BOSFOK

So I started a blog post which went like this:

I've posted a lot lately about inspiration and passion and dedication. But what happens when you don't feel any of that? What if it's all just going wrong?

I'm currently halfway through getting comments back from test readers on my work in progress. This has been a real Frankenstein of a book and I know that in the words of one of my testers "there's a great book in there" but right now it's hiding itself quite successfully. I know exactly how this has happened – I conceived the book as one thing but, for one reason and another, was persuaded to write something else so the plot became too unwieldy and convoluted. Cue rewriting the second half of the story and the first edit spent trying to stitch them both together. I'm still having plot problems and trying to force square pegs into round holes and it's been making me miserable. Inspiration and passion are nowhere. Instead I've had to fall back on sheer stubbornness and shouting BOSFOK at myself – that's quite therapeutic! It isn't actually swearing, it stands for "bum on seat, fingers on keyboard" (pen in hand while editing actually, but BOSPIN doesn't give quite the same punch).

I know this funk is temporary. I'm right on the cusp of making it all work again, I just have to put in the hours to make it so. That's where being a Taurean and stubborn as hell is my strength!

And the great thing is that from when I drafted that I had a lightbulb moment: I got out of my own way and let the story flow and let the main character show herself how she really is and not how I was trying to portray her. Lesson learned in a very painful way! Now I'm really excited to rewrite the book, the only slight issue I have is that I have a very tight deadline in which to get it done. But I can do this (down time at Christmas, totally over-rated. . .) and am so excited to see this story exactly how it should be told.

Wishing on a comet

Unless you've been on a comet yourself over the last few days, you can't have failed to notice that the European Space Agency has landed a robotic probe on a comet some 300 million miles away from the Earth. This is pretty special for me because, in my day job, I work in the department where the British team who built the Ptolemy instrument (the one designed to analyse what the comet is made of in a bid to see if the commentary water is the same as that on earth) are based and it was amazing and brilliant to see them celebrating what, for some, has been 20+ years work with a successful landing. The best analogy for their attempt that I saw yesterday was that it was like 'launching a hammer from London to hit a nail in Delhi', although 'trying to land a fly on a bullet' was pretty good too.

You cannot fail to have been moved by Professor Monica Grady's overjoyed reaction when she hugged BBC's David Shukman (currently here if you haven't seen it http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30022765). This is true passion and dedication again – I seem to have been surrounded by a lot of it lately! It takes all that and more to get a space mission off the ground [pun intended :) ] and it takes an extraordinary amount of patience. Rosetta was initially due to be launched on the second Ariane rocket back in 2002 but when the first one exploded on the launch pad, it took two further years to ensure the second rocket wouldn't suffer the same fate before Rosetta could even leave the Earth.

Yesterday was truly inspiring and a huge achievement for mankind - the resultant leap forward in our technological prowess from this mission has been translated into areas such as healthcare and water quality. Our individual dreams might be smaller in scope but they may feel just as impossible sometimes. What's important is that for each knock back we get up and try again, from each setback we learn and hone our talent because then success has to be practically guaranteed.

'They' said what?

Following on from my ‘at the top of their game’ post, I thought I'd share with you this inspiring list.

Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was almost 4 years old and his teachers said he would "never amount to much." (despite the fact that his first words were "The soup is too hot." Greatly relieved that he had finally spoken, his parents then asked why he had never said a word before. Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order.")

The American basketball player, Michael Jordan, was dropped from his high school basketball team and went home, locked himself in his room, and cried.

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for "lacking imagination" and "having no original ideas".

Steve Jobs was left devastated and depressed aged 30 when he was unceremoniously removed from the company he started.

Oprah Winfrey was demoted from her job as a news anchor because "she wasn't fit for television".

The Beatles were rejected by Decca Recording Studios, who said "we don't like their sound – they have no future in show business."

Knowing what we know about those people now, those kind of facts are funny, aren't they? But at the time for each of these ’superstars’, the rejection must have been devastating (except maybe when you're four years old and not that interested in what your teachers are saying about you). How much easier would it have been for them to have dropped their dream and tried something else?

Persistence, that keeping on getting up when you get knocked back, that is the real definition of success. 

At the top of their game

I've been really lucky this week to have seen three people at the top of their game. Last Friday I went to London to see Matthew Bourne's production of Lord of the Flies and the show was preceded by a discussion led by The Daily Telegraph's arts critic between Matthew Bourne and Judy Carver, the daughter of William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies. The production featured some professional dancers but the project's aims were to work with guys who had little or no experience of dance and performance. It was fascinating to hear the rationale behind the project and the changes that Matthew Bourne made to the story, not least of which was changing its location from a desert island to an abandoned theatre. This reimagining was really powerful and I was really struck by how he was able to take something that had been just words and make it so visual. Judy Carver's recollection of her father's manuscript thudding back through the letterbox each time it was rejected by a publisher is definitely something I could relate to – it was somehow comforting to hear that the author of one of the classic British novels struggled to become successful in much the same way that many authors do today.

On Saturday I saw Hans Zimmer Revealed which has to be one of the best things I've ever seen (and I was in the audience for Jean Michel Jarre’s Docklands concerts!). I adore Hans Zimmer's music – it's mostly what I listen to while I write, the soundtrack of Inception is my go-to when I'm stuck and Time is my all-time favourite piece of music ever. He showed so much passion on the stage for music and the people playing alongside him, all so ridiculously talented, it was mind-boggling. It was quite something imagining him starting to compose a movie soundtrack, tinkering around with a few notes that become the theme that's interwoven throughout the whole film, growing from a melody of single notes to a piece of music so complex it takes a whole orchestra to produce it. The audience as one gave him two thunderous standing ovations and, yet, when he played the last few chords of Time, the silence was as absolute as if he was in a studio by himself. Epic, epic music and quite an emotional experience – according to Twitter, I wasn't the only one who cried!

Last night I was off to London again to attend a ‘posh publishing party’ to celebrate my friend Carole Matthews’ amazing achievement of her 25th novel being published. In a beautiful five-star hotel we toasted this extraordinary achievement in an industry that has certainly seen some changes since she started 18 years ago.

So, as you can see, I've had quite a week! But each event, as different as they were, reinforced the fact that Matthew Bourne, Hans Zimmer and Carole Matthews, are all at the top of their game not by accident. They are all incredibly passionate about what they do and about sharing it with others. They work extremely hard, going that extra mile every time, and give their all to achieve their respective dreams. Matthew Bourne talked about being bullied for choosing to dance and I know that Carole used to tie her leg to the desk to make herself sit there and write every evening at 9 o'clock after a full-on day at work.

Dedication and passion, they have it in spades. And if your dream is important enough to you, you do too.

Am I nearly there yet?

This week is the Frankfurt Book Fair. For those not in the know it's a huge event in the publishing calendar – probably the biggest. It's a place where all the individual cogs that make up the publishing machine get together and a week when books and authors make headlines with stories of deals and advances and the launching of new talent.

I had a mini-moment of excitement connected with the FBF when my agent told me in the middle of the day that my book, The Only, was being pitched right at that moment to German publishers ahead of the Fair and that it was "going down a storm" - those publishers properly heard my shriek of excitement all the way from Milton Keynes.

Sadly, frustratingly, they decided not to take the book on until a UK publisher did and they all decided I'd missed the boat with the genre. This was one of those creative industry rollercoaster slumps. So, back to the beginning for me, write another book.

Scarily that was three years ago. At the time I really thought that was it for me, I’d got there (wherever there was). That particular route, at that particular time, wasn't to be for me. However, that story got me representation by my lovely agent who believed in it and believes in me as a writer. Thinking about the statistics there where averagely successful agents receive 150+ unsolicited manuscripts a week and only take on a handful of clients a year, if any at all, reminds me that is no small feat. 

Carol Matthews, a hugely successful author and a friend of mine, suggested I put The Only up on Amazon, rather than leaving it in a drawer. So I did. And what a brilliant idea that was because it has brought me readers who love my story, which surely is the measure of success for any writer.

Phew!

Those of you who have read this blog before know that I have been working on a new book. On Friday, after real hard slog, I typed the immortal words "the end".

Although this has felt like the hardest book yet, I've actually written it faster any of the others (and have to remind myself that thanks to a mega-bout of RSI there were six weeks I couldn't touch a keyboard at all). I guess the most important thing is that I love it and can't wait for it to get out into the world properly :)

It's such an odd feeling, reaching that point when writing a book. It's not quite ‘the end’ of it for me as once I have comments back from the test readers, my agent, I'm sure, will have comments too. So the great news is I get to spend more time with these characters, and I think, when you get to meet them, you'll be glad to as well. But in the meantime the time pressure to be sitting at my desk 24/7 isn't quite as strong as usual, I may catch up with all the series on the sky box before the system deletes them for me, I'm off out twice next week on a school night (!), I could get used to this!

Having spent the last hour clearing my desk which, it turns out, is oak-coloured –who knew!?! - I now need to pack my bag for my day job tomorrow. That wouldn't be a lever arch file of editing sneaking in there, would it? Of course it is, back to the sequel of The Only tomorrow, I just can't help myself!

All ready for the next book . . . 

The Walk of Fame

So while I'm in LA of course I'm doing all the touristy things (you can check them out on my daughter's vlog if you're interested which is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=S1EOp_EeN00&app=desktop) and today we went to see the walk of fame on Hollywood Boulevard. It's amazing how long in each direction it stretches but I managed to find my favourite movie star (Bruce Willis) and my favourite composer (Hans Zimmer) and it got me thinking about the peculiar nature of fame. Here, more so than anywhere else I've visited, fame and the things it brings are at the forefront of everything, from the guys on Hollywood Boulevard offering tours of celebrity homes, to the designer shops, to the forbidding signs all round Beverly Hills that armed guards patrol 24/7. Of course we'd all like the lifestyle that comes from being a celebrity - not to have to do the 9 to 5 grind in a job that might not be your dream job, to be rich enough to never have to worry about money, to have the time and means to pursue those dreams - but with fame comes a heavy cost of not being able to just walk down the street, to being subject to the media machine watching your every move and broadcasting to the world things you'd maybe rather keep hidden, to the downright scary tales you hear about celebrity stalkers.  So why then do so many court it? 

Maybe because we all want to be liked and accepted and, going right back to school, who wouldn't rather have been a popular than not? Maybe too there's an element of wanting to leave some kind of a legacy behind to show that we were here and that we made an impact on the world in some way. But actually you don't have to be famous to do that - you can make an impact on someone through something as small as smiling at them. Doing some research for a short story last year I stumbled across an article about a guy who survived a suicide attempt when he jumped off a bridge. When he recovered he completely changed the direction of his life and became a motivational speaker. The most chilling thing he said was that he told himself as he walked half way across the bridge, if one person looked at him and smiled, he wouldn't jump.

Of course living in constant sunshine here in LA helps everyone stay cheerful, but they are really friendly and chatty and smiley and we haven't stopped smiling since we got here. It's something I'm definitely taking home with me. 

Dream on

Did you have a dream when you were a kid? Do you still have a dream you haven't yet achieved? My youngest daughter did, she still does. From the time she started at a school for performing arts aged seven, she knew she wanted to be an actress. The funny thing is no one else would believe her, with the exception of her family. When asked "what you want to be when you leave school?", she'd say 'actress' and the friends' parents, family members, people she met regularly, teachers, whoever it was, would always say "okay, so what's your backup plan?"

Makenna never had a back-up plan, even when she got A stars at A level she didn't bow to pressure to go to university to study drama. She knew that, for her, learning on the job was the best option.  And having a back-up plan was tantamount to admitting that she wouldn't get where she wanted to be. 

She's been learning her craft since she left school and this year she's really gone out there, worked hard and reaped amazing rewards. Next week she's attending (with me and her dad in tow as her ' crumbly entourage'!) her first red carpet premiere in Los Angeles for a film in which she plays one of the leads. Seeing my baby girl on a cinema screen is going to be quite something, I'm so proud of her I'm having to go and buy waterproof mascara ;)  But what I'm most proud of is that she didn't get swayed by the naysayers, by society's expectations of her, by her school pushing her to take a different route, she held fast to her dream through knock backs and rejections and now she's on her way.

She's just started a blog to share her journey - you can find it here

http://makennaguyler.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/errrrr-hi.html

Do you have a dream you haven't yet achieved? If so, all I can say to that is dream on.

Vive la difference!

How's your summer going? 

Last year I was lucky enough to do something life changing for my holiday (you can check out my post "back from out of the office" about trekking to Everest Base Camp) and a lot of people have asked me how do you follow that, where on Earth do you go next? Partly it was easy because once we got back to sea level,  after suffering the delights of altitude - the inability to eat, the daily checking of pulse and oxygen levels and the fretting if our levels got too low, the difficulty breathing - we all agreed no altitude for a couple of years. But how exactly do you follow something so amazing?

The answer was to do something totally different.  For our main holiday this year, we returned to France, place of one of our worst holidays (we didn't go far enough south and suffered horrendous weather for it) and one of our best, and a place we haven't been to for eight years. We stayed in Limousin, a very picturesque area with amazing rainfall and very strong sun. And, due to hubby's ankle injury, we actually weren't able to do very much at all. Two weeks of chilling (well, of course, I was editing!), enjoying the company of friends, remembering the simple pleasure of wandering into town to pick up fresh baguettes and pain au chocolat for breakfast.  We had so much time I was even able to read a book that I really enjoyed twice, once for pleasure and once as research.

Today marks the first day back into our normal routine and people have been commenting on how relaxed I am. I just need to re-read my last post here to make sure that lasts!

Slow down!

I've hung up my day job pass for three weeks holiday and I cannot tell you the 'ah' moment that was. Three whole weeks in which I can edit the work in progress, read ridiculous numbers of books, pull together all the little writing jobs I have on-going and generally get organised. Oh, and, of course, spend time with my family and enjoy a trip away, maybe tackle some decorating . . . 

I'm two days in to all this glorious r and r but I don't seem to have stopped rushing around. I really struggle with time because I always seem to have so little of it but I've been reading a great book about how what you think is what you attract and I'm always so busy running about like a headless chicken trying to cram all the stuff I have to do into every last second,  that I'm always busy running about . . . you get the picture. So now I'm practising feeling that I have all the time in the world and taking lessons from my daughter who has got this perfectly. If she's stressed because she's up against a time deadline, she sits down and calms herself and time slows down for her. She is achieving so much in the same timeframe it's astounding. I am trying very hard to be like her - I couldn't quite manage to sit down and be still when I got in from work last Thursday and had twenty minutes to eat and get changed before dashing down to London to see a play, but I may have managed to silence my squawking about how late I was for a minute or so.  Next time I'm aiming to be chill personified. Or maybe the time after that - I'm a work in progress here . . .  

Fair's fair, isn't it?

You may have seen this in the media this week, you may have missed it. I'm talking about a very sobering article that appeared in The Guardian showing how, for the majority of authors, their income has plummeted to 'abject' levels. 

The article's here - 
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/08/authors-incomes-collapse-alcs-survey?CMP=fb_gu

It's a very sad indictment on the state of our society where people will happily hand over £3-4 for a coffee that takes a barista a couple of minutes to make and which is gone within ten minutes and yet they baulk at paying the same, or more, for a book which has taken an author at least a year of their life to craft and will provide them, the reader, with entertainment for a few days or weeks or even years if it gains a place on their bookshelves. I wonder if you know that the author of a book on which a movie is based is not invited to the premiere as a matter of course? And in the squabbles on payment that have erupted between amazon and publishers over the last year or so, who do you think ends up being squeezed? 'Celebrity' biographies swallow much of publishers' budgets leaving virtually nothing left with which they can nurture new talent - Val McDermid admitted recently that in today's market she would be a failed novelist. How sad for us as readers to have never enjoyed her books nor the TV series generated by them and how ironic for the publishers if she had never gone on to sell the 10 million books she has sold. I attended an author event a while ago and was shocked by the number of household names the writer quoted that would also be failed novelists if they were starting out today.

When will publishing wake up and realise that if a career in writing becomes the premise of the rich, all creative sectors will suffer. The image of a writer starving in their garret while writing their 'great work' has never been closer to the truth. 

Camp Nano - get out of your way!

Today you'll have noticed it's the first of July and this means two things - it's halfway through the year (yes, really!) and Camp NaNoWriMo begins today. For those not in the know  NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) happens every November and the challenge is to write a novel of 50,000 or more words in 30 days. You can plan beforehand but, in the true style of the challenge, you don't write a word until the first of November. When you've typed the magic words "the end", you can encrypt your work and upload it to a special members area where the word count is verified and you're sent the prized "you did it!" certificate. I have two of these certificates on my wall and they make me smile every time I remember the manic panic that made up my Nano experiences.

Purists will throw their hands up in horror that you cannot possibly write a novel that fast. In a way they're right because editing a Nano novel is a long job, with lots of "did I really write that?" moments of horror but also some "did I really write that?" moments of wow. Where Nano excels is that it teaches you to get out of your own way and gives you permission to write something, anything, to get you onto the next chapter – there's no place for thinking about the perfect word in the perfect sentence on that deadline. And that's okay because come the 1st of December, you have something you can work with, where, without Nano, you may only have had a blank screen. Nano shows you what you can achieve and takes away any limitations that you put on yourself. And it's often those limitations that are the most . . . well, limiting. I wonder how much more of our dreams we’d achieve and how much faster would we get there if we didn't put our own ceiling on them.

Camp Nano is NaNoWriMo but in July. I'm not doing it this time as I've just finished a first draft but, on checking out the website, when I saw the word count can be anything between 10,000 and 1,000,000, I heard myself shrieking in my head "one million! one million in a month!?" and, right there, is one of those limitations. Why not one million? That would really encourage you to go for it, wouldn't it? If my experience was anything to go by at the end of that you wouldn't be able to string any coherent words together, nor would you have any letters left on your laptop keys, but think of the brilliant achievement if you only hit a tenth of that.

So to those who are taking part, I salute you and hope you hit your magic number. As for me, I'm entering edit city, fountain pen and big smile at the ready because this is where I make my Frankenstein beautiful.

Fanfare, please

Do you remember my blog post "a spanner in my works"? Well, the upshot of that was that I had hit a wall in my ’work in progress’ because I had aggravated my wrists and elbows to the point where I had rip-roaring RSI. That happened in March and I expected it to be gone in April. He we are, practically in July, and I'm really not much better. It's been a huge lesson in patience and I've had to change my working methods.

Using dictation software is a huge challenge, not least because it always seems to degrade over time – this evening it decided to type everything without any spaces, helpful. Wrestling this Dragon is worse than any fantasy battle I could write!

I always write or edit or plan in my lunch half-hour and to not have that time in which write new words is really hard  – it's tough starting to write in the evenings with a zero word count on my project target bar. So I've been inventive, taking my break after everybody else so that I can sit outside and dictate out of earshot of anyone else, when that hasn't been possible I’ve been sweltering in the car with the doors and windows open (I think this will work better in the autumn!).

And tonight, I've done it: first draft of my wip is finished (I dictated an exclamation mark here but the dictation software inserted a ? which is probably more accurate!) Dictation struggles with the little words so I can't help thinking it's inserted another layer of editing for me to do but, hey, I can still write. It might feel very different dictating the story, rather than seeing it appear on the screen without really having been conscious of what I wanted to say, but I'm trusting that the magic still happens. And I'm looking forward to editing to see what magic is in this one.

PS if you were wondering how I did in the World Cup word count challenge in the 15 days it's been on, I've written 22,888 words - just a little pleased at that!!!

WC - now that's something I can get excited about!

It can't have escaped your notice that a lot of attention is focused on Brazil at the moment and you can't have failed to notice why - anyone uttering the initials WC right now isn't likely to be asking directions to the loo. The World Cup is dominating the media and the living rooms of a huge percentage of the population. But if you asked me anything about it, I could tell you nothing because  if all 7 billion people on the planet were lined up according to their love of football, I would be right at the very back.

 This time around, however, I have found something to get excited about – my WC. I subscribe to the Facebook page "The Seriously Serious Scribes", a group of writers who share enthusiasm, motivation and knowledge. One of the lovely ladies on there came up with a really cool idea for us to upload our word counts each day of the tournament and to keep a running total. Some of us are aiming at a target word count, some of us are just seeing how much we can write. And it's amazing what an incentive it is to just do a few extra words here and there so that I can upload a respectable WC for the day! We're four days in and my rolling count is 5722 - does that qualify as 'back of the net' yet, I wonder!

A very special RIP

You may have seen in the news at the beginning of May that Professor Colin Pillinger died suddenly, rocking the space community in which he had been a driving force for many years. 
I first met him eight years ago when he interviewed me for my day job position when he promptly threw the rulebook out of the window and we ended up having a good old chat, much to the bemusement of the rest of the interview panel.  One of the first things we worked on was his book "Space is a Funny Place" – can you imagine a better job for me than spending afternoons in The Open University library, trawling the microfiche archives researching and verifying facts!?
Colin was a man with real passion for science and pushing the boundaries of knowledge and technology beyond what people believed to be possible. He had extraordinary determination and spirit and a great wealth of stories, both hair-raising and funny.  Those who witnessed our mobility scooter race across the campus when his new one arrived, which he won, are still laughing about it now.
One of the most humbling moments of my life was when we were in the clean room and he put one of the Apollo lunar samples in my hand and said "men risked their lives to bring this back".  
I'm still expecting him to come round the corner of the office on his scooter for a chat or to call me with a challenge "do you remember…?" or "can you find…?"   
If I could have added a reply to his mention of me in the acknowledgements of his last book, his autobiography "My Life on Mars", ' Karen, who looks after me like I was her fifth child',  I could only have said how lucky I was to have worked with such a lovely man with such an amazing mind. I will miss him for a long time.

Want something for giving?

The daughter of dear friends of ours lost their baby son when he was just 36 hours old at the end of last year. Instead of buckling under the weight of this tragedy, the bereaved parents threw themselves into fundraising for the hospital that battled so hard to save George's life. They have done a phenomenal job at raising money so far, culminating in the Milton Keynes marathon and half marathon today. My husband and daughter are running - so proud of them! - but, as my asthma won't let me do that, I'm currently donating all proceeds from my books to the charity. 

You can find my books here http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=karen+guyler

And George's charity page is here www.mycharitypage.com/georgestansfield

So now you can read funny, quirky and scary stories in the Celebrations anthology and find out what makes Maya special in the future UK I hope we don't live in and do something really great at the same time!

A spanner in my works

So I've had a lesson in patience lately. There I was busily hitting my tight deadline on my work-in-progress, working flat out at the day job and my wrists and arms said enough is enough and promptly went into overdrive - pain, pins and needles, and all the RSI symptoms you could want. Cue sound of screeching braking as everything came to a halt. I've done everything I can to stop this happening to me again - even to the point of relearning how to touch type on the Dvorak keyboard layout which is so much more wrist friendly than QWERTY - and yet here I was again unable to do anything and reduced to looking sadly at my knitting and laptop.

With all this fabulous technology at our fingertips, however, I thought I'd have another go at dictation software but when the system decided that my 'isn't it obvious' would be better typed as 'Disney or penis' (and let's be honest, those two words don't even belong in the same sentence), I gave up with that too. Enforced distance from my writing, right when I only had a handful of chapters to go on the wip. Hmmmm.

Being forced now to 'enjoy the journey' I've been tinkering with a few things and, after a fantastic brainstorming session with my creative son, realised I'd gone in completely the wrong direction on the wip and made it much weaker. So, handily, I currently have the headspace to be in my head with figuring out how to put it right. And that I'm excited about!

So I forgot

So did you notice? I forgot my own ‘blogaversary’! In my defence, I am writing a new book and we all know how blinkered I can get when I’m doing that . . . The writing is going really well, thank you for asking. I am very, very excited to share this one with you J It’s going so well, I’m writing in Stephen King numbers – he writes 2000 words a day so I know I’m in good company hitting that target every day!

Belatedly, then, happy blogaversary to The Purple Muse. It’s been a great year for me with some fabulous highlights (in the case of the trek to Everest Base Camp, quite literally high!). And I need to send a huge thank you to you for clicking the link to get here and having a read of my musings - it’s fascinating to see from where in the world the traffic originates.

Since my last blog post I’ve been a busy girl. I was interviewed on a blog here http://www.natwritesstuff.co.uk/ (second interview down) where I share what 3 things are essential for my writing! I also give you a sneak peek into my plans for 201, let’s just say it’s going to be busy!!

I was also invited to take part in Book Fest at Newport Pagnell library in Milton Keynes – 4 authors being quizzed by an audience about all things authorly and bookish. Great fun and real added value for readers from their local library and there was cake, what more could you want on a Saturday morning!? It's great to get out and about as an author, it's really good balance to all the nights sat in front of a computer screen, just me and the words, talking of which, my word count for today is calling . . . 

Re-imagining

Last night I was lucky enough to go and see a performance of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. I love the ballet, I adore Matthew Bourne productions but this was the most extraordinary dance show I’ve ever seen. In a traditional Swan Lake the corps de ballet are women and, as the swans, they usually wear tutus and dance en pointe. And their dancing is beautiful but you never lose sight of the fact you’re watching beautiful dancers. In Matthew Bourne’s version, the swans are men and clearly they’d spent a lot of time studying swans as watching them dance, we experienced the strength, raw power, majesty and sensuality of the birds through a head movement, the flick of a wrist, the stamping of a foot  – they weren’t dancers, they were the swans. It was amazing and mesmerising and heart-breaking and funny and if you can get to see it, do!

In an example of what out-of-the-box thinking is all about, Matthew Bourne has taken something steeped in tradition that you expect to give you one thing and thrown it so completely on its head that you experience something else entirely. And it reinforced exactly what I’m trying to make 2014 for me – the year of looking at everything differently.  

I’m starting small, with Mondays. Practically everyone hates Mondays and our perception of how a Monday should be quite often colours how it actually turns out – if a thing can go wrong, it will absolutely do so on a Monday! So I’ve been practising loving Mondays. What’s not to love, it’s the start of a new week and who knows what amazing things we might learn or create during that period? It’s a whole 168 hours of new time and the more you think about that, the more amazing that is! Okay, I haven’t quite managed to leap out of bed on a Monday morning, and my fourteen-year-old isn’t at all convinced Mondays are anything to be happy about,  but it’s really refreshing turning Mondays on their heads - try it!

 

 

 

In my humble opinion

So how have you been? Is it still a happy new year for you? It’s been a very exciting week for me as Celebrations, but not as you know them has received two fabulous reviews which are here if you wish to read them

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Celebrations-but-not-know-them-ebook/dp/B00HDFXGPG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389725471&sr=8-1&keywords=karen+guyler

I find it really exciting to get new reviews of my work – that feedback is so valuable and it’s really interesting to see how people are enjoying the words I wrestled with. It’s also nice to be told how an element isn’t quite working or when I could have improved something. My youngest son, just fourteen and beginning his GCSE syllabi, said to me the other day ‘we don’t stop learning, do we?’ and, expecting him to go running for his bedroom at the thought that life might end up being like school forevermore, I had to agree with him.

It’s also surprising how subjective it all is – I recently had some feedback on a work-in-progress and it’s extraordinary that for one person the thing that made the book is the same thing that, for someone else, made them not love it so much. I’m busy reading a series of books that I had for Christmas which I’m really enjoying. I wouldn’t let the family watch the movie of the first one until I’d read it and could watch too but halfway through the movie, the story and character dynamics diverged so much from the written version, it could have been a different book altogether and not, in my opinion (again with the subjective!), for the better. The vision of the director seemed to be wholly removed from that of the author. A while ago I attended an author event given by a big name author and when asked what he thought of the movie version of his book (Hollywood killed off the serial killer that he had returning in another story), he said the important thing to remember is that Hollywood writes damn fine cheques!!

Perception, it’s a funny thing.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year and that you were able to spend some time with those you care about and doing things you love. I had a lovely time with family and friends and, while being up a ladder decorating for three days can’t quite be classified as doing something I love, youngest son, who just turned fourteen, now has a very grown up bedroom so he’s happy!

It’s that time of year when we all think about the best of the last year and resolve to make the coming year the best we’ve had so I’ve been busy wondering which moments to include in my ‘best of 2013’ list. Want to know what they are? Actually I’ve decided that none of them should be on a 'best of' list (insert sound of needle scratching record à la film soundtrack coming to an abrupt halt). But, I hear you say, in a year where I reached Everest Base Camp, got another book out and wrote two others, got fit, read lots of great books, built my website, started my blog etc. some of these things should make my list.

But I’ve decided I can’t make a list because I can’t do justice to the moments that moved me in 2013 that way. Instead I can revisit them in my head and they will be the fuel for this coming year, blocks on which I can build. I got fit in 2013 so now I want to try running again (I used to love it until asthma stopped me quite literally in my tracks). The books I wrote I want to polish up and share, and the ideas I have for new ones, I want to turn into stories that move you. And this is exciting stuff! So far each day has felt like a new start - okay, we’re only at the 3^rdJanuary, I’m still writing 2013 on everything, and we’re yet to have a Monday – but I am loving this new attitude.

How about you, how has your New Year been so far?