January Recap: Plus Desolation of Smaug

I was feeling a bit down lately about my January. Things feel like they're moving slowly. My fitness goals are moving slowly; I'm a bit adrift with my next noveling project; the day job has been a bit slower than usual; and the acting hasn't been insanely busy, either.

But then I decided to sit down and write a list of everything that happened in January. And once I saw it written out on paper, I felt a ton better. I think I do this a lot--I get depressed about life when I feel like nothing's happening, but don't realize exactly how much progress I've made because I'm concentrating more on how I feel than real results.

So, to recap in January:

1. I'm finally seriously querying my first manuscript. So far: three requests for fulls!

2. Auditions are a lot fewer and farther between this month, but despite that I got asked to do a staged reading of a new screenplay, booked a voiceover job, and booked a job modeling shoes for a shoe expo in February.

3. My boyfriend's in town, which isn't always the case. Having him around always makes me happy.

4. I've been reading a lot. So far I'm reading three books concurrently, which isn't that efficient, but I'm hoping I'll be able to make a dent in my huge pile of books to read this year.

So, it's not a bad month. Despite the fact that I'm behind on queries this week and behind on a ton of other things, too. So instead of getting all serious on you, I'm going to leave you with this. Because I'm a bit obsessed with all things Tolkien and it makes me smile.

A busy week . . .

The end of January is always a super busy time for me. My husband (a tax accountant) works late nights to meet a major UK deadline and I tend to spend that time writing. Which is why this week I'm sharing with you my favourite new YouTube find. I heart YouTube educational videos so much and when I first saw Thug Notes I knew it was brilliant. I love that each episode summarizes the book and then launches into an analysis of the text. I read most of these books in High School, but since stumbling on Thug Notes I've been feeling the need to re-read some of the classics.

Let me know if Dr Sparky Sweets PhD inspires you to re-read (or indeed read) some of the classics in the comments!

Happy Tuesday!

I’m Salieri (On Talent)

So I was re-watching Amadeus the other day. It’s one of my favorite movies, even though plenty of people say that it isn’t historically accurate. Whatever. I don’t care. I love it. I’ve seen it several times, but this time there was a character I especially noticed and related to—that I hadn’t really before.

Amadeus is laid out like this. 

There’s the Emperor; he’s the great patron of the arts, who supports Mozart in his music. 

He wants to be a music fan; he listens to a lot of music. But he has zero natural musical talent himself. He has so little musical facility that he doesn’t even know what good music is vs. what great music is. When asked to critique Mozart’s work, the Emperor has nothing to offer beyond “Too many notes!”

Then there’s Mozart. Mozart is a musical genius. I could explain, but I think it’s better to let Salieri talk about Mozart’s talent: 

“[Mozart] had simply written down music already finished in his head. Page after page of it as if he were just taking dictation. And music, finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.”

I have very rarely been in the presence of a true Mozart-level talent in the writing world. But every so often I get a chill down my spine reading a book—or listening to something someone is reading—and I know that this person is at least close. But wouldn’t we all kill to be like that? To write the perfect novel as if it were dictated to us from above? To have our book come out—within a few drafts, at least—exactly as we envision it in our minds? I believe a true Mozart of the noveling craft is a rare animal indeed.

And then—between the tone-deaf Emperor and the cosmically blessed Mozart—there’s Salieri.

 Salieri is the court composer. He’s good at what he does. His music is perfectly serviceable. But it doesn’t soar like Mozart's. He’s human; he struggles with his music. He drafts and redrafts. And when it’s done, it’s never quite perfect. It could always be better.

Still, Salieri is no Emperor. He’s talented enough to recognize Mozart’s genius. He’s just not talented enough to ever get there himself.

And it’s torture.

[SPOILER!] This is what eventually drives Salieri mad in the end. Being near phenomenal talent, being able to recognize it for what it is—and yet never having the capacity to achieve it himself. Salieri is desperately ambitious and truly loves his art. But he just doesn’t have the capacity to be the composer he truly wants to be.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt like Salieri while I’m writing. I’m good at what I do. But when I read certain authors, I am all too aware of what my own art will never achieve. And every day, when I sit down to work on my novels, I’m painfully aware of how far away they are from the vision of them that I have in my head.

I think a lot of us feel like Salieri, toiling in the mud with the other flawed humans, eking out each little tiny success through massive amounts of blood and sweat—for years or even decades. I think most novelists never stop feeling like this, no matter how much success they find. If there’s any writer ever who talked about writing a whole novel—not just a few transcendent scenes here or there—like it was being dictated from above into their head, I would like to know who they are.

Then again, I was talking to a friend about my Salieri issue a while back—after more than a few glasses of wine, I’ll admit. And just as I ended my rant—with an overly dramatic, drunkenly emotional “and then I realized—I’m Salieri!”—my friend looked at me and said, “yeah, but doesn’t Mozart die young and get buried in a pauper’s grave in that movie? And didn’t Salieri do pretty well for himself, as court composer?”

Well. Technically, Salieri winds up in an insane asylum. But before that, yeah. He has a good, stable career as a musician in the highest court in the land. 

So I have to admit--that made me see this in a different light. Do Salieris struggle? Hell yes. Is it torture, sometimes, to recognize the work of a Mozart and know that what you're doing is just not even coming close? Absolutely. But Salieris are also stable, successful artists. They make good livings for themselves through their art. Sometimes they're acclaimed. Other times they feel dismal about their own talents. But I have a feeling that, in the noveling world, at least, even people I would categorize with Mozart-level abilities sometimes feel like Salieri. Because novel-writing is an extremely demanding task. 

Maybe even the Mozarts of the world still secretly feel like Salieri. Maybe the Mozart state of being is more of an ephemeral than a permament state--it's something you might achieve with one really transcendent scene or poem or novel, but not throughout your career.

And the rest of the time, maybe we're all Salieri--and maybe that's not such a bad thing to be.

Dreams don't give up on you: A Study in Garbage Pail Kids

This post is all about dreams.

You've been warned.

Turn back now if you are feeling cynical.

I won't judge.

It's Tuesday. Tuesday the 21st Jaunary to be exact. The day after Blue Monday, or "the most depressing day of the year". It's cold here in London. Its so bloody cold. I feel like all I want to do is put on my fleece pjs and curl up with a mug of chocolate tea until the world warms up. I want to burrow under my nest of blankets and let myself get completely caught up on Sleepy Hollow (I'm two episodes behind, NO spoilers! Though I heard Ichabod Crane wore skinny jeans? Am trying to rein in my swooning!).

*SWOON*

January is a dark, cold honey badger of a month. January don't care. She really doesn't. She rolls in here all filled with promise and change and good intentions. By the time that bitch leaves she's stolen your boyfriend, favourite pair of boots (the ones with the perfect heels that you can seriously walk for miles in, no fooling) and your hope. January must be stopped.

But, how can we fight this never ending war against January?

Fret not. Much like our heroes (aka "Witnesses") of Sleepy Hollow, there are things you can do. I don't have George Washington's magic Bible (ok, the more I use these analogies the sillier I feel), but I do have a story. It's a good story. If it doesn't make you smile I am beginning to think you might be on January's side.

Let's flash back to the mid 1980s. Stay with me. We open on our hero, a shy, suburban English boy who loves Garbage Pail Kids cards. Loves them. He's thrilled at the weekend when he can spend his pocket money (allowance) on buying a new pack of cards. He spends his free time playing the card game and drawing the characters. His dream is to one day design a Garbage Pail Kid card for Topps. Even as a small child he knows its an impossible dream. Topps is all the way in America. He's only a child. Many people want the same opportunity.

So he begins to draw characters in his spare time. First copying them and then, as the years go on, he begins creating his own characters.

Our hero doesn't have formal artistic training. He's just a guy who likes to draw. He likes coming up with clever concepts. He is British so he knows his way around a pun. Our hero grows up and posts his concepts/drawings on online fan forums. He finds like minded people. Praise for his drawings, but still no sign of them ever being more than a well-liked drawing on the internet.

Our hero gets married. He is busy with work. He doesn't draw as much. He loses touch with the forums he used to visit. He forgets about his dream. He's too caught up in the frantic pace of life to dream.

And then he gets an email.

You see, his dream hadn't given up on him. All of that hard work. All of his drawings. All of it was leading to this email.

After years of work, of dreaming, but most importantly of doing, he was about to be offered the chance of a lifetime. An artist at Topps loved his concepts and wanted to sell them to the company to use in the latest series of trading cards.

After decades of doing, actively working to make his dream happen, my husband got to see his drawing on a Garbage Pail Kids card.

That's how you beat January. You do. You toss off the blankets. You let your Sleepy Hollow episodes wait in the DVR and you do. Even something small. Because the dreams you have while curled up under your fleece blanket have every possibility of coming true, you just have to put down the mug of delicious chocolate tea and pick up your pen, open your Word Document, paint brush, etc and get started.

And if you needed any further encouragement, here's the trailer for the Minikins figures they made from the latest series of trading card. The trailer features the character my husband created.


Dreams are only impossible when you fail to try. Sorry, Ichabod, we've got a date for next week. This week its all about my manuscript. You understand. You've got a good work ethic.

What Acting Taught Me About Rejection

I’ve been querying my first novel for a little while now. So far, the response has been good: three requests for manuscripts out of about fifteen queries. Out of those three requests, so far, I’ve got two rejections. One of them just came in today. 

Of course, I had the obligatory freak-out this morning when I saw the email in my inbox from the agency that requested my manuscript. 

“Nope!” I declared over email to Genn and Angel. “Nope, I won’t look at it. Won’t peek! Not til later, with wine in hand and boyfriend massaging my shoulders.”

And then I got over it, and read it. Yep, it was a rejection. The agent did kindly give some feedback, which I massively appreciated. But, of course, I wanted her to love my book. I wanted excitement, thrills, compliments. I wanted a yes. That’s not what I got. Most of the time in life, that’s not what I get.

Rejection and I are on really, really comfortable terms. I’m an actress as well as a writer. Which means there are two whole realms where I have opportunities for rejection on a massive scale. 

When you get rejected as an actor, it’s not about some artistic work that's outside of yourself. It’s about you as a person—how you look, how you behave, how you walk into a room. Acting—especially for things like commercials—is less about playing a constructed character and more about being the most distilled version of yourself that you can be. And you’d better hope the casting people like that version. Especially in the commercial arena, if you’re decent enough at the sheer craft, they reject you because you’re just not enough of the type that they’re looking for. Your “you” is just not what they want.

Which sometimes leads me to wonder whether I'm actually believable as a human being.

This week I did two auditions. I probably won’t get cast in either of them. I’ve had what I felt were fantastic auditions and not gotten so much as a callback. I’ve poured my heart out in rooms where the auditioners were eating lunch and gazing at their iPhones. I’ve been met with a curt “thanks” and no eye contact. I’ve gotten passed over for commercials, voiceovers, plays, indie films…pretty much every kind of acting project there is, I have gotten not cast in it.

But I’ve also gotten cast--kind of a lot, especially in the past year. There’s a “yes” hidden in every big pile of “no’s” I come up against. Which is why it’s so important to just move on. To do an audition, and then immediately start thinking about the next one. 

I like to be a shark. Sharks have to keep swimming, or they can’t breathe and they die. I keep swimming.

Yup...that's me.

I've been handling deeply personal rejection on a more-or-less weekly basis since getting into acting--and if I can cope with that, I can cope with rejection in this area, too. That’s not to say it doesn't hurt, though. I think what's going to get to me the most is the brief flash of hope--you know, the one that goes "OMG MY LIFE COULD CHANGE!!!" just before opening an email. Because a letdown from that hope can be a painful thing, even if it's just momentary. 

But still. When I opened the email, I was ready for a devastating emotional response. Instead, what I felt was this:

Oh. Look at that. Someone's taking a pass on my work. Biiiiig surprise. NEXT.

And then I sent out five more query letters. Because that's what sharks do.

2013: the year that almost broke me

2013 was a big year of almosts for me. In some ways those almosts really almost broke me. Which sounds silly thinking about it now. This good thing almost happened. This really exciting thing almost happened. And didn't. It's silly because let's be honest, how lucky was I to be so fortunate to have such great things almost happen? Yeah, they didn't happen. But, in some respects it was getting to that almost stage that was the real achievement. Toward the end of 2013 I was beginning to lose my perspective on how far I'd come. How important my journey had been. How much I had achieved. All I could see was this big pile of almosts. This getting down to being the runner up in my own life. All these goals that I had come within a yard of making and faltered in the last few feet. Much like the lovely Juliette Barnes, I had my runner up face, my game face, down. In 2013 the biggest lesson I learnt was how to smile big to hide a bigger sadness.

I'm smiling because even when I don't win I'm fabulous.

Needless to say, it wasn't a good place to be. I fretted. I moaned far too much to Angel, Jenny and my poor suffering husband. I was terrible to be around. I put on my game face and got through the day and then at night I would cry. A lot. I had a bout with depression. In short, 2013 very nearly defeated me. If I had taken my 1984 test*, I am sure I would have failed. For the first time since 2005. 

If the year had ended with just these big almosts in the good column I might have lost all perspective. All focus on everything. I could have very easily gotten lost in my own misery.

But in the last few days of 2013 I almost lost someone very close to me. That almost was the one that broke me. After spending a holiday in and out of hospitals and welcoming the new year with a very firm understanding of just how fragile life is, I felt for the first time in a long time that I got it.

Almost is set up to test you. Almost is there to remind you just how much you want something. It's there to make you reach out and pull those you love close to you. It's the word that reminds you to call your parents more. Tell people you love them more. Almost is your reminder that no matter where things are right now they can always be better or a lot worse.

Almost is not just a word; it's a place. A waiting room. A hospital. It's the distance from one end of a phone to another. Almost is heartbeat. Almost is an ache deep in your chest. Almost is all the tears you hold back because you can't let them go. Almost is hope so big and bright it burns like a bonfire.

I'm not going to go into exactly what happened because that's a bit too personal. But let's just leave it at this: for the first time in a year I woke up. After a year of allowing the positive almosts to break me, it took one big, "this can't be happening, oh God, this can't be happening" almost to save me. To remind me to be grateful for the incredible things I am lucky enough to have. To give me the clarity to reach out to those people I love and hold them close. Closer then I have for far too long. To remind them that I love them. That even if they do the most insane things, I still love them and only want what's best for them.

2013 was a year of almosts. A year of possibilities. I am grateful now for the almosts in my life. For the ability to hope and dream. For the reminder to hold my family and friends close and to say all the things I never get around to saying. Because almost is better then too late.

*My 1984 test is based on my re-reading of the classic Orwell novel. When I read the book as a teenager I couldn't understand how the Winston, the narrator, accepts the totalitarian regime. How he allows himself to be a cog in the propaganda factory. I cheered when he realised that there was a bigger cause worth fighting for. I sobbed at the end when . . . well, you know. When I read the book again in my early 20s while working at my first office job I had a completely different opinion. I couldn't fathom why Winston would want to make waves and give up his decent (albeit soul crushing) life for the promise of something better. I decided after that re-reading of 1984 that if I was in a place where I believed Winston made the wrong decision in his life by trying to fight for change I was in trouble. I'm due for a re-read of 1984 later this year which I'll blog about. 

Saying Goodbye (And Thanks!) to 2013

30 wasn’t an easy birthday for me. At that point in my life, I had a few drafts of novels that were in no way ready to be shown around, no acting career to speak of, no writing career (aside from the day job, which I’m eternally grateful for), and I was feeling pretty down on myself. I had this idea about what I should reasonably have accomplished by the age of 30 (which hadn’t changed since I was a teenager)—and it was pretty much everything.

And I wasn’t down on myself just because I’d failed to tick off all the important boxes by this age. I was upset because I just didn’t see myself actually being the person I wanted to be. The person who set a goal and rocked it. At that point in my life, there was pretty much zero rocking of things going on.

A good friend of mine who’s in his 40’s told me that your thirties is the decade where you become that person you kept trying to be in your 20’s. I didn’t feel that optimistic about that back then. 2013 was the first year where I finally started to feel like he might be right.

This was a great year for me. My acting career is moving—I got a ton of work last year, finally (!!) after struggling for years. Nothing big and high-profile, but all stuff I’m proud of and excited about. (Plus, I finally have an acting website I’m psyched about).

Even better, though, I finally have an agent-ready novel. (Well, mostly ready. I still have to rewrite a couple scenes and tweak the ending and GAHHH THE WORK IS NEVER DONE!!!). But I’m making final tweaks and getting it out by the end of January. I’ve already sent out a few preliminary emails and got a full manuscript request. (Eek + Woot!!)

Most of my goals for the new year involve novels: I want to get a second novel agent-ready and write a first draft of a new one by the end of the year, in addition to trying to land an agent for the first. Acting is going strong; I’d like to book more work and get involved in some fun creative projects. And poetry! I want to finally write those two chapbooks I keep promising.

Plus, there’s the little issue of that half-marathon my drunk self committed me to before my sober self could have any say.

So it’ll be a busy year. Hopefully one full of creative fulfillment, success, friends and family.

Happy New Year!

We're Back!

Well, we fell off the grid there for a bit at the end of 2013. Something about NaNo and word counts and then December. Let's blame it on the egg nog or better yet, mulled wine! Or my annual trip home to New York. I find it very hard to blog when I'm catching up with family, friends and marathoning whatever TV show I somehow I missed. (Guys, did you know about this show called Ray Donovan? It's so bad it's good!) But all that was so 2013.

Fresh off our annual wine fueled reunion writing retreat over New Year, we are happy to be back in the blogging saddle. Jenny, Angel and I have had a writing retreat over Christmas break every year since 2009. Ever since uni, we've been writing, editing, and chatting about all things bookish, pop culture, fangirlish and fascinating. Whenever an email pings into my mailbox from Jenny or Angel, I know I'm going to get an update on something brilliant. From books I have to read, articles that make me think, YouTube videos that make me laugh or sometimes even cry, arguments about which relationships in Game of Thrones to Ship (Brienne and Jamie Lannister and don't get me started on the loss of the great Khal Drogo!). So, this year, we decided we'd carry that conversation over to the blog in our own way. With less structured content, some proper fangirling out and even some more serious posts. Pretty much, think of this as our email to you of all things interesting on the internet.

This year you can find new posts from us every Tuesday and Thursday. I'll be blogging something relating to my new work in progress, querying, getting fit (I'm training for a half-marathon this year with Jenny!), what I'm reading, all things YA and mythological, a rant or two I'm sure will make an appearance over the course of the year and of course my general fangirlness. How have I not written about Emma Approved yet? I feel a blog post might be in the very near future. Anyway, you can find new blog posts from me every Tuesday. Jenny will be blogging on Thursdays. And Angel will be popping in from time to time to tell you all about what's going on in her life, writing and reading.

We'll even have some read along (and re-reads) later in the year. Oh Jericho Barrons how I've missed you!

But for now, I have to clean my flat. Nothing says, "my flat is a tip" quite like being on holiday for three weeks. Sigh.

See you all next week.