I love reading blogs written by other writers, editors, publishers and general creative bods. I particularly love reading blogs on ‘writing’ and how to write better. That’s why in my own blog I like to explore the lessons I’m learning as I progress on my writing journey.

But there’s a snag. In reading all those posts, I got myself caught up in thinking I should be doing something a certain way. Using a character template for example, and then getting caught up in which specific template I should use, whether I should be using one for scenes or settings, having to outline, or not outline, styles of note taking, pantser or a plotter, editing as I go or writing to the end and then editing… the options are endless and I wrapped myself up in a big knotty ball of stress trying to figure out which was the best method of writing to produce the best story. 

What happened was I ended up not doing any writing and just trying a ridiculous number of methods. This is what led me to start the author interview series. I was fascinated obsessed with other writers writing processes. I wanted to learn what their secret trick was. I was hoping for some nugget of inspiration or gem of knowledge that would tell me how I could write that best seller, or actually, and more importantly just finish my own god damn novel!

You know what I discovered…? There is no gem, no nugget and no secret. It doesn’t exist. And you know why? Because only YOU know how you write best.

I was busy interviewing Dylan Hearn on his writing process when I had an epiphany, a real one. It’s been known, and I’m always in the car.  Anyway, this epiphany came out of a discussion on his method for developing characters, without trying to give too much away from his interview, he develops them through edits, not necessarily before sitting down to write the first draft. Commence one of those, really awkward self revealing moments when I was all like:

‘Wait, whaaaat??? You mean you DON’T have to know every single detail about a character before you start writing?’ 

A hundred thousand pennies dropped at once, and all my weary up tight cogs clicked into place. It might seem obvious to you, but it wasn’t to me. I waS convinced I needed to have the perfect character before I started to write.

Apparently, you don’t.

(*$%&@##)

And you know what else? You don’t have to have a bunch of other shit sorted either. You could, if that’s what works best for you. But you don’t have to. YOU DON’T HAVE TO. F*** my actual life!

Why was that so hard for me to understand? I’m a grown adult for goodness sake. I guess I got caught up in trying to work out where I sat on the plotter/pantser line. I always thought I would be on the extreme end of the plotter continuum. But I’m not. I like a good solid outline, with a couple of sentences outlining each chapter, and that’s it. I don’t want anything else. It wasn’t until Dylan told me he edits the characters to perfection during the editing stage that I realised why I had been having such an issue just getting on. I thought I needed to have perfection before I started, but I don’t.

Dylan did something else pretty amazing. It might sound odd, but he gave me the best gift I could of asked for.

He gave me permission to do it my way.

To ignore everyone else, put the advice to the side, and just figure out my own process. It was an odd realisation that I needed someone else to give me permission to do it my own way. I don’t really consider myself a conformist, in fact I revel in breaking the rules. So it was a shock to me that I couldn’t just give myself permission. But I couldn’t, and I suspect I’m not the only one. I guess because writing matters so much to me, I wanted to be sure I was doing it right, and writing the perfect way.

This epiphany leaves me in somewhat of a pickle, because now I don’t really know what my writing process is, I’m back to square one and half way through a book. But that’s ok, there’s nothing better than an adventure into the unknown, and I don’t imagine I will get it perfect on book one anyway.

I want to give you the same gift Dylan gave me….

I’M GIVING YOU PERMISSION

I’M GIVING YOU PERMISSION

Put the advice blogs down, put the writing technique books away, sack the ‘rules’ off and back away from any words of wisdom.

Get messy, get frustrated, get upset, get emotional if you need to, but do it your way, and enjoy working out what that is. I know I’m going to.

***

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The wife has always had a penchant for Disney. I on the other hand barely watched them as a child, preferring to have my head stuck firmly in the pages of dusty old books. Disney came up in conversation again recently – having pushed a small human out – and the fact she wanted to have a large collection of disney films ready for the boy to watch. Sky had a few on demand over Christmas, so we sat down and stuck The Little Mermaid (TLM) on.

I sat, aghast for the entire film. How has disney been able to produce films that are quite simply an abomination. People – and by people I refer to the murky world of ‘parents’ – seem to rave about disney and how good their films are…. Good?

Good – sure, if you count a hideously antifeminist, despicably amoral story that has nothing even remotely like the ethics or values I want my son to grow up with.

I hate to be a mermaid basher so I will start with a positive. Race equality – TLM is a great story about how love is equal across any race, Mermaid loves a human, different races, love conquers all blah, blah, blah, Great – this is a moral I can not only live with, but as a lesbian, actively promote and encourage. I want my child to know they can love whoever they want, no matter their race, creed, gender or otherwise.

The Film:

Issue 1: Ariel falls in love with the prince. – So wrong. She spontaneously falls in love with someone she has never spoken to and mostly just perved on, in a fairly stalkerish way from afar.

Would you encourage your kid to do this? I doubt it. I can already see the injunctions and restraining orders being slapped all over him, because a stupid film told him real love happens by stalking someone for two days. Ok, I am being facetious but you see my point. I would also like to point out I am not suggesting that I don’t believe in love at first sight. More that you need to have a reality check in real life, even if you do fall for someone instantly.
Issue 2: Ariel wants to change herself to be with him.

I hate to go all feminist ranty on you. Actually, I don’t hate it, I love a good feminist rant. In fact, any sort of rant. I digress – BUT don’t we have enough antifeminist-bullshit pressure to conform to the ultra skinny, rib protruding, size of a seven year old, bulimic-anorexic, vomit inducing ‘celebrity look’ society the media loves, without having it force-fed subconsciously to our infants. UGH. No woman…. Actually no man either, should ever have to change themselves to be with someone. Is it just me? Or do we spend hours of our lives giving advice to our perpetually confused friends on their relationships, and why it’s not ok for them to allow their partner to nag them into suppression?

Issue 3: The prince starts to fall for Ariel but then deserts her instantly for a disguised Ursula over something so shallow as her voice! He decides to marry Ursula immediately having spent all of no time getting to know her…

Where do I even start with this. It is not ok to teach my child that they can desert a woman (or man) based solely on a characteristic. Thats akin to suggesting it’s ok to leave their partner if they get fat, or a scar, or a disability. I mean SERIOUSLY. And then to marry the other woman because of that same characteristic, after what 2.5 milliseconds of time spent with said woman… sure thats an outstanding idea. I am positive all parents would approve of their kids doing this.

Issue 4: Instead of Ariel taking her pride and moving on she pandas to the prince and chases after him. 

This makes me want to claw my face off in frustration and resort to excessive amounts of alcohol. How low must her self confidence be to chase after a guy who only likes her because of her voice and will desert her as quickly as he met her for another woman simply because she lost that characteristic.

Issue 5: After all that the prince goes back to Ariel dumping Ursula and THEN kills Ursula just for good measure.

Now I just feel awkward. No one wants to date a psychopath, and lets be honest, the prince is looking more and more like a psychopath; with emotions unnecessarily fickle, and an assumption that it’s ok to off your ex…

Despite the fact I am resolute in knowing TLM is morally wrong, it’s not like theres anything better on the market. I think I may have to go investigate the other films!

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We went to our first of two antenatal classes the other night, and boy did it start awkwardly!

We rocked up fashionably late – by total accident – we both despise being late, and the wife had been sent home from work as she was in excruciating pain from her bad back still from the car accident – Anyway – she slept most of the day away after swallowing a load of painkillers the doc had given her. After an epic three hour snooze and with barely 30 minutes to get to class I finally plucked up enough courage to wake her from what can only be described as some kind of zombie death sleep! I really didn’t think I would be able to wake her!

We rocked up – slightly late – with EVERYONE gawping at us, as we were CLEARLY the only gays in the village! and we awkwardly sat in the last two remaining seats, right in front of the strangest tutor I have ever witnessed.

This tutor – paler than a vampire, with an accent that was so confused she must have lived in every country in the world.

During the course she brandished an alarming wooden plank that depicted the dilation of the cervix which she then proceeded to push a babies head through the 10cm circle… to which all the women began to cringe slightly and I tried not to whimper and sob in utter despair!

I was a bit disappointed in the class to be honest – I only found out one new piece of information about some vitamin K that the doctors give babies straight after birth. The wife was like… “what do you expect your a geek….” she has a point!

Anyway – What this class taught me, is that I absolutely, love my wife, and wouldn’t be without her.

The tutor split the class into ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ – so my poor wife made the awkward journey over to sit in the ‘boys’ circle to discuss how they were going to support their wives.

WELL….. having been surrounded by women for so long – I had completely forgotten how utterly useless men can be.

Suggestions they came up with included – making sure you had the take out number because they deliver to the maternity unit – clearly thinking about their stomachs.

When I suggested that they should pack the hospital bag because they would be rooting around it as we were going to be in no state to look for shit one of the men turned round and said

“thats the womens job” – DICK HEAD.

This made me cross so I verbally dropped him on his arse and everyone giggled.

Anyway – this continued, and all the good suggestions that they had come up with I would look over to my wife and mouth “did you say that?” and she would give me that cute little smirk she does and nod….

Sigh, swoon, so proud. bloody love my wife!! <3

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I had my 16 week midwife appointment last week. It was wicked, I got to hear the heartbeat – and in fact I recorded it on my phone, and I am hoping that this works:

Hopefully that is an audio player that will play the heart beat! If so – enjoy

The appointment went swimmingly – all apart from the horrendous fact that – my midwife’s HOT… like really hot! I am going to be so so embarrassed when she comes to check on us the day after the babies born and she has to show me the ins and outs of breast feeding! or worst… has to check I’m ‘healing’ I am going to die!! lol. It really is going to be one of those “awkward moments when…”

Of course the wife found this all hilarious -and is now going book leave just to come to the next appointment so she can judge my taste!! haha.

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