Reupload - September 2023 Blog

I’ll start this blog by explaining why I’m starting this blog: my friend started one and it looked fun. I enjoyed reading Francis’s monthly blog updates so I thought I’d start my own. This also seems a good way to practice writing: even if I never write anything else this month, I’ll have my monthly updates. I’ll also include a section on what writing I’ve done over the month so I’ll feel more obliged to have something to write in those sections. 

I also want a record of what I’ve done. Life is hectic, but full of fun and new experiences, and I simply can’t remember everything I do or see. I want a place to go back to and relive all these experiences. It’s like a diary, but hopefully I’ll be better at committing to a blog than a diary.

And is that what my blog is about? What I did each month? In part, yes. I might write other entries besides the monthly blogs - in the same way I might start making youtube and tiktok videos. One day. Possibly.

But this blog is also to document my writing process, worries, maybe even sharing some insights into what it’s like to try and write a book and get it published. I’m afraid the book itself is in its second draft and I’m currently procrastinating on editing this, so it's less about the writing process now and more about editing. My wonderful friend gifted me a copy of my manuscript with notes and comments on every page. It’s such a beautiful, thoughtful gift, and so far I’m on chapter five of those edits. Sorry, Francis. 

But more on writing in the writing section.

Devon

The highlight of this month was a family trip to south Devon. We stayed in a converted barn, one of several self-catering lodges. It was a lovely house, one I wouldn’t mind living in, with room for all and everything we could need (and space for my books). If only it wasn’t so isolated… and dusty. I get the place being full of spiders - it’s autumn - but the dust was so much. Mum has asthma and COPD and when she turned the fan on, my nephew got blasted in the face with a cloud of dust. Apart from that, though, everything was great. We were surrounded by fields and fresh air, there was a playground, games room and pool.

It was the first time going on holiday with my mum, dad, brother, brother’s girlfriend, and their baby. It reminded me of family holidays in the UK as a child, but now as an adult I’m watching a new generation experiencing all these wonders for the first time. 

My nephew had never seen the sea before. He’d never, in his short, eighteen-month life, been on holiday. He loved exploring the beach, and he especially loved walking around clutching both the shovels I brought. They were both bigger than him, and he had his own little spade, but he wouldn’t be parted from them. He always gets attached to the strangest things: bottles, phones, remote controls. He also swam in a pool for the first time (I mean, we weren’t going to go swim in a sea of sewage), and was nervous at first. It didn’t help that the pool was too cold. We got him a wetsuit and he grew more confident.

Temperature aside, the pool was wonderful! We had it to ourselves most days, and barely saw the other people at the holiday home. It also rained heavily for a few days, but that just added to the atmosphere.

Being a few miles from the sea, we, of course, had fish and chips most days. By the end of the holiday, I was sick of it but, looking back, I miss fresh fish and chips from the seaside. One of the days I even got to finally try fish tacos, something that always sounded delicious in the Sims. The fish itself was caught that morning, and it was some of the nicest I’d ever had. I don’t even like white fish, but I was ordering cod and chips and tucking into fat, battered fish. My normal order at the chip shop is saveloy and nuggets (yes, both. I’m a big boy, don’t you see? Wehee!). Sadly, I probably won’t be changing my usual order, and we might not even get fish and chips all that often from now on. When you’ve had fresh fish caught that day, it’s just not the same inland.

It was lovely to see the beach again, for the first time in two years. I loved strolling along by the shore and sitting down to just listen to the rolling waves. The sun would bounce off the water in sparkling trails. I’m sure the lady I sat right in front of would’ve liked to see it too, but I’m an idiot who didn’t even notice her. My parents did, and couldn’t believe I was so oblivious to my surroundings. I was too busy being captured by the beauty of the ocean!

My favourite thing to do at the beach is dig a big hole, which I did, then fell in it. My brother got inspired and dug his own hole, which was way bigger than my shitty attempt. His, at its deepest point, came up to my chest. It attracted a crowd, and my brother looked so proud. When asked if he was more proud of his son or his hole, he struggled to answer.

We also went to DinosaurWorld in Torquay, which was a lot of fun. You might assume this was for my nephew’s benefit, but it was my brother and I walking around with our little quiz sheets that included questions such as “Are you brave enough to put your head in the mouth of the T-Rex skull? Y/N”. At the end, we both got a certificate saying we were both Dinosaur Experts, even though I got full marks but my brother got one question wrong. I’d argue my brother’s answer was right instead of mine, but oh well. We’re both massive dinosaur nerds. We also both had the separate idea to get a photo holding Nephew up to the mouth of a dinosaur model so it looks like he was about to be eaten. 

Nephew didn’t mind. He loved the dinosaurs and all the different scenes and activities, especially the colouring. We had to wrestle the crayons off him when it was time to go, and at one point he got free and started running… back to the drawing area to try and steal the crayons again. He just loves stealing. At one point, I watched him unzip my bag, pull everything out and hand them to his mum. It was really funny how blatant it was. He just looked me in the eye as he did it. He also likes taking our phones so he can look at photos of himself.

The only gambling I ever partake in is the 2p machines, and when I’m not on holiday I tend to collect the handful of 2p coins I come across. I don’t know, it’s just really satisfying to me. I went to an arcade over the holiday and saw a 2p machine with Jurassic World cuddly toys as the prizes and thought I’d try and win one for Nephew. And, somehow, I did! Not only that, but the machine gave out tickets as I played and I won a Jurassic Park keychain for my brother, who just whinged that it was too big. Nephew liked his toy, though.

We also took Nephew to Dartmoor National park. It was the one thing Mum wanted to do on our holiday, and it was such a beautiful place. You could see for miles the wild moors with olive and crimson grasses, criss-crossed with streams and stone walls. The hills rose and fell, and at some places, you could see the distant sea. We also came across a quartet of wild horses. Nephew was absolutely delighted! He loves farm animals and has just learnt to make animal noises. He does these funny, high-pitched, campy “baa, baa, baa”s when you ask him what a sheep says. Dad held his buggy up so Nephew could see sheep in a field, instead of, you know, lifting him out of the buggy.

All in all, a wonderful holiday, until the very last day, when we’d packed everything into the car and were about to leave. I’d had a couple of ice creams that were not going to survive the journey without melting, and had walked off to put the wrappers in the bin on the other side of the car park. When I turned around, I saw Dad pulling out of the parking space. Okay, I can just jump in and we’ll be off. Then the car starts moving forward. Ha ha! Very funny, Dad, pretend to drive off so I panic and have to run. The car kept going. It got faster. I panicked and started running after it. The car disappeared around the corner.  Flabbergasted, I turned to the guy fixing the fence, who had witnessed the whole thing, who was just as stunned as I was, and said: “I guess I’m not the favourite, then.”

I try to call Mum. No signal. I try again on Whatsapp, and eventually get through. Mum, meanwhile, sees I’m calling her, and turns around to ask why I’m calling. It’s only then that she sees I’m not there. Her gasp and explosion of laughter then alerts Dad, who also realises that I’m not there. Through their struggle to breathe through their laughter, Mum remembers to answer the phone. All I hear is their laughter. They’d gone two miles and not realised I wasn’t there. 

When I saw their car coming through the trees a few minutes later, Mum and Dad were still laughing. They kept laughing the whole four hour journey home and every time someone brings it up. 

I can’t even be mad because that shit is so funny.

All our friends know, and the jokes haven’t gotten old yet. 

Other News

This month, Mum and I started our British Sign Language Level 2 course, having completed Level 1 over the past year. For one of our assessments this year, we have to sign a story about a holiday we’ve been on. Now the BSL examiner is going to know Mum and Dad drove off without me. 

Mum was too ill to go to our lesson last week, but I went and told everyone what she did, and we all had a laugh about it. Our next lesson is tomorrow, and Mum is a little nervous about everyone taking the piss.

In other news, I’ve been catching up on my scrapbooking. I have one that’s dedicated to personal events, starting in July 2021 when I graduated from University with a First in Creative Writing. The latest pages concerned my Luxembourg trip last month (should I write about that?) and now there’s only a couple of pages left in the book itself for the Devon trip, and I’ll have filled in the whole thing! 

For my next scrapbook, I’m hoping to get an instant camera to capture some of the moments as they happened, as well as collecting maps, postcards, leaflets and receipts. I think they’d add a human touch to balance out some of the ephemera that relate to things I’ve bought (receipts, for instance).

I have a few other scrapbooks, of various themes: travel, nature and nautical. The only one I’ve gotten far with is the travel one.

I’ve also started Christmas shopping, because I like to be organised, and because I’m a cringelord who starts thinking about Christmas in September. It’s not at the front of my mind now, unlike Halloween, but having a nephew now is a great opportunity to go into toy shops and spoil him. I just love gift-giving and having to think about what I know about my loved ones like and seeing their faces when I get them a thoughtful gift. 

The week between Christmas and New Year’s also makes me feel safe, like I’m in a cosy burrow protected from the outside world. We’re all stocked up on food, in snuggly pyjamas, and apart from my two hour cleaning job, I don’t need to go outside. I also get to spend time playing board games with my family, which I actually like.

Writing

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m editing the manuscript of the first book in what I hope to be an epic fantasy series. And as mentioned, I suck at it. But, I’ve been working on the names of some of my characters, including minor villains I never actually gave first names. Even if I’m not physically editing the manuscript, I’m still thinking about ways to improve it.

I’ve also been working on another writing project with my friend, involving some of our OCs. It’s set in West Virginia, and I’ve never actually been to the United States. I also don’t plan on going in the near future. In terms of the book, I’m torn between meticulously researching everything about West Virginia, and just making things up to fuck with Americans. West Virginia is a desert now, because I’m going to put as much research into it as Americans do to books set outside the US.

I’m joking, of course.

I’ve also gotten back into fanfiction this year. Not only is it a change of pace to write something outside of my fantasy world, I also get the instant gratification of people commenting on each chapter as I post it. It’s really touching to see, after years of not updating my fics, there are people out there who still care about the stories and want to see them finished. 

What I read

This year, I challenged myself to read 100 books, up from 50 last year. So far, I’ve read 71 books, mostly the shortest ones I own. And it’s been great for those books I found in charity shops years ago because they were related to something I was interested in at the time and then couldn’t justify getting rid of because I’d never read them. Now, I’ve read about 80 of them, and so many have gone to the charity shop before I’m done. I have so much more space that’s been filled by books I’ve bought this year!

At the start of the month, I finished The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. It’s a lovely little book, but very similar to her other non-Moomin books I’ve read. Notes from an Island is autobiographical, Fair Play is based on her own relationship with her partner, and the Summer Book is based on the relationship between her mother and niece. Overall, though, they’re pleasant reads, and I wish I lived on a little island with my loved ones, away from it all, just writing, rambling and swimming. 

I also finished Planet of Exile by Ursula K. le Guin. I loved everything about the world, the story, the planet. It’s a planet where one year lasts 60 earth years, and most people live their whole lives never seeing the same season twice. The story is about the conflict between the natives of the planet, who are nomadic clans, and a colony from outer space that’s been forgotten and abandoned by the League of Worlds in an ensuing intergalactic conflict the colony knows nothing about, only that something’s wrong. Both peoples consider themselves true humans, and don’t trust the other group, but have to work together to survive winter and a third group of beings. 

The one thing I didn’t like about Planet of Exile was the romance. I mean, I liked the characters, and I think it’s cool that a book set in the 60s has a romance between a Black man and a white woman, but they got together a little too quickly for me. Or, not so much got together, since there was a big threat that could kill them and there's no time for hesitation, but how quickly they became attracted to each other, with so little interaction. It was a short book, though. Can’t really have a slow-burn romance in 100 pages.

I also read a really shit children's book from the 70s or 80s about King Arthur and his knights. The stories themselves were fine, but the book started out claiming that the Romans civilised the tribes of Britain (wrong). I also read How Not to Write a Novel, which was okay. I ended up laughing a lot at the terrible examples of how, as the title suggests, not to write a novel.

All in all, a very slow month for reading, and I hope I geet some more done this next month.