Who inspires you?

Back in May I tried to blog once a day as part of a challenge set by Rosalium and one of the topics which was set on one of the days was: who inspires you.  Now I thought about this back in May and at that time I didn't feel capable of answering this question.

I guess that the issue was because I don't think that there isn't just one person who inspires me.

When I was a child I wanted to do lots of different things like farming, acting, film directing and writing.  It was possibly through an addiction to Enid Blyton books that I decided to start writing stories in the first place.  Although when my short stories started to read like mini carbon copies I was encouraged to read other books....

I love reading and I used to read whatever I could get my hands on and for this reason I don't tend to pay a great deal of attention to authors lives. (Unless I've decided to write a dissertation on them and in the case of those writers that was research/procrastination...)

Over the past year I've struggled with writing whilst pregnant and since giving birth to my son trying to work out how to write around caring for him.  What has this got to do with who inspires you?  Well hold your horses I'm coming to that!

Over the last year I've struggled to find time to write anything let alone my poor neglected novels and for that reason my respect and admiration for J K Rowling has grown.  I say grown because I have enjoyed the Harry Potter books since I was a young girl and used to read some of them by the light of the street light that illuminated my the street outside my house.

When I was despairing to Paul about how I felt like I was losing myself not being able to write whilst pregnant and worrying if I'd ever write again after the baby came he reminded me about J K Rowling. Daft as it may sound but it made me feel more positive.

Now I wouldn't say that she is my only inspiration but she's probably the main famous one I have.  The rest are people you've never heard of like my family members who've persevered in the hunt for a job in their chosen career despite the difficulties they've faced, who have gone through tough times and come out stronger and more positive, those that have had a chance to adventure and taken it. As well as friends who have worked hard and are now living their dreams.

I don't think I ever really envisioned what my life as an adult would be like as a child but I know that in many ways I've probably got what many people dream of. A house, car, little family and a job which I quite like. Despite that I don't think I've quite achieved all of my dreams or grown up but I guess that I'm on my way and maybe one day when I look back that I might be able to match up to those people that inspire me.

It's Christmasss!

Merry Christmas to one and all!

From the land of the dead or incredibly pale... and from the crazed cats.

It's time for a bit of festive cheer so enjoy yourself it's nearly the end of the year!

It's the end! Of this year's NaNoWriMo attempt that is...

After a few weeks of crawling along tapping out a few hundred words at the occasional stolen moment on a couple of half formed and part baked novel ideas I've decided to call it a day on my NaNoWriMo attempts for 2013.

I've decided to take the opinion that any words written this month are wins considering the tiny amount I managed to write in the last three or four months prior to this one.  Ok, it's difficult if not impossible to write with a newborn but I thought that after a few months things might get easier but it seems that I'm not quite organised enough to crack the writing regularly thing just yet.

So for now I'm going to have to write 2013 off as my least productive NaNoWriMo attempt so far but there will be other years and who knows maybe in the future I'll be able to persuade my son to write his own novel with me.

Not now NaNoWriMo.

I've only managed to crawl forwards a few hundred words from where I was the other day, so it seems like the momentum of my new story has proved short lived.

After reviewing my record over the last few weeks it doesn't look like I'll manage to write anything significant over the remainder of the month if I keep up my current form and to be honest it's hard enough just keeping my head above water at the moment.

I had thought that it wouldn't be too hard to write with a baby but I feel rude if I contemplate writing whilst my son is awake and when he's asleep I need to sleep myself, do housework or just relax from trying to stop the crying! (Ok, he doesn't cry all the time but when he does it's emotionally draining...)

 I've decided that I'll see what I can do over the next week and then make my mind up about whether I'm continuing with NaNoWriMo or not. Nearly everyone else I know who does NaNoWriMo as well as a full time job have given up so I wouldn't be in bad company if I did but part of me wants to carry on and have something to do other than housework and cat/child wrangling.

Yet another NaNoWriMo update.

So I decided to bite the bullet and put my previous story on hold and start the other one which has been plaguing my mind. It kept interrupting my train of thoughts then butting in when I wanted to write the other one.

I don't think either story is great but I'm feeling a bit better now I've encapsulated the start of my other story in a file.

As I'm finding it hard to write anything due to time, energy and Paul stealing my laptop in the evenings to play Minecraft I'm counting the extra thousand words this has given me.  For all I know the two stories could merge into one at some point.

Ok, it's not likely but some words written are better than having no words written!

I'm still woefully behind and think that it would take some kind of miracle for me to catch up to where my word count should be this year let alone win NaNoWriMo. Then again no one would ever get anywhere if they had that attitude all the time would they?  Wish me luck! I'll need it going forward.

NaNoWriMo the saga continues...

So despite it being slow going I've decided to carry on plugging away at this prose based challenge and keep trying to hammer a few words out as I sit next to the Moses basket and my son sleeps.

Unfortunately the young do not have all that predictable or useful sleep patterns. At least my son doesn't seem to! I have to be prepared for one of his few 15 minute naps and then leap upon the opportunity. Squandering it by making a drink will doom the writing session to the likelihood of the child awakening and demanding sustenance or the onset of the procrastination ogre.

So progress has been made, about 800 words which isn't bad considering but it's not going to help me meet any sort of deadlines I may have had. I am starting to think about giving up this year as a bad job.

Further tales of woe from the NaNoWriMo front line.

So after my blog post the other day I've had a bit of a word with myself and tried a bit harder to hammer some words out.

I've found that it helped to remove some of the word count pressure from myself and am now starting to approach the 2,000 word mark.  Sometimes you have to remind yourself that if you haven't written for a while you will be rusty and anything you get down is better than nothing.

Now if only I could convince myself of that then I'd be laughing!