' "I'd kill you in a second." He laughed: "yeah, I know." '

Today I learned some sciency things about the brain. Did you know that as well as the fight or flight response that we have in times of stress, there is also another response? We freeze. Of course, in the real world, these situations apply less to freezing in front of sabre tooth tigers thus leading to being eaten, but more to normal every day tasks which we find difficult. As in- homework looks hard! Can’t do it! Freeze! Which in turn leads to procrastination.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that I’m finding the idea of maintaining a blog and a full time PGCE stressful and the result is that I Freeze! and procrastinate on my blog, whether through not posting much or not commenting on other people’s blogs. But I want to get better and I will try harder. For anyone wondering, I am still reading your blogs. What would help is if there were any definite topics I had to write about, so if anyone has anything they would love to hear my *opinion* on (I don't know why you would but still) let me know. :)

So, boys and girls, after that rambling introduction I thought I’d talk about the topic of death- or more specifically, goodies killing baddies. Death is a funny thing in novels. In real life, I’m a pacifist. I don’t agree with killing under any circumstances. That’s not to say that I think all rapists and murderers deserve to live, but that I don’t agree with the act of the person who has to electrocute or inject them- I don’t agree that anyone should be a killer, legal or otherwise. But anyway, I’m going off on a tangent here so I’ll get back to the point. In real life, death isn’t taken lightly. I have my views. You have yours. Mr and Mrs down the street have theirs. Most people will have an opinion on killing. Most people don’t ever expect to see it in their lives.

With that in mind, try now to imagine seeing someone get killed. Blood, guts, bowel releases, the whole extravaganza. I know I’m being graphic here, but it’s to help make you place it. If it were me, I’d be throwing up at the sight. I’d probably faint, histrionic as that sounds. 

So why in books is goodies killing baddies often taken lightly? I’m talking about protagonists who kill villains and don’t even blink. They look forward to doing it. They desire it.

I think it’s general consensus now that readers want true-to-life characters who react properly to things, but the death of a bad guy is still lacking that grounding in reality. I think part of the problem is that as authors, most of us have no idea what witnessing a real murder feels like, so we assume that if it’s a bad guy then we won’t care.

I could be wrong but I disagree with this. I’ll admit I feel queasy at the first sight of blood so I’m always going to be on the stronger end of the spectrum, but I think that it doesn’t matter who’s injured or killed: the sight of someone who’s insides are clearly outside should set our gag reflexes going. When it comes down to it, the sight of a dead person should strip us down to our basest instincts: Humans want and expect to see other humans alive, not dead. Obviously, I’m not talking about army vets or doctors here, but for the average guy on the street who becomes a reluctant hero and then finds they’ve killed someone, there should be more of a response than ‘oh, he’s dead.’ I think the sight of a mutilated body will always come across as wrong, no matter whose it is. 

This can go a step further. Why do we make our protagonists want to kill the bad guy? Would we, ourselves, be so eager to kill someone in real life? There’s no coming back from killing, and I do believe the act changes you. If a protagonist decides they have to kill someone, this should be done after an agonising amount of thought.

Yes, I’m overthinking it. If you don’t expect this from me by now then I don’t know whose blog you’ve been reading but it isn’t mine. Perhaps you could argue that the news has desensitised us to violence, but I think that seeing something on a TV from the safety of your house and actually living it are poles apart in their differences.

Is this a topic any of you’ve ever thought much about? Have you found yourself killing off a baddie and had your protagonist act completely blasé about it? Have I now sent you into an editing frenzy as you quickly change your characters’ responses? (Trust me, I’m not expecting that J). I’m fully aware that the above is just my opinion so feel free to let me know if you agree/disagree with it and why!

‘Isn’t it ironic, doncha think?’ Er, no actually, no it’s not.

I’ve come over all teacherly thanks to my course, so I thought I’d go into full English mode and point out a few common errors made by lots of writers. Including me. Looking at my list, these pesky little details may not seem like a big deal, but being aware of them could be the difference between an agent deciding to read your manuscript or not, so they might be worth taking note of.

1. Lay down/Lie down. When you’re talking about a person, ‘lay down’ is past tense, and ‘lie down’ is present tense. So you never ever ask someone to ‘lay down’ you ask them to ‘lie down.’ I first became aware of this when some lyrics of a song were bothering me because they were grammatically incorrect, ‘…someone to lay with’ and I mentioned it to a friend. She was confused at what I meant. That was when I realised just how common it is to use ‘lay’ for present tense regarding a person. Chickens lay eggs, people lay tables, but people don’t lay down. I don’t care if 90% of the English-speaking world is saying it, it’s still wrong. You want further proof? Word just underlined ‘lay’ with green, to show that it’s grammatically incorrect. The word it wants me to change it to? ‘Lie.’

2. All right. You don’t really hear about this much, but there’s actually no such word as ‘alright.’ It should always, always be ‘all right.’ Two words. I don’t know why. Just is.

3.Ironic. ‘It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife…’ This is not actually irony. ‘A situation is…ironic (situational irony) if the actions taken have an effect exactly opposite from what was intended.’ Having lots of spoons is not the opposite result of wanting a knife. ‘If the speaker is rifling through a silverware drawer which is known to contain knives, then this is ironic. If she's in a spoon factory, it isn't.’ I’ll let Marco from Animorphs explain it a little better: ‘We’re going to bring on global warming because we ran too many leaky air conditioners? We used too much spray deodorant, so now we’ll be doomed to sweat forever?…That’s irony. Note to Alanis. That is irony.’   

4. Him and I/Me and Her/She and I. (Etc) So you write the sentence ‘him and I went to the cinema,’ and you’re not sure if it’s right? Break the sentence down. ‘I went to the cinema’- fine. ‘Him went to the cinema’- not so much. It becomes obvious it should be ‘he and I went to the cinema.’ Always break the bits up if you’re not certain. ‘Me and her went swimming’. ‘Me went swimming’ – no. ‘Her went swimming’. Also no. So what should it be? ‘She and I’ would work, but ‘we’ is a lot neater. If still in doubt, try and use ‘we’ or ‘us’ to avoid confusion.

5. Run/Ran Bid/Bade Grit/Gritted Spit/Spat. I am especially guilty of this one, but there are some words that always seem to end up being written in present tense, even when the writer is writing in past tense. It’s always things we know when we stop to think about it, but somehow we slip up on certain words because they just seem to work in present tense. I think part of the problem is that they rhyme with some words that are in past tense, or words that don’t have a past tense. Like ‘hit.’ You wouldn’t say ‘hitted’ or ‘hat’. You’d say ‘I hit the ball’ which could be either past or present tense. ‘Grit’ and ‘Spit both rhyme with ‘Hit’ so when I’m writing and listening to the flow of the words, rather than thinking about them individually, I find that they sneakily sound like they work. Unfortunately, this isn’t really one you can check, apart from keeping a close eye out for the blighters whilst editing.   

6. Until/til/till. We shorten the word ‘until’ a lot. What we often forget is that the shortened version of ‘until’ is ‘til’ not ‘till.’ A ‘till’ is a cash register. Careful with this one. Kate Middleton was caught using ‘till’ instead of ‘til’ in a letter and was mocked for it by the press. Which just goes to show you never what snobs out there will be judging you on your grammar rather than what you’re saying.

7. Compliment/complement. They’re two separate words. Who knew? I think most people know what a compliment is: ‘you like nice’ ‘your eyes are pretty’ ‘I love the way your greasy hair shines in the moonlight.’ Ok, that last one was backhanded, but still, you get my point. It’s to say something nice about someone/something. So you probably know what complement is too- when two things/people bring out the best in each other and work well together, they complement each other. And they’re spelt differently- even though they mean very similar things. Go figure.

8. And this last one is just because it irritates me no end, but has absolutely nothing to do with writing. A person who doesn’t eat meat but eats fish is not a vegetarian. They’re a pescetarian. No creature of any kind = vegetarian, no meat = pescetarian. As a vegetarian, I get asked a lot if I eat fish. *Headdesk.* I think people should now know the answer to that one.

Just a quick note- due to my now much, much busier schedule, I don’t know how regularly I’ll be updating my blog. I’ll try to do at least Wednesdays and Sundays- hopefully more if I can find the time! J

‘When the sale comes first and the truth comes second just stop for a minute and smile.’

So, I’ve been away from bloggy world for longer than I’d hoped, (three days but it feels like a lifetime.) I’d like to say that this is because I’ve been hard at work, writing, but the truth is I’ve been struck with the dreaded blog-writer’s block. So, if anyone has any brilliant ideas on what my next few posts should be, if there are any films or books they’d love for me to review/rip to shreds, or if they are just desperate to hear the sound of my writer’s voice, let me know. I’m needing an inspiration fairy right about now. Inspiration fairies are like muses, but better.

On a side note, I did, in fact, finish the first draft of my WIP this morning, so I guess it’s now time for the real work to begin! Fun, fun, fun. My WIP is currently called Raven’s Keep, and I’d love any feedback you have on that title. Hate it? Love it? Indifferent? Please, please, please let me know!

This post does actually have a topic by the way, and is not just me rambling from one point to the next. Today I thought I’d discuss my biggest book-related pet peeve: Celebrity writers.

God. Uch. The two words don’t even go together. I mean, that’s an oxymoron if ever there was one. Aren’t writers by their very definition meant to be people who stay out of the limelight? (You can disagree with me on that comment- I know I’m generalising to make my point.) Celebrity autobiographies are bad but fiction is even worse. At least with the autobiographies, it’s pretty much a guarantee that the celebrity ‘author’ knows what their book is about.

Don’t get me wrong- I have nothing against ghostwriters. Every writer would do pretty much anything if it involves being paid to do what they love, and I can’t blame them for that.

The thing that gets to me is that I live and breathe writing. I think about it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I couldn’t not write, even if I knew my work would never ever be read, because writing is just part of what makes me me. 

But for celebrities, it is just a vehicle that earns them money. Most of them don’t care about writing or reading or books in themselves. They just want their hard-hitting, ‘tell-all’ book to be the Christmas number one bestseller. And people wonder why libraries are closing?!

For me, books are art. They might not be for many of you, and that’s fine. You might just view the written word as fun entertainment, whether through blogging, or poems, or reading. But think about it- you wouldn’t catch a celebrity trying to sell a painting, would you? (Although it will happen soon, when people in the industry realise there’s a profit to be made from it) For me, celebrity art *shudders* and celebrity books are the same thing- completely absurd. Writing is an art, and if you don’t have the talent, or at least the love for it, you shouldn’t do it. (I’m aware I could be shooting myself in the foot here, over my questionable ‘talent,’ but hey, no one can question my dedication.) You want to reveal your life story? Do it in a gossip magazine- that’s what they’re there for.

 Perhaps I’m just bitter or grumpy, or can’t face the cold, hard truth of reality, but I can’t shake this skewed idea I have that unless you love reading and the written word, you shouldn’t be allowed to write. Why should people read your books, if you don’t read yourself? People who have never read a book in their lives and don’t intend to start, even with their own products, should not be allowed to make money from their ‘books.’ It’s just plain gross. For every celebrity who churns out a future bargain-bin waste of space without thought or care, there are thousands of would-be writers, dreaming, breathing and loving writing and being rejected by publishers across the world. 

Yes, I am aware that this horrible epidemic can’t be outlawed and that we don’t live in ‘fair’ land. I am also aware that some of these books could be amazing. I don’t know, I’ve never read any, and whether they’re amazing or shit is irrelevant. The issue is why they exist. I recently had an opportunity to do work experience at a big publishing company, and I actually sat through a meeting where one member of the team suggested approaching a certain popular octogenarian to see if he fancied 'writing' another autobiography. No one was keen on the pitch and everyone was clearly thinking: who actually cares what this celebrity has to say? But the idea wasn’t ruled out. You know why? Because they knew there might be money in it.

In all honesty, I just want to know why. Why do people read these books? What is there that draws people to them? Because, personally, I just can’t see it. If you are a fan of celebrity books, don’t be shy- I won’t bite your head off. I’m not attacking the readers, just the principle of celebrity books as a ruthless, calculated, moneymaking venture. I want to know what’s good about them so I can sleep better at night.

(Disclaimer: I do not actually stay awake at night worrying about the future of books because of the current epidemic of celebrity authors- I was just being dramatic. :D )

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. ~Gene Fowler

Working on a WIP (work in progress) is haaaarrrd. Seriously. I find that although writing is perfectly easy to do in short stories, it suddenly becomes a total chore when I have a three hundred-page book to write, and in my desire to get a novel out, I lose all capability for something as simple as decent sentence structure. (See what I mean?) My similes stop making sense, I forget all about description, I start comma splicing, and every character starts talking in, like, exactly the same way.

I am about three chapters from the end of my current WIP. Soooo close! It’s just pushing myself that’s the problem. I hate writing badly, but I know that if I don’t do the first draft badly, it won’t get written at all.

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.  ~James Michener

 Who was it who said that thing about genius being 90% hard work, 10% inspiration? (Not that I’m deluded enough to think I’m a genius- I’d happily accept being called a half-wit -the quote just serves my purpose.) I’m pretty sure I’ve misquoted anyway, but you know what I mean. Right? Right?!

I have inspiration for perhaps the first two chapters of any book. And then it’s gone. Used up in the amount of time it takes me to do this. *Clicks fingers.* The rest of the book- however many years it takes me to write it -is mostly just hard work, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get the occasional spurt of enthusiasm again, every few months or so.

That’s not to say I don’t like my stories, or enjoy creating them, or even that I don’t enjoy writing. I love them. To all of the above. I can spend many a happy hour thinking about my stories and what direction I want them to go in. My characters are as real and as loved for me as any other author’s characters are for them.

The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air.  All I must do is find it, and copy it.  ~Jules Renard, "Diary," February 1895

And I love writing- I love putting a new spin on old ideas and an old twist on new ones. I love similes and metaphors and cringeworthy puns. I love the surprises that get you at the end of a good book, even though in hindsight you kick yourself because you really should have seen them coming. I love poetic language to describe death and commonplace words to describe love. I love writing something horrendous so that I can sift through it to get to the good stuff, which I know I must have in me somewhere; only it’s probably deep, deep, deep down inside. Probably.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

But there’s something about sitting in front of a computer, seeing pages of my own writing, and just being filled with self-doubt. I think self-doubt must be the death of creativity. (Apparently I’m paraphrasing Sylvia Plath here.)

 It gets easier with each draft. I mean, I don’t have much experience as this is only my second proper WIP, but I think it’s about seeing the words on the page translate the images in my head, and the closer I get to that, the calmer I feel. I know I will never reach the point where a book feels complete for me (I don’t think that’s possible for any writer) but I would like to reach a point where I feel confident that I’ve written a good story.

The time to begin writing … is when you have finished [your work] to your satisfaction.  By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.  ~Mark Twain

So, how about you? Anyone else feeling the frustration of ‘oh my god I could finish my first draft in ten hours if I just made myself work on it’ versus ‘but you won’t because it’s shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit’? Or is that just me?? *Laughs manically.*

Any comments, thoughts, experiences or advice to get my head examined would be muchly appreciated.

A writer and nothing else:  a [person] alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right.  ~John K. Hutchens, New York Herald Tribune, 10 September 1961

A Series of Unfortunate Babbling:

So I've heard that Good Things come to those who Blog, and I thought I'd give it a try, even though I'm quaking in my Converses. Apparently, as an aspiring author, I should have been doing this, like, five billion years ago, but better late than never! At the moment I'm strangely lost for words, even though I started writing this post knowing exactly what I wanted to say. Which kinda makes this post completely at odds with its title. Oh well. Anyway, don't worry, there will be plenty of babbling, because once I get started on a topic, I don't shut up until I've dissected it and snipped at it and turned it into a pretty pattern. (I'm almost 100% sure that that metaphor didn't make sense. *Shrugs*.) What I will write about are thoughts on writing - which will be as general as it sounds, ranging from ideas on characterisation to plot to language - and reviews/over inflated opinions of books/tv programs. I will try to be funny, I will try to be clever, I will try to be insightful. I will probably fail at all three but I will try. Happy reading!