How Many Careers Can a Girl Have?

I do believe that it must be really hard to decide what you want to do with your life at 17 and a half. I mean does anyone actually have a clue what they want to do when they grow up? I most certainly do not. I am a few years off 40 and I am trying my hand out at career numbers 3 and 4 almost simultaneously! Number 3 is that of a 'stay at home mum', although I do prefer the old fashioned term of 'housewife', I believe it flows of the tongue a bit better. Career no 4 is a writer.

My first choice of career was as a nurse in a busy A&E department. It was great fun, but one can only take so much abuse, and I had always toyed with the idea of being a solicitor, so off I went back to uni and seven years later, I qualified as a solicitor. During that time, I also managed to squeeze out a baby! So I went from saving lives, to probably ruining lives, to bringing another life into the world.

After a couple of miscarriages, (which affected me quite badly), I decided to quit work and stay at home with my one and only daughter, Juliette. She started school last year, and I had some time on my hands, not wanting to do too much housework, I started baking. I was quite good, or so I thought until I saw what baker, Ruth Clemens from The great British Bake Off was producing in her spare time! Which I can imagine was little, what with three young boys running around! (You can check Ruth out on Facebook or Twitter. She is known as 'The Pink Whisk').

I am now loving tweeting, writing my blog, trying to finish an assignment for this writing course I am doing, and moot some ideas for my novel for National Novel Writing Month. I have a couple of ideas. Are you interested? Well, even if you're not, I am telling you anyway!

Option one - A novel for teenagers. The Wirral, during the seventeenth century, was notorious for smugglers, wreckers and privateers. I am hoping to loosely base a bit of a girl meets boy from a different century kind of first love kinda story. Honestly, it will be better than it sounds. I don't want to go into too much detail, as that would ruin it!

Option two - I think I have already mentioned a chick lit kind of novel.

I am not sure which one? I love history and have a bit of a passion for the past, especially if it is local. Hmmm, what to do? Decisions decisions. The research will be fun anyway!

Anyway peoples, as the meerkat would say - its simples!

Short Stories and Other Musings!

I firstly must apologise for the many spelling errors in this blog. I do have a good excuse, well, I think it is a good one anyway! Because of dodgy floater in eye, I have spent all morning at the eye hospital - kindly driven by my good friend Anna. Eye all okay, but again have pupils the size of bin lids, and I am hiding in a darkened room, refusing to answer the door, because I am wearing my glasses (not that anyone has called!) I am struggling to type, as the keyboard keeps moving and the letters on the screen look like I have had a few to many G&T's!

Another brilliant excuse for not writing much today! I did manage to scribble down some notes for the NaNoWriMo, which starts in November. Tomorrow, I am meeting the Liverpool branch of nutty writers, who wish to raise their blood pressures to abnormally high levels, by attempting to write a novel in a month! Fortunately I now have something concrete to contribute!

I have moved from young adult genre to chick lit with a twist. Well, not exactly a twist, more a slightly darker element, I think. Will have probably changed my mind by tomorrow though! I do love reading chick lit - it is pure escapism, and you can often relate to the main character at least in part.

Do you think that watching 'Diagnosis Murder' is conducive to writing?

Oh and in case anyone was wondering, I still haven't emailed the short story to my friend yet! Too scared of her red pen - she is a teacher you know! As for the crappy assignment on the writing course I signed up for - well - what can I say? The latter part of the assignment is a travel article and I am struggling. The reasons are twofold. Firstly, I haven't actually travelled anywhere recently, and secondly, camping in Devon has probably been done already! Although, I am planning to write more about following Kate Rew's outdoor swimming haunts from her book rather than describing the loos in great detail. (Very important on a campsite!) Who knows? All I can say is that I have been putting it off for about 3 months now, so I guess I had better rip that plaster off and get on with it.

It will have to wait until Monday now! Oops!

Procrastinating!

It is so easy to do - procrastinating that is! This is the first thing I have written today. Sorry, that is not strictly true, I have tweeted a bit and emailed the lovely Ruth, from 'The Great British Bake Off'. Not very impressive. Even washing dirty sheets is more important today. Yesterday I didn't blog, but then I ended up having a contact lenses check up, mentioned an innocent floater that I have had for ages, next thing I know I am having eye drops put in to dilate the pupils, photographs taken of my eyeball (they looked very pretty), referrals made to the eye clinic!! What! Furthermore, my pupils looked like I had consumed vast quantities of illegal substances, and I couldn't tolerate the sunlight. Therefore, I spent most of yesterday lying down in a darkened room, with my glasses on, watching old re-runs of Friends!

Not a bad way to spend a day, I hear your cry. No you're right, it's not. But I must stress I absolutely hate wearing my glasses. I blame the NHS pink plastic things, that when at seven years old, I snuck them on my face in assembly, whilst singing 'Lord of All Hopefulness', flat and out of tune, although it was a bonus that I could actually see the words on the projector! Anyway, Mike Kirby turned around, pointed, laughed and screamed between his mirth's, "Duckie is wearing glasses!" I could have died, and I am afraid that the floor didn't open and swallow me up, despite my begging. Anyway, I have been emotionally scared by this trauma, and it is contact lenses all the way for me now!

On a more positive note, I have finished my short story, and am psyching myself up to email it to a friend for scrutiny. Not sure I want to yet, it probably needs more work. Will leave it alone for a day or so and then I will revisit and revise. Will let you know how I get on.

Tweeting and Other Stuff!

I am a newbie to Twitter, and I am finding it strangely addictive. It is so much better than Facebook, where I spent most of my time 'spying' on my out laws to see what they were up to, and getting pissed off when they didn't include me in so called 'family days'. No, Twitter is much better, you say your piece and move on.

The writing - hmm what can I say about the writing, apart from the fact it is the primary reason I started this blog. As you can see, I am writing, but it is my blog, rather than a constructive piece of creative fiction. The truth is, I am scared, scared that my creativeness doesn't actually exist, and I am actually just kidding myself. I have set myself a goal, to finish assignment 6 of my writing course, and write a short story of approx 1000 - 3000 words and send it in to a competition in the Writers Forum. This should get me into the swing of things for NaNoWriMo in November. Well, that is the plan anyway I also need to decide what age range I am writing for. Is it adults or teenagers, or younger children? I have no idea - answers on a postcard please...

Funny Old Day.

Sometimes I have funny old day, where I have loads to do, but not sure whether I can actually be bothered doing any. I know that I will feel industrious when I have completed some tasks, and I know that once I start the things I need to do, the won't be that bad anyway, but well, it's the starting of things that really gets me. Sometimes I sound like my five year old - "I'm bored," "I have nothing to do." I guess I feel like I need to be constantly entertaining my daughter, and finding her friends to play with, when really what she actually needs to be doing is learning how to play by herself. The joys of being an only child I'm afraid.

She is upstairs at the moment, supposedly tidying her room and conducting a treasure hunt. Well, it is not really a treasure hunt, it is a long hard hunt for lost items, which I know are still in her room, but are no-where to be find. I will teach her to take care of her things, I will, I will. It is going to be my mission. She will respect her belongings, she will not want to throw them away because, and I quote "I have had it for more than a year Mummy." I must admit I was not sure how to respond to that one, hence a long detailed diatribe about, just because it is not brand new doesn't mean we can replace it because it is lost, taking care of things, money doesn't grow on trees. You get the picture. She wasn't listening, her eyes were glazed over and she was busy planning her list for Father Christmas.

I have decided that I won't be buying any toys for her birthday, as she has a room full and doesn't play with them. Barbie, Go Go hamsters, dolls, games, all sitting there untouched. I am sure they all gossip about her at night and feel that she doesn't love them! Even the near death scene of Toy Story 3 failed to move her, whilst I was dabbing my tears away, desperately trying not to show my distress. I will buy her some presents, but more likely clothes and books, because she does actually love books and stories, and she loves the outdoors so I shouldn't complain too much, she is rather gorgeous.

Anyway, I figure that all this procrastination is actually writing, as I am writing this not v interesting blog and I am thinking about my novel, my next assignment for the writing course I am doing and my what to tweet (this tweeting stuff is actually quite addictive). Anyway, enough of being a lazy so and so, am going to make some lunch. Nigella I am not, but one cannot work on an empty stomach!

Get On With It!

It is now 10.20 and I have written nothing - not one lousy word. But I have been busy, honest! I have set up a twitter account and I am now following Richard & Judy! Well, I thought I should as I did meet them a couple of weeks ago. It was part of a photo shoot in London for Women's Own magazine. They are carrying on the hugely successful Richard & Judy book club and I am one of the reviewers!

I was so excited to meet them and they were very nice. However, this novel is not going to write itself and I need to get my head round things and elaborate on my ideas. What do you think about a novel about smugglers, wreckers, ghosts and a bit of romance thrown in?? Not sure myself need to do a bit of research.

Need chocolate, must go.

OMG! What have I done?

Well, I have really gone and done it now. I have signed up to NaNoWriMo, which is a sort of writing challenge. Well, not sort of, it is a writing challenge. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month! Yes, in a month, and I have signed up. I haven't written fiction since school, and although I do have a vague idea of a story, I have no idea of anything else.

The challenge begins on 1 November 2010, so watch this space, where I will attempt to write about my trials and tribulations on this blog, in between penning my rambling novel! It could get interesting.

I have Keris Stainton to thank for this. Her debut novel 'Della Says OMG' has recently been published to great reviews, and she mentioned this site on Facebook, and in an interview with "The Writers Forum". I used to go to school with Keris, and was good friends with her sister. But before you think that I am on some sort of commission from her publishers! I am not, but her book is a fun read.

I myself need to rack my brains for some inspiration, maybe I will just go and walk the dog in the woods and wait for the ideas and musings to hit me along with the falling branches. (It is a tad windy today). Or maybe I will start listening more carefully to the conversations of the mummies at the school gate! Watch out Jilly Cooper, here I come!