My #Blogmas Challenge for Christmas

It feels like weeks since I completed #NaNoWriMo, and yet it has only been around seven days. Yes, last week was a long one, and very busy as always. There is no sign of things slowing down, either. Oh no. I am still persevering with my #365DaysofTarot challenge, where I perform a Tarot card reading every day and write it in my designated notebook. I plan to turn it into a book at some point in the future, but that will not come to fruition until at least 2018.

Merry Blogmas from SpookyMrsGreen!

This month my challenge is #Blogmas. Over on my SpookyMrsGreen: the Pagan Housewife blog, I am writing and posting every day in the run-up to Christmas. My posts are a variety of anecdotes about preparing for Christmas with young children, shopping and gift ideas, and my pagan lifestyle activites that run alongside. Go and check it out if you are interested!

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I’m at 40K and Feeling Epic! #NaNoWriMo

Ha ha, did you recognise my TV commercial reference? Well, the month of #NaNoWriMo is flying by, and today we celebrate my husband’s birthday. I say we. I mean me. He is being very miserable and grumpy, even though he is only 35. That is not old!

Anyway, never mind him, I will celebrate with some fizzy wine and a bit of chocolate, because my #NaNoWriMo challenge is almost complete and I can taste the sweet smell of success. How is your #NaNoWriMo coming along?

Did you enjoy this article? Join my tribe today, and I will send you a fabulous FREE book to get you started… (be warned, my vampires do not sparkle, and my wolves will bite!) 

A World of Inspiration #CampNaNoWriMo

Good Morning! I am so happy today. My Muse has finally returned, hooray! I have missed her so much during the past eighteen months or so. I blame pregnancy/childbirth/babies/hormones for it all, but who knows? All I can say is I have been living in a sort of fog for almost two years, but my youngest daughter is now eleven months old, and so I feel ready for a new challenge.

I didn't actually start my writing for #CampNaNoWriMo until yesterday (2nd July), but somehow, despite having the children needing attention throughout, I managed to write just over 2000 words in the space of around two hours. I am so happy! And while I was writing, I started to get ideas and plans for the novel. I am writing a teenage zombie romance. Random, yes? I know, but that is where my Muse is at the moment, and clearly I need to write it. So far I have a seventeen year old student named Jean Pickering, and her best friend and wannabe journalist, Kelly Rouse. It's amazing how the words flow...  Have a fabulous month my friends!

Being a Writer vs Being a Mother

I am really struggling to write anything at the moment. It is such a strange feeling, because in the space of three years I wrote and published 4 novels and 3 short stories. My Muse was shouting at me constantly so that I always had some form of dialogue or story running circles in my mind, until it was written down. I have notebooks full of scribbled excerpts, blog ideas, story ideas, and even prompts to help me out on occasions like this. Yet with all of this material, I have nothing to say.

What  is this bizarre affliction? Is it writers' block? Is it laziness? Or is it something much more simple; children? Ha ha, that made you stop. Yes, I blame the children. Not that they have done anything wrong, you understand. My biological clock was ticking and so while I was frantically writing my masterpieces of literary fiction (or rather, commercial paranormal fiction), I was also incubating and birthing children. I now have a very active 3 year old daughter, and a very demanding but totally adorable 5 month old daughter.

During the Christmas holiday I took time to rest and recuperate after a very hectic year in 2013. I spent some time thinking about my situation and mulling over my options. Where could I fit in time to write and continue to develop my professional career? Ultimately I decided that it is not feasible right now. Technically I am still on maternity leave, and I have the luxury of a husband whose job pays the bills, so for now I will focus on my family and leave my notebooks alone. I will still write. I intend to develop my blogs more and update them regularly throughout the year. I will also return to my manuscripts and story prompts as and when I find the time and energy. I am still a writer, but I am also a mother, and that is my priority right now.

Join my tribe today, and I will send you a fabulous FREE book to get you started… (be warned, my vampires do not sparkle, and my wolves will bite!) 

Why do I Write?

I am currently experiencing a lot of changes in my life, and yet outwardly everything appears very normal and unspectacular. My big change is that of becoming a parent and subsequently a 'responsible' adult. Several years ago my then fiance (now husband) and I bought our first house together. We got a dog. We acquired several baby turtles (and now have 2 surviving). Then we got pregnant. Well, I did. The husband did his bit, but we won't go into detail...

Anyway, I now have one daughter aged 2 years and 10 months, and one newborn daughter aged 9 weeks. I tried to keep up with my writing schedule all through my second pregnancy, although since the birth of my first daughter I haven't really kept a writing schedule. It is more a case of write what I can when I find time and energy. It didn't help when my Muse packed up and left town. She just disappeared about six months into my pregnancy. I was devastated!

I now have an abandoned manuscript that will be reassessed at some point in the future. I recently released my fourth novel, The Darkness of Love, which I wrote while my first daughter was a young baby. I plan to participate in NaNoWriMo 2013 as a method to reinvigorate my novel writing enthusiasm. So far my Muse has begun to make small noises and offer tantalizing snippets of dialogue, the occasional new idea, and some very vague plot fillers for book 4 in my Redcliffe series. I am hoping that my children will miraculously settle down during November and allow me to indulge my passion.

Which brings me to my point. Why do I write? Why do any of us write? The simple answer is because we have to. The urge is so strong, our characters are so forceful, and the stories simply have to be written or we would go insane. Recently I have lost some of that insanity, although I gained a whole new version as a mother and wife. I now eagerly await the return of my 'writer eccentricity' so that I can reconnect with myself in the best way possible. We all have our vices. Mine are reading, writing and chocolate.

A New Writing Challenge #15kinMay

I am still battling with the manuscript for my vampire hunter novel, although a quick glance back through my recent chapters suggests it might not be as bad as I thought. I have decided to use a very loose approach to writing this story, and am simply sitting down whenever I have time, and writing a chapter here and there. I have no idea what comes next, and I still don't know how this story will end, but it will end and I will succeed!

It helps me to read the blogs of fellow writers for advice and support. One of these is Alison Wells, author of Housewife with a Half-Life. She recently wrote a very inspiring post about how we are always intent on hurrying and speeding towards culmination of our projects. Society has evolved in such a way that we continually feel the need to better ourselves, to be successful, and to prove our worth in some physical (and usually fiscal) way. At my time in life this is more difficult to achieve, since I am currently in the young parent stage. I have a toddler for whom I am the main carer while my husband works outside the home, and I am pregnant with our second child. Naturally, there are many distractions on my time and attention.

As it turns out, Alison mentioned the #15kinMay writing challenge currently trending on Twitter. The idea for this one is that we set ourselves a target to write 15,000 words in May, and we can tweet our progress each day and support each other as we go. I admit, I haven't really participated on-line just yet, but I have decided to use it as another tool for motivation. Surely I can manage to write 15,000 words between now and the end of the month? Well, truthfully my challenge is under-way  so I probably only need to write another 10,000 words which is easily achievable.

What are you working on at the moment? Do you have writers block or struggle with your WIP? Share your news and let us support each other.

Did you enjoy this article? Join my tribe today, and I will send you a fabulous FREE book to get you started… (be warned, my vampires do not sparkle, and my wolves will bite!)