Elvis, Tebay, and Moon Debates...

One of the candidates
looking for the debate.

Have you found yourself a stiff breeze? Marvellous. It comes and goes where I am, but things are definitely cooler this week. Huzzah for us all. In other news, the competition to find... the campaign to elect... the scramble for the bottomiest bottom of the barrel continues in Westminster. As I can't vote for any of the shockers involved, it makes no difference if they debate on TV or fly to the moon. Perhaps they should do that? Six weeks of titting about down here is going to take its toll. Regardless, in the near future, someone terrible will take over from someone else terrible and it'll have nothing to do with the vast majority of us on planet Earth. Still, there's a breeze. So that's good.

Well yeah, that too. But I was
talking about my novel tbh.

Writing News

Record breaking heat meant a pause on the WIP. But all was not lost. Under the waft of a Costa ventilation panel, I read the entire story so far. It took me two hours, with only a brief pause for the odd correction. And you know what? It's not bad. As I'm at the stage where the entire thing is a shower of shite and there's bucket loads of work to be done, a mid-point reflection of not bad is supremely encouraging.

Austin Butler as Elvis.

Culture

I warned you last week I'd be decamping to the cinema to escape Monday's temperature. Well what better way to keep cool than a three-hour shift to watch Elvis. I'm not an Elvis fan but overall I think I enjoyed it. It definitely chose a specific version of his story to share, but isn't that the way with biopics? It looked good, sounded great, and Austin Butler did a bang up job. I still think Rocketman is the pinnacle of the genre (and Bohemian Rhapsody continues to make me mad. Poor Freddie. He deserved so much better.) Moving on, the news series ofVirgin River has arrived on Netflix and is just the right balance of stunning locations and instantly forgettable plots. Dive in if you feel the need.

Taco Saturday!
Look what I'm
capable of when I
can be arsed to chop. 

Food and Drink

Like last week, the urge for salad is sometimes overtaken by the urge not to chop vegetables every night. This week it was an Indian takeaway that mixed thing up. Also, a stop at a charging point in Tebay services meant a tin of pistachio cookies were purchased in mysterious circumstances. (The mystery being why I only bought one. They are FIT.) 

Allonby

Out and About

Tebay was en route to Allonby. It was impossible to stay indoors on Tuesday and much more preferable to spend three hours in an air-conned car to get to a place that was ten degrees cooler. So yeah, that's what happened. Ta, Allonby. I'd never heard of you before last week but your breezy coastline and far-away distance provided everything I needed on the hottest day of my UK life.

I'm hoping next time I won't talk about the weather so much. How non-British of me! The one good thing about recent events (except it isn't really a good thing at all) is how I've noticed far less newspapers with 'sunbathers in Bournemouth enjoying the temperatures' style headlines. It's hard to tell as I've blocked the worst of the tabloids on my timelines and the last time I was in a paper shop, was pre-Internet. If I've got it wrong, and the press are still as thick as custard about climate change, then ignore me. But I don't think it's possible for us to be thick about it. We don't have that luxury any more. Not after last week.

What a depressing way to end the weekly update! Let's change that. What's been the highlight of your week? I'm going with listening to old episodes of Off Menu on my road trip out of the heat. Laughing at funny stuff makes everything feel better, so let's crack on and keep doing that.

Have a lovely week, folks. 

Desperately Seeking Aircon...

Oomph, the HEAT. Innit warm? Today's forecast tells me we'll be uncomfortably over 30℃ this afternoon. How shit. Yeah, that's right. I'm not mincing my words on this one. I've already decided I'm hitting the cinema as soon as this is posted. I don't care what's on. The fact I've not been fussed with the listings recently, pales into insignificance when the alternative is to sweat buckets at my desk, urging my brain to work against its will. Sod that. I'll watch any old nonsense if there's aircon. Stand by for next week's Culture paragraph, where I list crap films that cooled me down. Or something.

Writing News

I can't lie. This weather doesn't help. Give me a finite task like writing this blog post, or making up a name for a minor character, and it's fine. The heat makes no difference to the output. But give me a task like creating whole paragraphs from scratch out of my head, and it becomes impossible. I'm plodding on, just. Neither speedily nor impressively, I'm keeping at it. Hey ho. I'll get there in the end. When it's cooler.

Beth Mead is having a
spectacular tournament.

Culture

The Women's Euros continue to be fantastic. England's 8-0 win last week (against a normally decent Norwegian side) showed just what the team are capable of. And I am here for it. All eyes on Wednesday when they meet Spain in the quarter finals. When the football's not on, I've been rewatching old nineties films. Mainly with my eyes half-closed incase they no longer hold up. So far, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, Analyse This, and Analyse That have been ticked off the list. It's been a Robert De Niro-centric time. My conclusion? They're all still funny in places, but Lordy, there are way too many jokes about Meet the Parents' Greg being a nurse. It's not cool now, but was it even then? Bloody nineties.

Salad pizza ticks all the boxes.

Food and Drink

The heat means I've swung between eating lots of salad, and deciding it's too hot to make salad and ordering pizza. The salad to pizza spectrum is shorter than you think. There have also been regular Cornettos and Feasts.

Out and About

I had Thursday night beers with a mate in St. Helens. Two bottles of Prosecco got seen off (on a school night!) and there was bonding over shots with a nearby-seated woman. Larks! Then there was Sunday brunch in Childwall (too hot to make toast at home) and an aircon-filled, aimless drive around South Liverpool. I'll do literally anything as long as there's a chilly breeze in my face.

It can't last forever. It's not even supposed to last the week. May the aircon be with you, wherever you are, and may you chill out in whatever creative ways you find.

Have a lovely week, folks.

Life Moves Pretty Fast...

At the time of writing, the UK political scene is... well let's think of some appropriate phrases. Interesting? Nah, too tame. Compelling? Possibly. Yeah, I guess compelling is one way to describe it. Or how about utterly bat-shit? We seem to be homaging a Greek tragedy full of Machiavellian undertones, duplicitous Shakespearian characters, power-crazed monarchs, with all the drama of - best soap opera ever - Eldorado. Yep, that's it. That exactly what the vibe's like. Last week the Prime Minster might have resigned, but it was hard to tell. This week, a leadership contest has kicked off, with culture war issues being tossed into the 'debate' like grenades. It sure got ugly real quick. A couple of things to note. At several points during the implosion of the government, I had flashbacks to an old boss of mine who struggled to leave cleanly. So that was fun. And then the phrase from Ferris Bueller, 'Life moves pretty fast' was never far away. Mainly when the new Education Secretary joined the wave of resignations despite having been put in post thirty-six hours before because of the wave of resignations. Anyway, good luck, everybody! Here's to the UK having a normal one at some point.

Writing News

Word count so far: 31742. 

This means I've reached the point where it's too late to scrap everything and start again, but it's still so far from the end it feels impossible. Excellent stuff.

Culture

Let's leave several days of rolling news aside. It's a culture of sorts, but hardly escapism. No matter, because in the midst of it all, I managed to rewatch the first season of Only Murders in the Building. (Disney +) It's brilliant. The second series has also started, but in the worst way ever. One episode per week, and not dropped together. What is this? The nineties? Moving on, I heartily recommend a three part series on BBC1, called AIDS: The Unheard Tapes, all on iPlayer. As Lucy Mangan wrote, 'What sounds on paper like a terrible gimmick, works beautifully...'  and it really does. The 'gimmick' is that taped audio recordings of gay men from the 80s are lip-synced by actors today. The recordings were made at the start of the AIDS crisis in order to keep a record of the experiences of those affected. Knowing what we know today - that AIDS ravaged a generation of young men, many of whom had family that struggled to keep their memory alive - mean the recordings are brimming with poignancy and emotion. They must be heard. And with the help of this documentary, they can be.

 

Food and Drink

The Women's Euros have started. Woohoo! My general rule for football meals is you can only go big on the England matches. If I ate footy food for every game, I'd be in trouble. And what is footy food, I hear you ask. Well, it's usually crisps and dips. Sometimes vegetable sticks and dips. Or - in the case of the England v Norway game tonight - breadcrumbed and baked aubergine slices with labneh and salad. It's crisps and dips of sorts.

Out and About

I tried a new restaurant on Saturday. I say new; it's been there for years and I vaguely remember going in 2019. But this time, I went with purpose. Pesto, you were boss. Small plates are always a winner, and that's what is was. Woohoo. Other than that, I've been avoiding the heat and watching history unfold via Sky News. Yeah, I really need to get out more. 

Have a lovely week, folks. 

Story-Telling Vibes...

Lovely, lovely Ritche and 
friend from It's A Sin.

I love a bit of representation. If you can see it, you can be it. That sort of thing. It's usually smashing the patriarchy and televising more women's sport. Or smashing heteronormative society and sharing LGBTQIA+ stories in the mainstream. Or smashing the blinding whiteness of TV and including people of colour in main roles rather than as sidekicks or representatives of 'other'. That's the way representation works and with the likes of Ms Marvel, It's A Sin, and the start of the Women's Euros in a couple of days, for example, representations can be spotted here and there.

I am not florals for spring. 
I am not groundbreaking.
(Yes, I know she's being sarky.)

As a writer, however, there's a different kind of representation I need. I've realised that when I'm writing a new story - whether it's for adults or a younger audience - I'm actively looking for something that's gone before. Something that feels the right vibe. I want to know I'm not being groundbreaking. Because being groundbreaking is a gamble that might not pay off. I need to write something that hits a spot that people may already be predisposed towards. I want the vibe already out there. That way I know my story, whose idea may only be a germ at first, can find its feet and work. Why waste two or three years on a book if it's not workable?

I imagine it's a bit like having a muse. I need a muse with every book I write. The Free Dictionary tells me that a 'muse' is 'a guiding spirit' or 'a source of inspiration.' That's exactly what I need each time. As I look back, I can see I had muses for every one of my books. All different, all already out there, but each one inspiring me and guiding me along the creative path. You want to know what they are? Sure you do!

Carry the Beautiful
I recently reread one of my favourite books - The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre. It came out in 2002 and is a bank heist thriller, with the most authentic romance I've read in print. And even though Carry the Beautiful contains no bank heist, no thriller, and no current romance (there's one told in flashback), as I reread the book, I could see I'd structured my story in a similar way. The vibe of the layout is what guided me through. Introduce a few characters that seem unrelated at first. Set the scenes in different places. Bring them all together at the end. That book was the muse for my first book. I just hadn't realised it at the time.

Leeza McAuliffe Has Something to Say
I remember watching my Year Fours during the daily ERIC sessions. (Everyone Reads In Class.) And for those ten minutes every morning, I'd feel gutted that none of the stories they were choosing would have been anything I'd have read when I was their age. And that's either because children in the 2010s were massively different to children in the 1980s (LOLZ) or because publishing was experiencing a different trend. It was all Harry Potter-lite. Wizards, spells, time travel, magic, and fantasy. When I was a kid, I'd have walked straight past that section in the library, and found the real-life stuff. The stories about divorce, death, sibling rivalry, and growing up. I loved Judy Blume and I wanted to write something modern that homaged her stuff. So I did. (I mean to say, I wrote it .Whether it homaged her stuff is forever up for debate.)

Assembling the Wingpeople
I had the idea for this - the sequel to Carry the Beautiful - planned out, and I knew where the story was going to take me, but it still felt a little flat. And then I watched the second series of Fleabag. The whole idea of Fleabag falling for the priest was what gave me the inspo to beef up my own plot. Along came Gethin. He provided the push Tilda needed to break out of the self-imposed isolation, regardless of whether he became a significant other or not. The vibe of Fleabag was exactly what I needed to push along my actually-very-different story. (No priests, no secret feelings causing angst. Just inspired by the vibes.)

Leeza McAuliffe Book 2
This is what I'm writing now. And whilst I'm still homaging Judy Blume, I've found another story that's given me the mental vibes I need to get this one off the ground. I'd worried for a while that I needed to bring relationships into this story. Leeza's now at high school, and in a split class with Year Eights (it's a tiny school in the middle of the countryside.) Of course hormones would be rampant and there'd be romances all over the show. Some lasting even longer than a weekend. I had no idea how I was going to write it without being too adult and sexy. But then Heartstopper came along. It's the most lovely, relationship-based show/book, but no one mentions sex once. It's all best mates, and holding hands, and kissing, and spending time together. It's exactly the vibe I want for the next instalment of Leeza's life. If Heartstoppper hadn't arrived, I'd have been flailing around, not sure how to crack on

There's a thing people say: if you don't read, you can't write. And yep, I think that's true. But it's not just books. It's wider than that. If you don't immerse yourself in stories, then you can't create your own. It doesn't matter if they're on TV, at the cinema, or written on paper. Exposing yourself to other people's lives - fictional or not - develops empathy, and understanding. The ability to see things from another person's POV is a gift. Whether you choose to make up your own stories after that, well that's entirely up to you. But it adds to the richness and joy of life. That's why the recent news that some Universities are thinking of scrapping English Literature degrees, should be of concern. If nothing else, it means that after you've come home from your target orientated, graduate job with value, there's nothing to read, watch, or enjoy in your down time. We need to see ourselves represented and we also need to see the lives of others explored, in order to develop our empathy and kindness beyond the people we know. We all love stories. There should always be stories. And some of us are lucky enough to write them.

Have a lovely week, folks.