Tag: writing

Writer life.

Leave a comment

I’d love to tell you all that all I do in life is write. That would be lying. I wish I could get up in the morning, open my laptop with a cup of tea and write page upon, page of an amazing novel which will sell millions of copies. That said I do write every day on this blog, songs, lists, notes. The most important part of that is the song writing.

When I can’t deal with life and I’m spiralling or even if I feel really happy I pick up a pen, or my laptop and I just put the pain (or lack of it) onto paper. I have a box of old lyrics books, scribbled notes here and there and if you go through either my room here or at home you’ll find diaries, old stories and piles of lyrics. I don’t know why but writing to me is one of the most incredible and liberating thing. If I want, no one will ever see some of the things I have written or everyone could.

Do I want to write something that would be a best seller? Of course I do. I don’t know if it will ever happen, but I might try. I might end up sitting in the uni library in the silence for hours and come out with nothing worth reading to anyone else. It’s just for me.

The songs are a different matter. I put the words on to paper and everyone who comes to our shows will hear what I feel. Some songs, like Breaking Point, are something I came up with because of the people around me and then later people I imagined, other songs are entirely different. If you look at Good Enough, which I was immensely proud of, it was really personal and the newest songs that we’re working on are even more so. It’s taken a year for me to not feel sick when I sing the boys my ideas for the first time, because it’s so personal to me. I know how ‘artistic’ of me, but this is me pouring my heart on to a page.

I don’t know what it is but I wrote a post ages ago, life through my fingers, about how it was the only way to make myself feel better. I said playing Piano wasn’t like writing and it’s not but I was wrong in some aspects. When I write some things, like this, I just write whatever and that how almost every creative thing of mine starts, I don’t think too hard at first. That’s a trait that used to get me in so much trouble during Art lessons at school, nearly 5 years since my GCSEs and I’m still like it…and why I didn’t take Art any further.

Writing, in all it’s beautiful ways is tiring, frustrating, liberating…sometimes everything.

Finding new loves

Leave a comment

IMG_0674

It’s exciting when you find a new love on your degree. I’ve avoided Victorian Literature for a long time because of the way it had been taught to me, now I’m in university and I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Victorian poetry, only a few pieces but still. This is one of the greatest things about studying for a degree, I’m going down all these different paths and right now for academics I’m looking at prostitution in one module and Young Adult literature in another while on the side I’m looking at mental health in literature. I’m full of passion and excitement, which to me is what university is about.

I haven’t spoken about wanting to do an MA much on this blog but every day I get more of this overwhelming feeling that it’s not something I just want to do it’s something that I need to do, maybe I wont progress on to PhD (that bit depends on funding) but need to take that next step. There’s something about research that lets me just immurse myself in it, the only other thing I’ve felt like that about is music, the first love I ever had.

This might seem a bit sappy but today just put it into focus for me, every one of my lectures keeps telling me to be more confident, I know how to do this and I’m good at it and believe it or not I’m starting to listen. I submitted some pieces for first checks today and I’m not panicking for once, I know that they are good enough right now and I can build through the year.

Loving my degree, loving life!

Books can open doors

Leave a comment

IMG_0591

My signed copy of In Love and War, out now! 

It’s obvious that I love books. They’re piling up my wall as I write this, I’m on a literature degree and I write a review blog so it’s pretty safe to say that I know the magic of what books can do. Another thing they can do is open doors. By talking to people about books, about literature in general, about publishing I’ve had so many doors open for me, tonight being no exception.

I’m getting into the Kingston Writing School, I’ll hopefully be going to Athens as a part of it next year (funds permitting) and so I decided to attend the weekly readings. Tonight I met Alex Preston, as well as a incredible reading and useful tips I also left with a signed copy of the book and a head start on my research for uni. IMG_0588

The night wasn’t all readings I got to mingle with Wine and Olives…a lot of Olives, more than anyone could ever need! I got to meet so many interesting people and all because of literature. Talking about things like this should help me advance through my degree, work experience and even more.

If you use them the right way, books can open doors.

When I write

Leave a comment

IMG_4405

 

Sometimes when I don’t know what else to do, I write. The last few weeks have been incredibly up and down and today things just kind of came to a jolt. I didn’t really want to get up, I didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything and everything was just so overwhelming. I get angry about it, I feel sad about it and it usually ends in me feeling like I don’t like myself that much. So tonight I wrote a song and released everything. I don’t feel much like writing right now, so hopefully I’ll speak to you all soon. 

This Time

Leave a comment

This afternoon I had the euphoric and exhausting delight of finishing the third song on our EP!!!!!! It only took about 4 hours and endless takes but it’s the quickest we’ve finished a song which was an amazing feeling. The song is called This Time I think it was the second song I properly wrote up here, it was about moving and just having that feeling that every time you move you’ll get it right this time and move on. 

Without realising I started writing about myself and how I was feeling at the time. I wanted everything to change and work out instantly at uni and it didn’t, so I realised that maybe it was me. I suppose if I’m being arty about it all my songs are how I work things out in my head. I haven’t written one in a little while I’ve been so focused on performing but I’m hoping the summer will bring out more songs to jam out with the boys in September. 

Friday night cup of tea and thinking

1 Comment

I’m spending my Friday night sitting in Ali’s flat, watching Emma Blackery on YouTube and contemplating making myself a cup of tea. I don’t know why but despite my plans to go out and drink tonight I really didn’t want to.

I don’t know what’s got into me today. I woke up feeling shit, I picked up a bit but there are things going on at the moment that just make me upset. Things on one side are going really well, I’m so lucky to be mending friendships that have been unraveled in the past few months, understanding myself and academically I’m doing better than I ever have in my life. Then one thing can just piss me off and upset me.

If I’m honest I’m finding my school placement really hard. I haven’t spent time in a school since I was 16 and even then I was hardly there. For me school wasn’t anything I enjoyed it was a battlefield, it was hard. The school itself is lovely, the staff are brilliant and the kids are still slightly wary. The problem is that a secondary school was the place that I was at my lowest, I still get down thinking about it sometimes and every now and again one of the old nightmares may flare up. It’s horrible waking up from those when I’m on my own, I suppose that’s what’s had me thinking about it a lot really. The nightmare was a few days before I started placement which I suppose highlighted the fact I was nervous about it.

While I’m working and doing the experience I’m realising more and more I could never teach in a secondary school as a job. I don’t like the feeling of it, the way it runs, the memories I have myself. It would be the same in any school. I love visting schools, educating them in diferent ways but to be there day in, day out? I can’t do it because this is the thing, your own experiences never leave you. I worry about my sister all the time, even though she is such a different kid to the one I was. She’s smart, she’s funny and she never has any problems standing up for herself or making friends and I absolutely love it. I love that she is that way and as strange as it sounds I wish I was the little sister who could look up to her because she’s bloody brilliant.

I don’t really know what this is about, I don’t know why I’m writing. I suppose it’s just a way for me to understand when I feel like this. I’ve been restless, annoyed, happy everything today. I’m looking forward to a quiet weekend I honestly want to curl up, not do to much and then take on the world again starting Monday.

Being Creative

Leave a comment

I know, I know my blogging skills have been slacking lately. I’ve been awful and all over the place for so many reasons I can’t list them all on here. I’ve had family stuff, illness stuff, house stuff name anything and it’s probably been a giant pain in the ass in the last few weeks but thinking about it this didn’t help me to understand why I not only wasn’t writing but why I didn’t want to. It seems odd that his time last year I was trying to write a novel and now I can’t bring myself to write even a song, but I think I’ve worked it out. Confidence. 

A lack of confidence with my writing is something I’ve never felt before. I’ve never really had to feel that way about it, my readers have always been happy and that was enough for me. Then I enrolled on a Creative Writing course and for me it couldn’t have been a worse decision. Now I’m not knocking Kingston, I love my uni with a passion but it’s not secret I’m leaving the Creative Writing course. I just don’t enjoy it, I haven’t really since the first week. I couldn’t get creative from the lessons, it stopped me being creative if anything and made me worry far too much of what others thought of me, I don’t need any more of that! 

Music and writing are now two things I can’t be academically involved with, I don’t want to do it to please people or to their rules. I want to be able to use the words I use and not be restricted because someone doesn’t like them. I want to be free to write in a way that suits me. 

The thing is creativity is where I can be myself and not have to worry and I’m afraid doing Creative Writing as a course really knocked my confidence. While my peers loved my work there were more than one academic who didn’t because it wasn’t their style. I now have a load of rules in my head that are stopping me from writing. I don’t review any more because I’m so nervous about making a mistake and not ‘grabbing’ the reader. I’ve forgotten what I started doing 2 years ago and why. I wrote because I loved it and that bought people in, it still does when I stop worrying enough to write one. 

I’m not knocking all Creative Writing courses, my classmates seemed happy and came up with some fab stuff but it just wasn’t for me, it made me really unhappy and kind of made me forget why I write. I don’t want to worry about nit picking and the correct punctuation when I write something for the first time. I did have two fantastic teachers this year, both I value very highly and they liked my work and gave me constructive criticism if and when it was needed. 

My  point is that now I’ve decided to stick with academics I’m hoping I can have creativity as fun and release. Do I want it as a job? Of course I do but I know that kind would be different. Now is the time to trial things, make mistakes and then go for it with the writing and the music.