Tag Archives: writing

Wintering

Posted on by vgemmell

A quote caught my attention recently on LinkedIn where a writer referenced Laura Strom (who is part of a Regenerative Leadership group) where she described ‘Wintering’ : ‘Wintering and resting are timeless practices that invite us to slow down, reconnect with inner nature, and tap into the depths of our creative cauldron. In a world that glorifies constant productivity and ceaseless activity, intentional rest becomes an act of rebellion, a means to disrupt the status quo. It is through rest that we challenge the notion that our worth is solely defined by our achievements and productivity.’ I’m aware author Katherine May has also penned a book called Wintering (which I’ve never read, have you? ) and I suspect from reading the blurb, it will follow a similar philosophy to the quote above.

As soon as we hit Autumn, and the days shorten, my body goes into a bit of hibernation mode. After I launched my latest book in August my automatic thoughts turned to ‘hurry up and get on with the next project’ but this is the first time for a while I have yet to actually start the next project and I’m giving myself permission to take a bit of a break. I have plenty of ideas zooming around my head which are often making it onto paper in scribbled note form. The ideas form two very different projects, which I think is a big reason why I am stalling as I can’t decide which to focus on and get on with! But I also do feel like I need a bit of a break.

I’m tired of logging into social media and wondering what to post. And I also haven’t posted on here in a while. I’ve got a day off today so decided it was time to log in to get some words down! I get so much fatigue from talking to people all day long in my day job I just crave a bit of silence sometimes from words and thoughts and often shy away from updating my social media feeds because I can’t even begin to think about how to be ‘engaging’. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but when I see other writers I follow post regularly about all the exciting things they are achieving I always think I should do better.

But then this line from the quote really resonated: ‘challenge the notion that our worth is solely defined by our achievements and productivity’

In the writing world sometimes I think we forget to post about the joy of just creating a wonderful character, or celebrating the days where we have crafted a bewitching line of narrative, or written a scene that suddenly comes together in a seamless way that makes you doubt you even wrote it… Even that sounds like focusing too much on productivity, but it’s the magical feeling of being swept up in words that keeps me returning to projects, or starting new projects, even if I’m feeling a bit tired and fatigued. Because I know how much enjoyment it brings me, when I’m in the middle of writing a book or a story that starts to come alive and almost wants to write itself. And during the days it doesn’t; that’s okay too. The words will always come.

The good thing about the darker evenings is the feeling that it is okay to want to stay indoors and curl up with a good book or good film/TV series and not think about doing too much else. I’ve been on a bit of a reading slump this year so I feel like I need to give myself permission to slow down and enjoy soaking up other peoples’ stories for a while, before I start my next one….

And actually I have been enjoying other peoples’ stories the past few weeks as I was asked to judge a short story competition for Greenock Writers’ group. I’ll be returning there this evening (after doing a talk there back in September). I’m very much looking forward to reading out my results, and hopefully meeting the winners. It was a very welcoming, enthusiastic group and it always reminds me that another aspect of the writing world I really enjoy is meeting up with other writers, and talking about writing!

Happy November, and here’s to giving ourselves permission over the next few months for some ‘Wintering’

Deviate from the plan

Posted on by vgemmell

I often say I know a book is working when my characters start to take over. This is why I believe you can plan a rough outline and key aspects of the plot, but you have to give your story and characters permission to deviate from the plan. Just like real life, you can try to plan ahead but often external factors will throw your plans into chaos, or often throw up something better/unexpected.

When creating fully formed characters, until you get to know them properly they’re not always going to fit into your plotlines. You’ll often see writers suggesting you construct ‘characters studies/profiles’ in advance – like what’s their favourite band, foods, key moments from their childhood, are they are a morning/afternoon person? Which can all be helpful, but until they turn up on your page and get stuck into the action of your story and start interacting with your other characters none of that is going to tell you much about where they fit in to the bigger picture of your plotlines.

For my first two YA mysteries my characters told me what was going to happen, meaning I had to deviate from my planned endings. Neither of the original endings felt right. They were both written in and left there for quite a while. I couldn’t quite figure out why the endings didn’t sit well with me until I asked myself ‘but would that character actually do that?’ And then I realised I hadn’t stayed true to them and as soon as I understood this and let go of my own pre-conceived ideas, and really listened to my subconscious, it was obvious they’d already laid out all of the clues for me. Yes, we writers really do have voices talking to us in our heads. An acceptable kind of madness, in this mad world of novel construction.

During the planning stages for Young Blood I always knew I would have two main teen protagonists, Ana and Hope. I wanted to have two contrasting personalities and two contrasting situations. Ana and Hope’s narratives run through alternate chapters. 16 year old Ana is part of a tight-knit family and hasn’t really faced many challenges in life, which gives her a bit of a self-absorbed naivety. The uncertainty of her mum’s potential early-onset dementia diagnosis really shakes up her world. She is also upset when her new friend Hope disappears, and tries to find out what happened to her.

When I first started to plan the story I always thought Ana would dominate as her determination to find out what happened to Hope is a key driver of the plot. But then when my character Hope started to take shape I think she took over a bit!

15 year old Hope’s world was torn apart when she lost her mum three years previously and she finds herself in the care system. Her experiences have been lonely and unsettling and Hope welcomes Ana’s friendship until she’s taken from school one day and finds herself in the ‘House.’

I found writing Hope’s character emotional and her strength and fire, along with her vulnerability, was something I tried really hard to capture throughout the book. Her close bond with Seb in the house, and other key characters inside, also helped to flesh out other aspects of her personality and I started to grow very fond of and protective of her. So far she is probably one of my favourite characters I have written.

Throughout the book Hope finds strength from her family’s tarot cards.

My sister-in-law who makes beautiful handmade silver jewellery (see ImiandtheDeer here) gave me great support with the structural edits of Young Blood (she is a former English teacher!) and half-joked about designing a necklace inspired by Hope as part of a new collection. I was blown away when she gifted me the beautiful ‘Hope’ pendant below at my book launch. The pendant is a one-of-a kind – a ruby set in the middle of a gold sunburst, inspired by the back of Hope’s tarot cards which have a ‘ruby red jewel in the centre of blazing suns burning bright.’

That’s me wearing it on a recent trip to Arran. It’s so lovely to have a piece of jewellery to wear inspired by one of my characters! It makes Hope seem even more real to me.

I’ll leave you with a longer extract from a scene with Hope below. Links to buy Young Blood are here

“A reassuring warmth flowed through my body as I was greeted with the familiar image of a lion with magnificent orange mane, a goddess with flowing fair hair gripping the chain wound around his neck. Strength: You have more strength, power, and courage than you know. I felt the tight knot of anger I’d been carrying around the past few weeks start to unravel as I remembered Mum’s instruction, any time she drew this card for me, tugging on my hair which matched the fire of the lion’s mane. You are the lion AND the goddess. You remember that.
I tucked the card into my schoolbooks for a good luck charm.
Tomorrow I was going to try to be both.”

Blog Feature

Posted on by vgemmell

I’m delighted to be featured on my Mum, Rosemary Gemmell’s blog today, which reveals a bit more about the inspiration and research behind Young Blood. You can read full the post here

I feel very lucky having the support from my mum. We both write and it’s great having someone to share work and writing experiences with. You can view the full range of books my Mum has written on her website above. Even although we write quite different things, with a different style, I always enjoy reading and editing her work, and really appreciate the feedback I receive on all of my work. Without the support with editing, technical advice and lots more, I don’t think Young Blood would ever have made it to the final stages!

Here’s a snippet below from the blog post, where I talk about the inspiration behind Young Blood:

What was the inspiration behind your new book?

My initial idea for Young Blood stemmed from an article I read, about an American start-up company ‘Ambrosia’ founded by a medical school graduate, Karmazin, in 2016 which sold ‘young blood plasma transfusions’ (from young people into older people).

Charging a large sum of money for these transfusions, they claimed a range of health benefits such as offering treatment for Alzheimer’s. In a pitch about Ambrosia at a self-enhancement conference in 2017, Karmazin said, “We’re a company interested in making you young again.”

This sparked off the idea of having a powerful doctor set up a premium club for wealthy individuals to access pure plasma transfusions, capturing young people from the care system to be the donors, maintaining a super-controlled environment within ‘the house’.

In my day job I work with vulnerable teenagers on a daily basis. I see how much uncertainty and instability young people in the care system can face and how depressingly easy it could be for them to ‘disappear’ and for powerful individuals in authority to cover this up

Charging a large sum of money for these transfusions, they claimed a range of health benefits such as offering treatment for Alzheimer’s. In a pitch about Ambrosia at a self-enhancement conference in 2017, Karmazin said, “We’re a company interested in making you young again.”

This sparked off the idea of having a powerful doctor set up a premium club for wealthy individuals to access pure plasma transfusions, capturing young people from the care system to be the donors, maintaining a super-controlled environment within ‘the house’.

In my day job I work with vulnerable teenagers on a daily basis. I see how much uncertainty and instability young people in the care system can face and how depressingly easy it could be for them to ‘disappear’ and for powerful individuals in authority to cover this up

If you continue to read through the interview you’ll see I have a dream director in mind if my books were ever made into films (we can all dream!!). I love the bold, quirky and eye-catching directorial style of Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn), so if you are reading this Emerald, get in touch 😉 I was delighted to see a crime writer I know share a photo of Young Blood on social media last week, saying it was a captivating read and that anyone commissioning films should check it out, so you never know! When I’m writing books I often see the story ‘playing out’ in my head like a film.

I had a great launch weekend last week for Young Blood. I’m going to post separately about that later in the week with some photos.

For now I will leave you with my book trailer

Creative adventures

Posted on by vgemmell

After what felt like a slow start to the year, Spring has raced forward at light speed (with some lovely sunshine along the way).

The past couple of months have been very busy for me as I’ve been working on final book edits, cover design chat, and more proofreads.

I also took part in the Paisley Book Festival Schools programme in April. This meant a lot to me as I lived in Paisley for many years and I wrote lots when I lived in the town. A couple of my flash fiction pieces were inspired by observations around town and I used to love sitting in cafes writing notes and reading and going wanders taking photographs of some of the beautiful buildings. I also wrote my first two books when I lived in Paisley.

Delivering creative writing workshops to a range of S1-S3 pupils was fun and I always love seeing what story ideas they come up with. As part of my sessions I had given the groups real-life news headlines for inspiration and the most popular one by far was ‘Girl finds criminal living in her attic.’ I really wanted to read the finished stories for that prompt!

School Workshop in action

After my workshops were over my husband and I headed across to the Isle of Arran, one of our favourite places to visit. We lucked out with the weather and it was so relaxing going walks along the beach and sitting outdoors for meals/drinks. I always think there is a real sense of calm on the Island and could happily spend weeks there writing and doing creative things (but sadly had to return home to my day job!!). Sometimes I dream about being successful enough to be a full-time writer and if it meant being able to spend more time hiding away on islands like this that would be the biggest motivator for me!

Beautiful Arran

Later this week I’m going to be doing a Cover Reveal for Young Blood, my new young adult crossover thriller and posting the trailer for this.

It’s always nerve-wracking releasing work out into the world but also exciting to see a project ‘come to life’ and now I can’t wait for the book to be published and story to be read.

Making things happen

Posted on by vgemmell
Image: Mysticsartdesign Pixabay

It’s the 1st of March and I’m happy to be waving goodbye to what has felt like a very long Winter this year. Spring is my favourite season, when the days and nights get a bit brighter, tulips and blossoms bloom, and there’s a sweet spot before my hayfever kicks in for the summer!

I’ve been quiet on here because ‘behind the scenes’ I’ve been putting the final touches together for my YA thriller, which I will post more about when I’m certain it’s going to be ready for my planned late Spring launch.

Since Christmas I’ve experienced a bit of a fiction book reading slump, which has felt strange. I don’t know if it’s because I’m so immersed in my own book developments, I’ve had to give myself a break away from others’ storytelling for a while. I have been dipping into some reflective poetry, as well as non-fiction works such as Roxie Nafousi’s ‘Manifest: Dive Deeper’.

I know some people think books about Manifesting are a bit woo-woo, but I love reading about different perspectives on this, and techniques, as I find it very motivating. At the core of any works about Manifesting is the reminder to make things happen and be grateful for what you already have. These are things I already know, but when self-doubt and imposter syndrome creeps in during the middle of big creative projects or when I’m asked to take part in writing events, I find these reminders are helpful to re-frame and ‘re-train’ my brain a bit.

I’ve written before about how the writing life can be full of ups and downs. When you work towards a dream goal of publication, then achieve it, there are still a lot of disappointments and challenges that can come your way.

During January I took part in Beth Kempton’s Meet the Writer challenge, and I already posted about the prompt my writing view here.

Another prompt was ‘Doorway’ and this allowed me to reflect on all of the ways in which writing has been a doorway for me into lots of rewarding experiences.

For me, my writing has taken me on so many adventures and enriched my life. I have forged a lot of really meaningful and important friendships through joining writing groups and attending conferences/events. I’ve met so many interesting writers and learned lots from them during conferences and writing groups (as well as getting to share a lot of great experiences with, and learn from, my writer Mum also!).

When my debut novel was released a doorway opened for me to engage with audiences. Over the years I have been fortunate to be invited to deliver talks, creative workshops and judge competitions in schools, colleges, local writing groups and community libraries, and was even lucky enough to land an interview with Teen Title magazine (with school pupils asking the questions). Interacting with others to encourage their creativity has become a big part of my writing life that I enjoy, and find rewarding.

My initial experiences allowed me to develop enough confidence to forge into new pathways through independent publishing and this of course is also full of ups and downs (with many a crisis in confidence often holding me back from making the most of it all). A few months ago I saw a reel on Instagram posted by Reese Witherspoon with her basically saying, ‘Don’t wait for the phone to ring.’ She of course set up her own production company, motivated by a frustration with a lack of decent roles for actresses of a certain age. She took control of her own success, not having to audition or wait for someone else to dictate. Seeing that quote reminded me that by taking control, even if it’s not a success, at least I am attempting to make things happen. The biggest plus of independent publishing is having full control over the process and I know exactly what is happening ‘behind the scenes’ because I have full access to my sales and data. (Which surprisingly, a lot of authors do not!). It now means if I try out any marketing or promotional activity, I get to see if it has any real impact.

The parts of Roxie’s Manifestation book which resonated with me most were the sections where she talks about how we ‘live in a culture of comparison’. (pg 199) (which social media fuels). Her reminders: ‘Stay in your own lane and keep laser-sharp focus on your own journey’ and her concluding words in that chapter ‘The only comparison you should be making is who you are today with who you were yesterday and who you want to be tomorrow.’ (pg. 202) is so true.

I find being connected to so many writers on social media can be a double-edged sword sometimes. I love engaging with creative individuals and can find it inspiring, motivating and encouraging, but there are days when seeing posts about sold-out signings, sales boasts, book tours ‘I’m on my twentieth book’, ‘I signed a three-year book deal with one of the big five’, makes me feel a bit…inadequate? But more and more I ask myself the question, but do I really want that? And often I don’t actually, because the thought of having to travel up and down the country to numerous book signings, and having the pressure from a big publisher of expectation and regular deadlines, right now is not what my book dream looks like.

I like how Roxie’s book also acknowledges when you start to get things you want, challenges will come up that you have to overcome. She talks about overcoming fear and reminds us we have the power to be whoever we want to be. A question in the book which stuck in my mind recently (as I hate dealing with the ‘business’ side of being an author) was What would the most empowered and confident version of yourself do? (pg. 160) It’s a really simple, but effective technique I’m going to try to adopt whenever I have a crisis in confidence when I need to ask important questions, or pick up the phone. (Which ironically I do every day in my other day job with confidence in spades).

When I look back on the writer I was ‘yesterday’ i.e. many years ago when I was starting out, I think she’d be pretty excited to know everything that was ahead, and hopefully still to come!

Happy New Year

Posted on by vgemmell

Happy 2024! The Christmas decorations are packed away, the chocolate boxes are in the recycling bin and early morning commutes in the dark have resumed. Returning to the day job makes me appreciate my Fridays off even more, when I get to dive back into my creative bubble.

I hadn’t intended to set myself any big writing goals or challenges this month. Really doing anything remotely productive in January is a win for me!

But then my friend Rebecca, aka, designer Dainty Dora (you can check out her awesome website here) tagged me in an Instagram ‘meet the writer’ challenge, created by the writer Beth Kempton over on Instagram (@bethkempton) The challenge runs for 15 days and has daily prompts to encourage writers to post insights into our creative lives. (I realised my first blog post of 2023 also mentions Beth when I referred to her book ‘The Way of the Fearless Writer.’ See here)

Instagram is definitely my favourite social media channel as I like the visual aspect of it. I recently joined Threads but I’m pretty bad at consistent posting. I’m still much more comfortable in a blogging forum such as this when I want to put words out into the world. It makes sense as in the real world I’m much more into one-on-one longer conversations rather than small talk with a hundred people at a party (which social media often feels like to me!).

Anyway, as part of the Meet the Writer challenge I posted some photos of my writing ‘view’, which most often for me is the little pieces of art/quotes I have on my ‘creative/inspiration board’ that hangs above my desk so I’ve included them in this post. (As you can see there is a bit of a Paris theme – I love Paris and picked up the postcards/art magnet on visits).

Over the holidays I was judging a flash fiction competition for Erskine writers and I really enjoyed reading the 500 word stories. I love the challenge of writing a short piece of fiction, and I was delighted to see the range of excellent and creative stories the group had produced. It really inspired me, so when this month’s Furious Fiction challenge (from the Australian Writers’ Centre) landed in my email inbox I decided to give it a go. This challenge runs the first Friday of each month, and you are given specific words to include in a 500 word (max) story, and you have 55 hours to submit. It’s a great challenge to get words down. You can sign up to emails about it here

This month’s Writing Magazine included a 2024 Competition guide and this has also made me determined to write more short stories this year to submit. It’s easy to let novel length work dominate, but I find writing short work keeps my writing sharp and fresh!

Good luck if you have set yourself any 2024 goals.

I dwell in possibility

Posted on by vgemmell
Pixabay image by Syaibatulhamdi

It’s the last day in November and the last day of my writing challenge where I have used prompts every day (since the weekend I started) throughout the month to write a post on here.

Today’s prompt is to use the Emily Dickinson quote I dwell in possibility to write a poem, essay or story. I’m writing a straight forward post instead (though I guess it could be classed as an essay) as I feel this title is very apt to end on.

Successfully completing this challenge has reminded me it’s possible to make time, even if it’s just for an hour at the end of the day, to sit down and write, or focus on something creative. Waking up my imagination reminds me of the magic that exists in the everyday.

When I start a big project such as a novel, I love that feeling of anticipation, of not knowing exactly how a story is going to unfold or if I’m even going to be able to successfully transport what is in my head onto paper. Sadly it doesn’t always turn out the way I want it to – a bit like when you have a very vivid dream and it’s all so clear and you are sure you can relay it scene by scene, but something happens in those waking hours where you can’t quite capture the story in a cohesive way.

But then you tell yourself there are other dreams still to come, there are other stories that will be written. And it’s exciting thinking this could turn into something amazing, dazzling, which could be life-changing for you. Or at least sell and be read by a wider audience. Every time I hit send on a piece of work to a competition there is a sense of possibility – maybe, you never know…

My writing has enriched my life, not only be feeding my soul and giving me a feeling of purpose and drive, but by opening up a world where I’ve met so many interesting people – both other writers and readers, and creatives. It has taken me on adventures to schools, book shops, writing groups, conferences, community events, libraries, colleges and universities. It has kept me sane when the day job gets too intense, or real-life gets challenging. It has brought some of my best friends and best experiences into my life. It keeps me curious, and keeps me wanting to get better at my craft and try new things.

I saw a post on instagram earlier today with a quote from someone saying they were bored of reading the successful under 40 lists and they wanted to see stories of people later in life achieving their dreams, or striving for them. Someone in the comment section called @_d_u_n_e said in her tribe in Nigeria there is an adage which translates, ‘whenever a person wakes up, is their morning’

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow – each day I dwell in possibility.

A thank you to readers

Posted on by vgemmell
Pixabay image by Gerd Altmann

Today’s prompt is to ‘Write a thank you note to my readers’. A good place to start is to thank you for reading my blog post/s. As we hurtle towards the end of November my challenge of writing a post a day is drawing to a close. I really appreciate the messages a couple of friends have sent to say they’ve enjoyed the email alert with my post dropping in each day, and for comments on here. I mainly set this particular challenge to test myself and see if I was disciplined enough to do it, as well as get a bit more creative with my writing, but it’s nice to know it’s not all falling into an ether abyss!

In previous posts I’ve talked about how as a writer a large proportion of my time is obviously spent alone when getting words down on paper/screen, attempting to shape the ideas and characters filling my head into some kind of story that makes sense. If I’m lucky those words will then reach readers, and there’s nothing better when a reader then makes contact out of the blue to tell me my words/story/book has resonated with them. When a reader takes the time to tag me on social media with a positive message, send me a direct message, or write a review for my books it really means so much.

When I was thinking about writing this post it made me reflect on some of my favourite comments/messages I’ve had from readers and I have posted some below, because I think writers can be really bad at celebrating the ‘wins’ -not book awards- for me, these are my ‘wins’. Also during in-person events having teenage boys (who we are told don’t read anymore – actually they do!), tell me my book is their all-time favourite/that they were up till the early hours finishing it, means so much.

I loved this story, so sad and poignant. *** Heartbreaking and heartwarming, this one had me bawling (in a good way) *** What a powerful story. It brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for your beautiful words ***

(Lovely messages from readers who read my winning ‘School’ story in Writing Magazine last year)

This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I felt like I was living and breathing the story, and the characters were all so fascinating that at times it felt hypnotic…. Like all great books it’s the little things that make it special – this book has lots of special moments. Skilful dialogue, tension, dark tones and mystery… It’s the sort of book that readers mourn when they finish. (an early review for Follow Me that meant so much!)

IT WAS AMAZING!! I started it on Friday, and I couldn’t put it down!! I really, truly couldn’t stop reading, and I went to bed quite late over the past few nights because it was so good! Once you read one chapter, you HAVE to read another one, and another one, and another one. I loved it. (a heart-warming message a young person sent me after reading Follow Me after one of my earliest writer events)

I love love love your books ( a message from a reader who had just finished Promise Me)

I love your writing

Comments like these keep me going on the days I read my work and think it’s garbage, when I’m at the sticky middle of a project that feels like it’s sinking, when I question why I spend so much time in this mad world of my imagination when it really doesn’t always reap a lot of reward, when I’m tired and tell myself I’d rather spend my time doing a million other things that don’t involve sitting down and getting words on paper….

But then I remember the magic I felt at points of the story when it all started to come together, and when a reader tells me they felt a bit of that magic too, that is what makes all of this worth it. Thank you!

Public speaking

Posted on by vgemmell
Me, several years ago adjudicating and delivering my workshop at the Scottish Association of Writers conference

Today’s prompt is ‘Write about a time you had to speak to a large crowd’ And here’s a post about not just one time, but a few times…

When I was younger there were times when I really hated the thought of public speaking, and other occasions where I quite enjoyed it. This is sometimes the contradiction of being me- I often think I am a bit of a social introvert. Depending on circumstances you can get the ‘quiet’ me, or the ‘confident, communicative me’. (Often if there are very loud folk dominating the room you’ll only get to meet the ‘quiet me’, especially if you start making comments about how ‘I need to come out of my shell.’ No, actually, you need to go back in your shell).

I can think of two different occasions, a year apart in school in English where I had to do the ‘oral presentation’ part of the curriculum and the first time I was so nervous I barely looked up; the second time I was raring to go and had maps and diagrams up on the board. That was the first time I think I understood how to properly ‘command’ an audience.

Fast forward a few years to University and for most of my degree in Media and Communication I hated delivering presentations to my seminar groups. Then in my last year I got to deliver a presentation on a topic I had really researched and was enthused by – Post Modernity (and I got to talk about Andy Warhol as part of this). It was by far the best presentation I had delivered and some people came up at the end to tell me it was the first time they understood what that module was actually about. One woman ( who I didn’t really know that well as we had joint classes sometimes with social science students) was kind enough to say she was going to remember my name as she was positive I would be famous one day. (Still waiting, ha!). ‘First year me’ would have been shocked if I tried to reassure her this moment would happen and that I would get there in the end.

Fast forward another few years and I was back at University again, this time studying a post graduate one year course, training to become a careers adviser (my current day job). This was a very intense, full-on course which I loved. There was no time to feel shy or nervous; we all got thrown right in with client contact, even being filmed interviewing pupils (Uni got permission of course) and we then had to watch the recordings (and analyse them!!) together with our small crit groups so we could hone our practice. Another big part of the course was to get assessed delivering group work to classes in schools. During my first few years as a careers adviser I also had to deliver career talks to full assemblies, and more recently deliver a presentation to a packed room of parents.

Little did I know during my training and early years in the job how useful this experience was going to be for my other ‘career’. When you write for hours in isolation, often not speaking to anyone, (when I lived alone), you kind of forget what can happen when your work then gets published and your readers want to actually interact with you. I felt very fortunate when my first book was published to be invited to deliver creative writing workshops and author talks in both schools and in the community.

Talking to large groups of teenagers can be very unpredictable. You have to learn to ‘read the room’ pretty quickly, and at any group talk/session prepare for IT to fail. This has happened to me several times. One of my biggest author talks was to a full assembly hall of second years and the school IT system died just as they walked into the hall (so cue no flashy powerpoint presentation from me). The librarian who organised it was panicked, then relieved when I told her it was fine, I always had a back-up plan. (a careers adviser 101 rule). Another time the school IT systems decided to do updates on the library computer system.

I’ve had lots of great experiences talking to groups as part of my writing life. One of my favourite events was when I got to speak at a ‘Read to Succeed’ evening – this was to both young people and adults at a school and I was asked to tell them about the part reading played in me becoming a writer. So I got to speak from the heart and talk about two of my passions in life – reading and writing – and it was really one of the most enjoyable evenings I’ve had. One of the girls who attended that night found one of my author social media pages and sent me a message to tell me I had inspired her to start reading again, and maybe even try writing, and it was one of the best messages I’ve ever received in my writing life.

Another favourite experience was returning to the Scottish Association of Writers conference to deliver my adjudication for a competition I had been asked to judge (and deliver a creative workshop). I attended my first conference when I was 17 and returned over the years, winning my first ever writing competition there. (and winning meant reading your story in front of the packed conference which was a very scary moment at the time!). It meant a lot to return to the conference as an adjudicator and felt like a real ‘full circle’ moment.

The night that really topped all experiences of talking to a large group was launch night for ‘Follow Me’ at Waterstones. As any writer knows there are a lot of ups and downs in the writing life, and that night was definitely up there with one of my most memorable nights – mainly because it was so unique to have some many people I loved from so many walks of my life in the one room together, cheering me on as one of my ultimate dreams became a reality. I always joke that no matter what happens in my writing future, at least I have that night to remember!

And yes, I do still get scared and nervous when I speak to large crowds, but now I think I have learned to develop a ‘performance’ persona where I know I can get through it and actually enjoy the experience. And there’s nothing quite like the buzz of feeling like you have made a connection with the audience in some small way.

Sometimes we’re friends (a love letter to my body)

Posted on by vgemmell

The clue is in the title for today’s writing prompt. A personal post I wasn’t sure how to write, or how personal to get with it! But here’s the attempt below. The above image is by Adina Voicu (free for use on Pixabay)

We’ve had good times when we danced all night, walked for miles across cities that made me feel alive and connected. Dressed up, grew up, threw up, got tired, felt alive, felt self-conscious, felt betrayed, felt loved, understood what we wanted, asked for what we wanted, dressed up for them… then for us, only for us, to feel good.

You taught me that the millions of ‘miracle’ cosmetics trying to sell magic are garbage. With me and you, it’s hormones and genetics, and some decades I’m lucky and we’re balanced and in harmony, and sometimes things go off kilter and I don’t like you, because it feels like you’re fighting against me.

These days sometimes we’re definitely not friends – you seem to enjoy showing me any indulgent meal or snacks I’ve eaten, like you’re lecturing me, even although I’ve just given you salad and other healthy stuff for breakfast and lunch. You used to accept that pay- off but now you like to add on every chocolate bar to another wobble in my ass, and I take you on longer walks to try and placate you. Don’t get me started on the mornings when I look in the mirror and see the work you’ve done on my face overnight, spots erupting from nowhere. Seriously, what are we, seventeen again? At least now, I’m more in tune with what’s going on and I know this week you’re going to mess with me, but by next week we should be on track again. Maybe.

This year you really did a number on me, on the run-up to a day where the whole world (or so it felt) was waiting to see how beautiful we might be. Giving me skin allergies where my eyes puffed up so bad I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror. When a doctor told me, not once, but twice (during a standard appointment) that I was overweight. And I looked at you objectively, critically, and the curves I’d accepted as something new, no longer looked so pretty.

But here’s what you’ve taught me – to be sure of myself, even when I’m really not. Sometimes it feels like I’m back being seventeen, but at least now, me and you, we’ve been through so much, and you’ve taught me my worth. It really is deeper than skin.

You take me where I need to go. We can still dance all night, and walk for miles across cities that make me feel alive.

And when I look at you I see all of the imperfections but I also see the power and the beauty of being me.