I was tagged by my lovely friend Mel Davies, over there on the other side of the world, basking in the Western Australian sunshine, rollerskating, reading loads, barbecuing prawns with her fiancé on a regular basis and writing her fab blog lipstickhoney.com - you can read her post here. She asked me first if I would be happy to be tagged; 'Sure,' I said, 'always up for a new game', I said. Well, I hadn't prepared myself for the pressure of writing a structured response to pre-set questions; this was like university essay writing all over again, but without the massive amount of caffeine, ability to quote copiously and a pressing 9am deadline. What could I possibly write that would be interesting, witty, thought provoking or slightly contentious as per my usual fare? How could I join in on a game of blog-tag with no-one to tag at the end and nothing to say in the middle? The questions are about my writing process and its painfully clear that I don't have one! Of course, the pressure became too great and I just decided to ignore it until it went away, but then the guilt crept in and the thought of letting the side down and letting the Aussies win became overpowering - I WILL complete the task, I WILL retain the Ashes. (note: Mel isn't actually Australian, but the metaphor was working for me, so I stuck with it). So here we go...
Q1 - What am I working on?
Right now I am working on this blog post, and to be honest that's about as far as my writing-working ever goes. I often think I might write a book, but after the opening chapter (paragraph) my mind goes blank or I get a bit bored, I just don't think that far ahead with writing. As such, as far as "working on" is concerned, its really a "written in one sitting" experience for me. My blog is an outlet for the mists of miscellany that swirl around in my brain day by day: once the words are out the job is done, I don't have ongoing writing projects. That said, I have written several guest blogs for fittamamma.com which have an underlying theme holding them together, but each was written independently of the others.
Q2 - How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Tricky thing, genre. Such an easy word to bandy about, great if you're Stephen King and write thrillers or George R R Martin and write fantasy (or, more accurately, you're George R R Martin and you resolutely DON'T write fantasy, you fanny around taking YEARS to write nothing at all). I write whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like writing it, whether that may be loosely political, or deeply personal or complete rubbish. I suppose you might just about put me under the nice broad heading of "social commentary" but that is probably stretching a point. I think I shall choose to consider my writing style as 'uncategorisable' and be done with it.
Q3 - Why do I write what I do?
There's a quote from a film which springs to mind in answer to this question, which may seem completely irrelevant but I'll get there eventually...
Hannibal Lecter: No! He covets. That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer now.
Clarice Starling: No. We just...
Hannibal Lecter: No. We begin by coveting what we see every day.
Q4 - What is my writing process?
As someone who is meticulously organised in my day job, as far as writing is concerned I consider it a leisure activity, a way to clear my mind of the worries that have built up and as such I don't plan, I don't prepare or research, I just write and when I've written enough I stop writing. I will always re-read several times to ensure I haven't made any ridiculous typing errors, but I'm not infallible and I do sometimes write things that I later wish I had worded differently, or not said at all, and sometimes I write so late at night that the next morning I realise it doesn't actually make all that much sense anyway. I am very self-critical, but as this blog exists as an outlet for my worries and anxieties, its somewhat self-defeating to analyse it too much, because then I would have to write a blog entry about how anxious reading my blog has made me... and then reality might start to twist a little. Ultimately, I write for pleasure, and I absolutely don't have the time to add anything in to the mix that makes it less pleasurable, like a carefully planned structure, or any kind of advance thought process; I like to live life right on the edge.
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And the final part of the blog-hop is that I am supposed to tag someone new to answer these questions in their blog, in the merry tradition of the chain letter - well I'm rubbish and don't really know that many bloggers and I'm not allowed to tag Mel back again. So instead I am going to make some recommendations of people whose work you should definitely read, without asking them first and without asking them to join in the game, because I can't pass the anxiety I've experienced on to someone else! (But of course, should any of you wish to respond, please do!)
- I've mentioned before my wonderful friend who writes a blog about living with diabetes, and I would strongly encourage you to read it at www.insulinindependent.com (@T1diabetesblog) - she is truly inspirational and her posts are warm, intelligent and funny; she is very well respected in the blogging community and her blog was voted one of the Top 10 UK diabetes blogs in 2011, which is pretty stupendous!
- My second mention goes to my darling little brother Alexander and his blog theworldandotheranimals.wordpress.com. He is 21, a German and Politics student at Bristol University, currently in Berlin for a year doing something useful I'm sure. His blog is mainly about politics'n'stuff, and he uses far too many long words for my taste (why be wordy when you can be verbose?), but he's very smart and up to date with current affairs and, biased though I may be, I think he's Great (geddit?).
- And finally, of course, you should read all the blogs at fittamamma.com, some of them written by yours truly (shamefully few in fact, yet another thing I have been burying my head in the sand about!). Lots of people contribute different posts to the fittamamma blog: exercise experts, fitness bloggers, midwives, yoga teachers, pregnant women, recently pregnant women... the whole site is a really useful resource, so check it out.
So, I have completed my great challenge unscathed! Normal service can now resume :)
K x
