friends with ?

As you know I have the dream to write.  I have started blogs, web pages even a twitter account.  But what makes me special, or different from others? Nothing and everything.  What makes me special are the people I meet, talk to and interact with.  Their influence moulding me, changing me.  When I talk of influence its really boils down to advice I may have been offered or tips I choose to take.  Some friends are amazing making me feel amazing too, some comfortable and those annoying ones we love but think hey what are you thinking well they are actually the best kind, because they are the ones that give you that push.  No one got by on warm pink fluffy wishes, we all needed those annoying ones too. 

To say you will go through life cutting out the nonsense is just strange to me, as a human I am exposed to all types but as an adult I choose what I want to keep with me on my road and what I leave on the side.  It could be heavy rocks weighing me down or feathers making me walk faster, each piece with its own purpose. 

What is key to remember is we make our journey and experiencing happiness, pain, joy, love, anger, peace, and many other emotions just makes us rich in knowledge on this path we have in front of us.  And if it does get too much you can always pull into hypothetical rest stop reassess what we want and where we are headed.

Taking The Time

A few weeks ago I accompanied my daughter on a walk around Athens.  Her photography club were taking photographs of a village like settlement at the bottom of the Acropolis.  In my twenty odd years of living here, the closest I had ever come to walking around this place was to admire the terracotta roof tiles from above as I went on yet another trip up to the Acropolis as no doubt another family member had landed on our doorstep with their list of 'places to see'.
What then occurred was the amazing morning of doing nothing other than taking photographs of this part of Athens, and this is where I came to realise that for the four or so hours I was walking around, nothing was on my agenda.  My telephone did not ring ( I later realised I had not switched it on ) there was no three year old demanding my attention.  I did not have a deadline with work and it was just me, a group of teens and my camera.
What did I learn from this?
A lot
Which one of you can openly admit to going off and doing something for yourself without having to explain to your child, partner or work why you need to do it or why you want to.  Come on all you mums out there (and dads) how many phone calls can you make before your child asks for the loo? its a know fact, wont even mention what happens when your out in restaurant and your food has just turned up. Surely as an adult the choice to just want to do something whether its for thirty minutes, an hour or four should be ours to make and on doing so we should not feel the guilt of wanting to do that. I do not remember the last time I was just me.  Not mum, not wife, not T.A. not daughter or sister just me.
What we do forget though everyone we love and who love us do just love us.  So in making time for ourself we are actually giving everyone the best of ourselves because it reminds us who we really are.
I am going to make a promise to myself that from now on I am going to take time out, time to see the changes around me.  Time to watch the daisies grow, time to admire the history around me, time to stand in the sun and breath in its warmth, and maybe along the way I will share this with my family and educate them on taking it all in with me, so we can be the best of who we are.

E-BOOKS is it the way forward

I have read two articles recently one was from a newspaper and the other in the writers mag.  I found them very, very interesting and wanted to share what they said.  Firstly the newspaper article stated that around 26 % of adult fiction sold was self published or their own editions, particularly pointing to amazon.  Amazon has already revealed that the best selling author for 2011 was a first time novelist, selling 250,000 copies.  A number of publishers are looking at signing up this author for more books.  Another author who sold over 40,000 copies their book have been snapped up by Harper Collins.  E-book sales rose 20% in 2010 and the figures for 2011 are expected to be a further 25%.
It is becoming more apparent that with the right pitch and story even unknown authors who would have taken years and many rejections are getting their work seen and read.

The second article I read was that although there is a rise in e-books one type of book that is still having a high demand and impact to be printed, are picture books, even e-book junkies are favoring p-books for their children.  Working in a school with children I can see exactly where they are coming from. 

Wellies

A few months back I bought my son some wellies.  I chose them, as at the time I thought blue dinosaur wellies would be fab for my little guy.  To which he preceded to turn his nose up at them and ignore them sitting there quietly in the wardrobe.  How many of you know a child that's never wanted their wellies? If you think back how many of us never wanted wellies? I still recall my red wellies, only because after they finally got too small someone in my family threw them on the roof of the garage and I could see them out of my brothers bedroom window.  Every picture and back then that wasn't many, had me running around in my red wellies.  What is it that attracts children to the fashion statement of wellies? My son finally gave in and joined the 'I love wellies' brigade and where as I was trying to persuade him to wear them, now I am trying to get them off of him especially when he wants to wear them to school.
What made him change his mind?
The freedom that he could
The freedom of free will.  Just because he did not want them when I chose them, using my free will , didn't mean that at some point he would decide  when he wanted to!
Yes it can be annoying at 7 in the morning, your sorting yourself out for the day and your child 'demands' he is wearing wellies to school/church/grandma's but that little annoyance is nothing to the knowledge that he has free will and with it comes his dreams and imagination, on occasion we need to remember our wellies and how things can sometimes be simple if we just remember our pasts and our free will.

Inspiration

Where do you find your inspiration? is it all around us? do you need to experience something unusual or magical to be inspired?  Today was an inspiring day.  Not because I of something unusual well not at first, it was certainly something magical.  I went to the park with my little guy and daughter and it was there watching the joy on his face, the excitement and thrill, yes you could say this is inspiring.  But what inspired me more was the idea of the other children in the park.  In this enclosed space could be tomorrows doctors, teachers, lawyers, nurses, actors, politicians, plumbers, electricians, authors, to name a few.  What can I say the list could go on and on and on but, what really inspired me was that these young people over come obstacles most of us would refuse to even contemplate.  Climbing things more than double your height jumping to infinity and beyond, shooting down a slide or going against gravity and climbing up, giving total trust to sometimes strangers or friends as they sit on the other side of a see-saw or being pushed on a round about.  And on odd occasion they do get bumped or dizzy or fall the little guys just get up rub their knee, elbow or head and carry on.   How many of us if we made things to scale would do what they do.  Yep there would be a few into extreme things that may enjoy it, this was my inspiration, how amazing children are.

But I don't stop there, now for the unusual, before Christmas I had written the verse for a children's picture book about a Robin, then because I wanted to show the agency I was sending it too that I wasn't a one hit wonder I wrote another book, but really for me my inspiring sign was seeing a couple of robins where I work.  Living in Athens I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I have seen a Robin over the years.  When I do see them its a reminder of home, Christmas and anything to do with my childhood, I love Robins to me they are my sign and inspiration.  So on this beautiful warm sunny spring day, whilst waiting in my car with my children my little drop of inspiration came calling.  There in front of me a metre or two away a Robin came.  It just reminded me that inspiration is all around us in many forms and ways.  You don't need to visit historical sites or meet famous people, it could be through a gesture you see in the supermarket.  It could be like my Robin something personal that I would get.  So the next time you feel the need for inspiration, open your heart and look beyond the immediate vision, look deeper, there will be something there waiting just for you.

What is a writer?

I have not been here recently to make a new post, due really to, tooo much other stuff filing my day.  I seem to be making major tracks with the book I started writing on my NANO quest and three poems have been written and sent off for competitions.  But the question I ask myself and I ask all of you out there to think about is,  What is a writer?
The more I write the more I am understanding that it is not I that is telling the story but my characters.  Something I had not experienced until about 10k into my NANO book, don't get me wrong I had written other stories, but they seemed to come from me, I can see where alot of writers get writing block from.  If you are only depending on yourself for a story how can you go forward when you reach a mental rock.  Surely if there is more than one of you telling the story when you get to that rock they can help you climb over it and tell you how it got there.  What I am saying really is, although, yes I am the writer, its my characters that are writing the story, and although I do have the delete option at the end of the document.  It is nice to listen to there version once in a while.

Short term memory loss

O K I have promised myself that even if its meaningless dribble I will try and post some short little story or witty quote at least twice a week, my first one for this week you can see below and its called the price of coal.  A few nights back I was trying to recall which or where i could find my latest project of writing.  I have entered a few poems into writing competitions and hope that they come somewhere, so being caught up in that has caused me to forget where my present project is. 
I was looking for what some of you know as my NANO.  For those of you that don't its not a book about elves.  At the end of last year and every year there is a writing extravaganza where you have a month to write 50k this year I only managed about 15K and although I didn't reach the target at the end of it was left with a hefty chunk of writing certainly more than I have ever written in a single month.  Some of my fellow writers managed really well and completed it.  A few others didn't manage to complete it but like me they have a great chunk of words to expand on, and this alone was a great accomplishment. 
My Nano is actually the second in a series of four books.  The first one is on hold as I am dedicating my time to finishing my Nano and although they are all linked it will be the last one that brings them together so it is of no real importance if it's the first second or third one that is finished first. 
For the first time I have recently printed off my 20k that it now is and I am so excited at what I have written and I think that's the key.  I love the fact its now on paper staring at me and although its first draft and very rusty my chunk of book is amazing.  This is giving me the burning drive to complete it and say "yes, that's mine!"  a fellow writer in  the writing group I 'nip' onto from time to time (ROFL) has written a few brilliant ebooks and recently started the process of getting them printed and I loved it when he posted about the thrill of seeing his first book actually on paper and it sitting on his mantle piece ( sorry Kevin if that was the wrong place) and just from printing a few pages if this is how I feel wow its going to be amazing to finish so head down fingers typing for me, I need to finish so that's it for today have a great weekend and week to come everyone I wonder what my word count will be this time next week, fingers crossed I focus and do well.