Day Five of Forever

Hello!

So here is an update of how I am fairing on this challenge - five days in.

To give you a clue to the general tone of this post... I feel like a super happy octopus.

Exercise and Meditation

So far this is going swimmingly! Granted I am not doing as intense exercise as I did in my original exercise challenge - but I think my strengthening and stretching routine is exactly what my body needs right now and it fits into half an hour which at the moment is all I can afford. Meditation is going great :) I no longer have to set myself a timer - I generally come to a finish by myself at about twenty five minutes. It's been a little while since I did it this regularly, and I have to say it is a discipline worth doing daily. I really find my mind clearing and strengthening more and more each day, and reaching new levels every time.

Violin Practice and Juggling Practice

So I have been alternating between Juggling and Violin each night (although I did both today!) and I actually think that this way is better than when I was practicing daily. I apply this more to violin than juggling, I could juggle any time and be happy doing it, but with Violin its really nice to just do it every other day - it's a more pleasurable experience. I've been doing between forty five minutes and an hour each time, which is more than I did during the challenge, and I think that's simply because I'm enjoying it more. And because I'm enjoying it more I'm doing better quality practice and therefore improving :) big yay.

Poetry Writing and Reading 

I was hoping to be jotting down some ideas for poems every day. So far I haven't quite managed to do that, so I need to pay a little more attention to that area. Same with reading, I just need to find more opportunities to do it!

Keeping a Journal

This is an interesting one. I like to do this last thing at night, but writing a journal is a pretty private experience that one should take ones time with, and if my boyfriend is staying over I'm less inclined to do it. I thought about it, and I've decided that's ok, as long as I keep it up regularly enough.


Overall, I'm feeling really positive and happy and so in control of my own life! I'm getting so much done (hence why I feel like a super happy octopus) and it's just so great to feel like I'm using my time in a valuable way instead of letting each day slip by.

Tonight, I'm going to have a little writing session and get my poem of the week off its feet! And add that to my list of awesome things I have done this week.

I'll post another update soon, until then, taraar!!

Three Good Reasons To Keep A Journal

Hello hello hello

So I'm nearly at the end of this challenge, and it's been a pleasant experience. Taking photos and keeping a diary admittedly hasn't been very challenging, but it's been a nice thing to do at this very busy time of year! So I thought I'd cap it off putting a few more photos up and telling you my three reasons to keep a journal.

So here are some photos.


Lovely flowers :) I've started to think a lot more about angles and everything now, and I liked getting low for these, it sort of felt a bit Alice in Wonderland esque - when she's tiny and in the flowerbeds!


I realise that I hardly ever put a subject in the middle - I almost always have it to the side with a big space beside it. Just something I like doing I suppose! Does this mean I'm developing a style...?

And another thing I apparently like doing is capturing sunlight between trees! I love getting direct sunlight in pictures and having that strange glow. It allows you to see something you can't actually see properly in real life because otherwise you'd go blind - which would be unfortunate. But yes, when the sun is out I love to get it in the shot. I love how its sort of between two big branches, like the tree has the sun wedged into it. Some great shadows too. I am quite an outdoorsy person so it's been nice to be capturing some of that this month.









And now...

Three Good Reasons to Keep a Journal

1. It stimulates your creativity. Even if all you are doing initially is sitting down to write about your day, you are still sitting down with a notebook and a pen in your hand. Things are much more likely to happen when you give yourself the tools. Since keeping my journal I have written a couple of new poems, so there you go.

2. It helps you to keep focused. You can use a diary to write down all your appointments and contacts and keep yourself organised, but you can use a journal to actually remind yourself what you want to achieve and why. Every night I have been writing down three things I want to get done the next day - and I've been doing them. It's nice to go to sleep looking forward to what you're doing the next day. I feel like I've been waking up with loads of purpose because of it.

3. It can be therapeutic. Now when I was younger the ONLY time I wrote in a journal was when things were going badly. Now, I'm using it for a more positive purpose, but it does still have it's use in that respect. When things get shitty, it's good to write down how you feel and then read it back, it helps you to get a bit of perspective. Also, when you're having a bad time your thoughts can be a mess and your mind is just racing. Writing stuff down helps you to slow your thoughts down and figure out what you really think.

And there's not much more to say on the subject! It's been really nice, and I hope to keep these habits up. I'll be announcing my next (and last!) challenge soon. Till then, taraar.

Some Pictures and Some Thoughts

Phew! I am having the busiest time of my life right now. I'll be leaving universtity soon, and so begins the desperate search for jobs, the praying that an agent will take me on, and the mighty mighty business plan.

So I haven't found much time for blogging, to be honest! But here I am with a precious spare hour, and I thought I would share some pictures and thoughts with you.

Some of my photos are lazy and rubbish, some are kinda artistic and cool. But the important thing is that I am taking them! Here are some of my favourites from the last week and a half.

I went for a few morning walks and this is one picture that makes me feel really happy! This place is right by my house in York, I used to go running there all the time. And striding across it early morning filled me with all sorts of positivity, especially as it was such a beautiful day! This pictures stirs up that hearty feeling I had that morning. Early morning walks are good. I may even make a challenge out of them.

Here is another photo of the same place, but on a very different morning! Beautiful, but in a different way. I really love this picture, I think it's one of my best. There's a wee artist in here somewhere! All of my best photos for this have been taken outside, and to be honest it's made me quite appreciative of the beauty of the world around us - I'm glad this challenge has made me go looking for it.


Another good example of that would be this tree! This photo doesn't quite do it justice, but trust me guys, this is an effing great tree. Gorgeously silver. I had been staying in a rented house with my boyfriend and his family for his sister's wedding, and this tree was just outside. I didn't even notice it until the last day. A friend of the family was helping unload left over wedding stuff from the car, and he stopped to have a good look, which of course made me have a good look. And we both marveled at how eerily beautiful this tree was! So I took a photo. I love how photos serve both as a record of your experience but also something on its own. In many ways this photo can't come near the original view, but in many ways it is more beautiful too. I think the camera has brightened the blue somewhat, making a really pretty photo that I wasn't quite expecting. So I have the image vs my memory - both slightly unreliable reflections of a nice moment experienced, which is now gone.

And here is a photo that I wanted to show you more for the content rather than the artistry - I bought a brilliant new suitcase for me to fit my life into! As a self employed actor I need to be travelling light - and so I invested in an uber case that I could realistically go on tour with. I was such a nerd when I got home, I couldn't wait to pack it, so I put all my stuff from the big holdall I had brought home for the holidays into it. And I packed it all fancy so that it would look nice. And there's still loads of room! This perhaps wasn't the most productive use of my time - but I am the queen of active procrastination. And at least I'm mostly ready now for going back to Birmingham on Sat. While I was packing it, I was imagining all the jobs I might do in the future where I will be living out of this bag - and I got super excited. Sometimes it's really nice to do something like that, something that excites you about the future. This week has been a good week for things like that.

And now, let me tell you a bit about the diary writing part of this challenge! I have a lovely story for you.

So I was originally doing the diary writing on my PC - because I wanted to use the pictures. And I actually started to enjoy it! Long gone are my teenage years when I would use a diary to moan and lament about how dreadful my life was. This is different now, it's simply a record of my activities, my feelings on the day, and my plans for the next. It feels like a really nice way to wrap up the end of the day, just getting some thoughts down onto a page, and I go to sleep thinking of my plans and hopes for the next day, and also the future. It's been a good thing for me to do at this point in my life, when the future is very much now! However, it's not great doing it on a computer, as staring at a screen and typing is not an ideal bed time activity. So I decided to go classic and use a notepad.

I have loads of notebooks on my shelves many with barely anything written in them, so I dug out a beautiful one my friend gave me for my eighteenth birthday. I took it to LIPA when I did my foundation course, and used it to write down funny quotes my housemates said. So the first ten pages are full of quotes, but the rest is blank. Reading the quotes that I had almost forgotten, I was filled with that gorgeous nostalgic feeling you get when looking at old photos. What was even better was that I hadn't written down who said what, so many of the quotes I can't remember, and can't even picture who said them! But still, because I wrote them down they are here nonetheless, making me laugh and remember the awesome times I had.

My favourite was this: "If you draw on an X instead of writing it, well then that, my friend, is a kiss - unless it's drawn on a map, because then it's probably important."

I don't know who said that - but it's wonderful.

This was a bit of a serendipitous moment for me, because its showing me the value of writing things down, so that you still have the memories years later. (even if they are only gentle reminders!) When I started this challenge I said I was fairly cynical on the effects of using a diary - but now that cynicism is gone. Now that I feel I am in a good place to actually keep one, a positive place where I can use the diary to keep me moving forward, I think it's a really great thing. And now I have seen how wonderful it is to be able to read these recorded moments again.

And I find that when I am writing, ideas begin to spill out of me. It's like the writing of my thoughts helps to slow them down and organise them, and suddenly I have a steady stream of new ideas, simply because I am writing. And of course, those ideas can go straight down onto paper too. I actually think keeping a diary could help me to become a better writer. Now there's a thought.

So yes, wonderful thoughts on this challenge, which I wasn't actually expecting. I felt like I had kind of wussed out this month because I needed something easy, but it's turned out to be perfect!

One last thing - I'm adding a mini challenge. Next month is my last month and I have a special mega challenge all planned out, but I came up with this the other day and thought it was great so I'm throwing it in - a fifteen day challenge! To keep me going through this busy time and to help fight off laziness and procrastination: I must complete at least one thing on my 'to do' list every day. Yesterday it was making a CV, today it was applying for some jobs (and I've ticked this blog off too!) - a productive few weeks ahead.

Thanks for reading, much love to you all.

xx

The Vocabulary Challenge

Greetings friends.

It's a new month, it's a new challenge.

In August I set myself the challenge of writing every day, and I was pretty happy with some of the stuff I came up with. Since then I have been doing a lot of performance poetry, which has been going really well. And I've rekindled my love for writing. I did attempt to write a novel in November, but I didn't quite pull it off. Still, I will not be deterred.

I wanted to do a challenge that would contribute to future writing adventures. As an actor, writer, and lover of good books, having a good vocabulary is pretty important to me, so I thought I'd do a challenge that would help me to expand mine.

So I present to you a challenge of my own design: The Vocabulary Challenge.

There are a few layers to The Vocabulary Challenge

1. They say the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read. I myself love reading, but don't make enough time for it. So I am going to commit half an hour a day to some reading.

2. I will also commit half an hour a day to playing on vocabulary.com which is a great website where you can test your vocabulary. It's kind of like a game you play in rounds to get points, and it keeps testing you on words until you solidly know them.

3. This is the fun one. I will use my word of the day app on my phone to get a new word, and I will use that word as a stimulus to write a paragraph, which of course has to contain the word. I'll be writing a new paragraph every day, and I'm going to do my best to make them link together so that at the end of the month I will have a short story, which I will post on here. I'm sure it will wind up being very silly in an effort to include all the words I'll be getting from my app!

So, as a starting point, the word of the day today is 'marcescent' - meaning 'withering but not falling off, as a blossom that persists after flowering'

And the paragraph is:

Forty two years of marriage had brought Peter and Judith, among other things, three children who had for a time consumed them completely. Their house had been full of noise and laughter, and their lives full of long working days and family filled evenings that then ended comfortably in each others company. Now their children had flown the nest to have seven more between them, and Peter and Judith had reached their long anticipated retirement. The house was empty, and their lives filled primarily of each other. Faced with the incessant ticking of the clock every day, their previous state comfort seemed to shift towards something they didn't quite have the words for. Soon, Peter and Judith began to realise that their marriage had become marcescent. Hanging by a thread that seemed determined not to break. 

I look forward to writing more :)

Day one of thirty down!

The many wonderful things that came out of failing NaNoWriMo

So, I failed NaNoWriMo. And at first I was really upset about it. But pretty soon I was able to put a positive spin on the whole situation (as per usual) and realised that a lot of good has come of it.

1. I wrote over 36000 words. I will always have that, and nobody can take that away from me. Some day, I will go back to those words and I will scoop out the good ones and put them to use. But for now I'm gonna let them sit where they are. 

2. I learned how hard it is to write a novel. Sure, my busy timetable is what made the task ultimately undo-able, but even if I had had nothing else on, I still would have found it very difficult. Having only written short pieces before now, I didn't realise how different attempting something long would be. I thought the only time I would need would be writing time, and I would just plough ahead. Actually, you need more than just 'writing time' when attempting something so big. You need reading and reviewing time. Even if you are not ready to edit, you still need to be continuously reading over your stuff so that you don't end up repeating yourself, and also to help you in where you are going next. You also need research time. There are several elements to my story that I needed to research before I could really write about them, and because I didn't have time I was just skipping over them.

So writing a novel takes a lot more than just being good with words. It takes a lot of time and dedication. Also, 50,000 words sounds like a lot, but ultimately it doesn't equate to a particularly lengthy novel. 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' is 76,944 words. And that's pretty short really. I'd say your average sized novel probably sits more at the 100,000 word mark. Gosh.

Writing a novel is something I always thought I would just wind up doing some day, and only now I am realising how much work I actually need to put in if I want that to happen. I think it's been an important lesson for me to learn, and I'm glad I have learned it!

3. I realised how important meditation is to me. I ended up not meditating because I didn't have time, and I missed it so much. I'm now back on it, and feeling amazing. Sometimes you need to go without something to realise how much it means to you. It's a small thing, but having that half an hour a day has become something I really don't want to go without.

4. I proved to myself that I am capable of pretty great things. Yes, I may have failed the challenge, but I achieved a hell of a lot in a short and extremely busy time and for that I am proud. I've tested my limits and seen that if I put my mind to something I can get a lot done.

5. I have started a fire within me. This wasn't the right time to do this, and it didn't work out how I had hoped, but I am not defeated. If anything, I am more determined. This will get ticked off my bucket list. I guarantee it. 

So yes,silver linings everywhere. It's also nice to be blogging again (didn't know I loved it as much as I do) so hopefully I will come up with something interesting to write about this weekend before the month is out.

Now I'm not usually in the habit of quoting politicians unless trying to point out how much I loathe them, but I think this sums things up nicely:

I have Officially Failed a Challenge

Yep, I am defeated. At over 36000 words, I had to call it a day on the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in thirty days (also known as NaNoWriMo) 

The reasons for this are as long as a piece of string but I will attempt to keep it concise.

When I started, I knew this was going to be a tough month. I’m currently in rehearsals for two shows, one of which is ‘Rent’ (which, if you don’t know it, is a very intense and long musical) and therefore my spare time is pretty much nothing. So I was filling it almost entirely with writing. The first two weeks were fine, I managed to balance it out ok. But at the start of this week I realised that I was going to have to put a lot more time outside of rehearsals into the shows. My options were either to stop NaNoWriMo or essentially not sleep in order to get everything done.

Honestly, for a few days I tried the no sleep thing. And I looked a bit like this.

I was getting up an hour early and going to bed sometimes two hours late. But it was worth it to get that word count up, right?? Well, the thing is, when I’m tired the quality of my work, both writing and at uni, is not do good. So what’s the point?

The phrase ‘what’s the point’ started to come up a lot in my head.

The topic of my novel requires me to do quite a bit of research. I can’t do the research because I only just have enough time to do the writing bit and get my word count up. So I was skipping over sections because I really couldn’t write them.

At first, I had really enjoyed what I was writing. But the more pressure there was on me, the more I was just writing anything to get my word count up. The novel actually ended up going in a direction that I really didn’t want it to go in, but I didn’t have time to go back and review it and change it. So I was just writing something I didn’t really believe in.

Because of the pressure on my time, I had given up exercise and meditation. I wasn’t blogging any more. I was spending almost no time socialising. Even my lunch breaks became time to write. My life had lost the balance I’ve been working hard to create in the last five months.

Thus far, I had managed to not let my uni work suffer. However, the work load just got a lot more intense and I knew that if I want to keep up to the working standard I have always upheld at uni, I was going to need more time. There was no doubt in my mind that this challenge was going to have a negative impact on my degree if I continued with it, and I really am not going to allow that to happen.

The reason I was so determined to write this novel now, and not another month, is because I didn’t just want it to be ‘I’m writing a novel in 30 days.’ I wanted to actively take part in NaNoWriMo, so that I would be part of an online writing community, who were all facing the challenge together. But because I didn’t have time, I wasn’t using it at all. I went on the website about twice. So now, I really was just writing a novel in 30 days, there was no other element to it. I could have done it any month, and any month would have been better than this. 

All these things combined, really, what’s the point?

Of course there was a part of me who was very fiercely fighting against all this.

‘You haven’t failed a challenge yet.’

‘You know you can do this you just need to get through it’

‘A bad novel is better than no novel at all.’

But that side of me, ultimately, lost. I sat down at my keyboard and all the reasons as to why I shouldn’t be doing this anymore kept flooding into my brain and made me incapable of writing any more. I thought I could get past the lack of sleep, the lack of socialising, the lack of meditation and exercise and other things that I love. I really thought I could get past that just for ten more days. But there was one thing I couldn't get past.

Thus far, I had managed to not let my uni work suffer. However, the work load just got a lot more intense and I knew that if I want to keep up to the working standard I have always upheld at uni, I was going to need more time. There was no doubt in my mind that this challenge was going to have a negative impact on my degree if I continued with it, and I really was not going to allow that to happen.

The challenge had become a pretty bitter experience for me, and so I had to stop.

So I made the decision to give up on NaNoWriMo. I had a good old cry to myself (genuinely) but then spent the rest of the day feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And that’s how I know I made the right decision.

There are a lot of positives that have come out of the experience, and I’m gonna save them for a whole different blog post. For now I’m just happy to be sleeping again.