Blog Award and 10 things You Maybe Shouldn't Know About Me

Kat very sweetly gave me this blog award with the challenge to reveal 10 things about me that I have not revealed before. My writing has been a little slow of late although I have rewritten my prologue from a different angle which has been useful. I am also waiting to hear some news (any news) from a Christian Publisher who asked to see the remainder of my manuscript that I wrote on the book of Daniel. I am trying so hard not to watch my email inbox so closely but it is difficult to resist. So to take my mind off a very busy week ahead I will have a go at this meme, of course I cannot remember what I have shared and what I have kept hidden, so I hope you will all still like me afterwards!

1. I was in total, absolute, complete and devoted love with Morten Harket (lead singer of Aha) when I was 13. It spawned a number of teenage fantasy love stories that I wrote for me and my friends who lusted equally over other members of the band.
2. I shook hands with Sir Cliff Richard when he opened our former church's new building in 1997.
3. I had to go on my hen night with nit solution on my hair as a client at work had kindly given them to me the day before. Funnily enough one of my friends also sat in the restaurant with nit solution on her hair that night as she had had a similar gift from a child she taught.
4. My nickname from childhood was Mickey and I only shook it when I came to Cornwall and have returned to Michelle again. Only my husband, parents and a couple of Cornish friends call me Mick apart from my Surrey friends who I grew up with.
5. I had a Saturday/holiday job for a number of years at Chessington World of Adventures and was a dab hand at making those huge clear balloons with cuddly toys in them.
6. My aunt runs Sealion Lodge - a holiday lodge in the Falkland Islands where you can see all sorts of amazing wildlife. She told me a story about the resuce of a baby Orca which had been beached nearby. Hoping to take my son there one day as he has a passion for marine wildlife.
7. I am very, very, very, very frightened of spiders - especially big hairy ones. I have had to try and master my fear to stop influencing my children but it is tough. I envy Kat's writing shed on one hand but think I would get no writing down for fear of arachnid invasion.
8. I studied medieval history at Reading University and have spent most of my working career in the social care sector- go figure!
9. I am a closet fan of Horrible Histories on CBBC.
10. I have an ambition to one day raise and train my own barn owl.

Well there you go some small revelations about me!

Getting Inspired Again!

I have been away from my blog for ages and have been busy with work, which is a tyrant when it comes to my writing as well as a million other things, and have subsequently dropped off my writing progress...and it was all going so well. However I am getting back on the horse and with a holiday imminent I am taking my laptop and planning some writing for the evenings when little ones are snoozing. I was able to revisit Wheal Peevor last week with a friend who was visiting us and it again inspired me to pick up the reins again. It is three months since I first visited it and the site was much greener and had a totally different feel to the stark greyness of February. I have also made contact with Rebecca Anderson who has written, "Knife" and "Rebel" as a Christian writer of children's sci-fi and fantasy. Not only do we share writing interests, but she also likes A-ha and Doctor Who and has Cornish links. She has been very gracious in answering a very inquisitive email that I sent her and her answers to my many questions have given me new vigour to persue a planned route with some of my characters that I was uncertain of.

In addition I have also had a tentatively positive email from a Christian publishing firm asking to see the full manuscript of the Daniel material that I have written. It is just a request to see more, however anything that is not a straight, 'Thanks but no thanks," is an encouragement to me so watch this space.
The photo above is Wheal Peevor in May and the picture here is of a tunnel through a cliff at Portreath beach...just thought it was FAB. It conjured up images of smugglers, secret passageways to other worlds and it also just made me feel my pause in writing was over. The great thing about living here is that I do not have to go very far to experience the something beautiful and inspiring to help me lift a tired work head and work on the joy of writing again. It is extremely good to be posting again as I have missed hearing everyone's news and talking writing again.

Writing Progress

Well the inspiration gleaned from the visit to the mine ruins is definitely working. I sat down this past week and have rewritten three chapters. I have been able to use photos I took on the day to describe scenes and events in the early stages of the book. I have found my characters more believable and have been able to work the principle of 'showing not telling' through the MS so far. I find myself being uber-critical though, chopping every adverb I see, when actually sometimes they are required. Also I am worried it is not pacy enough; are my characters people will care about?; Are my plotlines too complicated for 8-12 year olds?
However all this worrying and self critique aside I am writing again and that makes me smile lots and lots. I felt lost without being able to write and making the time has meant my house is a mess and I am pressed with my other jobs to do, however a good friend reminded me today that I should be writing because I am passionate about it and not allow the guilt that so easily pervades my thoughts to stop me. Writing should be a joy, a blessing and a balm for the soul in a world that is an ever increasing 'microwave' culture. Yes being published will mean deadlines and more pressure, but to enjoy being creative within that is a privilege I hope to enjoy one day. I am looking forward to the prospect of being published one day and all that may bring, but for now I can meander down the river of pleasure, enjoying creating and experiencing the new worlds and new characters, I am creating, exciting my spirit and stimulating my creative senses.

Creative Evolution

There has been a creative evolution for me over the past few days. It started when I visited some tin mine ruins nearRedruth, called Wheal Peevor, where I took over 60 photos of the ruins there. I had been looking for a place that would be the 'muse' for a few chapters in my book and this was it. I played around with sepia to age some of the photos and the whole place was fantastically atmospheric and there is brilliant light the further west in Cornwall one travels. There was also an abundance of gorse that was brilliant yellow in flower. In addition we had the wonderful experience of having the the place entirely to ourselves...breathtaking.
Following the photography on Wednesday I was inspired to do some sketching of a scene in my new sketch book from one of the photos, creating the detail of a scene from one of my many photos. I am not gifted at all in painting or drawing, but the experience was useful in rounding the scene in my head. I was able to add the original picture and text detailing the scene which was really brilliant to help me visualise the scene in my head too.
The final stage of the creative evolution at this point was the story mirror. I had two 99p IKEA mirrors sitting at home ready to be decorated. My little five year old daughter wanted to do to fairy mirror, which involved pink tissue paper, glitter and grasses from the garden! It was lovely doing this with her and it also inspired me to do something for myself. I used the time to create a mirror that had hints and images about the novel I am writing at the moment. I was able to use words, pictures, colour and texture to create a feature that will hang above my writing desk as a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. The next stage, which will begin this week, is to actually write from all this creativity and create the scenes in my head and change what I need to change. This has inspired me, raised my self confidence and made me believe that what I am writing is worth reading too. I have been inspired to write by being creative in other ways and it has been an exciting couple of days. I hope the mirror gives enough hints to raise an interest in the story behind it.

Creative Writing

I am in the middle of restructing a number of things about my book before I can continue writing it. I have changed character names and I am off later in the week to Wheal Peevor - ruins of mine workings site - to help me sort out some opening chapters that I am not totally happy with. This weekend my five year old daughter asked me to help her make a notebook, which I happily did, deciding to make myself one too. I am no artist, as the picture below proves, however this did give me the opportunity to visualise a character on paper and add details about them to it to help me develop my characters and details of the book. The character below is one of my villans and I was very pleased as my art attempt inspired a whole backstory which is written around the picture. I am hoping to add photos and maybe sketches of the mine workings to this sketch book as well as some of my central characters and places. Inspiration and motivation is coming in lots of diferent forms and I am feeling regenerated in my enthusiasm for my book again. The next stage will be chopping and changing chapter lengths as they are too long and full of adverbs! I have discovered that I use them quite a lot and need to look at my 'show not tell' pieces carefully. I will be writing new bits soon but feel I have to deal with these barriers before I can move on with it.

What's in a name?

The picture here is of Polzeath in Cornwall. The interesting thing about living in Cornwall is that so many of the place names describe where or what they are or were. For instance if a place name is prefixed by 'tre-' then it means 'farm/homestead' and 'chy-' means 'house/home'.
I have been musing over the significance of character names. It is easy to pick names that you link with people you have known including all their character traits and quirks. I am having a spring clean of my unfinished novel and have decided to change three character's names. I was feeling unhappy about these original choices, so I decided to research names that could summarise their character or personality. I have had an amazing time trawling the internet for Native American, African, Sumerian, Irish and possible even Middle Earthnames and meanings for inspiration. I have settled on some great names I would not have considered and I am very happy with how the group of characters now looks on paper. Jon M shared with me when he visited last week that a character in his book was inspired by the contents of his curry

How do you choose names for your characters and do they secretly mirror the personalities of folk you know?

Word Explosion Success!

I have been away from my blog a very long time and I apologise to all those who thought I may have fallen off the blogging planet. Amongst lots of other things (Christmas, snow, illness etc) I have been responsible alongside a colleague for the first Children and Young People's LitFest in North Cornwall. We had a number of workshops run by Caroline Binch, Bridget Crowley, Tim Bowler, Helen Dunmore and Jon Mayhew. Jon travelled from Cheshire to Cornwall to do two excellent sessions on Gory Ballads and Scary Stories, one of which was at Bodmin Jail, the other at Bude Castle. He had the largest turnout with 40 adults and kids at Bodmin and his book is not even out till April!! It was also fantastic because a parent came up to us at the end of his Bodmin session and explained that her son was extremely dyslexic and had been shy about sharing his story, however he had really been inspired by Jon and the session as a whole, which simply has to be a mark of success. It was also a joy to spend some time getting to know Jon and introduce him to a taster of Cornwall (and I don't just mean clotted cream scones!).
In addition I went to the session with Helen Dunmore, most known for her Ingo books. She was gracious and approachable to all who came to see her... a real gem. So I think I can safely say that it was a great start and we have lots to develop and build on for next year. It also inspired and motivated me in my writing as I admit to having had little writing time, although I did submit a short story in January. I think I had lost a little confidence and needed some encouragment and inspiration to revisit it and pick it up again. This has begun with a spring clean of my blog with a new design and the intention to keep it regularly updated and more writing focused. It has been a brilliant week and a special thank you to Jon for traveling so far and doing such great workshops that inspired the children of Bude and Bodmin this week.