Procrastination at the Desktop

I’ve decided, holidays or not, I’ll write my 2,000 words a day. But first… I’ll just have a little peek at my emails. I haven’t checked them at all today. You never know, there just might be something really important. Guess what. There was. Someone claims to have paid at last a HUGE some of money I’m owed. I’ll need to check it out later. I hate looking at my bank accounts. They’re always depressing. There’s always less there than I think – even when huge amounts like that go in.

But what’s this? A Jacquie Lawson card? I must play it a couple of times. They’re such beautiful creatures. Did I spell Jacquie right? Better check it again … and I think I’d just like to play the card one more time.

And while I think about it, I’d better send a card out myself to some of my writer friends. I put it off and put it off because it’s a little tedious loading all the addresses in. But it’s great fun playing all the new ones and some of the old ones in order to chose the one which best suits the group.

Eventually I get down to work. But every so often the computer tells me I have an email. I can’t resist checking. Many of them are saying that my friends have picked up their cards. In some cases they reciprocated with another card - Jacquie Lawson or otherwise. They have to be played and if they’re Jacquie Lawson, at least twice.

Later I read the recommendations of another writer. “Don’t work on the computer where you have email – don’t even work in the same room as where you have email.”

She may be right. On the other hand, I find the odd interruption welcome. It gives me a break when I probably need one but haven’t noticed. And it stops the whole lot of cyber correspondence piling up into an unmanageable heap.

Moving House

Why does anyone ever do that? Is it worse if you’re a writer? Do we tend to try and hold on to things more?

I sort through books not wanting to get rid of them. I hang on to letters from old friends because I think they’re going to be some sort of company from me in my old age. I think it wise to hold on to all those padded envelops so that they can be used again.

It’s a desperate situation, though. We’re downsizing, even though we’re moving to a place where we’ll both have our own studies.

Everywhere is dust and decay. We remove two thirds of what we have and the third that’s left behind seems to take up more room than the three thirds did before. As we think of the dimensions of the new house, we have to strip more and more back.

I’ve decided that this week, as I’ve taken off time form the university, I’ll concentrate during the day on the physical side of sorting things out. it’s a Bank Holiday today. But later in the week, I’ll also take the time to make the necessary phone calls. I’ve done a few already.

I promised myself, though, that I’d spend a couple of hours each evening on my writing. I’ve had my laptop plugged in in the bedroom so that I could listen to a radio broadcast whilst I did the ironing. All right I’ll come clean : I was listening to The Archers omnibus. So, it’s still a good form of story, isn’t it?

I move my computer into my study and plug it in. No little light flickers on to say that it is running off mains electricity. We do all the experiments we can with swapping leads and fuses and establish, just five minutes after PC World has closed, that it is indeed the power pack that has died.

So, I’m currently typing away on an aging PC in my husband’s study.

Bank Holiday Mondays, eh?

Hobbies for Dream-Livers

If you’re living the dream, what do you do for fun? If your day job is what you’re most passionate about, how do you have weekends and holidays?

I think I’m not the only writer who finds it difficult to answer the question “What do you do in your spare time?” One gut reaction is to say “What spare time?” If you’re self-employed, and writers living the dream are, spare time is time you’re not earning money, so the temptation is to keep on working. But you love your work anyway, so what’s the problem?

Sure, I go to the gym, but that’s about keeping the body healthy so the mind can work well on the texts and anyway, I think about my plots and characters as I plough up and down the swimming pool. There’s the odd movie – but the critical voice analyses the “text” and the writer learns form it. Even sitting in a café or a bus and people watching is part of your work. Very pleasant work, but work all the same. I do mix with friends, go to the pub with colleagues (yes, I’m employed as well, but my job is to do with my writing, ain’t I the lucky one?) and I love getting out of my head and out of my shed. I never use friends as characters. Friends are too precious for that, but I guess something about the way people are does go to the back of the subconscious all the same. Those occasions are great when they happen, but I don’t miss them if they don’t because I’m so contented with my writing life. Not my writing of course. Part of the life is ever seeking to improve and set yourself challenges.

So what is it that I now look forward to? Apart form the gin and tonic on a Saturday night and the dinner excellently prepared by my husband?

Well, I’ll tell you. It’s singing with a choir. The Ordsall Acapella Singers to be precise. I hate it if for reasons beyond my control I can’t make it to a rehearsal on a Tuesday evening. We currently meet in Ordsall Hall itself, a fantastic old house in the middle of Ordsall and not far from Salford Quays. Our choirmaster, Jeff Borradaile, is a genius at getting the best out of us. Well, he got me singing didn’t he? He makes it fun, but is strict enough with us that we wouldn’t dare offer less than our best. He’s there every week, working hard with us, and gives us confidence at the ever-increasing number of gigs we’re getting these days. On the odd occasion that he can’t be there, our chair, Andy Townsend is a very competent substitute, as well as being a talented singer. And everyone is so nice. We even had a two day workshop last weekend. People singing instead of enjoying their gardens in the rare sunshine. Wonderful!

Why do I enjoy it so much? Yep, it gets me out of my shed and out of my head. But there’s something else about singing. It lifts the sprits. I’d swear I write better the day after I’ve been to a choir practice or a gig. One of the other ladies in my section works in the NHS and she’s been accessing articles which describe in technical detail how singing causes changes n the brain, though if you’re professional, there are other stresses. There’s also something about team work. You have to blend in with the others. There’s no room for egos – even if you get to sing a solo part. It’s a group effort and a great antidote to the solitude a writer needs. Oh dear, does it mean that even this is part of my work? Well, so be it.

I was rather bemused when a colleague I met at my new position at the University of Salford was being very persuasive about the choir. She is also on the Creative Writing team, and I became so intrigued by her enthusiasm that I thought I’d better give it a go. I’d not sung in a choir for years, thought I had helped out, with other staff, at one school I taught in when the music teacher needed to encourage volume in the students singing in “Joseph”. After getting to the end of school on a Wednesday after a day of stressful interaction with demanding teeageers I would think “Heck, I’ve got all this marking to do and get ready for tomorrow. I really could do without this choir practice.” But then I’d go along anyway, becaue I don’t like to break promises, and I’d sing my heart out, then come back to my classroom. The marking was still there. It somehow didn’t bother me so much. “Piece of cake,” I thought. “It’ll only take me an hour.”

Do you know what? There’s three of us from the Creative Writing team at the University of Salford now members of the choir. Chances are, singing is the great hobby for dream-living writers.

When I was a full-time teacher in secondary schools, I used to get a similar contrast to the day job through being in a drama group. Drama is too similar to what I now do daily, with the same stresses.

So, any more writers stuck in heads and sheds living within striking distance of Ordsall, near Salford Quays? Come and join us on a Tuesday evening at 7.00 p.m at Ordsall Hall.

Maintaining a Web Presence

I guess that is what I am doing right now, in writing this blog. I’m often amazed to see that people have read it. Okay, just a handful, but it’s earning me money on Adsense and it’s a strange feeling that there are people out there, people I don’t know, who are reading my words. In some cases, they are even coming back for a second look.

It would be great, actually, if any of you who are reading this would let me know who you are, and if you keep coming, why. But if you want to remain anonymous, that’s okay, too.

There has been much debate recently on a couple of forums I’m a member of about:

· Why we need to have a web presence

· How much time it takes to keep that going

· Whether or not it takes us away from our writing.

Well I think presence, web or otherwise, is vital writers who take themselves seriously. Yes you have to write well, and then you have to get yourself out there. Get the public interested in you. After all, what does “publish” really mean? It has to be something to do with making your work public. You are part of your work.

Anyway I enjoy writing my blogs. I do this one, a fictional one, “Rozia” that is about a quite important character who has just left anoterh story. This is what happens to her after she leaves. It’s quite an experiment for me. Firstly, as a fictional blog and secondly as an experiment in writing from character. Thirdly, I never plan what I’m going to writer before I start. Then there is my “The Language Expert” blog, which is all about language learning. After all, in a former life, I spent twenty-four years teaching languages and I still write a few materials for language learning. I used to also maintain two other blogs – one about property investment and the other about the silly things which are happening in the 21^st Century. However, having decided I’m first and foremost a writer, I’ve abandoned the latter two. Other people do these things better. However, I have not taken the content down.

What I love about blogging is that is it instant publication. It also gets my writing muscles warmed up, as it’s the first writing task I do each day.

For your convenience, and if you’re interested I’ve listed my other blogs and websites on this page.

What about all those other places? My Space, Facebook, Shelfari, Twitter, Wiki and Eacademy? Oh yes, I’m there. But I don’t use those all that much. I will respond to anyone who contacts me that way and I do always list my events and new books on My Space and Facebook. Authors’ Den is also great. It’s in effect a web site you can build yourself. I am, however, using this less now and I prefer the Blogger blogging provider to the Author’s Den one.

I’m very fortunate in having a husband who maintains my personal web site. I just send him emails about what I want doing and he does it. I do spend time every now and then reviewing that site. And if I see a great idea on somebody else’s, I copy it. No shame, this woman.

Plus there are the forums: Wordpool, Bristish SCBWI and Children’s Writers.

All of this helps you to network without leaving your desk. The chat also stops the loneliness.

However, I do issue a word of caution. Remember, by being there you are putting yourself in the public eye. I do also have a writing related day job. I work as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Salford. I keep myself in check by reminding myself never to post anything I would be ashamed of the Vice-Chancellor knowing about me.