Big changes are afoot

Things may have been quiet in blogland but they have certainly not be quiet in the real world. Writing has been continuing apace and, dear reader, I see light from the corners of the bunker for the first time in 10 weeks.
The book has been redrafted - and actually turned into a completely differentl kind of a book. Of the 107,000 words I wrote for the 30 Something Crisis Club, only 10,000 survived the massacre that followed. The setting remains the same. The main characters are largely the same but I added in so many layers that I made myself dizzy.
The book, as it now stands, is ready for launch in just over 10 weeks.
How's that for a turnaround? Eh?
But with the new feel, we decided on a new title and I'm now, excitedly, waiting on a new cover.
The 30 Something Crisis Club has now become If Only You Knew and I'm planning some competitions and interesting marketing ploys to mark it's release.
I feel nervous, fired up, scared, exhilerated, exhausted and relieved.
And the journey is only beginning....

You know it's working when it makes you cry

I was writing the latest book last night - as part of the mega in-the-bunker rewrite - and I reached a point where it clicked.
It does that some times... writing. It just clicks. I had sat down to write that particular scene several times over the last few days and just couldn't find the right words so last night I sat down and said I wouldn't move until it was done. It was a short scene - a letter in fact - but it felt like an enormous hurdle because it had to be just right.

So anyway, I sat and I wrote, and those 300 words took about an hour and a half and by the end I was crying because the woman who wrote the letter (Betty) seemed so very real and my heart actually ached for her.

Does that sound mad? Does that sound as if I am finally losing the plot? Those who don't write don't always get how our characters can become as real to us during the writing process as if they were sitting in the same room.
There are characters from past books who have never left me. I wonder how Daisy is getting on? Did she and Dr. Dishy get their happy ending? Did Grace have another baby? Are Beth and Dan deliriously happy with baby Lucas? Are Aoife and Tom Austin now sitting in their yardin drinking a cold glass of wine while Maggie watches CBeebies in the house?
I wonder how Detta is, and Ruth and Ciara. I wonder did Ciara get the great job she dreamed of?  And I wonder how Darcy is doing... where her problems resolved?

You see, all these people they live in our heads while we are writing them - while we are shaping their lives and their thoughts and their actions that you can't just switch off.

And I don't think I'll ever forget Betty.

Hauling out the big guns

There comes a time when you sit, a manuscript in front of you... a year or more of blood, sweat, tears, hope and dreams and you realise it's time to go in with the big guns.


Yes, my friends - welcome to editing hell. The truth being I have taken agin my latest book. And I want to make it much better. And I NEED to make it much better because I'm five books into this writing toot and it's coming close to that "sh*t or get off the pot" moment where you (being I) have to think about your work/ life balance and how much you actually get from writing (emotionally, intellectually, spiritually) and if you are good enough to do it for a living.

I made a promise to myself at the start of this year that in 2011 I would give my heart and soul to writing. I would do whatever it could to make this work. (Bearing in mind that making this work is largely out of my hands. I write the books - someone else chooses a cover, publishes it and markets it. Other people will review it. Booksellers will decided whether or not to stock it. Readers will decide whether or not buy it. Lucky breaks may, or may not, come my way).

So anything I write from now has to be something I'm 100% happy with - that I can stand over and say "this is who I am and if it doesn't work then I'll know I've given it my all".

The 30 Something Crisis Club will be that book.

So it's big guns time. Time to not so much "kill my darlings" as massacre them.

Wish me luck.

In hibernation

In short, I am written out.
'The 30 Something Crisis Club' went to Dublin this week - after a frenetic fortnight of editing it to within an inch of its life.
Now I feel as if i'm spent - for the moment anyway - until my writerly juices kick up to full pelt again. I do have ideas - strong ones - so it shouldn't be too long.
But for now I'm going to do some of the things I just could not while I concentrated on getting the book away.

I am going to read - oh joy... reading, how I've missed thee! I have Little White Lies by Bernadette Strachan on the go as I was warned it might be similar to my new idea (it's not... but it's still a good book) and then I'm going to finish reading the Anna McPartlin book I had to lock away as it was just too distracting. And finally I'm going to enjoy Shirley Benton's debut 'Looking For Leon' which has just be published my Poolbeg.

I'm going to get my hair cut. I look like Chewbacca.
Which reminds me, I'm also going to book in for eyebrow tweezering.

I'm going to spring clean my house - the dust has gathered at a whole new pace when I've not been looking.

I'm going to have some quality time with my children.

I may even cook something more adventurous than toast and drink something healthier than Diet Coke and wine.

So if it goes a little quiet, or stay a little quiet it is because I'm hibernating - recharging my batteries and gearing up to start all over again.

So another one ticked off my list

So I had my tattoo.
Which was a big one.

And tonight I ticked something else off my "things to do before I turn 35" list.
I joined a choir.
I know.
Me! Who can't sing.

Well, actually... let me tell you a story about that.
For as long as I can remember I have been surrounded by music and by singers. My parents love to sing and can hold a quare tune. My sister has a voice that could charm the birds from the trees and my other siblings are also musically inclined.
Me? I have tended to come from the "what she lacks in talent, she makes up for in enthusiasm" school of thought.
When I was little I loved to sing. I sang all the time. It was as natural as breathing in our house. So when, in around Primary 4 our class was asked by the music teacher who wanted to sing in the local Feis I duly put my hand up very enthusiastically and shouted "Me! Me! Me!"

So, along with the other wannabe singers in my class I stood up and sang my song for the teacher and proudly smiled at her when I was done expecting to her to tell me (in the much the same way my mammy and granny always did) that I was a lovely singer and wouldn't I just sweep the boards at Derry's Guildhall with my angelic voice.

She didn't say that.
She smiled sweetly mind and said "You've a lovely voice..... for a choir".

Now my 7 year old self knew this meant that frankly the only place I was good for singing was surrounded by other people who would more than likely drown me out. I did indeed join the primary school choir after that but over the years her words chipped away at me until I didn't sing.. ever.
It became almost a phobia.

When I had children I of course had to battle that phobia and cam give a pretty mean rendition of Twinkle Twinkle. I also liked to sing in the shower or the car. But if I had an inkling that anyone (other than my children) would be listening I would shut up. When my children reached that delightful age where they would say "No, mammy, no" when I started to sing I was quieter still.

I can laugh about it, but the line most said at a family gathering in our house was "Claire doesn't sing".  I even refused to sing on a recording the rest of the family made for my father.
It has been one of those which has long since annoyed me.

Over the years I've toyed with the idea of pushing myself - finding my voice, singing again. Singing, while not my comfort zone, gives me a great sense of release.

So sometime last year (probably around the time Glee came on our screens) I decided I wanted to join a choir. But I never thought I really would.  I never thought that I could sit in a room full of other people and actually open my mouth to sing.

I did it tonight. I sat and I sang (and it was a bit rubbish as I have a cold). And I'll go back next week and sing again. And even thought I may be the quiet, not always in tune, voice at the back I'll go back and go back and sing and reclaim that confidence of that wee girl who had her Feis hopes dashed.

Yes. Mrs Joyce. Maybe you were right. I DO have a lovely voice for a choir.

The skinny jeans were not the only impulsive thing I did this week...

So I had been talking about a tattoo. And during the week I kind of decided I really, really wanted one to mark getting a little older, finishing my latest book, having two kids, being bone crushingly sensible etc etc

So I got one. Today. With no magic numbing cream to take the pain away.

I woke up and just decided to go for it. Even though I have no pain threshold at all.

 I arrived in the tattoo parlour and only once felt a bit faint at the sounds of the buzzing of the needle.
And it was over really quick.

The words I have inked on me are This Too Shall Pass ... to remind me that everything is fleeting and I need to stop and appreciate things as they happen instead of always looking to the future.

The two stars represent my two brightest stars, Joseph and Cara.

And I'm very, very proud of myself.

NB: (and for Keris) The tattoo is on the back of my neck, just below my hairline. It is not near any other hairy part of my body... honest.

A 30 something crisis

I'm turning 35 year this.
Thirty Five.

I'll also be married ten years. My eldest child will turn 7. My "baby" will turn 2. By the end of the year I will be looking at a pre-school place for this child who, it feels anyway, was just laid on my chest all wrinkly and teeny tiny as a new born about three seconds ago.
I'll publish my fifth book this year too (if I get it finished).

And all this is leading me to have some sort of weird, freaky-outy mid-life crisis of sorts. I am more freaked out at turning 35 than I was at turning 30. It feels, well, properly grown up. When my mammy was 35, I was 16. She seemed like the most grown up woman in the world. She "looked" grown up. I fear that I now look like a proper grown up - with slightly wrinkly hands and more grey hair than I care to mention.

It's no coincidence my new book will be called 'The 30 Something Crisis Club' because - dear reader - I'm having a crisis. A crisis of confidence.

Realistically I'm more or less half way through my life. Am I where I wanted to be as a "proper" grown up? Nope. Can I believe that I'm still posting the same old blog posts about wanting/ needing to lose weight? Can I believe I'm still in what we thought was our starter home? (Damn recession, damn housing crash.... damn!) Can I believe that I don't find writing now so much easier than when I started? Can I believe that I'm not writing full time yet? Can I believe that I still run to my mammy in a crisis and expect her to make it all better (or at least get drunk with me so we don't care anymore). Can I believe that I'm still on anti-feckin-depressants?

You can guess what the answer is.

And I'm coming to terms with things. My childbearing days are over. Not through any menopause type situation but more because our family is complete and it would be insanity given the living hell that was my last pregnancy to even consider going there again.

In my rational brain, and even in a big part of my heart, I'm okay with that. But a part of me thinks I haven't pushed enough prams, or burped enough babies or cuddled enough newborns. Maybe, however, I could just get a job in a maternity ward and ask people to let me cuddle their newborns? I'll give them back... promise.

But as I look at packing away a highchair, folding away baby clothes and downgrading from the "big pram" to an altogether more usable buggy I can't help but feel a pang. (Slap me if it ever becomes more than a pang... I beg you).

And, to quote from my favourite ever film of all time '"When Harry Met Sally"...

"AND I'M GONNA BE FORTY!"
"When?"
"Someday!"

That someday is getting closer and closer.

I considered making myself a list of things I must do before the big 3-5 arrives. When I was turning 30 I decided to write a book (check!), pass my driving test (check!) and lose weight (erm....)

I'd love to say "lose weight" again now but I've realised that talking about it just makes me feel like a bigger (in every sense) failure when it doesn't happen.

I have to write a book - am contractually obliged to do so.

And I'm already driving.

Maybe I'll start a rock band. Or get a big scary assed tattoo.

Then again I might just start drinking gin and allow myself to wallow further into the slide into middle-aged-ness.

As I said, I'm having a crisis.

No, its not finished yet

... the book.
We are in the endgame though. Almost 80,000 done - the end in sight - the finish line not too far in the distance.
I wrote just under 4000 last weeks of new material and spent a considerable amount of time editing the rest  of the book and reading over it and hoping I didn't hate it.
Thankfully I didn't but dear Lord I am at the stage where I want this book to be done already.
I imagine this is what marathon runners feel like when they hit the wall - knowing that you have to go on but wanting so much to just sit down in the middle of the road and let someone else do it for you.

A long, slow labour

The characters in my new book (book five, working title of ‘The 30 Something Crisis Club’) have not been behaving recently.


Or should I say, two of them (and on particular) have not been behaving. The bubbly character of Hope has been doing exactly what I want her to do and has become her own woman - the kind of writing experience a writer loves. Her voice is strong, funny and individual.

The two others? Meh. Not so much.

It is a painful experience for a writer to reach a stage in the book where you have written yourself into a corner and you no longer know what is going on in your characters’ mind. (Yes, I know, I make them up. I control their minds... but not really. The characters become real as each book progresses.)

So I’m chopping - cutting swathes of text, reducing my wordcount instead of increasing it and trying to get into the mind of my two other leads.

With a month to go until deadline, this is not a pleasant task.

It also highlights to me just how isolating writing really is. Yes, I have a very supportive network or writerly friends who understand what such an experience is like but the simple fact is, no one else can write this book except from me.

It’s a bit like being pregnant and feeling your waters pop and knowing that the next bit is all down to you. Other people can cheer from the sidelines. They can even offer choice words of support. They may supply mind altering substances every now and again to numb the pain. They can tell you that you can do it, even when you think you are totally spent. They can advise you what to do next but the dilating, the pushing and the puffing is all down to you.

Now if only I could get some gas and air piped into my living room...

Extract from book 5 - the work in progress

“I’m going to be a daddy?” Martin had looked at her through his dark eye-lashes, eyelashes she always said were wasted on a man,  and smiled.


She gestured towards the small white stick in her hand and steadied her voice as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. “It looks like it!”

“Well, that’s brilliant,” he said with an enthusiasm she so had not expected. “Wow! A daddy! And you a mammy! This is great news, Ava. I promise you. This is brilliant stuff. We’re going to do this right, you and me. I’m going to take care of you and that wee baby. I promise.”

He had moved across the room in what felt like one giant impressive manly gesture and had pulled her into his arms while she sobbed. Okay, so it wasn’t in her lifeplan. Okay so she was still young and just getting into the swing of things in her teaching job. Sure, she still lived at home and only saw Martin a couple of nights a week but this didn’t have to be a disaster - not by any stretch of the imagination.

When he had put her down he ran out and bought a box of cigars. He stood in the back garden of her mother’s house and smoked one and when he came back in the smell almost made her vomit.

“This is one of the best days of my life,” he said, with a strength of emotion she had never seen him use before. “There’s only one thing which would or could make it better...”

She had watched as he had knelt on one knee. She felt him take her hand in his and she listened to him tell her loved her and ask her to marry him.

When Ava had looked in Martin’s eyes she had seen nothing but love, joy and honesty radiating back so she had said yes and had kissed him deeply - despite the fug of stale cigar smoke and told him yes.

Two days later Martin had spent his week’s wages on a simple but beautiful yellow gold band with one small but perfectly formed diamond. She had slipped it onto her finger and felt like a proper grown up. Okay, so none of this planned, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be just perfect. Happiness comes when you least expect it.

He had teared up at their first scan. Ava had felt strangely emotional too but also more than a little freaked out. This baby – the white and black and grey little blob she could see on the screen with its very own little heartbeat- was inside her. It was growing in her stomach. It was attached to her, relying on her for everything. She felt overwhelmed with responsibility – she had to do this right. She had to make sure her baby was fine. She had to feed it all the right food and avoid all the wrong things. She had to wear flat shoes and wireless bras that made her boobs look saggy and she had to drink lots of milk but still partake in (mild) exercise. She panicked about the bottle of wine she shared with Martin before she knew she was up the stick. She panicked about the cigar scented kiss they had shared just after they knew. She panicked that she would have a miscarriage, or a premature delivery, or that the cord would be wrapped around the baby’s neck, or that she would need a c-section. Worse still she panicked that she wouldn’t need a c-section and she would actually have to push a baby out of her actual lady area. She panicked she would tear. She panicked she would make a show of herself. She panicked that she would be a rubbish mammy. She panicked that something would be wrong with the baby and she would struggle to cope. She panicked that Martin would leave her and she would be left a single parent.

As it turned out, he did. And no amount of panicking about it beforehand helped prepare her for the body blow of him walking out on her and her eight month pregnant belly.

It hadn’t been terribly dramatic. He had dropped his paint roller mid nursery transformation and grabbed his coat and said he couldn’t do this anymore. He didn’t love her. He wasn’t ready to be a daddy. She was an awful sour bag to live with these days. He was going to move away. He had a job in America. She could keep the ring – all £350 of it. £350 which would turn out to be the only money he would ever, ever pay towards his daughter’s upkeep.

So what if I'm broken?

I have reached that stage of writing book five where I fear I will never be able to finish the damn thing.
Trouble is - this wall usually hits at around 40,000 words. It has hit at 15,000 this time. Eeek!
The thing is, the book is there is my head. I am conversing with my characters all the time in a mildly schizophrenic way. I quite like them. I'm definitely very excited about the book.
I just can't write the damn thing.
My fingers, it feels, are broken. I feel as if I'm writing and writing and writing and only producing 5 words at a time. I have even already experienced a major editing crisis.
Almost every writer I know goes through these phases - I just want something to snap me right out of mine and get me on the "write track" (see what I did there?) again.

As it stands I'm more likely to spend my evenings these days fake planning my fellow Northern author Emma Heatherington's wedding to Simon Cowell than actually writing. Must. Try. Harder.

Monday was an uncharacteristically good day

First of all when I dressed for work, my skirt waistband felt looser. This made me feel good - not twig like or anything but good.
Second of all when I went to the dreaded weigh in in Weight Watchers I was delighted to discover I have shed 3lbs. I did have to resist the urge to a post weigh splurge - but I did. I had some toast with Low Low cheese when I got home (within my points) and it was lovely.
Thirdly of all, I wrote about 750 words which was lovely.
Fourthly I have decided on a working title for book five which until further notice will be known as 'The 30 Something Crisis Club'.
And finally....



Drum roll please....





THE BABY WHO NEVER SLEEPS SLEPT THROUGH ALL NIGHT.

I thank you.