Okay, so here are a few things about me, considering any reader/s I do have might not know anything more than I a am a person who sometimes bakes gingerbread and drinks coffee in celebration of completing chapters of her novel. Which is fine. Just thought I'd add a couple of extra details, namely:

1. Yes, I do sometimes act like a four year old, but only because I work in the reception class (ages four and five) in a primary school, so it's often a lot easier to see things from a small child's perspective by actually becoming one. 

2. I play piano as much as I drink coffee (which for anyone who reads will know is as often as I write, which for anyone who doesn't know, a lot).

3. I like Jessie the cowgirl from Toy Story, and yes. Yes I did dress up as her when I worked a New Year shift when I was still employed at the bar. It was fun. They even let me make my own hat and wear it all night. 

4. Most of my posts are about writing/gingerbread/books/music.

5. I quite regularly post things that are nothing to do with anything apart from my own interest.

6. Which doesn't bother me, seeing as I write this for me and not you.

7. I wish I spent more time reading and less time at work work (i.e. not school as I am technically a volunteer there and do not get paid) but unfortunately as I am not a full time writer yet I cannot earn a living of my books).

8. One day I will though, earn a living from writing. I'm determined, even if I don't manage to get published until I'm 70. 

9. I write for myself, and find it weird sharing my stories/letting people read them.

10. I'll get over that. It's just something I've always kept to myself because it's so private. Not the actual stories, just the process. 

Is this wrong? I mean, creating facebook accounts for characters in my novel and then talking to them as if they're real people?

I don't know, but I created a facebook page for my music, so check it out if you're stopping by anyway.

Yesterday, after taking home Plantboy, I drove to the garage and put petrol in my car and came out the shop with the following items:

- one bottle of Charlie and Lola Pink Milk (I know it's for kinds but it tastes like little drops of sin and it's delicious, I'm not kidding)
- one small packet of Bacon Fries (I used to have them when I was younger and I was nostalgic)
- a bottle of peach flavour ice tea
- some cherry drops
- a mango

A weird combination, but it satisfied me. Today, after arriving at work an hour late due to my alarm being too quiet and my dizziniess from overtiredness, at lunchtime I bought the following items:

- The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan
- Joe James by Anne Lamott
- Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
- A coffee frother (say that fast, it's huge fun)

Whilst I appreciate I am supposed to be saving money (which I started back in September and it's going alright) so that Plantboy and I might move into a suitable yet small flat in Edinburgh (where he studies and I work) there is no denying that my reading list is looking, whilst not thin, a little dated and could do with some refreshing fiction. And one knows that fiction needs good, frothy coffee, and since I am the only one besides my brother who really drinks REAL coffee regularly, we do not own a coffee machine. Hence my buying the coffee frother, so I can make lattes when I don't fancy an americano.

When I get home, seeing as Plantboy is working at the farm with his friends, I shall make red velvet cupcakes using this recipe and then I shall take them to his house later after they've had dinner and we can share them. If there is one thing alone he loves me for, it's my cakes. I don't have any trouble admitting that might be the only reason he wants to marry me (one day, and don't tell him I said that, he might hunt you down and smash cake in your face).

Anyway, I have said enough. It's a beautiful day, the kind that makes one wish one was outdoors flying kinds and making dens instead of sat behind a computer working, but I took my break to write this and I'm feeling better about staying on until four now. 

Next time, I won't stay away so long. It only makes me unhappy.

•  work I got a job at an office as an administrator (yes they DO let me organise their stationary cupboard) and have been working there a year and two weeks almost to the day. I love it; whilst I have little responsibility in the way of financially advising (i.e. none whatsoever) I am good at preparing and organising and making things look neat, which happens to suit me. It is by no means a permanent job, merely something to aid me in gaining experience of 'the real world' and to occupy my time. Suffice to say that without this job (and my lovely colleagues, all three of them) my little Jella the Dinosaur Car would have to be rendered pedal-powered.
• volunteering In January I started volunteering my general insanity at my old Primary School in the village. I love this more than my job (sorry, job) and have finally found my pathway. Yes, my mother and my grandparents have been telling me since I was eleven that she'd make a brilliant teacher someday, wouldn't she, Barb? Thus far I have helped with mundane classroom tasks, been on school trips (the other week we went to see Santa at a National Park. No kidding, it was awesome). It feels good to have my direction back again, even if my circumstances permitted it a little.
• Also, I've been helping out a lot with SAY YES, a church-run organisation which provides Youth Clubs and Youth Cafés and phenomenal services for young people in my area. To make things even more exciting MESSY CHURCH has just started up; arts and crafts and yummy junk-food decorating for children and their families, followed by a short service in church and a homecooked meal to share.
• frolicking By which I mean writing, doing arty-farty things, meeting and loving Plantboy, visiting/being silly with friends.

• I met Plantboy, and it feels as though I have loved him forever. (At this point my suspicions that Maggie Stiefvater was in fact telling the truth about love in her SHIVER series were correct.)#

So there we go. Another year almost gone, and I have to remind myself of how much I have actually achieved this year instead of concentrating on all the things I haven't yet completed. Sometimes I get stuck in a rut and I feel like I'm not doing great, so when I feel like this I'll remember just how far I've come since the day the sky turned.

Oh, yeah. And I'm remind myself how many thousands of words closer I am to finishing all my writings. How much more confident and outgoing person I am than I ever have been in my life. 

Just a quick prayer to thank God for this beautiful, challenging, fruitful year and to ask for guidance, trust, friendship and love. For a smooth transition from one melting year into the next.

Amen.

I've been meaning to post about mood and character POV for a few days now. I recently rewrote a scene I thought I'd completed months ago, but since then I haven't been able to write immediately past it and until now, haven't realised why.

It was something quite simple, something that could be easily, though carefully, changed. The answer? My character POV was wrong. Instead of writing from Girl's POV, once I'd taken the conversation and weaved it into Boy's POV, things started to flow a whole lot better.

Which leads me to believe that POV and mood are actually linked.


The particular scene I am talking about is when my main character and her best friend meet for the first time. Naturally, as they don't know each other from Adam (or Eve), the mood has to be right. I've been experimenting with writing from Boy's POV because I wanted to observe my main character, as everybody else in the story was developed and had arcs and shapes. Whilst her internal and external "journies" were very clear cut for me, how she achieved the development in its entirety wasn't something I'd quite finished figuring out. There were plot holes to fill in and her coping mechanisms to tweek. Suddenly, by switching to Boy as narrator in certain scenes, I get his take on how she reacts to things around her, his take on how she dresses, the tiny things she does when she's nervous or excited or angry or sad.

In this particular scene I wanted to highlight how first impressions, depending on how guarded or open a person is, aren't always accurate. This needed a mood, perhaps nervousness or confidence or a mixture of the two. Through simply altering my POV and hence the mood, I suddenly have a scene I can work with, can mould my protagonist from.

Tomorrow I might post an example of one scene written from Girls POV and the same written from Boy's, to highlight my meaning. Today I have, alas, steered away from my WIP to iron out a plot bunny on a couple of 100 word stories and two other 100 word stories that I am looking to turn into (longer) short stories. By Friday I aim to be done with plot bunnies, so I can divert my attention back to Boy, Girl and Ceilidh Dance Frivolities.