This isn’t goodbye, but bye.

Where to start? I’ve been writing on this blog since March and, though it hasn’t been a year, I have become very used to producing them. I’ve been able to stick to deadlines, something that I’m historically bad at, and I’ve learned discipline and time management skills that will serve me well through my career. I have had so much fun over the last few months, which is why I’m saddened to say that I will be taking a break from the blog.

It has been a year since I fully committed to the novel I’m writing, but recently my work ethic has grown more and more relaxed. I am afraid to say that I’ve felt less confident in my recent uploads as I’ve been viewing it as a chore now that I’m busier. Finishing my novel in good time means a lot to me as it feels like my way of closing a door on my past. I don’t want to lose sight of my teenage self and that gets harder with time, so finishing the novel is something I must prioritise. I’ve extended my original deadline, giving myself three more months, and I’m going to work as hard as possible to meet this.

There’s another reason I’ll need a freer schedule, and it’s something very exciting: university. I’m finally returning to education to study English Literature and Creative Writing, an investment that’ll make this blog and my stories infinitely better!

Fans of this blog will be happy to hear there won’t be a total lack of content; I have two ‘Family Book Club’ posts I have yet to write (because we have not yet discussed them, LOL) that are likely to go up in the next month. Merry Christmas!

If you want to know when I’m returning, I cannot give you a date. However, I advise you to sign up for email alerts (below) or follow my Instagram (olivialusk.books) so you’ll be one of the first to know!

Write What You Know

Write what you know. It’s sound advice, a good rule of thumb. Though creativity is crucial to memorable art, there are many reasons to root it in reality. The first one is simply that your firsthand knowledge will provide some realism. I believe I’ll have succeeded when somebody approaches me and tells me that my protagonist’s story resonates with them. Research is a wonderful thing; you should do some no matter how similar the story is to your life, but your firsthand experience will give it a noticeable depth. Another reason to ‘write what you know’ is that, in my humble opinion, specificity goes a long way. If you write something that is closer to your own experience without worrying about mass appeal, you’ll find that people will connect with it easier. Not everyone will relate to it, but the majority will admire its rawness.

Agreeing with this phrase, however, has confused things. My goal with this blog is to share the trials and tribulations of writing a novel, and this is a problem I haven’t heard other writers describe. While I’m trying to focus on getting the ‘vomit draft’ out, I’ve not been able to help myself from making revisions. My story involves many types of relationships and, as I meet more people, my perspective on them constantly shifts. I’m with my second boyfriend, going out more often, and going out of my way to meet more people. I’m also coming to understand the older figures in my life, nurturing healthy distance from my parents as I do so. Though my book has a teenage perspective, I still find myself needing to edit dynamics and arcs. Sometimes I’ll be in an interaction similar to one in my book and realise I should adopt its outcome. It’s probably something I ought to focus on less, but it has been a major obstacle for me, therefore worth sharing here.

Before I sign off, I want to address the lack of a family book club post. My life has been quite off-balance lately and, if it wasn’t already difficult enough with 3 adults in different working situations, we haven’t been able to co-ordinate meetings. I aim to post last month’s and this month’s together. The books are Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and Sour Grapes by Dan Rhodes, so if those interest you please keep an eye on this blog!

That’s it for this month. It’s another short n’ sweet progress update as I persevere with my art. I hope you enjoyed it!

P.S Happy Halloween! I hope you all got drunk with your friends, ate your weight in candy, and watched some really bloody movies.

Hope is All Around

Hope is the predominant theme in my upcoming novel. It may not seem that there is hope for the protagonist or the central relationship, but I aim to show young people that anyone can live the life they want. Everyone deserves it. Love, hope, and opportunities are everywhere. Most of the people I know are in their early twenties, and my protagonist is just behind us. As you approach and enter your twenties, reality catches up to you and you start to flail. In this month’s blog post, I am going to tell you how I find the hope I need and hopefully convince you that you are not doomed. This can apply to people of all ages, but is targeted towards my younger audience and peers.

Recently, I have re-discovered the power of friendship. Yes, that mysterious thing that allows the heroes to defeat the villains. I’ve always sworn by the healing powers of talking; discussion is the simplest outlet and one that has always brought me clarity. I have a therapist for this, but I have also identified my closest friends. Spending time with them and returning to the rhythm of having a ‘best friend’ has done me the world of good. Besides having someone to talk to, the platonic love and support that come with it are often underestimated. While I agree that romantic love has its medicinal purposes, friendship should be part of our foundation. Independence is just as important as having a support system. Finding the right friends is a sure-fire way to restore your hope.

Something more abstract but still useful is a way of romanticising your life. For example, embody the world you so often escape into. How many of you are rewatching Gilmore Girls now that it’s Autumn? I know I’m guilty of it. And, for the next few months, we will walk to work or school with a coffee in hand, pretending we live in Stars Hollow. We will pretend to enjoy studying to the extent Rory and Paris do. We will plug our headphones in and listen to ‘There She Goes’, applying lip gloss as we pray to find our very own Logan (before you pelt me with rocks, you may substitute the name!). And, of course, we will dress in shades of cinnamon and sienna, feeling as chic as the actresses on our screens. The point I’m trying to make with all this is that it helps to have something beautiful to compare your life to in order to enjoy it. You might have to work, but so does Lorelai, so why don’t you pretend you live a life like hers? It doesn’t have to be that specific, though. Just pick some pictures from Pinterest and think of how your life might inspire someone the way those pictures inspire you.

Gilmore Girls might not be your cup of tea (or coffee), but I suggest identifying what kind of stories are. Not only does it give you the means to romanticise your life, but it brings hope in other ways. Surrealism, comedy, and horror are where my interests lie as their messages are presented in such a brash way. It is honest and bold, and that is what I find most comforting. Indulging in the right story is comforting and inspiring, providing us with perspective and making us feel like everything will be okay. Remember, you are enjoying a story, not merely ‘consuming media’. You are allowed to have fun. Bonus points if the story is a bit stupid and you’re attached regardless.

As it’s been less than a year since I decided to prioritise writing as a career, I still have a lot to figure out. Therefore, I need hope. I have my friends and fictional fantasies, but I’ve also discovered that practical planning isn’t the chore I thought it was. I feel safest when I know exactly what is happening. If that is not possible, I will learn as much as possible. Yet, I have only recently discovered how to apply this to my career and budget. I have been planning the release of my short story, looking into educational courses, budgeting, and building a weekly schedule. I don’t want to talk about my life too much, nor do I want to give away any big career moves, but I want to let you all know that I’m doing okay so you know my advice has some validity.

This post is dedicated to everyone who keeps me going: my best friends Zoe, Dylan, and Becca (kings/queens of London, the internet, and Dundee), my parents Colin and Catarina, Logan from Gilmore Girls, good scary movies, and everyone who reads my blog.

Happy Autumn!

Family Book Club #1: Penance by Eliza Clark

Warning: This post contains mild spoilers. 

During August, I read Penance by Eliza Clark. So did my mum and dad. Yep, we’ve started a book club! Penance was my selection. Given the truckload of online-culture references, I wasn’t sure how they’d get on with it. After all, I’m the one that had access to Tumblr during my formative years. They both enjoyed it, mum awarding it 4 stars, dad awarding it 5, which was a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately, I still had to explain a ‘Homestuck’ reference quite soon in the discussion. 

‘Penance’ tells the story of three girls who murder their classmate. But, for extra intrigue, it is presented as a controversial and untrustworthy book-within-a-book. 

Online culture, as I’ve suggested, occupied most of the discussion. There are two reasons that it was relevant to the narrative: the teenage protagonists and the true crime industry they have fallen into.  My mum made the interesting point that she viewed the book as ‘a portrait’ that is great now but could age poorly. I agreed with this because, though all ideas are transferable, this book can get quite specific. I raised that I felt that the author may be too close to the young protagonists. She did a pretty good job portraying a wide world and creating nuances with the older characters, but I was wary that her young age was showing, and she may have spent as much time online as her characters. Although the parents were interviewed personally, my mum found that they were still seen through the lens of their children. 

Having survived Covid-19’s lockdown, we are all familiar with the image of someone who is ‘chronically online’, especially because we’ve seen it demonstrated by young people who weren’t even going to school. The internet seems to have made people almost single-minded, obsessing over their own narratives and drama. Penance portrays many people in this way. 

We agreed that something the author did well was show how people constantly create narratives in their minds. This happens with many characters, but it is cleverly used when Carelli, the unreliable narrator covering the crime, and Dolly, one of the perpetrators, seem to mirror each other. Dolly decided what ‘Matty’, a school shooter, was like as a person based on his diaries, cutting out pieces that didn’t suit her narrative. Carelli, writing her story as a book-within-this-book, decided what she was like as a person based on her therapeutic writing, implying that he had cut out pieces that didn’t fit his narrative. This serves as a criticism of both authors and fans of true-crime stories, as well as an interesting observation about humans. 

Continuing the discussion about mental narratives, my dad pointed out that the book shows how people often ‘make hideous people extra hideous’. The book shows right-wing politicians and bullies being as evil as they are, yet suggests that not everything written about them is true. ‘Cancel culture’ is a big thing online, but people have always loved to make dramatic declarations about people, from witch hunts to mere rumours. If people are guilty of anything it still seems to be a free-for-all; we can do anything to this person because they’re bad, and we’re good! But, specific to the narrator of this book, a right-wing politician must be a bad father and an aggressive interviewee… right? 

When discussing the characters, we agreed Clark’s teenagers were very well created. My dad opened by saying that he appreciated that each of the girls was interesting and distinct, which is not something he often finds within the genre. We agreed on this. My mum then raised that Jayde, an older character, was accurately portrayed as older; she had a hobby outside of herself (being into sports instead of online, as well as a vibrant family life), and didn’t let the internet wrap her up in her own head. This was agreed on, though I felt that Jayde made some decisions that seemed too poor for someone like her. 

We discussed the unreliable narrator in detail. We agreed that he was extremely selfish, so much so that he failed to see other points of view. While other book clubs and reviewers discussed theories that his hidden layers went deeper, we concluded that he wasn’t guilty of many additional crimes. It boils down to him not being willing to accept things that didn’t fit his narrative. My dad said that, during the book, he suspected that the narrator was even less reliable than he turned out to be, expecting a twist that never came. 

We also had a conversation about politics that, as most do, went on for longer than we’d intended. Being in the backdrop, Brexit manages to still eclipse a lot of the characters’ lives. It is the reason that the crime got less attention than it would have (it happened that night), and the father of one of the protagonists was so heavily involved with it that it affected her life too. There isn’t much to say about this, but I do want to say that it is interesting we write about Brexit and Covid now, while most books I read discuss 9/11 or wars that I wasn’t alive/old enough to see. 

The final thing we touched upon was that there was a big build-up to the crime, yet there is no discernible motive or much of a build-up. The kill seemed like an impulse. We were all unsure on whether we liked it or how much sense it made, but I think it was sufficiently believable. 

Something that interested me was that, following this conversation, my dad lowered his rating from five to four stars. I hope my mum and I weren’t too negative, because we still find the book impressive and enjoyable. 

A Quick Progress Update

Welcome to my first pure progress update! I have a lot of exciting news.

Novel Writing Progress

I’ve made significant progress on the first draft of my novel. While it’s not as far along as I’d like, I’m learning to embrace the process of creating ‘vomit drafts’—getting ideas down on paper before refining them.

One thing I’ve learned is that scenes rarely turn out to be the length I expect. I’ve broken my project into sections to keep things fresh and measure progress, but this approach hasn’t worked as planned. While it has kept things fresh, I haven’t been able to accurately measure progress. Some scenes stretch over pages, while others wrap up in a paragraph. This unpredictability means I can’t rely on the number of remaining sections to gauge how much more I have to write.

I’ve also found myself adding more scenes than I’d initially planned. Whether that’s to further develop a relationship, further develop a personality, or enhance the importance of a location, it’s proved more common than I’d have liked when making my plan. My original plan focused heavily on the plot and the protagonist’s inner conflict, but I’ve realised that giving attention to significant people and places makes the plot more compelling and helps the audience understand what truly matters to her.

Another challenge has been writing action scenes. I recently shared a meme on Instagram about how difficult it is to write fight scenes, but the same goes for dance scenes. Since my story centres on romance, friendship, and inner conflict, I can avoid overloading it with action. However, action scenes are still essential for realism, so I’m committed to improving in this area.

Other Writing Projects

As a creative exercise, I challenged myself to draft a short horror story in a week. It went well, but I am in the process of doing some edits and rewrites. I hope to send it off to some magazines soon, but I hope you enjoy it in whatever form it goes out in. It does not share the hopefulness of my novel, but it makes up for that in tenderness.

Recent Inspirations

When I’m not writing, I am most often reading. Anna Bogutskaya’s essay collection Feeding the Monster explores ‘why horror has a hold on us’. Her insights into some of my favourite stories (like Hannibal and Suspiria) have challenged me to understand why I find entertainment and inspiration in the genre. It also deepened my understanding of why I find it important to add chilling feelings to my otherwise hopeful coming-of-age story, encouraging me to embrace it. You may be wondering: which romance story needs a monster? Mine. Many more of them, too. There’s a lot we can learn through our monsters, and Bogutskaya’s book explains that and so much more!

I’ve also been inspired by the work of Ashley Poston. Her work stands out among mainstream romances for two reasons: genre mixing and emotional depth. Poston blends romance with sci-fi and the supernatural. Though she doesn’t go into great detail on the mechanics or test the limits with genre-savvy scenarios, she has executed every bit of it perfectly. Putting a couple in a unique scenario almost instantly makes you root for the pair and renders them unforgettable. I hope my love for horror stories will shine through and make my love story as memorable as Poston’s. Because her stories are romantic and surreal, one may suspect that they lack depth and realism. This is not the case at all. The protagonist always works out complex emotional flaws and manage to endure difficult things like grief. Her ability to sell her characters’ humanity and add a mature element to a genre that may not be taken seriously is something I aspire to. I really hope that, amid the romance and horror, my story will evoke real emotions.

Blog and Social Media Plans

Looking ahead, I’m planning new content for my blog and social media. I’ll be adding a unique mid-month post and upgrading my Instagram posts. I’m also considering expanding to other platforms.

I have recently started a book club with my parents. Lame, right? Wrong! It’s a lovely way to make sure you still chat to your parents when living apart, especially if you all love books. Do you want to know how people of different generations, genders, and general circumstances can view a book differently? Well, pay attention to this blog. I’ll be uploading a summary of our conversation on the previous month’s book. This month, we’re discussing ‘Penance’ by Eliza Clark, which features an unreliable narrator—sure to spark an interesting conversation.

Finally, I’m focusing more on social media. My goals include creating more reels, improving the visual quality of my posts, showing more of my personality (and face), and carefully considering expanding to other platforms. Social media isn’t easy, nor is it comfortable, but I have resolved to push through in order to attract engagement and be proud of my public image.

girl, (my upcoming novel is) so confusing

This is my seventh blog post, it has been 134 days since my first one, and this is the first one that will discuss my novel in more detail. I would like to open it with a little re-introduction for any new readers.

Hi there! I’m an aspiring novelist based in Dundee, Scotland. I am writing a coming-of-age story with romance at its heart and a disquieting horror undertone. I’m very far along with my first draft, and November 20 is the date I have decided on sending it to beta readers so that it can be ready for professional release next year, however I choose to do it. I can’t wait to finally share a piece of fiction with you!

As much as I enjoy writing my protagonist, I find myself re-living the feelings I had at seventeen. I’m stuck in a teenage mindset, one I don’t relate to as much anymore but am still able to vividly conjure in my mind. Unfortunately, our bodies struggle to adjust entering adulthood just as much as they do during puberty. Especially if you are a girl who finds herself alone as she has to battle her own body, strange men, and even other girls.

Being a girl between the ages of 16 and 25 is a tornado. Unfortunately for these young girls, the tornado doesn’t come with Cary Elwes or Glen Powell like the ones in the movies. Also, there’s not much destruction. You’re just really scared that there could be. I have embodied this and continue to do so as I stagger around learning about love, money, and turmoil as if I am stuck in the wilderness. Here are some examples of my emotional obstacles:

  • I cannot listen to ‘A House in Nebraska’ by Ethel Cain in full because a seven-minute, visceral song about losing your first love is too much to bear when you’re currently with them and deeper in love than it feels possible to be.
  • I cried because ChatGPT created a story about me getting cancer and being mourned.
  • I used to get angry, now all I do is cry. My will seems to have been defeated by my hormones.
  • I poke people until they poke me and I break.
  • I don’t love when other people love what I love because they don’t love it correctly (there’s no such thing as correctly loving something, go touch grass).
  • I obsess over things to the point that they don’t leave my mind for weeks, then they are gone forever.

I’m sure that these are the last things a man would guess are relatable or normal. It’s not because they don’t respect us, but because their bodies and social structures are absolutely nothing like ours. It’s likely that they’ve seen stupid memes saying ‘she was just a girl’ about killer characters, but not understood that it can actually feel that way. Though I have been personal in my examples, the same rush of hormones causes the same fear of existence, hatred of everything, and general instability in every girl. This is not something you want to experience while you find yourself suddenly reckoning with the big, abstract concept of adulthood.

It’s evident in pop culture that other girls feel the same way. Even one of the most popular songs at the moment, ‘girl, so confusing’ by Charli XCX and Lorde, discusses insecurity in female friendships and body image issues. Struggling, whether that’s with emotions or social issues, is integral to being a woman and often gets in the way of the goals we set. But even just in our biological makeup, there are distinct ways we think that must be taken into account when the narrator is female. This is also true of those who don’t identify as girls, though that involves a whole lot more than I’ve experienced. My point is that being female affects the way you deal with life, so it is something you will have to consider when writing and reading books.

Within my novel, I want it to be a constant question about whether the protagonist’s grudges are valid, and whether everything is as horrible as she feels. She is a seventeen year old girl, one that is about to leave school, finds love for the first time, and strives to feel perfect. I’ve taken care to perfect her character voice using my own experiences of being female, being a teenager, moving on, finding love, and obsessing over self-improvement. I perfectly understand the melodrama she sees on the stage that is the world. But this isn’t the only inspiration I’ve taken.

If you’ve read the introduction on my homepage, you’ll know that I love horror. So, even when I am not writing it, I am always taking inspiration from it. For this book, I have used several pieces of psychological horror as an extreme point of reference for my character’s warped perspective. Shows like ‘Yellowjackets’ and books like Iain Reid’s ‘We Spread’ challenge our trust in the characters, leaving room to believe that none of the scary things they’ve endured have been real. Yellowjackets relies on the characters being starving, scared, and having a schizophrenic teammate, whereas We Spread relies on the characters being elderly. On the topic of Yellowjackets, the characters are also teenagers who have to reckon with the idea that their bright futures are no longer guaranteed, and the food chain in the wilderness is nothing like that of high school. This is something that has had a great influence on the creation of my protagonist… though she never gets stranded in the wilderness. Maybe in the sequel?

For a more mundane example of how stories play with perception, I want to talk about cult-favourite teen movie ‘John Tucker Must Die’. It’s perfectly on-topic as it is about teenage girls and their grudges. In the movie, four girls plot the heartbreak of cheating, calculating school alpha-male John Tucker by sending the protagonist to gain his trust and shatter it on his birthday. The overall message of the movie is that the girls had failed to recognise that their own actions would be as bad as John’s, and he actually has a personality outside of his wrongdoings. A very neat instance of this comes about during the plot-line involving John’s brother who has feelings for the protagonist. John’s brother says (in an act of extreme cringe) ‘She likes vintage Costello, she’s deep’. John, who is known to play different characters with different women, plays ‘Clubland’ in the car with the protagonist and gains some of her respect. Interestingly, we are never explicitly told whether it is just his music taste. It is possible that, because his brother is a Costello fan, he could have liked what he’d heard around the house. It is also quite likely that this is true because, at that point in the movie, he seemed to have come to like the protagonist more sincerely. We will never know if she truly glimpsed his personality, or whether her brief feeling of warmth towards him was just her being ‘tuckered’. I think that was very clever of the film, because it doesn’t try to tell us that what John did to the girls was to be excused, but that he was still a human. He, like a normal human, contains multitudes. There’s no way in hell my protagonist would’ve seen that without undergoing the same journey as the girl in the film. I think she needs to watch it.

As the events of my novel unfold, readers will form their own opinions on whether the spiteful and confused female protagonist has a right to hold her grudges, and they will follow her through her own decisions and discoveries. She has doubts about her rival, her old teacher, the student body of another school, and her parents. She even has doubts about certain friendships. It’s really just everyday life as a teenager. She will be alright, but you’ll have to go on her journey with her to believe it.

Everyone who is good at something has ‘hated’ someone who is also good at that thing. It can be jealousy, but it can also be that person’s arrogance that grinds them down. The love interest of my upcoming novel is arrogant and troubled, but so is the protagonist and she really has to work to understand what they have in common. It’s wonderfully human that, even when it’s as clear as day to the reader, she still struggles to get out of her own head for long enough to understand it herself. My story even goes as far as having her recognise certain things, like how he would fit in at her reform school, and still struggle to understand him.

Everyone who has gone to school has ‘hated’ a teacher. Maybe they’re immature, maybe they’re lazy, or maybe they just call their students out for texting in class. There are many reasons I’ve had and heard for hating teachers. The readers will have to find out whether the protagonist is right about hers, or if they’re just looking out for her. She and her fellow students are unruly, to put it lightly.

Everyone who has gone to school has also ‘hated’ another school. Not sincerely, but one that they blow raspberries at when they see them on school trips or compete with in sports tournaments. Well, in my novel, it’s different. The two schools in my book seem predisposed to hate each other. One is an elite academy, the other is set on reforming delinquents. However, the reader and the protagonist will see parallels in due time. Equally, the students were raised very differently and may just not be the type of people they can get along with.

Everyone who has been a teenager has ‘hated’ their parents. They’ve screamed at them, told them they’ll never understand how they feel, and considered running away. It’s very rare that you’ll find a teenager that doesn’t long for independence. Unfortunately, the world can be so unfair that not everybody has parents who try their best. Is it possible to love your child but still send them to a reformatory school that treats them, as the protagonist claims, like animals?

I want you to know that I am not, in my book or in this piece, encouraging you to forgive everyone who upsets you. I am just asking you not to get so wrapped up in your head that you disregard all humanity in the world. I promise, things are often not that bad. Especially if you’re aged between 16 and 25. Even more so if you’re a girl.

The purpose of this piece was to describe the idea behind my unpleasant protagonist in a sympathetic way. I hope that if you relate to any of this, or it just makes some sense to you, you come to love the journey within my novel. So, to keep the thoughts going, who is your favourite unpleasant teenager in fiction? I personally love Paris from Gilmore Girls, her rant on national television is almost a love letter to every girl who has ever felt inadequate. Returning to the topic of grudge-holders, I’m also a big fan of Rowan from Heartbreak High. What a drama queen he was!

Just a quick note before I go: I’m on Instagram now! The handle is @olivialusk.books

The Talk of the Town

I don’t think the word ‘idol’ is the best word to use when describing people we admire, especially if we don’t know them. Despite holding no religious faith myself, I question why people use the word interchangeably with ‘inspiration’ and ‘role model’ because it feels dramatic and, perhaps, overwhelming. However, I feel strongly enough about these writers that I suppose I couldn’t protest if someone were to call my admiration religious. In the run-up to my novel’s completion, I felt it apt to discuss some people whose work and attitudes towards it I admire. This is because it will help you to get to know me as an author, and I might explain to you how I have let their work influence my own. I will try not to fangirl, and will speak as intelligently as someone can if they’ve woken up at 4am to stock shelves and punctuated the rest of their day with episodes of ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ (Sheridan Smith is the one true idol).

The two writers under my blog’s humble spotlight this month are Abi Morgan (screenwriter) and Suzanne Collins (novelist, primarily). These incredible women have been dubbed ‘The Talk of the Town’ in my title as there is currently a lot of buzz surrounding their work. Morgan has recently released a star-studded miniseries on Netflix called ‘Eric’ that spent a while at number one on the site’s charts. Collins has just announced the latest installments in her cultural bombshell of a franchise ‘The Hunger Games’, not to mention that this is following the success of a film adaptation of the previous one at the end of 2023.

Abi Morgan has won Emmys and BAFTAs for her screenplays. You may know her for writing The Hour, Suffragette, The Iron Lady, and The Split. She is the mistress of the miniseries, as well as a champion of biopics. She has worked with stars like Meryl Streep, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Helena Bonham-Carter.

As I’ve established, Morgan is an expert at writing short shows. She has a story in mind, edits it meticulously, and releases a series that is both easy to watch and incredibly fulfilling. Her most recent is Eric, the aforementioned Netflix series. In six episodes, it has hooked audiences worldwide. I got my mother to watch it, and my boyfriend seems interested since he hasn’t told me to shut up about it… yet.  A family friend of said boyfriend recently said that Eric was the best thing he’d seen on Netflix in years, and that was all the icebreaking I needed to let my stream of words come gushing out. I proudly held up my copy of ‘This is not a Pity Memoir’, Morgan’s book that I was reading at the time, and off I went. Eric is also significant as it demonstrates Morgan’s ability to write about fatherhood as a central struggle, when her most famous works like Suffragette and The Split are centered around women. She has always shown versatility when it comes to her subject matter, but every writer excels with their personal experience, so it is impressive to see how successful Eric was.

Speaking of her memoir, I must commend Abi for her strength. She met deadlines in the face of unimaginable adversity. For those of you who are unfamiliar, her husband struggled with MS and, amidst a drug trial, eventually had to battle encephalitis. This illness put him in a coma which he emerged from convinced that Abi Morgan was not, in fact, Abi Morgan, due to a syndrome called Cotard’s Delusion. As her ‘internal editor’ says in the book, she hardly needed another reminder of mortality when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The couple are alive and well but she didn’t wait for this to happen to regain her work ethic. In fact, a lot of The Split was written during this period. I can only dream of such discipline. I also find it so exciting that the memoir mentions her husband enjoying the work of Benedict Cumberbatch and Tim Minchin, two people involved in Eric.

There is a reason I have allowed a screenwriter to have this much impact on my novel-writing, and it is simple: she crafts impeccable narratives. Her memoir seems to sum up why this is, as she mentions a persistent ‘internal editor’ that affects the ways she watches films as well as the way she lives her life. She thinks about how she’d write real events. Some may think this a blessing, others a curse, but it’s definitely an indication of a sharp mind, a mind that is helpful to her job.

‘The Split’, a show she created, may be my favourite TV series. Embarrassingly, I wouldn’t have given it a look if I didn’t have the same lingering crush on Mathew Baynton that lives in the mind of anyone who grew up on Horrible Histories, but what I truly fell for was the captivating narrative. I remember coming home from a long day to watch the final episode with a glass of wine (to be like the older women with marital problems, obviously) and a box of tissues (ready to cry on behalf of the Defoe sisters and their clients). It is full of feminism, family values, love, and perseverance, all things that everyone should deem important. The Split is just one of the many pieces by Abi Morgan to feature women’s stories so prominently, so I feel her body of work is something I can connect with easily. The main thing I find impressive about the series, though, is that it does so much in such little time. With great integrity, Morgan stated that she would not make another series as she has told her story, and that couldn’t be more true. Three series, 18 episodes, 16 hours, she has scrupulously edited a story so rich with characters and feelings into a near-flawless product, with detailed subplots to accompany the primary journey. There has since been announced a two-part special to show us where the characters are further down the line, and a spin-off with different characters. This is a clever way of giving people content they know and love without stretching the story Morgan crafted beyond believability.

Now, for Suzanne Collins. I’m sure everyone with a pulse is aware of the phenomenon that is ‘The Hunger Games’. Even those without a pulse, should vampires exist. Growing up with the films being released, the ‘Mockingjay’ poster was probably the longest-lasting wall decoration I owned. Many children and teenagers were introduced to political themes through the series. I know it’s easy to disregard things that are popular, people loving the rush they get from commenting along the lines of ‘I just never understood the obsession’, but I believe that Collins’ series has earned respect among many more people than your average popular franchise. This is for good reason. I consider ‘The Hunger Games’ to be a modern classic. Isn’t it the dream to have your books considered classics? I’m hopeful my upcoming novel will be talked about in many book clubs, but as I grow I aspire to create something as hard-hitting and widely impactful as The Hunger Games.

Collins began as a children’s television writer. It took her until The Hunger Games to truly take off, but I think it’s incredible that one person can write effectively for different age groups.

The Hunger Games series was aimed at young adults. It isn’t often that YA fiction is taken so seriously. While it’s true the media did turn the characters’ mild emotional conflict into a love triangle that appeared to be the main selling point of the series, most people still read the books and agreed that they are much more complex. As I work on this romantic young-adult story, I find myself worrying whether I’ll be taken seriously, if people I admire will give my book a chance, and whether I can still be called ‘a good author’. Suzanne Collins proved to the world that something can be accessible and appealing for young people and still be noteworthy, and I want to do this too.

Speaking of earning respect, I truly doubted Collins’ ability to pull off an origin story for her despicable main villain. She proved me wrong, as the story was so rich I could understand every turn of it.

Though Collins tends to be known for her world building, her character work is what inspires me more. When I read a book in first-person, I want to read about someone with a unique view of the world, their perspective adding something to what we would otherwise be told. They could be obviously wrong, not notice patterns we notice, or add a layer of uncertainty. They might also see good in characters we could otherwise hate. Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of the three main Hunger Games books, was more than just a role model for every young girl of the 2000s. Her perspective in the books is the main reason I like them so much. This may sound like an exaggeration, but there’s a scene towards the end of the third book in which she considers ending her life and I was right there with her (as in I understood it, not that I was too). Her perspective was so convincingly written that I perfectly understood her dark decision. Collins recently announced the release of yet another prequel, this time surrounding Haymitch Abernathy, a character that is already one of the most compelling in the main series, and I have no doubt I’ll come to like him even more than I do now.

When discussing Abi Morgan, I talked about her integrity. It would be wrong to leave out the topic when discussing Suzanne Collins. She famously said she wouldn’t write more Hunger Games until she had something to say, then released an equally impressive prequel ten years after the main series ended. Though some may say it was easy for her to stick to her integrity as the series got her more than enough money, I believe it’s admirable as it was just as easy to get even more rich even quicker. I believe she made the right decision because she cares about her art, and it’s evident in its consistent quality. I have an unwavering trust in her to put out the highest quality of stories. I hope the new book lives up to my expectations!

Another quality she shares with Morgan is the strength of her writing when it comes to women. She is more than capable of writing complex male characters like Peeta, Haymitch, and Coriolanus, but her female protagonist holds power over audiences to this day. As I’ve touched on, Katniss Everdeen was a role model for young girls at the time, and continues to be heralded as a memorable protagonist. Though there was a rise in strong female protagonists with Divergent and other dystopian fiction rising to prominence alongside it, The Hunger Games holds one of the best examples. Katniss is complicated. She is angry, she is strongly influenced by her parents, she would die for her sister, she shouts at her cat, she falls in love. She is, very clearly, a teenage girl, but she is also one of the strongest and smartest heroes out there. It was amazing to see a turbulent teenage girl open her eyes to a dangerous and unjust world as I was going through the same thing, though on a smaller scale. It is always going to matter that everyone, young and old, male and female, managed to respect, adore, and even look up to a teenage girl.

Eric can be found on Netflix and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes can be purchased online or on DVD. I urge you to give them a look, or watch/read the rest of their bodies of work!

Thank you for reading all of that fanatical gushing, it is now time for some hard-earned self promotion. I am proud to announce that the next few months’ posts will be returning to the topic of my novel in much more detail than anything I have shared already. Don’t get too excited, there’ll be no spoilers or even a synopsis but I’ll discuss aims, intentions, and progress. I’ve set some personal deadlines, and two large ones fall in early September and November, so there’ll be a lot for me to discuss and reflect on soon. This is an invitation for you all to share my joy, be excited and inspired, and learn even more about who I am as a writer. I hope you’ll stay tuned!

The Rory Gilmore Blunder(s)

After some reflection, I’ve landed on a way to describe my current situation perfectly. For it to work, I must discuss both the written story and the reception of a character. Worry not, this post will not perpetuate my aforementioned (in an older post) fear of audience reception. It is actually just me fussing over myself via a fun example. While this will involve some criticism, I will also avoid throwing metaphorical rocks at the woman who created the character I speak of. This character is Rory Gilmore, one of the titular ‘Gilmore Girls’ of the beloved 2000s drama.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Gilmore Girls is a TV show that follows a mother-daughter duo, thirty-two and sixteen, navigating life. It demonstrates the transition from teenagedom to adulthood seamlessly, peppering in unique references that range from celebrity gossip to classic fiction to keep people comfortable and entertained.

There are a lot of popular pieces of art that I would love a chance to discuss on this blog because of how much I admire the writing behind them. For example, the narrative within Ethel Cain’s ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ album (my favourite thing to listen to while writing) manages to poeticise the grotesque in a way I feel I can connect with. Abi Morgan’s show ‘The Split’ delivered everything it should’ve in a precise 18-episode run. Alasdair Gray’s ‘Poor Things’ novel is incredibly thought-provoking and I equally encourage people who loved and hated the film to read it. This month, I am discussing things in terms of a show that I sometimes find myself criticising, doesn’t age perfectly, and can be found in trashy magazines. This is because I believe viewers of the series will understand my novel’s protagonist who teeters on the edge of adulthood, and the mass appeal of the series will ensure that this update from me is understandable and entertaining. Luckily, the clarity in my writing will prevent the rest of you from feeling excluded.

Let’s quickly revisit an earlier point I made. Something Gilmore Girls does best is depicting the harrowing process of graduating from teenagedom to adulthood, focusing mainly on girls. But guess what? My upcoming novel does this too! So, if you find comfort in the show, you’ll find comfort in the book. But this article isn’t called ‘The Rory Gilmore Achievement(s)’. Rory made mistakes within the story, while fans and writers alike may have made mistakes when creating and receiving her. As I come head to head with new obstacles, I can’t help drawing comparisons between my life and the things I watch and read, so I’ve identified two parts of my life that are best described in terms of this character.

Rory is infamous for her Yale drop-out period (‘whY did (she) drOp out of YAle?!‘) in which she lived with her grandmother and essentially became her apprentice. She also fell into a career slump later in life. These events demonstrated her struggle with burnout after having been a studious teenager. I recently saw a Twitter post in which someone jokingly asked about a ‘pride flag’ for unemployed people and somebody replied with Rory’s face on a flag. She is often used as an example of a ‘former gifted kid’ and is the first to come to mind to many when they think of burnout. During her career slump, she turns her attention from her (virtually fruitless) childhood dream of writing articles to writing books. Here’s how this lines up with me: I failed to pass my first year of university and eventually decided that it would be best to abandon the game-development path I was on and focus on writing. Luckily, though I do not have as much financial support to fall back on as Rory, I’ve been planning my budget and building a better routine. I sometimes feel as though I’m in a weird, Rory-esque limbo and cry on account of what I’m unsure of, but I think I’ll be alright. I plan to avoid this first ‘Rory Gilmore Blunder’ by succeeding with my book through hard work, routine, and not losing my way between the ages of eighteen and thirty-two.

However, this isn’t the only reason I’m bringing up her mistakes. I am currently trying to write a female character with negative qualities that is still likeable and relatable, and Rory serves as an incredibly interesting case study for me as her show is adored yet she is (often) not. I want to know what it is about her story, the show’s writing, the 2000s, and our society as a whole that came together to make her seem like one of the most hated protagonists on screen. I wonder whether the external factors are really that great, if Amy Sherman-Palladino made any mistakes, or if both played a role in this.

I sometimes feel that ASP, while trying to craft a story of female unification and strength, accidentally created a near-horror story of women who have been enabled a little too much. Rory’s mother is practically her best friend, mostly due to her young age. The mother in question ran away from home at sixteen, but was never at any real risk due to the wealthy background from which she came, and the privilege of the characters has been a point of contention among fans. There are also parallels demonstrating women never being able to escape their mothers’ personalities, no matter whether they are as close as Rory and her mother or as distant as Rory’s mother and grandmother, and this isn’t helpful when you, like me, find it difficult to like Rory’s mother.

However, Rory’s flaws in the show are more explicitly blamed on her relationship with her father, and I do not think this was a mistake. Instead, I think that they should’ve found a more accurate ratio. It would have served the show well to explore her mother’s impact in greater detail, and not expect us to admire said mother’s childish behaviour. Make no mistake, I still don’t think she should’ve been burned at the stake or estranged from Rory as that’d undermine everything I’m about to say about flawed characters.

Rory is unmistakably human, she sleeps with the wrong people, says things she regrets to strangers, struggles with career-related sacrifices, and suffers from a severe burnout. People could relate to character so much that they cannot bear to see their flaws on screen and need to project somewhere. However, to reiterate an earlier point, the privilege of the titular family is controversial among fans. People often feel like Rory isn’t human enough because of how much she manages to get away with compared to how productive she is alone. Despite the fact that characters such as Logan address this within the show, fans still feel that there was not enough consequence or self-awareness from the characters.

Some more issues she has come down to the time period within which it was written and set- the 2000s. The show reprimands Rory ever so slightly for calling a woman fat in her article, but consistently cancels that out by its abundance of fat jokes and normalised gossip regarding looks. This was quite common during this time period, especially with the celebrity culture revolving around models like Paris Hilton and Kate Moss. Though, while ‘nothing taste(d) as good as skinny (felt)’, the characters do constantly eat junk food and canonically can’t cook.

Unfortunately, no matter what we change about our writing to clarify our intentions, society will always play a part. People create things that stick. If women still struggle for equal pay and men like Andrew Tate still exist, it is likely that being a woman will be just as hard at least a hundred years from now. This means a show like Gilmore Girls or a book like mine will inevitably face some form of disdain just for existing. Male fans may hate the way the characters act because it is distinctly female, and the most misogynistic of the bunch will be the most scathing in their opinions if they bother to express them. Rory has an affluent, boy-filled, lipgloss-coated lifestyle that exemplifies girlhood. Some girls feel they want to separate themselves from those ideals, and others feel they have to fit them. Either way, contempt and jealousy from female audiences’ feelings towards their gender will inevitably taint the viewing experience of some.

Overall, although ASP may have made some mistakes in her portrayal, it seems she intended Rory to be a relatable and likeable character. Lucky for her, she managed to reach many people with her approach. I find Rory to be a lot like me, too. She grew from a teenager to an adult just as messily as the rest of us. I want my protagonist to be that, but for more people. Not everybody thinks the same way, so it is difficult to pinpoint what defines a mistake in this context. Hopefully, when I’m successful, someone will write a blog post about what I could have done better and I’ll have some interesting food for thought.

I had originally intended to write as though the protagonist was reflecting on the events of the book, so you know she is no longer as rude and silly as she is over the course of the story, and therefore feel less anger towards her. I then decided that I’d be brave and leave the interpretation to the readers, even if this leads to people putting the book down, because I want to create a unique character voice and someone who demonstrates realistic growth. Her early narration may render her unsympathetic, but I think that the narrative will be so enjoyable and worthwhile that you’ll end up loving her.

I want to avoid the second ‘Rory Gilmore Blunder’ by writing my protagonist as understandably and sympathetically as possible but, while I do this, I must remember that I cannot water her down for fear of negativity and misinterpretation.

In conclusion, I will keep my career afloat and ensure my protagonist is received (by the majority) in a positive way. Simply put, I will not fall victim to the Rory Gilmore blunders.


P.S, it’s my birthday tomorrow. Yippee! And, if you want to hear a girly little secret, I’m ‘team Logan’. He’s a good lad.

On Perseverance

When a project takes years to complete, it’s easy for your internal monologue to sound like the scene in Saw VI where all you can hear is the phrase ‘right now you’re feeling helpless’ on repeat. Sometimes, even the most exciting projects can feel as though they’ll never be over or improve from their current state. As a writer, there is no feeling I am more familiar with.

It isn’t just the slow process, but the uncertainty that comes with the industry. It is a big risk to take to pursue a beloved hobby, and you may feel as though nothing will come from your work. I can assure you it will, and want to convince you to keep going.

That comes with one important caveat: make sure you love it.

Suffering for what you love is a specific type of suffering. If you don’t like the direction your project is going but love the project, love the hobby, and dream of success, work hard to make it better. Doubting the quality is natural when you’ve spent hours and hours looking at it, and if you keep a level head and take breaks you’ll be able to mold it into something great.

I know nobody wants to hear a speech about following your dreams that you’d hear in a coming-of-age movie. They don’t always translate to real life, but I’m here to tell you that where there’s a will, there’s a way.

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Connect with people!

Connecting with people is bound to provide you with a support system that keeps you going through arduous periods in your project. Writers like myself spend a lot of time in our houses, at our desks tapping away at a keyboard and losing ourselves in our fictional worlds. It is important to remember the strength of friendship, family, and networking. People are amazing.

Discipline AND motivation, not one or the other.

Discipline wins over motivation when it comes to finishing a project, and if you are serious about writing you will need it. However, you can become burnt out. That’s where motivation does come in handy. Reading books, talking with other writers, participating in challenges, and creating moodboards are just some of the ways you can motivate yourself. Recently, the books I have been reading have given me a much better grasp on my style as well as how I want to pace my book, and every creative person will come to notice and pick things out of the art form they are passionate about. It is a brilliant source of motivation and one that has given me a lot of confidence. I’m sure that even if I don’t perfectly execute my ideas, my effort will pay off.

Look at a bigger picture.

A way to alleviate doubt when it comes to writing is to not look back quite as much. Editing is important, but there is a point where you need to stop reading over the same passage or chapter and come back to it after a few more. Sometimes returning to them after breaks just isn’t enough, especially if your self-doubt is heavy. Remember also that you will write other drafts and pass the manuscript through editors, so not every paragraph needs to be perfect after you write it.

Look into the limelight…

A classic but reliable piece of advice is that you ought to remember you aren’t the only one. Others have struggled to persevere. There’s a story authors like to tell about JK Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’ being rejected by 12 publishers, but there are so many other examples of successful artists struggling to persevere. Even Olivia Rodrigo, a huge pop-star, has shared that she finds periods of doubt in her creative process where she finds it difficult to ‘be brave and keep going’. Attempting to break into the industry you’re in love with is so worth it, because you could either become as big as Rowling or Rodrigo or have a pleasant community to support you as you work part-time.

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To prove I’m worth my salt, I’ll tell you where perseverance has got me so far. I have a great deal of content written and am feeling extremely confident about the direction in which this project is heading. I truly feel successful. A question I’m keeping near the back of my mind is the exact order of the first few sections and chapters. I think that I will shuffle certain things around during the editing process to make sure that the desired effect is produced.

In conclusion: if you love your art, please keep working on it. You will get out of any slumps, learn about yourself, and ultimately feel much more confident. 

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Now, if you have read this far I can only assume you enjoy my content. I hope you aren’t too disappointed to hear that I will be reducing my posting schedule from fortnightly to monthly. Due to the date that this post has fallen on, it will be the first of every month. So, if you haven’t already, subscribe for monthly posts and put my perseverance to the test!

Reality and Escaping It

This post has not been worked on as much or proof-read as thoroughly as usual.

Reality:

I don’t have much time or energy on my hands.

I am facing things in my life and my career that I hadn’t expected to face.

Lately, I have been questioning what things in my life mean to me and weighing up my options for the future.

Right now, there is something keeping me from my work that is far more horrific. My grandfather passed away in a sudden and unfortunate way, leaving my family in a state of shock and grief. I could write about this, about everything he was and everything good about my family members who are hurting, but I won’t.

As I am editing this, I have just returned from the funeral. I am mentally and physically exhausted.

I have still planned a blog post for you. I am determined to keep to a schedule of alternating Wednesdays. I have thought through everything that I could say and found the easiest but most informative piece to write.

This, most likely, will not read well. My aim is to share something about myself as clearly and simply as possible despite the fact that it may look rushed or contain mistakes.

A short follow-up to my last entry:

I have been thinking more about my fears regarding people interpreting my work. While they remain, I have come to view it more positively after conversations with loved ones.

I think that marketing may also have to do with it. All kinds of people will find their ways to your work and your advertisements, but you can decide your primary target audience and push it their way as much as possible.

While reading the book ‘There Are More Things’ by Yara Rodrigues Fowler, I came across a page in which people discuss reading stories and relating them to their situations, despite them being from a culture separate from the author and the setting. This is because humans are humans and they wage war and rule countries and argue with each other all over the world, therefore it isn’t really a misunderstanding, but it reminded me that other interpretations can be positive. If my writing helps someone, I will be happy.

Escaping It:

This isn’t particularly insightful or technical. It is simply a piece in which I discuss my interests and inspiration in very basic terms. It will tell you what I want to do, what I am like, and how my novel could turn out. I think you will enjoy it. But also, for my sake, it will not take me long to write, nor will I struggle with it, and it will bring me fond memories of all the ways I distract myself from the weight of life.

When I name people I will not only name novelists, but screenwriters and songwriters too. Their skill is not always considered by their audiences the way authors are, but as a writer I cannot help focusing on writing wherever I look.

I would love to elaborate on the people I mention, but that is for another entry. I really cannot polish this one.

Something I’ll talk about a lot when it comes to writing is integrity. I believe that authors should not do things they wouldn’t do just because of fan criticism. I believe that they should not make a sequel or a new season when their story is over, or rush another part because it’ll make more money. Suzanne Collins, Reece Shearsmith, and Abi Morgan are perfect examples of this, but the majority of my inspirations are. 

I want my YA novel to reach a wide audience, staying both mature and accessible. I want to be taken seriously when writing for this age group. Taylor Jenkins Reid and Leigh Bardugo are my favourite examples of this.

I admire people who can write unique character voices, giving me a perspective that is entertaining and new. Suzanne Collins, C.A Fletcher, Sayaka Murata, and Camille DeAngelis do this impeccably.

I look up to authors who portray women’s struggles accurately as they are what I know. Abi Morgan and Taylor Jenkins Reid are great at this. For added madness, I adore what Julia May Jonas does. Less realistic, but the roots are there.

I wish I could play with language, metaphors and poetry the way Ocean Vuong and Hozier do.

I want to write stories nobody has read before, even when taking inspiration from other places. I want to do things that both break taboo and put people’s anxieties to rest. People who use shocking subject matter and clever techniques to create this effect include Ethel Cain, Sayaka Murata, Reece Shearsmith, and Steve Pemberton.