writing without full plot, otherwise madness will ensue).

3 - Decide is more important to first have detailed life histories drawn up for all characters in book.

4 – Veer off into random daydreams in which I become bestselling author. Decide to use money from bestselling books to buy rambling, rundown farmhouse in beautiful countryside idyll.

5- Wonder how best to approach renovation project on rambling farmhouse.

6 – Argue with boyfriend over décor ideas for (non-existent) farmhouse that has been bought with (non-existent) money from (non-existent) bestselling books.

7 – Boyfriend suggests may be best to start by actually writing book.

8 – Write 1000 words.

9 – Stop writing as am distracted by: work/ yoga class/ work/ going for a run/ work/ catching up with the girls/ work /going out with the boy/ work/ phone calls from my mother…etc…

10 – Decide problem was idea for story. Clearly not engaging enough otherwise would not have procrastinated in such a fashion.

11 – Have another idea for story.

Excellent.

So, with this in mind, Sarah’s suggestion that I give Nanowrimo a go was perfectly timed.

Nanwrimo = NationalNovelWritingMonth.

It happens every November and the aim is to write the (very!) rough draft of a novel in 30 days. Nanowrimo sets 50,000 words as the goal. For all things Nano-related see http://www.nanowrimo.org/en.

Last November I signed up, logged in and decided to see if I could write 1666 words per day. And here’s the interesting thing – I could. All that time I thought I didn’t have, suddenly materialized. I was carving out pockets of writing time here, there and everywhere. 15 minutes in the morning before leaving for work. 20 minutes on my lunchbreak. 30 minutes while dinner was in the oven.

I suppose I really shouldn’t have been surprised that having a specific writing goal in mind for each day worked so well for me. I’ve always been that way – working best when I’m working towards something specific. At the moment, for example, I’m really struggling to find the motivation to run as I’m not really training for anything. When I was training for my 10k earlier this year, or for the relay race a few weeks ago, it wasn’t hard to motivate myself to get out there and train, but with no new race to work towards, I’m finding it all too easy to talk myself out of lacing up my trainers.

Nanowrimo also tapped into my fairly strong competitive streak. There’s a lively Nano community and most participants log their daily word counts online so it’s very easy to see how you’re doing in comparison to everyone else.  Do I really want to be the person who is only logging 100 words per day while everyone else is hurtling towards the 50,000 mark? Definitely not.

Of course, Nano isn’t for everyone and there are arguments to suggest that maybe it’s not even a very good idea at all. After all, what sort of material is going to come out of a period of enforced creativity? It’s a fair point and indeed, I’ve read stories about editors complaining about the amount of appalling draft manuscripts they receive post-Nano as aspiring writers send their work to publishing houses as soon as they type that 50,0000^th word.

But it worked for me and I think it’s a good idea for people, like me, who have plenty of book ideas floating around but struggle to find the time to get anything down on paper.

Unfortunately, Nano beat me last year. I was going well and had even hit the half-way mark when the combination of a break-up and a house move knocked me for six and my daily writing targets were abandoned.

And now it’s almost Nano time again. I’m signed up. I’m ready to go. And this year, I’m getting all the way to 50,000 words.

Plus, I have a really good idea for a story.

Excellent.