Share the Birthday Love

This weekend is my birthday weekend* which I’m enjoying a lot.

Yesterday I went shopping with book vouchers and came back with 12 more and a bruised shoulder. We have this discount shop which sells books for £2-3, the stock can be hit and miss but this time it was a hit – just that most of the books were hardbacks so they weigh a lot.

I joined Sari‘s Blogfest because the timing was just so perfect and I couldn’t resist:

The idea is to ask other participants for advice on a particular aspect of your writing you feel you need help with. Originally I was going to use something from whatshouldbe my current WIP but it’s been pushed into a corner by another idea or rather an MC that just will not leave me alone.

The excerpt below is form the first few chapters and while the explanation is in there I don’t think it flows the way I want. So any tips to make this work better should be greatly appreciated.

My real name isn’t Breeyanna, I have no idea what my real name is. I remember at some point my second foster family enrolling me in Kindergarten under the name Annabelle, or was it Annalee?
For whatever reason family no two called me Anna. At least for the first few months, like I said it was a step up from You. Now mother number two had a serious brie addiction, which sounds harmless until you realise that there was basically nothing but that stinking cheese in the house and me being the newest servant girl meant I got the joy and dealing with most of the stuff.
“Get me the brie Anna.” shrank to “Brie, Anna” and soon I was pretty much answering to just Brie. By the time I’d been at the house for nearly a year the entire family, including all the other kids called me Brie
It should have stayed there, it would have ended there when I got moved onto family number three – if they hadn’t moved Melanie with me. She introduced me as Brie before I even got both feet in the house and it stuck. So much so that at some point a caseworker changed the name on my file to Breeyanna.

The winner of Some Girls Are will be announced tomorrow

 

*our family always turns the nearest weekend into a birthday weekend, because you know 1 day just isn’t enough

Can you be too dumb to write?

Ok I admit it I’m not having a good time right now…

Despite my phoenix metaphor, piecing all the work I lost back together is not going as well as I want. On top of that my headaches seem to be coming back* (last year I was of work with constant migraines for over a month and I really don’t want to do that again) so I’m not quite the sturdy positive thing I normally am.

I was reading through notes from one of my crit-partners and just wanted to curl up and cry. Not because she doesn’t like it (she does) but because I didn’t understand what she meant.

And it’s not the first time.

When it comes to passive/active, show/tell, verbs and adjectives and basically most technical aspects of writing it feels like it’s beyond me.

Everything I know about writing I got from reading books. I never learned English (spelling, grammar, etc) in school. By the time I moved to the UK they’d covered it and my English teacher never bothered to correct my spelling or my grammar.** Also I kinda left education at the age of 14 so yeah…

The thing is that I wouldn’t be able to explain simple grammar rules to you, I don’t know what an adjective is or how to differentiate between styles.

I write what sounds right.

Based on feedback from fellow writers it’s not the story or the characters that are the issue but those technical things I can’t get to grips with. I am trying to learn and have improved a lot since last year but ever so often I just want to hide in a corner instead of asking yet again what they mean.

Writing for me isn’t about getting published, it’s about telling the stories of all these creatures in my head because they won’t leave me alone otherwise but being surrounded by all these clever people who seem to understand “grammar” when I’m banging my head against the wall does occasionally gives me a bit on an inferiority complex.

If you don’t understand the basic rules can you really write?

*this means most evenings I can’t face computers. I’m very sorry to the Crusaders I am working through the list but it’s going SLOW
**unhelpful and also very embarrassing

Books that make you want to go out and buy blueberries…

Ok, since the beginning of the year I’ve been in a bit of a reading flump, it’s not that I haven’t been reading, but more what I’ve been reading.

I gave up on the first two and only carried on with the third because I was having one of my stubborn streaks.

And there have been some good titles in the pile: Before I Die, Entangled & XVI* – there is nothing bad about these books, they’re well writing and interesting but they haven’t made me do anything.

I haven’t cared that much about the characters, worried about them or had the need to go and do something because of them. Like go and buy blueberries…

And then, this week I finally sat down to crit my bestest writing buddies WIP… I started yesterday and finished this morning, unable to put it down and get on with the other stuff I should have been doing.

Now if you think she’s my friend of course I’m going to praise it, trust me you’d be wrong. If anything I’m even more horrible, I was pretty much a cow** for the first part of the book. It’s a good job she’s made of stern stuff.

But the deeper I got pulled into Jaime’s world the more I found myself doing all the things I do when I’m in love with the story, characters, world, etc…

I felt for Jaime, I worried, I cheered, I went to find a book of Tennyson poems, I wished I could help her, I wanted to strangle the author when it got bad (I never would, she knows I love her ) and on the last page I knew wanted more.

The books that make you act like that are the best ones.

What I pictured one of my favourite characters to look like...

*only a few chapters away from the end
** not the standing in the sunny field kind

Criticism

I’m not good at taking it, I know it’s not the ideal thing to admit when you want to be an author, but I know it’s the truth.

It’s a flaw I’m trying to work on.

I also know why I take it too much to heart.

I spend a big part of my childhood with the knowledge that those around me, while they didn’t wish me harm, didn’t expect me to succeed. In their brutal honesty they would sometimes say things that might not have had an impact on them but weren’t the things an orphan didn’t need to hear.

These were good people, don’t get me wrong, but the feeling of not belonging and not being accepted for who I was had a big impact. When I tried something new and didn’t achieve perfection first time round I always felt like I had failed. So I didn’t try very often.

I have grown in many ways since then but when I don’t get it 100% right away my first thought it still that I’ve failed. At that stage someone* will tell me to stop being stupid and see how great what I’ve done is and I do get there, it just takes me a little while longer.

Today I sent the first part of my book to my crit partner. It’s been 5 years since anyone has read any of my stories** so I was utterly terrified.

The notes that she sent back are great, really they are and it was good to see things from another perspective. I now know that there are a few things that need changing and I’m thinking about how best to go about it. I know she’ll help me, give me tips (she’s been at this way longer then me) but like I’ve said, I struggle when I don’t do it right the first time.

So after I read them, I sat down and read a book***, thought about what she said and decided to carry on.

Because the story is good. So are my characters and while it’s not perfect now, I can make it so much better because of it’s flaws. And you know what? In the end the most important thing she said was:

“…I do really like it. I want to read more, and not just because it’s you writing it. I think it shows potential, and I want to know what’ll happen next. And I love your writing style!”

Who am I to deny her finding out what happens in the end.

* I might not have parents but I have some wonderful family & friends in my life now.

** Mainly because my first attempts weren’t that great, (I’ve read them since then and they really weren’t) and I needed the time to pick myself up again.

*** ‘The curious incident of the dog in the night-time’ by Mark Haddon,  and I would recommend it.