Pasta Bake

I've a pasta bake in the oven right now, so this is going to be a short post. I'll write more on my Musing Page later, I've a good topic for today!

Anyway, I should be writing my first essay for my MA today. It's on the research methods that writers use when writing their novels etc. That is not as easy as it sounds actually. I've chosen to write about Ern Malley because he interested me more. Here's the story for the people who don't know. Malley is an Austrian poet, but actually he and his poetry were a hoax and they were invented by two Austrian poets during the Second World War. The idea behind it was to get back at the editor of a journal. Things didn't go to plan and the editor was put on trail for publishing what was seen as harmful material.

Peter Carey wrote his novel My Life As A Fake based on the hoax. So for my essay I must look at where Carey got his information form and how/why he made the choices during writing his novel about how much fiction and fact went into his writing. I must also look at why he choice the form of his novel, because he must have done some reseach into that as well. Some how I've to write all of this in just 2,000 words! I've no breathing room and it all must be spot on, so my task is even harder now.

That pasta smells good....I forget about the simple things like eating when I'm writing. I get too caught up. I think it might be a bit late to start my essay now, but I'm eager to do some writing. I can feel it in my fingers. I don't know about other writers, but when I need to get my writing fix, my fingers get twitchy and my brain becomes programed on plotlines and characters of whatever it is I've choicen to write. I feel the strange urge to pick up my postmodern novel again. Though I need to read a few chapters before hand to get back into it. I like trying different ways to write novels. This one uses the method of only thinking about it whilst I'm writing it. Thus I'm creating the distant that needs to surrond the novel.

Okay, need to see that pasta bake now!

Reading in Liverpool at WOW

Hi readers!
Last week I told you about going to read some of my first chapter of my novel out in a competition. Well, the big event was last night in Liverpool at this really great coffee shop called The Green Cauldron. I'll be dropping by for a visit there next time I'm in Liverpool, because they have an amazing carrot cake and though I don't like coffee the smell is just great. Anyway, so I had entered the first chapter of my novel into this competition for it to get published in a small book of first chapters and I didn't actually win. Still though, I sure felt like I had done last night! I was really worried about presenting my novel and not just because reading my own work to strangers is mega unnerving, but in case it wasn't very good.....
I had worked hard on getting my words right though and I didn't mess up. The judges asked some questions too and I answered them really well. The winning for me was the fact I was there and I did my reading. To me it just showed how far I'd come really, because I'd never even think about doing anything like that when I was at college! Still though I knew my novel would be okay and I know it still needs work, but that's way writing just goes. I got a chance to speak to one of the judges after too and she said my chapter had potential and was interesting, I just need to sort out the opening a bit more. So that was really encouraging and I wanted to run home and start writing again!
I had a great time and it was fantastic to be a part of something like this. I liked listening to everyone else reading their chapters too because there was some interesting openings there. I wasn't alone though and I should have said before that my fan club where their to witness this massive step in my life and also that of the novel. I don't know what I would have done if my friends couldn't have come. They were amazing as my support and somehow they managed to keep my nervousness down and make me laugh. I owe them so much and truly I can't describe my gratitude to them, because they are completely amazing brilliant people.
I think I'm still in shock and on a high. Silly really, but I just provide to myself that I can do things like this and I did really enjoy reading. Well, that's something I've always loved and I have been known to read aloud to friends and family before now. Strange thing to get a kick out of, but still....So now I'm recommending people get out there and share their stories with the world. It's important to do this because there's so many great tales out there and it's a shame most of them get lost. I know people are too busy and technology is currently ruling, but still go grab your fav novel and start reading it! Or start writing!!!
Here's the WOW website- http://www.writingonthewall.org.uk/index-page.html
Lastly for today, I only have one more essay to do. I've not started it, but I will be doing tomorrow! It's due in on monday, but I've been stuck with my other ones and doing my reading. I'm sure it'll be fine though and it's on Modernism which is very interesting in itself. Also I'll put the photos up of me reading when I get them off my friends soon!

Strawberry Fields

Hi readers!

I’ve inherited these 20 odd strawberry plants from my uncle. They were at the bottom of his garden and when I went to help my mum clean out his house, we found them and decided to bring them home. They needed lots of TLC and a lot of water, but now they are happily sitting at the top of my garden and flowering in the sunlight. I’ve never been that much into gardening, but I have to admit that The Secret Garden is one of my favourite films and has been for an age now! So I’ve rescued these strawberries in the spirit of that film really. It’s amazing how much they have grown in the last few days as well and I’ve been out checking on them and chatting to them…well they have proven that talking to plants does make them grown! But these guys are not my first strawberry plant and I’m hoping that most readers will remember Hairy Von Baron Strawberry.



He was given to me last year by my best friend and now he’s grown abit more and spreed out. So there’s more of him in the garden now! My new plants are out shining him though, because they have flowers already, but he’s showing any signs of bursting into bloom just yet…..Anyway I’ve got my hands full with guarding my strawbs against slugs and other bugs, luckily I’ve some help!





Gargoylesto keep away evil and Patch to keep me company. She looks so cute! So it looks like there’ll be a lot of homegrown strawberries for me this year. I’ve developed a taste for gardening now and I was thinking that if my writing falls through I’d take up being a gardener! Though at the minute it looks like things are taking off for me. I entered a competition with the first chapter of my novel and they accepted it for the first heat! So now, next Wednesday I’ve to go to Liverpool to read it out in front of the judges! I’m scared and excited and really not sure what to do with myself. I’m going to go for it though and try my best. I know my novel is still a mess, but someone might be interested in it and you don’t know what will happen till you give it a shot. So I’ll let you know how that goes next week!

I’ve been busy trying to do my project today, my Victorian English Lit essay, which is about the characters of Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester and how the Bronte sister as women writers created this powerful male characters. I’ve done about 300 words today, so it’s just over 1,000 out of the 3,000 it needs to be by Tuesday. It doesn’t help that I left the novels with all my notes in at my uni house, or the fact I’ve been distracted by a million other things! So tomorrow I must try harder, though I guess this is sort of like writing a story, it can’t be forced, though my deadline is nearly here. I know once I get back to uni and have my books I’ll be able to do it like that! But till then I’ve to chip away at it and try a different approach each time. I’ve to redraft my other essays too and make a plan for my last one. Still can’t believe that I’ll be starting my final essay soon. It’s a very scare thought.



And this is me sporting my new jacket! My mum finished knitting it for me the other day and I love it. Been wearing it every since really. It’s the perfect spring/summer cover up and it’s so nice. I’d love to knit something myself, but I just can never seem to get it right. I can knit, but I twist my wool up and I’m forever adding and losing stitches. Here’s a baby blanket I started the other day and well most of it is mum’s work, because the wool rebels against me too much. I’m getting back into the swing of it though, just takes awhile to get straight in my head….



That’s mostly it for today, though I’ve got a few more pics to put up….

Me and Patchy

Duck family!

Writing Stories

Hi,  I thought today I’d write a slightly different blog. Which should be good for me because I’m having a writer’s block with writing my essays. Truthfully, I’m not sure why, but I’ve some different theories; 1. the fact I’ve a loan laptop and the keyboard is strange and I don’t have any of my stuff on here, (Also just found out that nothing could be saved on my hard drive, so I’ve lost everything on that. Have new hard drive and getting laptop back tomorrow though.) 2. I’ve lots of other thoughts in my head right now and I can’t rid of them. 3. the idea of leaving Uni is scary! 4. I want my final essays to be really good. 5. I’m stressing about other things too now. So, yeah that’s about it, so I’m hoping to snap out of it soon!

So I might have writer’s block on my essays, but I’ve not on my novels. I’ve been writing one I started last yearish and the idea was that the reader was on the outside looking in, so they were always at a distance from the world and characters. Thus means that I and the characters are in the same boat, on the outside, not sure what’s going on or who to trust. It’s working out really well tho in a strange way and it’s not really about vampires!

Doing a creative writing course has taught me all about the craft of writing, but not really ‘how to write’ that comes from practice, experience and your own talent and imagination. Reading and writing every day is an important part of it too! Plus you have to love doing it and writing for yourself. That’s how I got into it really, writing as a hobby and often in reply to books I had just finished reading. I strongly believe as well that having a really good or over active imagination helps too. I’ve always had one, mostly because I was a bit of loner for most of my childhood and thus creating worlds and make believe friends was a great comfit for me. I also believe if you want it badly enough you should go after it and for me being a novelist would be my dream come true. I already know, from my course, that getting something published and making it popular in the world is hard to do and seriously not as easy as most people believe it to be. This is due to the fact that publishing is like any other business and they always want to make money.

Moving on and focusing on me for a min, I started writing stories when I was 6, but because I was dyslexic (I didn’t know officially till I was 16) no one knew what I was going on about, but I got a taste for writing, though it was so tough for me! But I loved reading and books, thanks to my parents. Then when I was 12 I found inspiration from R .L. Steins’ Goosebumps stories and  wrote my first novel part in high school, part at home. The only evidence I have of that novel is a single paper copy. From there though and without any guidance or anything, I took that novel and redraft it. From there was born the first in a series of novels about a group of teenagers who went to a summer camp every year and I wrote like 10 novels. Then I got writer’s block and wrote nothing for a year.

Sorry, I’m so going off on something here, but it’ll explain things in a minute. Sometime whilst I was in college during my second year a character suddenly popped into my head and so was born my first official vampire. I then spent the next two years of my college life writing 3 novels about this vampire and his friends.

So, and I only discovered this by reading J .R. Ward’s The Black Dagger Brotherhood; The Insider’s guide, which is a great great book! That my characters would come into my head and start mapping out their own stories. Thus all my novels are driven by the character not the plot. Like Ward, I also see the images of my characters, their actions and their worlds in my head and that really helps when you’re writing a story. Being able to see images so that the words become more like pictures in your mind is a great skill to have.

I’d tell anyone to give writing in any form a shot and see how you feel about. I’m still surprised when my friends talk about something I’ve wrote and tell me that they couldn’t have written something like that or where did my idea come from. Just because for awhile I believed that I didn’t have a talent for writing, but now of course I do. So I think that giving some thing new a try and seeing if you have a knack for it is really good.

So, where do you now begin if you want to write a story? Well, the blank page bugs me, so I always try and fill it really fast. Often I’ll start with the weather- either outside or a make it up. Like ‘it was a bright sunny morning’ and then make the setting or add a character, ‘the street was quiet and the gentle breeze was blowing through the cherry blossom trees.’ then it’s character/setting, ‘Laura walked down the street, glancing up at each house as she past. What was the number again? she thought.’ so I’ve got my character’s thoughts now, but you can have speech too and now to hook the reader into the story (This is highly important to grab the reader so they’ll read on for sure!) ‘she paused before garden gate and bit her lip, how am I going to tell him? she thought and dropped a hand to her stomach, that I’m pregnant?’

See? you’re drawn into that now ’cause you want to know more about both characters and what they are going to do about the situation. I made that up on the spot too, as an example but also to do away with the white space on the page! And of course there are lots of different ways to get started and lots of guide books on writing out there. So give it a try!

PS. I might think about making my idea into a short story and posting it on here if I get enough people commenting with their interest, so get in touch, cause I do read them all- even tho right now I’ve over 5,000 to read! So bear with me but thanks for the support everyone!

More coming soon!

All In The Name Of Poetry!

Hi! I’m hoping to have some new readers today, because I’ve been giving out my business cards to people about my blog. Today was an applicant visit day for people doing media courses and I’m hoping most of them will now be reading my post!I had a good day helping people and showing off the uni, though it is tiring being on your feet, talking and smiling all day, but I don’t mind. I love being a student guide it’s just get fun and easy money! I like writing my blog too. I’ve had lots of tasks to do throughout the day, though my fav has to be the campus tour, only because I get to chat to lots of people and talk about the different buildings on campus and the useful facilities. I’m working this Saturday too, so no doubt I’ll get to find more people to read my blog.


Of course that and my title have nothing to do with my first photo! It’s of the pie I made last night. I’ve been teaching my housemate how to cook and this pie, plus the pasta bake I made on Sunday, have now been added to his cooking list. The pie was tasty and there’s still lots left. That’s the issue with my cooking-when I make a meal for people, there’s always enough for twice as many people that I’m cooking for! So no one goes hungry for long around me.

So, I guess I should explain my title now. With it being so close to the end of my 3rd and last year at Edge Hill Uni, I’ve many essays on the go right now and one of them is poetry. I’ve my last four poems to submit after Easter, but I’ve been trying to come up with a creative way of displaying my poems. The tutors often encourage this- special with poetry-as its one of those subjects that needs a little more creativity behind it. So over the past 2 years I’ve displayed my poetry in a handmade book, scrapbooks and just normally. This year I wanted to do something different and I’ve had a lot of ideas- orgami and writing with chalk on the street-where just two of the crazy thoughts I had. My housemate and fellow creative writing student has had the best idea though. He wants to take sections of his poem and write them everywhere possible, so these photos below show his first practising;

He’s not a hoodie, by the way! It was raining and he’s writing on our house wall and slates that fell of our roof. He also washed the chalk off once we were done.

Don’t panic about this either! It was ketchup on the bathroom tiles. We washed it off soon after, but the bathroom does still smell a bit ketchupy.

So with him planning that, I decided that I’d like to do something with photographs. So I came up the idea of making a photo collage and placing my poem on top of it. Also because of the poems have to be connected either theme or style, I choice to do emotion and one of the current things that is effecting so many people right now is the earthquake in Japan. So I choice to write a poem about that.

It still need some work but it is only a first draft!


That’s it for this post now, but since I’m working on Saturday and then off to a gig in Liverpool on the Sunday night, I’ll posting another blog soonish.