I felt a bit loathe to talk about this because it’s very personal to me. But at the same time I wanted to share how my experience of illness has shaped my writing.

When I was 15 I suffered from a severe mental breakdown. I had been incredibly unhappy at school – it was my GCSE year (for those of you who don’t know the UK school system it’s the end of school exams we take at age 16) and I was struggling. I felt I had very few friends and those I thought I had turned out to be – well not great. Everything was too much and in the end I fell over the edge. I couldn’t have been more ill really.

I was hospitalised and spent months recovering. Fortunately I didn’t have to go back to school. I was able to take my exams at the hospital school and I managed to gain 7 of the 9 qualifications I’d been intending to obtain. Life improved for me. I was happy. I went to sixth form college to do my A levels (a bit like high school, it’s for 16-18 year olds and at the end of the two years you do more exams, but generally in 3 or 4 subjects no more) and whilst I had to stick with just 2 A levels, again I managed it.

Then unfortunately at 18 I got ill again. I won’t go in to the ins and outs, but basically it was medical error. I’d been planning to do an extra year at sixth form college but it never happened. I had to take the whole year off to recover. But. Just a year after that I was able to go to university – which happened to be down the road from the hospital I’d been treated in – and fulfil my dream of doing a degree in English. I graduated in 2003.

A year later I was ill for a third time, again because of medical errors. But having spent months in hospital, this time I recovered and although I’m still being treated for my condition and always will be, I’ve been well for 8 years now. I’m on track to have a whole 10 years straight without an episode of illness for the first time since I was 15. Yay! And I’m going from strength to strength. I’m capable of a great deal more than I used to be now.

So how have my experiences shaped my writing I hear you ask. The answer is enormously. Whilst I may not write about mental health or the lack of it directly in my stories, the experiences I have had have given me a sensitivity to mental illness or mental imbalance. My characters have struggles with their emotions and feelings as in all stories. But with me, I know first hand how far and deep that struggle can go. I try to make my characters’ struggles true to life, not sensational or unrealistic. They may not be having a severe breakdown, but I create for them tough situations that I myself would struggle to deal with.

Having said I don’t write about mental health directly in my stories, that’s actually not quite true. About 10 years ago I started to write a semiautobiographical story called ‘Fractured Mind’. It’s about a girl who’s very lonely at school and when her one friend dies, this tips her over the edge and she becomes very ill. She thinks everyone’s out to get her and in the end she’s hospitalised. It’s very close to my own experience. I got about 100 pages written but no more. Maybe I’ll return to it some day.

Overall I would say that my experiences of being ill and the consequent suffering I endured as a result – because each time I was severely ill – have made me who I am today. I’m not sure I’d say I’ve come out stronger as such, but I’m way happier now than I was at 15. Maybe everyone can say that, but I know I haven’t had the same life experience as many people. It’s definitely shaped my writing. I think my illness has given my writing an edge. So perhaps I’ll be bold and someday finish ‘Fractured Mind’. At the very least it may open people’s minds a little to what mental illness is really like. And that can only be a good thing.

If you would like to take part in Thursday’s Children, simply write on your blog about what inspires your writing. Then add your name to this linky. Big thank you to Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.

It’s that time of the week again when us budding authors share a section of our current WIP. I’m taking the plunge and sharing approximately eight paragraphs from chapter five of my main WIP The Inheritance which I hope to publish soon. At this point in the story Emma, the main protagonist, is living it up in London with her housemate and friend Natalie. They’re on their way to visit a very wealthy friend. So here you go:

‘I haven’t actually been to Rebecca’s before. But judging by her amazing clothes, the places we’ve met at and this car I’d say her house must be stunning. Oh, and it’s in Kensington. Did I mention that?’

‘Yes,’ Natalie said firmly as though worried the housekeeper might slam the door in her face.

If you would like to join in the fun of WIPpet Wednesday simply post an excerpt of your current WIP on your blog that correlates somehow with the date (so I did 8 paragraphs from chapter 5 it being the 8th May). Then add your name to this linky where you can also read all the other wonderful WIPpeteers’ work. Thanks as always to K.L. Schwengel for hosting.

As the title would suggest it’s been a bit of both for me lately. Last week I spent a few consecutive days while I was on holiday with hubby and doggy in Wales working on my previous WIP which I’m revising and hoping to publish soon. I was able to make a lot of progress and I felt really good about it.

It was great to be sitting in the lovely kitchen of the converted coach house being able to work away without being distracted by the internet (which I couldn’t get a very good connection of) or our dog (who was very tired most of the time having worn himself out on lots of walks and by barking at the farmyard animals – we were staying on a farm). Or much else for that matter. I also managed to read a lot – I finished one book and read most of another which is generally unheard of for me. One of the books was about Jane Austen who I absolutely ADORE! So I was happy. 🙂

Then. Then came the return home and for most of this week apart from working in the office and socialising (a little) I was doing washing and housework. I devoted very little of my time to my writing and consequently felt guilty about it as I always do when I don’t work on it! So came today. I made a decision. I didn’t have enough time for my writing for the earlier part of the week so today I thought ‘That’s it! I’m going to make time for writing.’ I started later than I was originally going to but that didn’t matter – I still managed to work for over an hour and while that may not sound much to you I felt I achieved quite a lot so I’m happy! So there! 😉

Anyway, I feel I’m progressing quite well with my revision of my story ‘The Inheritance’ and I do hope to publish at least before the end of the year! To coin an overused phrase there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel and I can see that I’m improving on the original MS as I go along with my revisions.

And that is all I have to say for now. It’s Friday evening, I’ve had a busy week, so I’m going to wrap it up there.

PS. Am reading yet another fab book on Jane Austen – this time about her novels called: ‘What matters in Jane Austen?’

Catch you later!

Well I was trying to be clever just now and get this text I’m writing now to wrap around the Thursday’s Children image, but I couldn’t figure it out so I’ll leave it for later. Any tips on a not-too-difficult way of doing this (cos I’m getting really fed up with not being able to do it!!) would be much appreciated!

Anyway my post title doesn’t refer to the film The Others, wonderful though it is, but to other people. I checked back in my previous Thursday’s Children posts and I have touched on this subject a little, but I thought I’d consider it again in a slightly different way. So here goes.

The fact is I’m really insprired by you. Yes you – my fellow Thursday’s Children bloghoppers (don’t know if that’s all one word or not, don’t care!). It’s great that you’re all so open about your work and what inspires you and your writing. I love reading about the way that music inspires a lot of you, for example and the way many of you have certain music that you associate with your characters. I wish I could say the same. I don’t always give enough detail of my characters’ preferences for things like music or books.

Others of you are inpsired by the beauty of nature and how peaceful it makes you feel, like E M Castellan writing about Kew Gardens. I’ve read some wonderful blog posts by Rhiann Wynn-Nolet about how lovely handwriting and the sheer pain and effort of ballet dancers inspires her to write. Raewyn Hewitt wrote beautifully a while ago about working away from home in the middle of nowhere. It was so interesting and evocative. I felt I was there with her.

It makes me consider my writing in a different way. Have I captured the essence of what I’ve been inspired by in my writing? Do I pay attention to detail, do I paint a picture in my stories of people and places? I definitely can’t say I’ve worked as hard at my writing as ballerinas and other dances work at honing their craft. But I feel I’m gradually improving as a writer. I’m working harder at my writing than ever before and much of that is down to you guys being so encouraging and giving me the incentive to carry on chipping away at the unfinished creation that is my WIP.

So for me other writers i.e. you – your sharing of what inspires you, your hopes and fears for your work, your descriptions of good times and bad times with your writing – do inspire me so much. You make me feel I’m not alone in my writing journey. I’m sharing it with you and millions of other writers whose work I’ve yet to discover.

If you would like to join in Thursday’s Children, just blog about whatever inspires your writing. Then add your name to this linky and you can check out all the other wonderful Thursday’s Children blog posts. Thanks to Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.

Well it’s my first WIPpet Wednesday since being away on holiday and I must say it’s good to be back! I’ve got a lot to do today so I’ll make this quick. I’m posting another excerpt from ‘The Inheritance’ – my previous work in progress which I’m currently editing and hope to publish in the hopefully-not-too-distant future. Here’s the first five lines from chapter 13, it being the 1st May 2013:

The bedsit felt very cold and lonely when Emma arrived back. She switched the light on and the tiny room was filled with a soft, slightly orange glow. But it didn’t feel any more homely. Emma dumped her things. All she wanted was to go to sleep.

If you would like to join in WIPpet Wednesday simply post some of your current work in progress on your blog that relates somehow to today’s date. For example, I posted the first five lines from chapter 13 of my WIP. Or it could be the first paragraph from chapter 5 etc. Then add your name to this linky. Thanks once again to K.L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂

Well I made it back from Wales. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t always as good as in the photo I’ve posted. But we had a lovely time anyway. We went for lots of walks in various places with our dog who, as I’m sure you can imagine, had a whale of a time. The weather may not have been perfect, but we explored the Welsh countryside which was beautiful and there were plenty of gorgeous unspoilt beaches and towns. The beaches were especially lovely – miles of golden sand stretching into the distance towards the azure sea. I’m always impressed by how well kept everything is in Pembrokeshire; it’s all neat and tidy and nothing is unkempt.

Unlike last year, this time I decided to take my laptop with me so I could do a little bit of work on my writing. I was also able to reply to a few bloghop messages which was really nice. In theory I could have joined in the weekly bloghops I do (WIPpet Wednesday and Thursday’s Children) but the connection was through my husband’s smartphone and wasn’t very strong so I didn’t want to risk it.

Anyway, in the end I got quite a lot done on my writing. I’ve been amending my last story in preparation for publication. Two Twitter friends have read it for me and made lots of suggestions for how I could improve on it. So I’m currently going through it and changing bits in line with their comments. I’m pleased with how much I managed to get done while I was away, especially seeing as I haven’t done any work on it since we got back. I’ve been so busy catching up with washing and housework in general as well as returning to my usual routine. Phew!

I said in my last post that I’d had an interview for a job. Unfortunately I didn’t get it, but I’m trying to be philosophical about it – after all it’s good experience for me, especially as I haven’t done many interviews. I don’t like the nervousness that I find I have before and during an interview. I get so scared; my insides feel like mush and I can get a little shaky. But it’s a necessary process of course if I want to get a job.

However, not getting the job at least means that for the moment I can devote plenty of time to my writing. So this week I’m definitely taking part in WIPpet Wednesday and Thursday’s Children. This week there’ll be no stopping me! This week I will dazzle you all with my writing prowess!! All right, maybe not the last one. 😉 But anyway, I’ll be back and contributing once more. I’m really looking forward to catching up with you all and reading your amazing work.

Till then…

I had an interview for a job today. I haven’t had many before and despite the friendliness of the people who interviewed me, I found it nerve-wracking! I’m still feeling tense now, mainly because I have at least a day until I find out if I’ve got the job or not. I know it’s only a day but I hate that feeling of not knowing, of being in limbo until I find out.

So seeing as that’s all I can think about at the moment, I thought I’d turn this nervousness into a (hopefully!) thoughtful Thursday’s Children blog entry on suffering from nerves and how that can affect how we write. In my experience, it can be useful to write when you’re feeling on edge. There’s nothing like a bit of escapism using your own imagination. It can distract you from whatever is making you nervous, giving you something else to focus on.

And nerves can inform what we write; we may bring in a sense of strain into one of our characters’ lives. Perhaps they suffer a nervous breakdown that we wouldn’t have written into the plot if we hadn’t been feeling bad ourselves. Or maybe they find a way to break through the anxiety barrier and achieve something incredible against all the odds. It can be cathartic to write about our characters suffering from anxiety – we can shift some of our anxiety away from our minds into our work.

It’s a little bit like artists painting their pain, both physical and mental. It can be like a channel flowing from the mind through the paintbrush or pen onto the paper. The artist Frida Kahlo was in a lot of pain for most of her life. She turned that pain into wonderful paintings which are visceral in their depiction of what it’s like to suffer from chronic pain. Because how do you show pain ordinarily when it can’t be seen? You can’t, you can only describe it. As a writer though, it is possible to describe it beautifully, especially when it’s pain of the mind. I digress a little, but what I’m trying to get at is that as writers it’s possible for us to transform our trials, our anxieties, even physical pain into something positive, a work of art that can be enjoyed by many people – even millions of people.

If we work through the anxiety, the physical or mental pain, it can transform our writing and make it into something wonderfully unique. Everyone has their own story to tell. It can be tough to face our fears and actually write about anxiety, write about what scares us, but when we do we can find that our writing is the better for it. So if I don’t get that job, it’s too bad – but at least it’s given me even more ideas of what to write about.

If you would like to join in the weekly bloghop that is Thursday’s Children, just write a blog post about whatever inspires your writing. Then simply add your name to this link where you can also check out all the other wonderful Thursday’s Children bloggers. Thanks to Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.

Well it’s nearly the end of Wednesday and I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to participate yet, but I’ve got just about enough time left to post my contribution to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday. I thought that seeing as I’ve put my current WIP on hold to revise my previous WIP, which I’m hoping to publish soon, I’d post a section of the previous one. It’s called ‘The Inheritance’ and it’s about two daughters, one wise daughter and one foolish daughter. It’s loosely based on the Prodigal Son, a parable Jesus tells in the Bible. Here’s the opening 17 lines (approximately), seeing as it’s the 17th today. Enjoy!

Emma was perched on a hay bale in the barn. Green rolling hills that she’d known all her life banked up in the distance. She watched her sister, barely able to disguise her irritation. Kate was sitting on another hay bale a few feet away, attempting to untangle her blonde curly hair with her fingers.

‘Well at least I have good taste in clothes,’ Emma said. ‘Look at you, Kate. How long have you had those ripped jeans? No, don’t tell me, you got them when you were fifteen and you’ve worn them ever since.’

If you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, simply post a sample of your current work in progress on your blog which relates to the date in some way, so today being the 17th I’ve posted 17 lines from my work. Then just add your post to this link. Thanks to K.L. Schwengel for hosting. And my special thanks goes to my good friend Kate Frost who’s read ‘The Inheritance’ for me and has given me loads of great advice for improving on it!

I’ll keep this short because I’ve got a lot to do today. But as the title of this blog post suggests, I’m off to sunny (?) Wales for a week on Friday. Not on my own – my hubby and our lovely golden retriever Dug are coming with me. 🙂 Before we go there’s a lot of preparation to be done as I’m sure you can imagine.

We’re going back to the self-catering cottage on a farm in Pembrokeshire we went to last year. We really enjoyed ourselves last year so thought we’d go back. I’m posting this now while I remember because I probably won’t be able to take part in WIPpet Wednesday or Thursday’s Children next week. I say probably because my husband did manage to get an internet connection there last year (I think!) with his smartphone. I’m toying with the idea of taking my laptop (I didn’t last year) because it would be good to carry on revising my novel ‘The Inheritance’ for publication. But we’ll see.

I don’t know if with all my busyness I’ll be able to take part in the bloghops this week either – I’ll try but I’ll see how I go as I’ve got a job interview first thing Thursday morning as well (eeek!).

But I plan to get back to WIPpet Wednesday and Thursday’s Children as soon as I can.

I’ll post some piccies of Wales when I’m back.

Have you ever been inspired by language? I have. William Shakespeare comes immediately to mind when I consider words that have inspired me. Lines such as: ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers’ (Henry V), ‘I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me’ (Beatrice in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’) or ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?…If you prick us do we not bleed?’ (Shylock in ‘The Merchant of Venice’) are so memorable for me. They inspire me to try with my writing. I could never hope to emulate Shakespeare, but his writing brings so many images into my head when I read or watch his plays being performed that it makes me want to develop my own stories.

Of course there are many, many more words from Shakespeare’s plays I could mention but those are some of the ones that really stick in my mind. But it’s not just Shakespeare whose words are in my head a lot. As a Christian, I find many of the words from the Bible stay in my head a long time. Even if you’re not religious, you’ve probably been to at least one wedding where the words from 1 Corinthians 13 have been read out: ‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud’, and so on. These words also stay with me, particularly when I’m not feeling very loving and want to bite someone’s head off!! The characters and personalities in the Bible are mostly just like us – very human – and the words the various authors in the Bible use to describe them can at times be elegant and poetic, great examples of writing at its best.

My favourite author, as I’ve probably already said on this blog, has to be Jane Austen. Again, her words (mostly those from my favourite novel she wrote ‘Pride and Prejudice’) stay with me long after I’ve read them. One line in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ which I think is lovely is towards the end. Elizabeth’s opinion of Mr Darcy has changed. Now, ‘She began to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in dispostion and talents, would most suit her.’ It sums up perfectly for me the way in which Elizabeth herself has changed as a person over the course of the novel, from hating Mr Darcy with a passion to being deeply in love with him. To me Jane Austen is a wonderful writer who I would love to be if only a little bit like. Although I can hardly claim to have her talent, like her I tend to feel at home writing a lot of dialogue and it would be wonderful for me if I could emulate her style (albeit in 21st century fashion!) in my writing.

What sort of words inspire your writing?

If you would like to join in Thursday’s Children, simply blog about what inspires your writing. Then add your details to this linky. As always thanks to Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.