Tomorrow is Another Day

Life has fallen into a routine. I work, I take my little boy to his activities, I give him his meals, we play, and then it's bedtime. It doesn't give me a whole hell of a lot to write about. I'm an introvert, and mostly, I like being lazy at home, but it would be nice to mix it up every now and then. 

Routine or Rut

They always look alike to me. When does your daily life become something that needs to be changed? Is it when you're bored with it? When your ambition starts flagging? When it's financially not enough? What are the markings of a rut? 

My Happy Place

If I'm in a rut, I might not get out of it because my happy place is at home with my little boy and my dog, and there's never anywhere I'd rather be. Pyjamas are the best clothes, junk food is the best food, and the sofa is the comfiest place to sit. Why would I want to leave all that?

Ambition

I do, however, still have goals to achieve, and it might be time to put the doughnuts down, dress in some outdoor clothes and do what I can to achieve them. I can still be lazy in between, though, right? So, maybe this is a rut, and even though I'm okay with being in one, I might have to climb my way out. 

If you enjoyed reading this short post, then take a look at some of the others or head over to my website for book updates. 

I'm a Writer! What are you?

I was nineteen when I made the decision to follow my dreams and become a writer.

I'm still waiting for my dreams to make the same choice about me, but apparently, they work a little slower than I do. 

Now I'm a writer with a day job and no one can tell me that’s not a challenge. Balancing the responsibilities of real life, while finding time for my real love is the true test of time and over the last *cough* eighteen *cough* years, the worlds that exist inside my head have kicked this world’s ass.

I’ve sacrificed nights out, time with friends, career prospects. I’ve hidden myself away, putting fictional worlds onto paper while the real one passed me by, because I am a writer, and that meant sacrifice, and I’m sure it’s a trait that many creative people share. Writers, artists, designers, chefs… Hands up if you have a tendency to put creativity first. Hands up if you prioritise work, and not the work that may earn the money, but the one that infuses your soul.

As 2019 raced by, with my writing career stalled, my social life wilted from lack of use, and my love life as vibrant as a fading ghost, I knew I had to make a change.

The problem was that I already made the decision to be a writer years before, so for me, there is no plan b. Perhaps for you there isn’t either. I can’t turn off the story ideas, the characters who talk to me, the plot bunnies who hop through my imaginary gardens, and if I tried, they’d explode out of me and I’d spout flash fiction and limericks at anyone who came within earshot. I’d be unbearable. Even more than I usually am, as a regular, struggling author.

For others, the distraction may come in a different way, but I’d wager that no matter how you express your creativity, it’s always there, waiting to pounce the second you have something else to do, because that’s how the little bugger that disguises itself as talent works. It waits until you can’t make the most of it, and then it surges forward.

So, if shutting off the inner worlds isn’t an option then I’ll have to find a way to coincide fiction with reality. I need an alternative method for a symbiotic life. The question is how? And if anyone has answers to that, feel free to let me know, because that’s what I’m trying to figure out.

Once life returns to some form of normal, my mission is to build a writing career alongside a day job and some kind of social life. (Tell me I’m not asking for miracles over here.) I’ll be figuring it out as I go. Feel free to join me. I’ve got Facebook, Twitter and Instagram set up, so anyone who wants to keep me company can follow along.

We can create together and manoeuvre through the maze that is the real world, which as an introvert, isn’t easy for the type of person I am. For a little while at least, I’m going to step a toe outside of my sparkly writing cave and see what all the fuss is about out there.

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We just have a pandemic to get through first.

I'm an Introvert: Accept Me!

I’m not an assertive person. Socially awkward are the words that describe me. I don’t stand out in a group, I don’t always know how to act or what to say, and in many social situations I feel uncomfortable.

I’ve learned over time, that this gives people the idea that I’m weak. I’m not! Because I try to get along with everyone and I try not to put my bad mood on others, it makes some people think that bad things have never happened to me or that I’m not always aware of the realities of life. They are wrong.

Being an introvert doesn’t mean I’m not intelligent. It doesn’t mean I’m a doormat. It doesn’t mean I need you to tell me how to dress or what to say or how to act. It doesn’t mean I’m stupid or naïve. It doesn’t mean I need to be coddled or that you should warn the people who you introduce me to that I’m awkward. It doesn’t mean you can say what you want to me no matter how offensive or cruel.

My life may be different to yours, but I’m not irrelevant because I’m single or because I’m at peace in my own company, and I don’t need you to step into my life and instruct me how to live it as you see it should be lived. I don’t need to be rescued. I don’t need a hero.

I’m not happy every second of my life. I feel discontent. I feel ambition. I feel hope. Desire. Love. Affection. Anger. Insecurity. Concern. Nerves. Fury. Irritation. I feel every human emotion that you feel.

I’m a grown-ass woman with adult responsibilities. I’m not a child who needs to be told how to act, and whose life choices should be demeaned because they weren’t the same as yours, and just because I don’t like confrontation doesn’t mean I won’t rise to it when you think you can control me.

These are some of the issues I’ve experience most of my life. Because I’m not always comfortable in certain situations, it makes others think less of me, and it’s something that has come up many times throughout my life. Work environments have been the worst, but there have also been friends who thought they could control me.

Being an introvert isn’t synonymous with being weak. Being content in my own company isn’t the same as loneliness.

I’m beyond grateful for my family. They’re the people in my life who can accept me without calling me miserable because I’m quiet when I’m overwhelmed. I love the ones who offer me help without condescension. I appreciate those who stand at my side no matter what, because they like who I am.

I’ll never feel comfortable in a group, I’ll never be the one to shine, but I don’t see this as something that needs to be altered. I’m content to blend in. I like that about myself. I’m happy that I find serenity by myself.

If you have an introvert in your life, then please remember:

Don’t try to fix us. We’re not broken.

Don’t try to dominate us. We’re not weak.

Don’t try to patronise us. We’re not stupid.

Accept us as we are.

Remember outside? Me too.

I am an introvert. I’ve always been happiest at home, but even I am getting to the point where it would be nice to go somewhere. For an ice cream or a frappe. Hell, I’d settle for a walk around a garden centre.

Of course, my day-dreaming mind always takes me to London. It’s the perfect day for wandering the sights of the city, stopping for an iced coffee or a beer, walking along the river and eating outside at a riverside restaurant. Maybe drinking a bit more wine, followed by more coffee. I am a writer after all.

Mostly, I just miss the freedom to go anywhere, even knowing if I had the freedom, I’d probably still be in my garden.

I understand the lockdown and I agree with it, and it’s times like these I’m happy to have my busy imagination, because as I sit at my garden table, I can sip wine and imagine I’m in London or in Whitby, sitting in a café that overlooks a river or the sea, and I can imagine a time I will be there in reality.

In isolation imagination is key.

In isolation take to your daydreams.

Lockdown Imagination

I’m lucky in this time of quarantine that my hobbies are so well suited to isolation.

Besides writing obviously, my current interests are visiting property websites to view houses I can’t afford, checking out cars I can’t afford, and researching fertility treatments I many never be able to afford.

If you’d asked me years ago where I saw myself at thirty-eight years old, this wasn’t it. This wasn’t even close. I thought I’d be a super-successful writer, married with kids and living in a house of my own.

Reality looks a little different. Not that there aren’t good things about being thirty-eight, single and living with my parents, but you know, it wasn’t exactly the dream.

The thing about being locked down at home, it gives a person time to think about what they want from life. A lot of time to think.

In my day job I’m classed as an essential worker, so I still go out to work, but all the other things have been removed, which like I said, is where my interests come in handy. I still know what I want out of life, and now all I do is think about it.

I have dreams of sitting on Butler’s Wharf, eating nice food, drinking wine and overlooking Tower Bridge, but mostly what I want is to be a writer and to have a family.

I guess when you concentrate a person’s thoughts, true desires burst forward. But mine are still at their core, what they have always been.

I want to write, I want a baby and a trip to London would be nice.

Behind the Mask

When an introvert writer steps outside and learns about the promotional side of writing... I did not sign up for this.

Imaginary Friends

Being a writer always seemed like the perfect career to me. I'm an introvert, most comfortable in my own company, in my own home, with my dog and imaginary worlds to keep me company, so the idea that I could do this as a job was ideal. To sit at a computer and put words on paper - words that give others a chance to experience the exciting worlds and lives that inhabit my brain - was just what I was looking for.

What no one warned me about was that there's more to being a writer than writing. It sounds crazy, but it's true. There's a whole load of PR that comes with the job. Talking to strangers, putting yourself out there, trying to find your way into a community of people who all know each other and help each other, when your natural instinct is to blend in. It's like going to a masquerade and being forced to take off your mask.

I know I'm not alone in this discomfort. I've heard it mentioned a lot between us creative type people. That the social side of writing wasn't what they were prepared for. Over time I've grown better at faking my discomfort in person, but strangely, I still find myself socially awkward online.

It takes courage to step outside your comfort zone and that is something that is a constant battle for me. My natural instinct isn't to step forward, it isn't to bare my face, and there are times in my life when even my closest friends have struggled to understand my introverted tendencies and have called me miserable because in a large group I'm not the person who stands out. When other personalities overpower me, I grow quieter, and I wish I was at home.

Which is what makes the promotional side of writing such a challenge. I like talking to people, especially in the literary world, where we can discuss words and books and writing, and all the things I'm passionate about, but what I can't do is use those conversations to sell my work. It is a constant struggle; the line between promotion and conversation.

I've always been more comfortable with fiction than reality and there is a certain sense of security, writing books without giving too much of myself away. When I write I see through the eyes of my characters and it gives me an insight into other personalities but when it comes to the core of the matter, I still like to view things from the outside.

If I'd known writing wouldn't be as reclusive as I expected it to be, would I still do it? Absolutely! Because if all the uncomfortable moments, the awkwardness, the over-thinking are the price to create fantastical worlds and talk to like-minded people then I guess I can go to the ball and leave my mask at home.

For more of my blog posts or to read about my books visit my author website here.