Hype...

Totals...Twitter 12 Tweets ... Facebook...1 status updates ...blog entry...one in progress...actual productive writing of my novel...nothing I'm editing! Cups of coffee...1 Cupcakes ...1
Music mostly on my itunes this evening; Snow Patrol, James Morrison.

I suppose it had to happen eventually and all this talk about Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L James had to get the better of my curiosity. There has been so much hype over this book, trending on twitter, Facebook followers and countless articles on the Internet and in print it's been difficult to avoid.  The fact that it originated as fan fiction in homage to The Twilight Saga brought to life by Stephanie Meyer is probably what drew me to it, it would be interesting to know her thoughts on this - though I can say having read all four books in The Twilight Saga and all three books in the E.L James trilogy I fail to see the link. Obviously changes have been made since the early days of it being more geared to being fan fiction but I would be concerned if the target audience of The Twilight Saga seek out Fifty Shades of Grey.
In my honest opinion (for what it counts for!) Fifty Shades of Grey is not the usual type of book I would read but I succumbed to the hype and decided to make my own mind up! It's not the worst book I've read but it certainly isn't the best book either, there are lines in there that are (and again in my own opinion I do not wish to offend) that are so overused they are uncomfortable to read, and to say that the main character has issues is a vast understatement!
However the success story for this self published story is something to be very impressed with and just goes to show the power that social networking sites for example have on our reading habits these days it's certainly impressive, all that and the talk of turning this now into a film is nothing to be sneezed at! So while I am dubious about whether or not the story content is my thing I have to admire and applaud the success it's received and only hope that if this is the route I end up choosing for my writing that I can write something equally as captivating to such a wide audience.

Any way enough of that! Moving on from that some welcome relief in the form of a picture taken by my brother who currently lives in France, something so cute I felt the need to share...

This is Colin (don't ask!) he is a french dormouse and is a protected species and was very nearly eaten by my brother's two cats, he has informed me (my brother not Colin) that he has spoken to the cats and explained that they are not to eat Colin. I'm not entirely sure they are going to listen to him but I sincerely hope for Colin's sake that they do!

Small world...

Totals...Twitter 3 Tweets ... Facebook...1 status updates ...blog entry...one in progress...actual productive writing of my novel...600 words, Cups of coffee...1 (then substituted with peppermint tea) Cupcakes ...1
Music mostly on my itunes this evening; Matt Cardle, Snow Patrol.

There is plenty of random ramblings to follow, but I thought to start with I should talk about my reasons for today's title. Through the brief amount of time that I have been blogging, tweeting and various other things to try and make connections with fellow writers nothing has surprised me more than how small the world now seems. Already I have made connections with people in America, Canada, Ireland and too many places to mention here that far exceed the amount of places I have physically visited in my time on the planet. Believe me I would love to get to all of these places, I am a frustrated traveller - a little too nervous to travel alone so live vicariously most of the time through books and blogs.
Don't get me wrong I don't think this is a bad thing at all and it has truly opened my eyes reading about others experiences and perhaps learning and taking on board some advice. I think sometimes it is hard to make family and friends and colleagues (those of us still with day jobs) understand about the sometimes weird, wonderful and frustrating world of writing because although I may be excited about the fact that I wrote 1000 words today, it's not necessarily going to be a feeling shared but people in my life who don't write.
So for now and for as long as I am able to I am going to embrace ways to make connections, ask questions and interact with like minded individuals that understand that sometimes it would be great to have someone say 1000 words wow you must be really pleased, because yes I am!

OK as for the rest of my day it went a little like this, walking in the sunshine, drinking coffee, writing and another trip to the movies this time Bel Ami.

I have to say the reviews for this film weren't great so my expectations were not overly high, even thought I generally don't pay much attention to critics and prefer to make my own mind up about a film. I still enjoyed the film, for those very much in love with Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen in the Twilight series it's a very different role and I thought he did it well. It was certainly a brave choice of film and to be honest he's a bit of a sleazy womaniser who can't keep it in his pants for much of the film nothing much sparkling here. It was also great to see Christina Ricci on form, I think she's very talented and sadly under-rated. So all in all my movie going experiences this week have been successful which is good as its rubbish to get built up to go to the cinema only to walk away disappointed.

On my walk home I decided that I wanted some flowers and the only way I was going to get them was if I bought them myself so I did...

They will brighten up my desk and hopefully smell lovely.

The rest of my day was pretty uneventful but I am pleased to say now that the reason I was so happy and sworn to secrecy at the weekend was due to one of my best friends being proposed to. I couldn't be more happy for her she has met a really nice guy and I hope if she reads this she won't mind me saying but I have never seen her happier than this and wish them both a lifetime of happiness together.

On that note it is me pretty much done for today, a day at my desk tomorrow but for studying purposes rather than writing, although if I am productive I am sure I will manage to squeeze some writing in later in the day.

Goodnight.

Inspired

Writing...Twitter (6 tweets so far...including re-tweets) Facebook...1 status update ...blog entry...one in progress...actual productive writing of my novel...2,000 words, Cups of coffee...2 Cupcakes ...2 (see pictorial evidence below)

Music mostly on my itunes this evening; The Script - The Script & Science and Faith, Snow Patrol - Best of up to now.

At last, I'm feeling particularly pleased with myself today after having a very productive day and have only stopped writing because I need to make myself stop in the hope that I will feel as inspired tomorrow and produce similar results. To prove my statement above after sadly neglecting the amazingness of cupcakes here is where my inspiration started this morning...

This just got better from here,  the only distraction being from a lady that sat one table away who thought that the whole coffee shop wanted to be in on her conversation - had it been interesting perhaps I could have used it...unfortunately it wasn't so I turned up my music in order to drown her out and continued. My fingers actually ache so I'm taking that as a sign that its been a good day after my negativity yesterday.

I even managed to fit in a trip to the cinema in the name of...research? Or just the fact that I wanted to go and watch a film when it was quiet, just as well really as I blubbed like a baby while watching "The Vow" and I'm not really sure it's a good idea to go to the cinema alone to watch such films...think I may need a shoulder to cry on for the next one! In any case the trailer is below in case you feel like checking it out, just take some tissues!



Even after the film I came home and continued writing when I'm not normally able to write anything at home (normally due to too many distractions more than anything else) and only stopped to make dinner and to help out housemate - which consisted of driving around the city to find an address to leave her car then bring her home in my car, only problem was we lost each other and she had the sat nav and neither of us knew where we were going. Consequently even with the sat nav we couldn't find the address, so after driving around aimlessly for almost forty minutes we gave up and both drove home again. After dinner I even wrote for another thirty minutes before deciding to stop in order to have an already primed starting point for tomorrow.
Thankfully today has restored my faith that I will make my deadline and although returning to the day job on Friday at least I'm back on track!
Now all I need to do is to tell my brain it's time to switch off...any suggestions?