Life's Too Short

This is a random sort of post - it isn't about writing and it isn't about the tiny island I call home - it's just about life and something that I want to write down.

There are days when the dramas in our lives seem all encompassing - when the little things seem like huge insurmountable problems. Days when you get worked up over the problems rather than finding the solutions.

I won't go into too much personal detail, but recently some things happened in my life that seemed like such a big deal. I got upset and angry and frustrated and very, very sad. I couldn't see a way to fix the problem and it felt like everything had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Then I went to see a friend and poured out my problems to her, got emotional and upset. She listened to me rant and then told me that she was facing a few problems of her own. When she told me what they were I felt terrible. My drama suddenly seemed so small and trivial.

My friend had found out that someone close to her was very sick, and he didn't have long left. Suddenly a guy treating me badly didn't seem like such a big deal. As bad as I felt about it, it wasn't life and death.

I came away from that conversation with two realisations. The first is that my friend is an incredible person. With all of her problems on her mind she still sat and listened to me rant, and provided a sympathetic ear, when she could have simply told me to get over it.

The other realisation is that life is too short. It is a brief and fleeting thing, and if we get caught up on the little problems we will miss out on so much.

I am incredibly lucky and blessed. I am young, healthy, I have my whole life still ahead of me, and I live in one of the most beautiful places. I get to live a life most people can only dream of. And I need to stop worrying about the little things - like irritating men - and focus on the big picture. Making the most of the life I have.

So today I am making a deal with myself - and this is where the writing comes in. I am not going to wait around, wasting my life when I can MAKE things happen.

On the 30th of June two very important things are going to happen. The first is that I'm going to turn 30. The second is that my first novel is going to hit the bookshelves - virtual ones at any rate. On the 30th of June my first novel will become available to buy on Kindle, and hopefully if that goes well I will make it available on iBooks and Nook and all the rest of them.

Life is too short. It's time I made the changes I want to make rather than just thought and talked about them.

Wish me luck!

I Need Some Tough Love

So November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). For those not in the know NaNoWriMo is basically Movember for writers. Whilst men try to grow unsightly facial hair, writers try to grow a story.

The concept works like this. For the month of November you’re just supposed to write. No editing, no re-writing, just getting words down on paper. The aim is to get 50,000 words written by the end of the month. It’s an exercise in discipline (which a lot of writers aren’t known for) and creative freedom.

I’ve done NaNoWriMo once before, and managed to write 46,000 words by the end of the month. That rambling, messy manuscript was eventually tidied up and edited into the 120,000 word epic fantasy novel I currently have gathering dust in my hard drive. It’ll probably never see the light of day, but NaNoWriMo got me writing. It did what is says on the box.

This year I had great plans to do it again, but life got in the way. November was suddenly upon me, and has mostly gone past me before I even realised.

But it’s never too late right? So I have come to this conclusion. Half the month has gone – so I simply need to halve the target and I can still use the inspiration of NaNoWriMo to get some words down on paper.

I started writing a new novel on the 15^th – and I’m 10,000 words in. So all I need to do is write another 15,000 by the end of the month. But starting a novel is the easy part – the hard part is keeping up the momentum once you start to get bogged down with trivial little things like needing a plot that actually makes sense.

This is where the tough love bit comes in.

I am a notorious procrastinator. Sometimes I’ll do anything to avoid doing what I should actually be doing. Hell, I’ll even do housework sometimes rather than sit down and force myself to write when the muse isn’t around.

So here’s the deal.  To my online friends - my facebook and twitter friends, my family who are too far away to berate me in person, if you see me pissing around on Facebook or any other social media tell me to get the hell off and go and do something productive.

To the people who physically see me – if you see me around, without my laptop, or a notepad and pen (excluding when I’m at work, obviously) you have my full permission to give me a smack around the back of the head. I’m serious.

Trust me, if it gets to the end of the month and I’ve managed to get down 25,000 words, or hopefully more, I’ll thank you for it. In fact, I might even buy you a drink.

For now, my novel awaits. Two hours till work. A thousand words maybe? Come on, I know I can do it!