A Camel and a Cave

Today has been frantic but has ended well. Hollie is still harbouring a nasty sickness bug, so has been asleep most of the day. Connor and Andy went for a boys bike ride on the Camel Trail and Andy was good enough to take a lovely picture of the River Camel for my blog! I have been feeling guilty all day as Hollie has been periodically weeping telling me how hungry she is and I have been trying to explain that food is making her sick, so she really can only drink. Explaining the benefits of fasting to overcome sickness to a three year old is a non-starter really.

I have managed to start my writing challenge today based on the picture from yesterday's post. The picture is of a sea cave on Perranporth beach that I took last summer when we were returning from our camping trip near St. Ives. I was amazed at the images and the story that it evoked for me. My 30 minutes became 45 so I could put an end to the piece I was writing. The thing that surprised me most was the empathy and almost physical pain I shared with my character as she grieved for a lost brother. Maybe because it was written 'under pressure' but I really felt able to communicate her pain by actually feeling it myself to a point. Hope this happens often as it is going to help me with my character for my book, who is a young carer.

So despite a stressful and sickness filled day, the end of the day has brought a really positive time of writing which can only be useful longer term. Off to continue with Soul Eater now.

Admiration and Aspiration

I have been reading Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver, partly because it is an excellent book but also to help me think through structuring my novel as it is historical like hers. I have been inspired by reading parts of her website www.michellepaver.com as she is so down to earth and yet has had the most remarkable experiences in her research and her life. Her encounter with a black bear in California and how this impacted on her creation of the bear in Wolf Brother was breathtaking. On her website she describes an encounter with a stranger on a train that helped her move from successful lawyer to successful writer. The advice she gives in her interviews is solid and attainable and has reminded me that if I am to take this writing business seriously, I need to be writing whenevre and wherever I can in this hectic life of mine. I have had a new beginning for my book come and I am planning my infamous spider diagram to help me crystalise my story and plotline.

Michelle Paver is an author I admire and aspire to be like in as much as I hope the passion I have for history is communicated as ably as she communicates her love of the Stone Age and wolves in her fantastic stories. I have no doubt that if I had read her novels as a child I would have been spellbound as I remain so as an adult who loves quality children's books. I do not want to be someone who always wanted to write and never did, I want to be someone who took Ms Paver's advice and did what I wanted with my life. I suffer with self doubt and a tendancy to self depricate so I have my own hurdles to jump before I put anything I write into an agent or publishers hands.