A writer's life for me

I am NaNoWriMo-ing this year. It’s my third year having a bash at what feels to me an utterly sadistic challenge, wherein you boil a complex and intricate process down to a month’s worth of writing, that only really secures months and months of editing in the aftermath. And yet, here I am, bashing out a story that I hadn’t planned to write – largely because I decided to join the NaNoWriMo bandwagon the day before the blessed event was due to start. I first tried to do NaNoWriMo in the middle of my MA degree; massive mistake, lasted a few days, developed a semi-decent character only to abandon the poor man and never write him again. The second time was last year; I was in the final year of my PhD (brilliant timing, yes, okay) and the horrendous editing for that had left me with creative energy to burn. I wrote every day, averaging at around 1700 words a pop, and I had a short story collection by the end of it. This year, I am writing a thing. I don’t want to use the word nove...

Take a walk with me. We’ll go back to August 2010, late August, when I finally found out that despite my below par A-Level grades, there was a university in the country that was prepared to give me a chance. Praise be to them. Ahead of starting this journey, my generous mother bought me a laptop. A brand spanking new laptop. That my kind and patient sister, and her partner, set up for me and taught me how to use. They deliberately picked something that would suit the university life style – and they were bang on the money in that respect. That laptop lasted I-don’t-care-to-remember how many assignments and a 10,000 word undergraduate dissertation. Let’s not forget, either, that during my first and second summers home from university, I also wrote two “novels” (I use that word in a bland and unimpressed tone, incidentally) that were typed on that same laptop. From there, we moved to postgraduate studies. More assignments and eventually a 25,000 word dissertation. By this point ...

Transition: 'the process or the period of changing from one state or condition to another'. I wanted to make this blog more of a regular thing once my PhD was over, for several reasons. Partly it’s just to log what happens next and this, in itself, is two-fold: I want to have some kind of documentation of this recovery process (yes, that’s what I’m calling it) that follows the PhD, but I also live in hope that someone who is struggling with having finished their PhD might find this blog some day, and breathe a hefty sigh on realising that the weird grief-cum-relief they’re feeling right now isn’t totally abnormal – in fact, it might even be quite common. I also want to get into the habit of writing more – something I’m encouraging my own students to do now and I hate giving out writing advice that I haven’t/am not taking myself, and so here we are. This is my first post as a Whatever I Am Now (because I still don’t have balls big enough to write The Diary of a Writer in th...

In case the title of this blog post didn’t give it away, let me clarify: I have handed in my PhD thesis.  I handed it in exactly a week ago, actually, and I would have blogged a brag sooner if not for the fact that the day after my hand-in, a family member was taken into hospital, and the last week has sort of slipped away from me as a result of that. It’s been a while since I gave you an update at all, I know, and the last time we “talked”, I was in this blissfully ignorant place of not having any work to do. Let me catch you up from there:             My readers were wonderful. All of those who read and provided feedback for the book part of the project were insightful, considerate, and careful with their responses. I ironed out technical issues and even one or two final plot holes and so, to those who read the manuscript ahead of hand-in, I cannot and will not ever be able to thank you enough.         ...

The question that frames this blog post is one with many, many possible answers. The most obvious one being: A liar. The second most obvious one – and the one that currently applies to me, I think, is: A bit lost. The initial elation at not having work to do has given way to mild feelings of anxiety that maybe I do have work I could or should be doing, but for whatever reason – despite having micro-managed my working days for the last three years – I can’t put my finger on what the work is. In a sentence: I am suspicious of finding myself with “free time”. I have read a few posts online from people who have recently (read: in the last twelve months) finished their PhD studies. They have gone through their examination process; passed and made their amendments; they’re waiting to graduate. It’s a grand place to be, in theory; in practice, it seems troublesome. The people writing these posts are reporting back some worrying feelings, largely about not knowing what to do with their li...

As of about half an hour ago, my PhD novel is with a wonderful collective of beta readers, and my PhD research paper – the second draft – is in the email inbox of my supervisor. Boom. I’d like to take a second here to thank all of the amazing people who offered to read the book. I put a call-out online and it didn’t for a second cross my mind that so many people would offer their time and patience towards reading this project. So many people offered, in fact, that I’ve had to turn people down and only send it to a select few – which has broken my heart a bit, I won’t lie. When the list of possible readers was edging close to twenty, I panicked and emailed my supervisor: ‘Bizarre question: How many readers is too many readers?’ It felt like I was giving him a riddle, but he understood the concern: ‘You don’t want more feedback than you can handle at this stage, and different people will approach the text differently. Maybe one or two for thing, one or two for an...

A lot has happened since I last updated this. Personally, my health got a little shaky and I had to take chunks of time away from work – which only added to the work stress, of course. Professionally – and by that I mean, PhD-lly – things are moving in a general forwards motion that everyone, including myself, feels quite happy about. And that’s always nice, right? There’s no catch 22, by the way. Things are genuinely coming together nicely and I am genuinely quite calm about it. Which is largely why I’m writing this post now rather than in a week, by which time I will no doubt be panicking about something/anything again. So to pick up where we left off: In my last blog post I said that I was going to start the read-through of the fourth/final draft of my novel. I was wrong. What I actually meant was that I was going to read the prologue and then email my supervisor to tell him I was panicking about the amendments to that troublesome plotline and that he needed to tell me what...

8:01: Set up laptop and load most recent draft of thesis. 8:04: Boil kettle. 8:05: Make tea. 8:07: Go through hard copy of thesis to remind yourself what you did yesterday, and make a quick check list of what it is that you need to get done today. 8:15: Stare at the wall. 8:20: Cry a little bit. I see these cool and trendy Instagram posts where people blog their PhD lifestyles and they genuinely make me think that I’m living mine wrong. Okay, the above may have been written for comedic effect – or was it? – but holy smokes, folks, this stuff is hard, and I’m going to have a little weep into my morning cuppa if I need to. Today’s problem wasn’t really PhD specific though, in the interest of being honest and upfront. In fact, it was something that anyone who has ever written a book will be familiar with. I had a poor night’s sleep – the third on the trot, thanks to this heatwave – and I’m quietly convinced that I was more tired after sleeping than I w...

I am sitting across the dinner table from my sister-in-law when I realise something: I don’t want to be with my husband anymore. The thought comes together innocently enough. It’s one of those background thoughts that play over someone’s conversation. You’re not fully committed to what the other person is saying, and so you have a few tabs open in the background: Bugger, I forgot washing up liquid; Did I send that email, or just draft it – must check; Can’t remember whether the car is booked in for the morning or the afternoon, better check that too; I think I want to leave my husband; Is this chicken cooked? * The title of this post is slightly disingenuous; let me just be up front and admit that to you right now. I didn’t do a bad thing, at all. In fact, I did what I think is probably a very smart thing. If you follow my PhD posts then you know I am about to start what will be the fourth – and, I hope, final – edit on my PhD novel. At this stage it is very much a labour...

Reader, I have been struggling. I am making literary allusions there – I hope you’ve noticed – although realistically over recent months I have been less Jane Eyre and more mad woman in the attic.  Don't worry -- I don't really mean that  kind of mad. Although, what I have recently done to my research paper is not entirely dissimilar to what Kathy Bates did to that chap's foot in Misery . The last time I updated this I was at the beginning of my research paper; now, I’m at the end. The end of my first draft, that is – let’s not make it sound more important than it actually is – but it’s a first draft that I didn’t have in February. And it’s a first draft that I have polished, chopped ten pages from in line edits alone, and now booted off to my supervisor so he can tell me all the things I’ve done wrong. I sound resentful towards him; I’m not. The man is an editorial God and I am grateful for his input. But I am also desperate for the day when he tells me ...

It’s been a little while – nearly two months, in fact – so, before I opened this fresh word document, I had a quick peek at the blog post I uploaded back in January. And I actually snorted. A derisory, judgemental, ‘Oh, you foolish child,’ kind of snort.  I will love my research, every day? What on earth was I thinking?  I lied, as it turns out. I haven’t loved my research how I promised to; in fact, if we were married, my research would probably have filed for divorce by now on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour, and I wouldn’t be able to dispute a damn word that my research said. My research would leave with half of everything – I’m a PhD student though, so my ‘everything’ isn’t exactly much – but my research and I would both know that, after the last two months, it really deserved more than half. Much, much more. That’s where we have been. And here’s what happened to get us to this point: I started writing my research paper. I wrote around 400 hundre...