The Dismemberer of Didcot

Back in April I attended a weekend writing retreat with my writing group, and on the way home my friend Lorna and I got lost on the winding roads leading out of the little village we’d been staying in. On our way we came across an abandoned golf cart on the edge of the woods, and Lorna suggested we each write a short piece about the golf cart and compare later. This is mine… 

"Come on nana, tell uuuuuuuusssss one!" Riley asked as his nan tucked him and his brothers into bed on Halloween night. It might be 2082 but scary stories on Halloween were still a must. 

She thought for a moment, her memory wasn't what it once was. "Did I ever tell you about the abandoned golf cart in the woods?"

The boys eyes widened at hearing a new story. Nana was the best at those.

"No? Okay here goes.

One day when I was about your age I was visiting my nana in the countryside."

"Was it Halloween?" Interrupted Alexander, the youngest of the three boys.

"It was!" She lied. It had actually been in April. "It was a beautifully crisp Halloween morning. Frost on the ground but the sun was high in the sky."

"My nana wasn't very well so I'd gone into the fields to pick her some flowers, and some berries to make jam. It's what we always used to do."

"Like how you always bake with us when we come visit you?" Suggested Ethan, the oldest of the boys.

"Exactly. Anyway, I was merrily making my way along the narrow pavement on my way back to Nana, when I noticed an abandoned golf cart on the edge of the woods."

The boys shared a look of excitement and intrigue.

"What did it look like?" Asked Riley.

"It was rather strange. I remember it looked rather battered, like it had seen better days. And that there was a toy bat pinned to the back, and a fluorescent jacket on the seat. 

I called out 'hello' to see who it belonged to, but no-one replied."

"Then what did you do?" Ethan prompted her to continue.

"I went to investigate!"

They shared a look of shock. 

"But it might have belonged to a serial killer!" Said Riley, already a little scared for his nan.

"It might. But I had to know!

I walked down the slight slope into the woods. The thicker into the trees I got, the darker it became as they started to block out the sun. 

I was looking for any signs of movement. At one point I was concentrating so hard that a squirrel managed to frighten me by rustling some leaves behind me.

I told myself I needed to be a lot braver if I was going to solve this mystery."

The boys were all huddled together, holding their breath. 

"I carried on towards the small stream that I could hear, but when I got there I couldn't see or hear anyone. 

I was really disappointed so I decided to follow the stream until it opened up into the nearby lake. That wasn't far from my nana's house so I could just cut back up through the field and be home by midday."

The boys had started to relax, realising that their Nan wasn't in immediate danger.

"However, as I got closer to the lake I could hear a sound. The best way to describe it would be a kind of plopping of something being dropped into the water. I thought maybe someone was playing pooh sticks so I hurried along the rest of the way."

The boys started to look concerned again.

"As I reached the edge of the trees I stumbled on a fallen branch hidden by the leaves on the ground. 

And there, right in front of my face when I fell, was a finger."

The boys all took in a puff of breath and a chorus of "ugh" followed.

"A finger? On it's own?" Asked Alexander, suitably horrified.

"Yep. Now obviously when I saw it I screamed. But then I saw in the distance there was a man with a sword tipping a bag of bloody body parts into the water!"

The boys shrieked in unison.

"What did you do?" Asked Riley.

"I ran! Through the woods back to the road, I hoped I could outrun him, or at least have some trees to hide behind if he got near. I wasn't even sure if he was following me. All I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears of my heart pounding, and my frantic breath as I ran."

"You must have made it home?" Offered Ethan, in an attempt to make the younger boys less scared.

"I did."

"What did the man look like Nana?" Asked Riley?

"He was wearing waders, do you know what they are?"

Ethan nodded, the other two boys shook their heads.

"They are what fishermen wear to stay dry, they're a bit like dungarees but you wear them to go in the water."

The boys nodded, enthralled.

"And he had long straggly grey hair and a beard."

"So you ran back to the road." Asked Ethan.

"Yep. And I kept running all the way back to Nana's house. When I got there I was covered in mud and I'd dropped all of my flowers and berries. My mother was furious that I'd ruined my nice dress, and worried my nana, but when I told them what I'd seen they were even more cross with me."

"Why?" Asked Alexander.

"Because they thought I'd made it up to excuse my appearance."

"But you didn't!" Shouted Riley, defending the honour of 7 year old me. 

"That's right, I didn't."

"So what happened to the man?" Asked Ethan.

"It turns out he was a local fisherman who used to fish by throwing left overs into the lake. He used off-cuts of meat, fat, carcass, whatever he had, to get the fish to come into the shallows and then he'd spear them."

"With a sword?" Asked Riley. Both confused and impressed. 

"It was a spear. I think my scared brain saw a shiny blade and assumed it was a sword."

"But what about the finger?" Asked Ethan.

"It was never found. So either it was something else, and again my scared brain saw what it wanted to see, or..." I left them hanging. 

"Or?" Asked Riley.

"Or the dismemberer of Didcot is still out there!"

"Ooooooh." Said Ethan to scare the younger boys.

"Off to bed now you three." She said as she tucked them in. She turned off the bedside light and pulled the door to. Lingering outside to listen.

Riley moved his pillow to get comfy and felt something icky on the mattress. When he pulled it out he saw that it was a gummy finger. 

"Naaaan!" He said feigning being unimpressed, but she could tell she'd got him for a second there.

What It Really Means To Meet Your Heroes

I've written before about meeting my various crushes and how it was simultaneously amazing and terrifying, and in some instances a little disappointing, but after this weekend I felt the need to put my thoughts in order again.

I have also written previously about one of my first loves, River Phoenix, and about my friend Miranda who killed herself in 2008.

Somehow this blog post is going to squeeze all of those things in... and more besides.

This weekend I went to my third London Film Comic Con. The first year I attended was the 30th Anniversary of Back to the Future so I of course went dressed in cosplay as Marty McFly.

The second year I attended I got to meet my current crush Jeremy Renner and went dressed as Black Widow. 

This year I made a fairly last minute decision to attend the con, and an even more last minute decision to buy a photoshoot with Alyson Hannigan.

Now to explain the backstory.

If you've read my post Valentines Day you will know that Miranda and I met through an ad she placed in Film Review Magazine asking for a penpal. We started writing to each other around 1997 I believe but it may have been a little earlier as my memory is shockingly bad. 

Anyway, shortly after we became friends Buffy The Vampire Slayer was announced as a new TV show that would be coming to our screens. Knowing I was a huge fan of anything vampire related Miranda assumed I would be thrilled. But as a massive fan of the Buffy movie, I was less than impressed. Mortified I think would be closer to the truth. 

Miranda made the decision to watch the show anyway as she thought it looked good. This would have been fine if she hasn't insisted on constantly telling me how good it was. It soon began to put a strain on our phone calls and letters because she LOVED it so much. I honestly can't put it in big enough caps how much she raved about Buffy. "Just watch one episode, it's REALLY good, YOU'LL REALLY LOVE IT!!!" she kept telling me.

I wanted to throttle her. "It's nothing like the film, they've changed everything, I am not watching that rubbish!" I told her in return.

This went on for two seasons. Until one day I caught the tiniest bit of the episode Innocence. God dammit Miranda. I had to admit that it was brilliant. 

Miranda was one to gloat. So my grovelling apology was well received, but boy did she not let me live that down. I bought the first season and caught up with what I'd missed, and shortly after Miranda decided I should meet her friend Gem who was also a Buffy fan. Gem quickly became one of my most treasured friends and so I now owe Miranda another debt of thanks that I can never repay.

Then in June 2000 Miranda heard that Alyson Hannigan, one of our favourite stars of the show (Willow) would be signing box sets of Buffy in the Virgin Megastore in London. All you had to do was buy your box set there on the day and join the queue of goodness knows how many people.

It was only the second or third time we'd met, and again only the second or third time I'd been to London. I remember missing my train and calling Miranda in a flood of tears and telling her I wouldn't get there in time, but somehow I made it to London and joined the queue.

We sat outside the store for hours just talking about various things, but mostly Buffy. We took turns going in and buying the box set and then relieving the other person in the queue. Eventually the queue started moving and we made our way through the store and down some stairs and then suddenly, there she was. Our first glimpse of someone we absolutely idolised, who we watched on TV every week, and then here she was in front of us, we could see her with our own eyes. Miranda being Miranda she said very loudly about Alyson being tiny and I remember her shouting "look at her tiny butt". 

We were shaking with nerves and had brought along a gift for her. A Marge Simpson Pez. The episode Lovers Walk had just aired in the UK where Oz gives Willow a witch Pez, but we couldn't find a Pez witch so we had to make do with a Marge Simpson Pez and just hope she would understand.

Finally it was our turn to get our boxes signed. We went up together and gave her the gift and she exclaimed "I love The Simpsons!" so we never told her the real reason for the strange present. Then a picture was snapped by Miranda's dad of us with Alyson. I foolishly presumed that he would take one of Miranda and Alyson and then one of me and Alyson so I tried to make myself invisible in her picture by hiding behind her. Then when it was my turn he'd disappeared, so my only photographic memory of meeting her was a picture you can't really see me in.

Aly was lovely enough to sign a second item for both of us even though "it wasn't really allowed", and it always stayed with me as the best first meeting of one of my heroes that I could have had. They say don't meet your heroes, and I can see why. We all have off days, and tired days, and grumpy days, and if you meet someone you have idolised forever when they are having one of those days, it's not going to leave you with a very good impression. But I say if you can lower your expectations and remember that they are human too, you definitely should meet your heroes because sometimes they will be so lovely that it stays with you for 17 years.

Fast forward those 17 years and you get to yesterday. I took along the photo from 12th June 2000 and I asked Aly if she would mind holding it in our new photo. One where you can actually see me. She of course obliged and I still have the overwhelming impression that she is just the loveliest. 

 
I also got to meet Wil Wheaton yesterday who if you have read this blog post, you will know was one of my first ever crushes alongside his friend and co-star River Phoenix. I've never met anyone who worked with River so I was glad that I got the chance to tell Wil that I was a big fan back to his Stand By Me days, which he thanked me for and said I was sweet. I got his signature on one of his books, and a bonus fist bump. So yesterday was definitely a good day.

Today I have been packing up my things in order to move house again. As I put my signed Buffy box, my newly signed Wil Wheaton book Just A Geek, and my photo albums of memories into various boxes, I reflect on the life that I have lead that has brought me all of these wonderful adventures, and it makes me so grateful to my friends who have been with me when I have had meltdowns, or have jumped excitedly with me when I have met my heroes. Really they are the true heroes of this story. So thank you for being there. Here's to many more.

Grrrl Con 2017 Day 3 Notes Write-Up

Opening Keynote

We brought on day 3 with a keynote from Kerry Ryan (@writelikeagrrrl), Jane and Claire - ‘Just Fucking Do It: Maintaining momentum after Grrrl Con’.
They asked us to set 5 realistic goals that we wanted to achieve in the next year. And then asked us to find a ‘motivation buddy’ to keep check on us and make sure we were achieving those goals.

Morning Workshop

The first workshop I had on day 3 was Hannah Kate’s (@hannahkateish) ’Creating Space, Place and Atmosphere’. We started by playing a Hannah Kate-ish version of Taboo. Where we took a card and had to describe the thing on the card without adjectives. As I wasn’t sure I knew what an adjective was I had to take a back seat and just listen and learn.

Hannah's advice was to write as you normally would and then go through the same piece of writing and take the adjectives out. That way you can see if you really need them at all.

You can also try changing the adjective to a verb to see if it still works. Or try using a metaphor instead.

We were given 3 extracts from books and not told what the stories were or who wrote them. All of the people in the books became more like objects even though they were all stories about people. We had to pick one and write a continuation of the scene. I picked the third. A person, unknown to us as all names were taken out of the extracts, arrives at a school in a truck. You don't know if it is a man, woman etc or why they are there. I continued it as a delivery driver bringing equipment to the school.

At the end of the exercise we were given the names of the books and the authors:

Extract 1 - Life, A User Manual - George Perret
Extract 2 - Games at Twilight - Anita Desai
Extract 3 - Twilight - Stephanie Meyer

I have read Twilight and I had no idea that that is where the extract came from. It shows you how just removing the names of people from the story makes you think of the scene you read in a totally different way.

Adjectives for colours, ages, times, sizes, can be really effective if you just use one particular adjective. For example, extract 2 used a lot of colour. Similarly can be useful to just use one sense.

Hannah told us all to look at a stock photo of a scene. A sunny day, a rainy day, it didn't matter. But she told us to put a different outcome on that same picture. A sunny day where a wedding is about to happen, or the same sunny day where a murder is about to happen. You will notice different things in the photo for each outcome your story takes.

We then did a photo challenge of our own. Hannah gave us a sheet of 4 pictures. None of which had people in them - an old looking council block, a fairground roller coaster, an old crumbling building, and a deserted beach. We each had to pick one and write about it.

Finally Hannah told us that a character's reaction to a place can be more telling than how they're feeling.

Afternoon Workshop

After lunch we had our last workshop of the weekend, mine was Cheryl Martin’s (@cherylalaska) ‘Every Grrrl has a story’.

We started out with a little getting to know each other exercise where we partnered up and each told our partner two truths about us and one lie. We then went around the room and introduced our partners by name and by telling these three "facts" about them. As a group we then had to determine the lie.

One of the most useful things I took away from this exercise was that something you can do to make your characters more three dimensional is to add in assumptions about them from other character's points of view. If you have two truths and one lie, the lie is usually the less complicated of the three things said. So flip that on it's head and make the lie the more thought about and complex.

Once we were all very familiar with each other Cheryl told us not to sensor ourselves in this workshop. Nobody would be made to share anything they wrote so don't be afraid to write it. Cheryl gave us our first task. She asked us to go back and examine a moment in our lives when everything changed for us. For better or worse. She gave us a prompt of being around the age of 15 but said it could be earlier or later depending on what came to us as the stand out moment. Write about what life was like before, and what it was like after.

Remember the details, where, what, why? The date, the time, the season, what was the weather like, what could you hear, smell, taste, touch? Once we were done Cheryl asked us to write a monologue of this moment. Mine became my blog 'A Letter To 13 Year Old Me' - http://willow23s-firsteverblog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/a-letter-to-13-year-old-me.html.

Needless to say I found this to be the most useful workshop of the whole weekend. It was almost like therapy.

Closing Keynote

Our final keynote came from publisher Sara Hunt of Saraband (@sarabandbooks), 'More in common than things that divide us'.

She told us about Nasty Women, a collection of essays and accounts of what it is to be a woman in the 25th Century.

"Writing can inspire, educate, inform, entertain, amuse, incite, frighten. It can provide a living, journalism, advertising, corporate communications, PR, playwriting, scriptwriting, speech writing, writing for motivational or spiritual charities, but for most people it probably won't."

She had lots of advice to impart on us about the minefield that is publishing. Non-fiction is an easier market to break into as it has it's own audience whereas with fiction you're facing off against so many genres, other authors who already have a fan base etc.

If you want to get people to read your work, you need to market it well. It needs to be well written and well researched. Research the genres that interest you.

Children's and young adult fiction is a growing market. Literary fiction is the hardest to get published.

If you want to write fiction and get published, short stories are a great way to find your voice, and quite often can be published in magazines etc. 

Which authors do you like? Do your writing strengths suit the genre you're writing? Consider humour, plot, characterisation and pace.

Google competitions for unpublished authors as it will look good on your CV if you were to win one of these.

Work on your pitch. When approaching publishers do your homework on them. Look at what their submission guidelines are. Only send to relevant publishers. Check your cover letter for attitude and errors, make comparisons to other works they may have published but don't over promise.

In the synopsis ensure you convey the content, plot, characters, setting, and style etc of your book. Finally, what is your unique selling point?

Some publishers have open submissions so check when these are.

Grrrl Con 2017 Day 2 Notes Write-Up

Opening Keynote

We began day 2 with a talk by author Monique Roffey (@moniqueroffey13) on The Truth in Sex and Writing. As a writer of Fan Fiction which usually features a lot of sex, I am certainly no stranger to writing sex scenes into my stories. But as any FF writer will tell you, sometimes you feel you’ve exhausted every possible way of saying ‘…and they had sex.’ Especially when there are certain words you yourself are not a fan of using. One of my friends hates the word panties with a passion. I myself am not a fan of the word pussy. I could go on but you get the gist.

As such, I was probably looking forward to Monique’s talk (and reading) the most. When she did do her reading I quickly realised Monique’s writing style was nothing like mine, which was a pity as I’d hoped to at least ask her the age old question of how she kept each of the sex scenes fresh and different in her book. Having said that, I know a lot of the women at Grrrl Con loved her talk, and got a lot out of it. And I of course wish her every continued success with her writing.

>Related tangent< In one of the workshops I overheard someone say in a disparaging tone that FF was not real writing. Initially this upset me because that person could not have been aware that there was a FF writer in the room, but should have thought about how hurtful those words could be to such a person. But then I felt sorry for them that they had clearly not read the kind of FF that I have read, which would mean she would never have felt the need to say those words in the first place. I mention this here because although Monique’s writing style isn’t for me, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want her to succeed. The world is made up of so many different people, and lots of them will love Monique’s books. If this weekend has taught me anything it’s that there is room for all of us, because we all bring something different to the table.

Morning Workshop

Anyway, back to day 2. My first workshop was Leonie Ross’ (@leoneross) ‘How to edit the hell out of your fiction’. One of my first notes from this workshop was… don’t go off on tangents. See above. Apologies Leonie.

Now for the rest:

What makes for a 'good' sentence?

Don't go off on tangents (oops)
Clarity
Punctuation
Rhythm
Communication
It should move the story on
It should affect the person reading it

Leonie gave us a really helpful handout during this session and so most of my notes just add to that really.

1) Specificity - Details are emotional, that's why if we hear bad news, we don't want the details
2) Directness - You know how the character thinks/feels etc, but you need to make sure that is clear on the page. The key to this is directness. Know what you want to say. Don't try to be clever, just tell the truth.
3) Sentence length - Don't stick to five word sentences. Variety is key.
4) Parts of speech hierarchy / parallelism - You need to show the details, but sometimes you need to tell us what is happening.
5) Unusual Collocation - Using words that are opposites of the thing you are describing. Break sentences down to see if you can inter-splice new words to mix it up.
6) Purple Prose - When writing is over-flowery. If you're unsure what you're getting at, the purpose of the sentence needs to be clear. Don't lose sight of the point. How many metaphors do I have in one sentence? How many adjectives in the sentence? Am I taking away from the thing I am describing? Am I overfilling the empty room in the readers mind?
7) Wordiness - Redundancy - Too many words for the job. Saying the same thing twice.
8) Wordiness - Fake Intensifiers - Adverbs. An intensifier is added to an adjective that isn't required. Show the activities behind what you are describing.
9) Wordiness - Stretchers - Another way of being indirect, adding volume to your sentence but no value.
10) Wordiness - Thickeners - Adding a fancier word to again thicken your sentence. Don't try to show how clever you are, write from the heart.

Finally, make separate time to edit. If you're writing, write. If you're editing, edit. Don't try to do both at the same time.

I still need to look at Hemingwayapp.com which identifies those pesky adverbs. It colour codes your piece of writing so you can look more closely at what you have written.

Afternoon Workshop

Our second workshop of the day was ‘Writing without the male gaze’ with Desiree Reynolds (@desreereynolds). Here I discovered that my way of writing without adding in descriptions of my characters is actually not a bad thing. And I also got to talk about the Hawkeye Initiative and how it is helping to redress the balance of the overtly sexist male gaze on female superheroes. Google it if you’ve never heard of it, it’s wonderful.

Here are the notes I took:

Start a process of re-thinking your female characters.

Your female character's description can be left to the reader's imagination. Beauty is not a character trait. Your female character doesn't have to be beautiful, but similarly, if she isn't she doesn't have to be the villain.

As writers it's not your job to like your character. They don't always have to do the right thing. It's okay if they fuck up because that's what real people do.

Tackling female stereotypes is an on-going fight. You need to work at it.

The story is the most important thing. What does your story need. What is it telling you to do? Let your story lead you to where it is going to go.

You can't represent all characters all the time. If your story is about a woman, a man, a black person, a white person, a disabled person, a gay person, it's about THEM. You don't need to put them in to make it diverse, they can't be there to serve any purpose other than to serve the story.

You can't include all characters just so a particular culture is represented. You can only represent the characters that your story is about.

You can't write for other people, only for yourself.

Writing exercise - Write a character without description. No jobs, no mirrors, no descriptions of how other characters see them.

Rules of writing - You don't always need to 'show not tell'. You have to do it how you do it. Let the story lead you.

Closing Keynote

Our closing keynote from day two was by the Poetic Legend Patience Agbabi (@patienceagbabi). I stole those words from the Grrrl Con Storify and I’m not ashamed because they perfectly encapsulate Patience’s brilliance. She read to us from her Poetry collection Telling Tales. My favourite quote has to be "The story ends where you put the frame, but however it begins, remember my name."

A couple of notes I took from Patience:

When re-working old texts find a form that suits you, that fits.

Consider what it is like to walk in the other writers shoes.

Patience also read a poem titled 'Eat Me' about feeders. Very powerful stuff.

That’s What She Said: Nasty Grrrls

We ended day 2 of Grrrl Con by attending the spoken word night ‘That’s What She Said: Nasty Grrrls’ at TriBeca, where a piece on Trauma by Katie Watson (@kwatsonwriter) moved me and my fellow WLAG Lou to tears. It was beautiful and sad and everything in between.

Grrrl Con 2017 Day 1 Notes Write-Up

Opening Keynote

Friday morning began with a keynote address by Novelist Jenn Ashworth (@jennashworth) who came to talk to us about ‘Finding the courage to write and keep on writing’. I soon discovered that she had spent time in my home town of Preston in her youth, and I felt like I was listening to a kindred spirit with some of the things she was saying. How school wasn’t a fit with her, how she didn’t really have friends, how she found solace in books. And most importantly about how as women we often have to ‘don armour’ to protect ourselves, and that courage can be found in being vulnerable. She also talked about her community of writer friends and how much she takes from the support they give her. I was almost in tears. Her words resonated so clearly with me and the courage I have gained from the group of writers I have in my own support group.

Some pearls of wisdom that I took from Jenn’s talk included - Don’t let research get in the way, if you wait until you know everything you’ll never write it. If you find when you’re writing that you need more information on something, block it off and write 'need info on…' The first draft is your guide to what you need for the second draft.

She also told us that 'when the well is empty, do whatever you can yo fill it up'. What Jenn does between projects is read, visit an art gallery, use that time to re-charge creatively.

Jenn then read an excerpt of her novel Fell which sounded intriguing. As we took our first break of the day Jenn signed copies of her book and spent time talking to every person in the queue.

Morning Workshop

The first workshop I had was with Rosie Garland (@rosieauthor) on ‘Silencing the internal critic’. As someone who listens to hers far too much (in all aspects of life sadly - not just writing) I felt I would get a lot out of this workshop, and Rosie certainly didn’t disappoint.

Notes:

Sometimes in order to move forwards you need to be willing to go backwards.

Be as kind to yourself as a mother who's toddler is learning to walk. You'd never say "you might as well stay down there" so don't tell yourself that.

Find your “crime scene”, the point in your life when your internal critic started speaking to you. - Despite my useless memory I felt I could pin-point this moment precisely to when my fiancé told me my writing aspirations were a silly dream that nothing would ever come of.

Start to recognise 'The Script'. What does the internal critic say? Once you figure out what the scrip is you can go "off script" and start taking control. The key is knowing the difference between being kind to yourself and sabotaging yourself.

One of the things I said to Rosie was that my internal critic's most frequent way of making me feel like crap is to say 'you'll never be able to write like X', 'you'll never be as good as them so why bother'. Rosie's advice here was "comparison is the thief of joy".

If you've done it (good writing) before you can do it again.

We each have an internal critic and an internal editor. The editor will speak to you about changes you could make to improve your writing, helpful things. Whereas the critic only says bad things. You need to be able to tell the difference in these two and know to always ignore the critic.

Rosie also told us to remember that the first draft is you telling yourself the story. It’s the sketch that lives under the painting. It’s the starting blocks to give you something to build on. Writing is a craft. It's a skill that you learn and develop, so if you don't do it you can't get better at it.

Remember that the books you love are published, edited, finished works. Don't judge yourself on that. They all had first drafts that would have been very different to the finished works.

Google the drama triangle (not done this yet) - your internal critic is the persecutor in this scenario.

One way to battle the internal critic is to give it a name. It makes it more physical and easier to push away. If you name it, it's not you, it's them. Humorous names are good too as they'll make the critic seem even more ridiculous. It's kind of magical that giving it a name means you take away it's power. This of course made me think of the end of Labyrinth "You have no power over me".

It's liberating to defeat the critic. It teaches you that you can live with what scares you. "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional".

Finally if your critic is shouting, you're more likely to be on the right path. 

Afternoon Workshop

The second workshop on day 1 was ‘Making Art is hard and that’s okay’ a zine workshop for wannabes, imposters and would be creatives with Sasha de Buyl-Pisco (@sashadebuyl).

I didn't take any notes from this workshop as it was more about just getting on and creating something. As such, my finished zine stands as my notes for this one.

Closing Keynote

We finished the day with a ‘Path to Publication’ Panel chaired by Jane Bradley (@forbookssake), and featuring the aforementioned Rosie Garland and Grrrl Con organiser and novelist Claire Askew (@onenightstanzas), alongside poet and playwright Afshan Lodhi (@ashlodhi).

Lots of talk on what the path looked like for them (clue - it was very different for each of them), and sage words of advice and encouragement for us all. Most notably to enter competitions, send your stories to magazines etc. Rejection will happen but the more you put your work out there the bigger chance you have to get published.  

My take away words of wisdom were “You can only have a first book once, so make sure it’s ready.”

Ashlee's First Day

A couple of months ago I went on a country writing retreat with my writing group. One afternoon we were writing from prompt cards, and these were the prompts I got (you could choose which ones you wrote about from the two that came out for each option):

Characters - Ice skater/pharmacist

Character traits - excitable/perfectionist 

Conflict - unfair competition/jealously

Location - empty beach/college

Object - antique vase/squirrel

My bestie is a pharmacist who is going back to college to study as a mature student. I knew immediately what I had to write. And in 10 minutes this is what I came up with...

Ashlee was looking forward to her first day at college. As a mature student she didn't fit the considered norm of the other students finding their way around campus on that exciting first day. 

She'd had a kid straight out of school and taken a job as a pharmacy technician to pay the bills. She soon found herself being a single mom and had always wanted to go back to her studies, but never had the time or money. 

When her daughter was old enough and wanting to pursue her dreams of becoming a professional ice skater, Ashlee found herself not only wanting to be able to realise her daughters dreams, but her own too. 

She was such a perfectionist though, and she wanted this to be the perfect college experience. She'd seen so many movies set in high school and college. The high school ones certainly didn't match her reality, so she wanted this to better her expectations. 

She was almost jealous of the kids whose intentions were just to party and get laid, whereas she actually wanted to learn. 

A squirrel made her jump as he crossed her path while she made her way through the grounds, forcing her to stop for a moment. She took a deep breath and told herself, just enjoy the moment.

A Letter To 13 Year Old Me

Anyone who has been watching the gripping adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale will know what the words in this picture mean. For everyone else, it means "don't let the bastards grind you down".

This seemed like the perfect quote to give to 13 year old me. 

This letter all came about because of Grrrl Con. Yes I promise I will stop talking about it at some point, but I think you need to understand that going to that series of workshops has given me something back that has crippled me for years.

On the last day of the weekend at Grrrl Con, I did a workshop with Cheryl Martin called 'Every Grrrl Has A Story'. In said workshop Cheryl asked us to think about a moment in our lives when everything changed. For the better, for worse, whatever. Just a moment that we thought of that we could elaborate on.

The stories that came out of that session were fantastic, and each very different as you would expect. One grrrl wrote about the moment she came out to her best friend, which was sweet but also really funny. Another wrote about an encounter she was convinced she had with a ghost when she was very little, putting us in the mind of a very young child made the story so chilling. We also heard the story of one of the grrls realising she was attracted to women for the first time, which was really heartfelt and beautiful. 

I don't know why really but when Cheryl gave us the criteria from which to write, only one scenario came to my mind. The day the bullies finally broke me.

It had been going on since primary school. I was an easy target I suppose. Small, thin, pale. I came from a broken home, mum and dad divorced, dad wasn't around much, and certainly not on the money front. Mum had three kids to raise, one of which has learning difficulties, and only benefits to do it on. She had to give up her job when my sister nearly burnt the house down (by accident). 

My clothes were mostly second hand. I had lank hair because we only had a bath at home and mum couldn't afford for us to bathe every day. I was pushed around, hair pulled, names called, spat on. The worst was when the boys would put their clammy hands up my skirt as I waited in line for lunch. Yeah, school sucked big time. 

I wasn't beaten up no. I had no bruises. But that doesn't mean that I didn't feel the words they shouted at me as if they were daggers. I hate that old saying about sticks and stones. Names DO hurt me. They still hurt me when I look in the mirror and hear those bullies as clearly as if they were standing behind me now. 

In a lot of ways I hate them more now than I did back then because they changed my life. And not in a good way. They made me leave school. They pushed and pushed until I could take it no more.

I'd snapped once before the fateful day I left school. Four years before, when I was still at Primary school. I'd screamed at a boy in sheer frustration. No words, no retorts, just aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

The boy the scream was directed at later told the teacher that I'd thrown a desk at him. Ha. Me. Tiny, mouse-like, wouldn't say boo to a goose, 4ft something, 6 stone, Kath. Threw a desk. I'll let that sink in.

Thankfully the teachers thought it was as preposterous as it sounded and no punishment was levied. It should have been though, against him. He deserved having a desk thrown at him. Maybe that's why I now have a love of female superheroes. And like to cosplay as them. It's for 10 year old me who was only strong enough to scream. 

So it carried on, for four more years. I moved to secondary school. Maybe it'll be better there? Not when most of the kids who picked on you at primary school are coming with you to high school. 

The worst thing about it was that mum was the only one who believed it was happening to me. Teachers told me not to tell tales when I was crying for help. I tried to talk to my dad and stepmum about it. Their response was that "things like that didn't really happen." Oh right. Good to know.

I honestly don't remember the exact day when it happened. When I eventually broke. But I do remember the moment when I walked out of school and never came back.

I was waiting in line for my music lesson when one of the kids who frequently bullied me said something in passing. I remember that he was shorter than me, and ginger, but I don't remember his name or what it was that he said. I don't even think it was particularly hurtful, just something stupid. But it was enough. It was the final straw that broke the camel's back as it were.

I said nothing in response, possibly for the first time ever, I just walked out. Out of the school, out of the grounds, through the little break in the hedge that the students used as a shortcut. Nobody tried to stop me or asked where I was going.

When I arrived home more than an hour early mum knew something was wrong. But being mum she made the decision that I would never be going back there. From then on I was entered into a home schooling programme. It wasn't actually that I was home schooled, that's just what it was called. It was two hours a day in a community center with kids like me, or kids that were pregnant, or kids who were also carers and who couldn't go to school.

I took five exams at the end of the two years I spent there, and I'm still in touch with my teachers from the home schooling. They, along with my mum, literally saved my life.

And yeah I might not have GCSE's. I might not have been able to step into a classroom environment until many years later. I might not have gone to college or uni, and I might now have a very average job, all because I didn't finish school. I might also be emotionally scarred. But it was what I needed to do for my own sanity.

Would I change it if I could? No. I often say that I wish I could go back and finish school. And that's true. I do wish that. My prospects would have been much brighter if I had. But I would not want to have endured one more second in that place. It was literally sucking the life out of me. And maybe leaving, making that choice, and sticking to it, has made me who I am today. And I like her. She might still hear the bullies taunting her when she looks in the mirror, but she is kind, and thoughtful and considerate of others, and she values her friends above all other things. And that makes her pretty cool in my eyes.

So, 13 year old me, my advice to you is to be strong. It will get better. You will find your people, you will find your voice, and you will get through this.

Grrrl Con 2017

Last summer, I attended Kerry Ryan’s Write Like A Grrrl one day intensive workshop in Brighton, on the recommendation of my good friend Lizzie. 

I’ve been writing on and off since I was 16, but my limited education and lack of confidence in my own abilities (which I will talk more about in my next blog) have always held me back in actually doing anything about it. For about 10 years now I’ve known that my dream job involved writing. And not in the administrative sense of replying to customer queries that I have had in my day jobs. Ideally, I’d be writing about movies as that’s my other great passion. The problem is that with no qualifications or experience, you really can’t get a job in that world. And my experience at school was such that I could never see myself going back to a classroom environment.

All that changed with Kerry’s course. Firstly, she is super friendly and not at all judgemental. I even felt comfortable enough with her to confide in her during that first meeting that I am a writer of fan fiction. Something only my fandom friends and a handful of trustworthy close friends knew at the time. She was enthusiastic about that, and most importantly, didn’t make any of us read our work out loud that day.

The other great thing about the WLAG course was that I met a group of amazing women writers. We’re all very different in our styles of writing, our approach to writing, what inspires us etc, but by god what an amazing group. At the end of the course Kerry advised us all to keep in touch if we could, meet up occasionally. She said it would be invaluable, and it really has been, in so many ways. We have helped each other when one of our group was homeless for a few months. We have talked through break ups, and encouraged each other on our writing journeys with tea and cake and weekends away.

For anyone interested, Kerry is holding another one day intensive this July in Brighton. If you are struggling to write or to find a community of writers with which to discuss your work, I cannot recommend Write Like A Grrrl highly enough.

But I am writing this blog to talk about something else entirely. Grrrl Con. A weekend long convention arranged by Kerry (@writelikeagrrrl), Jane Bradley of For Books’ Sake (@forbookssake) and Claire Askew (@onenightstanzas). And what a weekend it was.

Friday morning began with a train to Manchester. My best friend had sent me off equipped with screenshots of a map of Manchester, showing the way from Victoria station to Ziferblat - the social space hired by Grrrl Con to house all of us eager to learn ladies. Of course, I immediately got lost and a lovely Mancunian man helped me find my way. 

 

I was going to be there with three of the women from the Brighton WLAG group, but as I have family up north I’d come up a few days earlier to see them, and so arrived at Ziferblat knowing only Kerry. My anxiety levels were through the roof because my brain was telling me it’d be just like school, where I knew no-one and no-one would like me. I kept to myself and took a seat for the opening keynote address, notebook in hand. Quickly the room started to fill up and a lovely grrrl called Rebecca came and sat next to me. I tried not to scare her away and asked her about her writing. Of course she asked me too so I was brave and admitted the extent of my writing was pretty limited to fan fiction. “Oh what kind?” she asked. Shit. I never considered for a moment that someone would ask me that. Deep breath. “Well it’s kind of specific…” I said. She nodded her encouragement for me to continue. “Err, it’s about the actor Jeremy Renner.” A look of recognition and a smile crossed her face. “Oh wow that is very specific,” she said, a small laugh, “about his life?” I was amazed that she knew who he was as most people look confused when I say his name, until I say he was in Avengers. “Sometimes, other times about characters he’s played.” We continued to chat until we were called to attention, and I think I knew then that the weekend was going to be much better than I’d anticipated.

Our keynote address was by Novelist Jenn Ashworth (@jennashworth) who came to talk to us about ‘Finding the courage to write and keep on writing’. I soon discovered that she had spent time in my home town of Preston in her youth, and I felt like I was listening to a kindred spirit with some of the things she was saying. How school wasn’t a fit with her, how she didn’t really have friends, how she found solace in books. And most importantly about how as women we often have to ‘don armour’ to protect ourselves, and that courage can be found in being vulnerable. She also talked about her community of writer friends and how much she takes from the support they give her. I was almost in tears. Her words resonated so clearly with me and the courage I have gained from the group of writers I have in my own support group. 

Some pearls of wisdom that I took from Jenn’s talk included - Don’t let research get in the way, if you wait until you know everything you’ll never write it. If you find when you’re writing that you need more information on something, block it off and write ‘need info on…' The first draft is your guide to what you need for the second draft.

Jenn then read an excerpt of her novel Fell which sounded intriguing. As we took our first break of the day Jenn signed copies of her book and spent time talking to every person in the queue. Unfortunately this meant that the break overran into the first workshop of the day. I had to abandon my wish to get myself a signed copy of Fell, but Jenn was kind enough to answer a question I had for her on Twitter afterwards. And once payday comes around I’ll definitely be placing an order for Fell.

The first workshop I had was with Rosie Garland (@rosieauthor) on ‘Silencing the internal critic’. As someone who listens to hers far too much (in all aspects of life sadly - not just writing) I felt I would get a lot out of this workshop, and Rosie certainly didn’t disappoint. There are 5 pages in my notebook filled with gems from this workshop.  One of which was to find my “crime scene”, the point in my life when my internal critic started speaking to me. Despite my useless memory I felt I could pin-point this moment precisely to when my fiancé told me my writing aspirations were a silly dream that nothing would ever come of. Well fuck you Ken. 

Rosie also told us to remember that the first draft is you telling yourself the story. It’s the sketch that lives under the painting. It’s the starting blocks to give you something to build on. Rosie, you rock. Tell Mavis to do one.

Before we knew it the morning sessions were over and it was time for lunch, which is when my grrrls finally arrived in Manchester. I joined them for some food and a quick catch up and then we headed off for our afternoon workshops.

Mine was ‘Making Art is hard and that’s okay’ a zine workshop for wannabes, imposters and would be creatives with Sasha de Buyl-Pisco (@sashadebuyl).

And here, for anyone who wants to see, is my creation…

It’s about my friends and what you all mean to me. Yeah I’m a sap, so what?

We finished the day with a ‘Path to Publication’ Panel chaired by Jane, and featuring the aforementioned Rosie Garland and Grrrl Con organiser and novelist Claire Askew, alongside poet and playwright Afshan Lohdi (@ashlodhi).

Lots of talk on what the path looked like for them (clue - it was very different for each of them), and sage words of advice and encouragement for us all. My take away words of wisdom were “You can only have a first book once, so make sure it’s ready.” Thank you ladies.

Right, who’s ready for day 2?

We began day 2 with a talk by author Monique Roffey (@moniqueroffey13) on The Truth in Sex and Writing. As a writer of Fan Fiction which usually features a lot of sex, I am certainly no stranger to writing sex scenes into my stories. But as any FF writer will tell you, sometimes you feel you’ve exhausted every possible way of saying ‘…and they had sex.’ Especially when there are certain words you yourself are not a fan of using. One of my friends hates the word panties with a passion. I myself am not a fan of the word pussy. I could go on but you get the gist.

As such, I was probably looking forward to Monique’s talk (and reading) the most. When she did do her reading I quickly realised Monique’s writing style was nothing like mine, which was a pity as I’d hoped to at least ask her the age old question of how she kept each of the sex scenes fresh and different in her book. Having said that, I know a lot of the women at Grrrl Con loved her talk, and got a lot out of it. And I of course wish her every continued success with her writing.

>Related tangent< In one of the workshops I overheard someone say in a disparaging tone that FF was not real writing. Initially this upset me because that person could not have been aware that there was a FF writer in the room, but should have thought about how hurtful those words could be to such a person. But then I felt sorry for them that they had clearly not read the kind of FF that I have read, which would mean she would never have felt the need to say those words in the first place. I mention this here because although Monique’s writing style isn’t for me, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want her to succeed. The world is made up of so many different people, and lots of them will love Monique’s books. If this weekend has taught me anything it’s that there is room for all of us, because we all bring something different to the table.

Anyway, back to day 2. My first workshop was Leonie Ross’ (@leoneross) ‘How to edit the hell out of your fiction’. One of my first notes from this workshop was… don’t go off on tangents. See above. Apologies Leonie. 3 pages of notes and a *really* helpful handout were all taken away from her workshop and I still need to look at Hemingwayapp.com for those pesky adverbs.

After lunch we had our second workshop of the day, ‘Writing without the male gaze’ with Desiree Reynolds (@desreereynolds). Here I discovered that my way of writing without adding in descriptions of my characters is actually not a bad thing. And I also got to talk about the Hawkeye Initiative and how it is helping to redress the balance of the overtly sexist male gaze on female superheroes. Google it if you’ve never heard of it, it’s wonderful.

Our closing keynote from day two was by the Poetic Legend Patience Agbabi (@patienceagbabi). I stole those words from the Grrrl Con Storify and I’m not ashamed because they perfectly encapsulate Patience’s brilliance. She read to us from her Poetry collection Telling Tales. My favourite quote has to be “The story ends where you put the frame, but however it begins, remember my name.”

We ended day 2 of Grrrl Con by attending the spoken word night ‘That’s What She Said: Nasty Grrrls’ at TriBeca, where a piece on Trauma by Katie Watson (@kwatsonwriter) moved me and my fellow WLAG Lou to tears. It was beautiful and sad and everything in between.

Feeling emotionally and physically exhausted, and literally feeling the heat from what has to be one of the hottest weekends Manchester has ever known, we brought on day 3 with a keynote from Kerry, Jane and Claire - ‘Just Fucking Do It: Maintaining momentum after Grrrl Con’.

They asked us to set 5 realistic goals that we wanted to achieve in the next year. And then asked us to find an ‘motivation buddy’ to keep check on us and make sure we were achieving those goals.

Once I get to the end of this blog I will have achieved two of my goals.

The first workshop I had on day 3 was Hannah Kate’s (@hannahkateish) ’Creating Space, Place and Atmosphere’. We started by playing a Hannah Kate-ish version of Taboo. Where we took a card and had to describe the thing on the card without adjectives. As I wasn’t sure I knew what an adjective was (limited education remember) I had to take a back seat and just listen and learn. I took 4 pages of notes and then an additional 3 pages of short story inspired by a photo of an abandoned fairground ride. It’s fair to say that I did listen and learn.

After lunch we had our last workshop of the weekend, mine was Cheryl Martin’s (@cherylalaska) ‘Every Grrrl has a story’. I found this to be the most useful workshop of the whole weekend. It was almost like therapy. Cheryl asked us to go back and examine a moment in our lives when everything changed for us. For better or worse, we had to write about what life was like before, and what it was like after. I wrote 10+ pages for this exercise. And what poured out of me that day will form my next blog. 

Our final keynote came from publisher Sara Hunt of Saraband (@sarabandbooks). She had lots of advice to impart on us about the minefield that is publishing. As we all felt ready to explode due to the overload of information, the overwhelming heat, and the emotions coursing through us from a wonderful weekend, that seemed like a very appropriate way to end the Grrrl Con journey.

All that’s left for me to say is a humongous thank you to Kerry, Jane and Claire for putting together such a jam packed agenda of amazing women speakers, to the women who passed down their knowledge via imaginative workshops, to all of the staff and volunteers at Ziferblat, and to all the attendees at Grrrl Con for making it one of the best weekends of my life.  You’re all AMAZING.