Category: Procrastination

Post Procrastination Annual Update ; )

Ahem.

So.

I have stopped procrastinating, honestly.

 

But I see another WHOLE year has gone by since I last posted here.

I have actually written a hundred ranty blog posts in my head these past many months, and some even made it into the notebook. But there they languish. Perhaps one day they will be published as part of my memoirs. If anyone can decipher the calligraphy.

There have been many things to rant about recently, and some sad and difficult times, too.

But also, good things have happened.

One, is that I now have an agent.

Another is that I have finally set up my actual real proper website:

And there’s more … my teen short story Odd Sunday came third in the Flash500 Short Story Contest 2018.

And YET more … I am now a writing mentor for two exciting projects.

Manuscription Magazine offers mentoring for young writers up to age eighteen and an opportunity for publication.

#WriteMentor offers mentoring for YA and Middle Grade writers who have a complete manuscript and are getting ready to pitch to agents.

So there you have it.

I told you I’d been busy.

Farewell to the Great Procrastinator

Ahem …

I know. It’s been more than two years since I last posted here. But I haven’t been procrastinating. Honest. Quite the opposite.

I’ve been busy doing a lot of stuff including gaining a Masters in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University. As a result of which I’ve now achieved a long-held great procrastinator’s dream of finishing a novel, as well as meeting a whole group of lovely, amazing, supportive people. Currently we’re working together to produce our anthology Paper Worlds – out in the wilds on 11th April.

So, I no longer consider myself the greatest procrastinator of them all.

Except when it comes to cleaning, of course.

And this small distraction who arrived 18 months ago. 

 

 

Competition News

Very pleased to report that I’ve been placed third in The Doris Gooderson Short Story Competition 2014 with my story When Gloria was Here.  Congratulations to James Whitman who won, and Jim Waite who came second. Click here to read the winning stories.

The competition was run by the charming Wrekin Writers and the profits were donated to the Severn Hospice.

 

Humidity, Humility & Overthinking

lightningIt feels biblical at the moment. Thunder growling in the distance as I write; lightning cracking the sky open, but no rain. Humidity, like we’re in the Deep South of America, not Gloucestershire, England. Where is autumn? It’s September, for goodness’ sake; should be all misty and mellow, but no, it’s heat and sweating and plagues.

Yes, plagues. Flies, dive bombing as we try to sleep; woodlice – dead ones curled and crispy under foot, live ones climbing armchairs, wandering across carpets and dawdling over the kitchen hob; spiders, and worse, their webs silkily crisscrossing every doorway, like a mission impossible style high security system that can only be overcome by performing advanced acrobatics while wearing a morph suit. It’s beyond me. I have a bad back, only ever achieved a forward roll at the height of my flexibility, and my bum would definitely look big in that. The Daddy Long Legs are yet to come.100

There’s another plague upon my house and I’ve only got myself to blame. Twitter. Yes, I knew there would be bad alongside the good. It’s a great aid for the practising procrastinator, that’s for sure. I keep forwarding interesting links to myself to read – I don’t know when. Currently, about 235 such links are sitting in my inbox…not good. Twitter is making me think more, particularly about feminism; diversity in children’s books; mental health issues. These are in no particular order and will be revisited in future posts. Suddenly, after years of denial, lethargy and sitting on the fence, it seems I do have opinions about stuff, after all.

Alongside the good, the noble, the wise; the joy of connecting with writers and other interesting folk; alongside the kind and supportive, there are a few without humility, those who shout ‘oi, buy my book’, only that, over and over, and nothing else; and those with one desire – to claim more followers. Is there something creepily cult-like about having followers? Or am I back to the biblical? I don’t know, perhaps I’m over thinking. I do that, you know.

I’m still learning about twitter but I think it’s mostly positive. I take to heart the wise words of Katy Evans-Bush in Mslexia, issue 63:

“Generosity never goes amiss on social media.” 

 

 

Retweet

I’ve just realised that when I changed my profile pic on twitter, it accidentally removed the link from here. Not as cool or clever as I thought.  Please excuse, I’ve been on holiday and therefore not blogging. I have been getting acquainted with twitter, though. Still learning. Have made a couple of errors – one, inexperience, and two, lack of judgement. They’ve been rectified and I have ‘met’ some good and interesting people. I have 126 followers.  It’s amazing. I’d go so far as to say it’s enhanced my life (a bit).

So, this is what I look like on twitter now.

Actually, this is what I look like in the real world, too.  I know, big step. It came about because I need an author photo for a project in the works. More details to follow. It had to be black and white with simple clothes and background. I hate having my picture taken but the offspring were on the case immediately.  In fact, they don’t like this photo because it doesn’t look like me, apparently. Maybe that’s why I do quite like it.

Anyway, this wasn’t the post I was going to write today. That will be coming to you soon. In other news, I have been asked to write my first guest post.  Details to follow…

 

Tweet Tweet

Well over a year ago, I attended a workshop led by the poet and novelist Sarah Salway called ‘Writing for the Social Media Age’ and run by the Bath Lit Festival. Until this point, I had kept myself in what I supposed was a necessary writerly isolation. The workshop was a turning point, tipping me from the pram of social media phobia and helping me take my first baby steps on shaky banana shaped toddler legs. That was when I set up this ‘training’ blog.

At the end of the day, Sarah set us the objective of sending a tweet or three. I had actually already set up a twitter account some time before but, in true introvert fashion, I liked to observe rather than participate.

Today, finally, I came out of the closet and sent that first tweet.  This is what I look like on twitter:

Soon, I will work out how to add a button to this site so that my reader(s?) can follow me on twitter, but for now you can find my one tweet here: @KClarkwriter

More about Sarah can be found at her websites: Sarah Salway and Writer in the Garden. Her latest book is Digging up Paradise: Potatoes, People and Poetry in the Garden of England.

Digging_Front_Cover

Diversions

photo 1

Everywhere I try to go at the moment, I meet a sign.  The road is closed.  There is a diversion.  Sometimes I disregard the signs and go along anyway, only to find myself executing a fifty eight point turn between someone’s garden wall and a series of strategically placed plastic barriers. Is this a metaphor?

There is something important I’m supposed to be doing.  I was all set to get on with it, key objectives in place, planning to commence after the Easter holidays.  On the first day of term, driving back from delivering one offspring to school, six hours ahead of me, vibrant with potential achievement, my mobile rang.  It was the school of offspring 2, to say she was ill – half an hour into the school term.

I collected her and took her home via the doctor’s surgery. With her pain and my anxiety levels escalating, I spoke to the doctor again over the phone, returned with her to the surgery, and then onto hospital….suspected appendicitis.

Thankfully it wasn’t, but if it had been, I would almost have been grateful.  Twenty four hours on a children’s ward makes you appreciate what you’ve got, I can tell you.

Meanwhile, the thing I had to get on with, something writing-wise I’ve been building up to for a number of years, didn’t get done.  There are times when these things are out of your hands.

Still, once everything was resolved, everyone healthy, did I get on with it? Nope. Doubt danced in, hand in hand with the internal critic, diverting me from the righteous path. Watching me flounder and generally give in to the vagaries of life, the IT Director set me a deadline for the important thing.  That’s what I need, a deadline setter.  It works.  I have made significant progress with three days still to go, and that is saying a lot when you see who has moved in:

photo barney

photo 1b

photo 3b

 

 

 

How (not) to blog

blue flowerBeen reading a lot of articles in writing magazines about blogging recently and turns out I am doing it all wrong. Key points seem to be:

Do not write about yourself

Do not write about writing

Do not write about writer’s block etc

Good job this is just my practice blog, then. You know, the one before I am a famous author. Ha ha.

Even my spammers are telling me what I am doing wrong in terms of SEO optimisation. At least I think they are, they write a different language these techie folk.  I understand it about as much as the ‘comments’ received in Cyrillic script.  Although if the Russian feedback is anything like the rest of the stuff I get, I’m glad really. (See Being Someone Else.)

Plus, someone recently reminded me that whatever you put out there is there forever. That’s a scary thought. All those anxieties and little foibles on display for eternity.

daisy

Perhaps I should follow the wise words in Mslexia, issue 61. In Digidoings – Plan B, Katy Evans-Bush suggests inviting guest bloggers to write for your blog and hoping that you will be asked to return the favour. Wendy Clarke in “Be a Good Blog Host” (Writing Magazine March 2014) advises on the etiquette of approaching and hosting guest bloggers. Writers’ Forum issue 149 has an article “Make Money From Your Blog.”  That would be nice. Time to set myself some new objectives and get serious about this bloggin’ lark.

Of course, that will be a distraction from the other thing…

blossom

By the way, the photos are nothing to do with the post, just that it is spring and actually springlike. What a difference a month makes. The offspring got hold of my phone and took these splendid shots at Westonbirt Arboretum.

Being Someone Else

fog.bmp

This week I’ve had a series of dates, dancing till dawn with Insomnia, Lady of the long, long night, followed by early morning travels through the Cheltenham Races traffic, and fog as thick as snot.  I have been constantly driving into an abyss.  A white wall and them I’m in it; a white wall and then I’m in it.  Perhaps, it’s a metaphor for raising teenagers.  After an hour or so, there was something akin to snow blindness – fog myopia, maybe. At one point, I saw a woolly mammoth before it morphed into a cluster of trees. Of course, trees. Why would a mammoth be roaming rural Gloucestershire in 2014? Fog steals time, though, and sound, and place. I could have been anywhere, could have fallen through to somewhere else. Been someone else.

I’m thinking about this at the moment, being someone else. I began this blog as the Great Procrastinator. It was a persona, something for me to hide behind because this modern need to put everything out there repulsed and terrified me. It hasn’t worked. Sometimes I don’t like the Great Procrastinator’s tone, or the fact that she’s talking about domestic minutiae when there is a world of trouble going on out there, and mainly because I have put my insecurity and vulnerability out there anyway, albeit predominantly to purveyors of dubious pharmaceuticals and faux designer baggage.

I’m not sure what the point of this rambling is. Just tired, I think.  Insomnia is a demanding mistress.

Today, while fog still hung about in vast drifts, the sun came out; a disc, whiter somehow than the white sky; more perfectly round than the moon; a colossal sequin behind the mists, waste product of a giant’s craft project.