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? 

Here's a Christmas gift for you

It’s been a great week. Here in the northern hemisphere we’re celebrating that we’ve passed the shortest day and, while commiserations go to all you southern hemisphere folk that your days are now getting shorter, I’m very happy ours are drawing out – I get very fed up going to work and then coming home again all in the dark!

But that’s not actually the reason I’m celebrating this week, the fact that my new book is out is why I’m opening bubbly.

As you know, I’m more of a marathon type writer, settling in for the long haul and wrestling novels into shape to be fit for reading consumption so it was quite a surprise to me how much fun I had putting together a collection of flash fiction. So much fun, there will definitely be more!

Here’s the blurb - 

We all have our favourite celebrations filled with the same things every year – for some it’s candy canes and family time at Christmas, for others a suntan and making new friends on holiday, or the spectacle of fireworks on Bonfire Night and for most it’s fun on our birthdays. But sometimes it’s just not . . . Welcome to Celebrations, but not as you know them

It’s available from amazon but, in the spirit of Christmas, I have a gift for you if you go via my website here

http://www.karenguyler.com/#!celebrations-but-not-as-you-know-them/cmcl

and fill in the gift form, you will get a free story, just for you (and it’s a fun one!)   There’s a buy button there too which will take you right back to amazon.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I wish you the best of what you wish yourself over this holiday season and hope that 2014 will exceed your expectations. 

Look up!

In all the research we did for our trek to Everest Base Camp (and my husband did a lot!), one comment on a forum really stood out. The track is very uneven, there is often a sheer drop on one side, we had to scramble up off the track a lot to let yaks or porters pass and, when we were walking on the Kumbu glacier, there were times when we had nowhere else to put our walking poles other than on sheet ice, so we spent a lot of time looking at the ground. The comment on the forum said ‘for goodness sake, spend some time looking up!’

So, each time I lost control of my breathing due to my asthma and had to stop, I looked up and up and up. At the beginning of the trek we could see the mountains above the tree-lined foothills and near the end we were practically looking down on those same peaks. And as we plodded our way up and down from the 2810 metres at which we started to 5364 metres, through what has to be some of the most stunning natural beauty in the world, one thought kept running through my mind - how important it was to enjoy the journey.

And that for me became the most valuable lesson of the whole experience. I’m very goal-driven and I tend to get a bit blinkered when I’m racing for a goal – this year I hardly celebrated my birthday because I was working in every spare second I had to get edits done. The trek taught me that there is beauty and achievement to be marked with each step towards a goal, not just the end result, and I intend to do a lot more of that from now on.

And, what do you know, that’s a great New Year’s resolution, so I’m actually ahead of myself!

Back from being out of the office

It can’t have escaped your notice that here we are in December, what happened to the year? Where did November go? For my regular followers, where did my blog entries go during the last month? I know exactly where, up a mountain! I just got back from trekking to Everest Base Camp and it was the most extreme thing I have ever done, or am likely to do for a while, at least. It was extreme, it was harder than I thought, more dangerous, more stunningly beautiful, more amazing and much more of an emotional journey.

It sounds quite a cliché to say it, but it also really shone a light on who I am as a person. I suffer with asthma, two of the major triggers of which are going uphill and the cold air. So it was a long, hard slog each day for me as my breathing kept going out of control and I had to stop, regroup and start again. Walking alongside and trekking across the Kumbu glacier above 5000 metres was pretty challenging for our whole group as humans shouldn’t really be at that altitude, and it wasn’t kind for my asthma at all. I also have a real fear of heights so going over 6 suspension bridges was hard too – especially the one at 80m off the valley floor. When the medic measured my pulse after that one, it was 148! And trekking 2000 feet up and down the ridgeline on an acclimatisation day suffering with an upset stomach was a whole new challenge! But I amazed myself and it was an emotional moment when I stepped onto Base Camp.

It was such an extreme experience, it’s been a bit surreal getting back into the daily routine. In my head it should be September as I’m just back from holiday and in Nepal it’s the year 2070 – it’s no wonder I’m confused and Christmas seems like it should be months away yet!