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How I love days set aside for nothing but uninterrupted, focused, dedicated, thesis-writing! I get so much housework done....

Lolloping Dogs and Existential Angst

Belfast is an unlovely city, haphazardly stitched with areas of such outstanding natural beauty that, periodically, I get what Anne Shirley (that’s the one from Green Gables, for those who don’t know. And, really, people who don’t know – you should fix that) once called “the queer ache”.  I’m a reasonable woman and I’m prepared to admit that if I’d read that line for the first time at any stage post-adolescence (chronic emotional immaturity notwithstanding) I probably would have snickered too (don’t lie: you snickered). But regardless of the shifting linguistic semantics, it remains the only time I’ve ever seen that experience recognized and put into words: that pang of anomalous sadness when you see something so lovely you can hardly find the words to describe it. Like, for example, when you crest a hill in Belvoir Forest Park and the first and only thing you register for a couple of seconds is the thick blanket of bluebells that absolutely weren’t there three days ago.

And then having one’s dog lollop through them. That kind of killed the effect.

Yes, I did spend a bit of time today reflecting on the hilarious quirk of fate that accidentally obtained me a lolloping, loopy dog after I’d written a lolloping, loopy dog into one of my novels that basically sets off the entire chain of events in a Very Bad Way (gasp! What happens? How does the dog make Very Bad Things happen? Who does it happen to and why? Visit my website at www.rachaelkelly.com for the thrilling account in The Edge of Heaven! Coming soon to all good bookshops!). And to be honest, some days (most days) (okay, every day) I wouldn’t be overly surprised if Jasper did bring about the Apocalypse, with a great big doggy grin on his face and his tongue hanging out. Extensive, enthusiastic stupidity: thy name is Jasper.

Well, I had good intentions today and I still do: I’m juuuuuust updating my blog and then I’m getting stuck straight back into Edge. As a reminder to myself, I have retitled the version that I’m working on thusly: The Edge of Heaven Draft 6 24.04.11 – THIS IS THE ONE. I scared myself the last time I sat down to do rewrites because I got the idea from somewhere that the central story didn’t work. That’s kind of a big thing to be wrong with it. Especially when it’s not actually wrong with it. The central story works just fine. But, unsurprisingly, trying to hang the entire freakin’ novel on a different premise proved, well, challenging. Happily, this is the only time in the novel’s extended history that this impulse has visited me and I’ve decided that, if ever a time machine is invented, I’m going to nip back to 2009 and smack that summer’s Rach soundly over the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

No, Summer-2009-Rach. No!

But, unfortunately, the scaredy-cat-runny-away-thing that I did back then means that I need to start again from scratch; there is no point in trying to head back to the point I left off before because (a) I don’t know how much damage has been done and (b) hey, my novel is Deep. Lots of stuff goes on in it. I need to get back up to speed. But I’m snipping and trimming along the way and I’m actually (whisper it) feeling pretty happy about it.

So, more big thanks to my lovely friend for posting a link to YouTube, which I’m going to link again here. I’m going to have another little watch off it before I gird my loins and get stuck into edits.

Do Something. Do Anything. Yes. Yes, I shall, stick animation, for you are wise and full of win.

What I did was, I submitted a short story to a magazine. Haven’t done that for a while. Gonna do another one tonight, or, at a push, tomorrow at the latest. Because, really, what’s the worst that could happen? If they say no, then I move on to another magazine. If they say yes, then angels descend from heaven singing the Hallelujah chorus, peace obtains between the nations of the world, swords are turned into ploughshares, and my dog and two cats run like blue blazes for shelter as I crumble buildings and shatter glass with my squee.

Big shout-out also has to go to my long-suffering mother, who had to deal with a dose of the Troubled Artist late on Friday night (“But, Mummy, really, what if I’m no good? I’m. Just. So. SCAAAAARRRREEEDDDDD!!!!”), and who managed me with her usual aplomb (“Get off your arse and do something. Go and do it now.”). I would not like to have to deal with me when I have a case of the existential angst, but apparently all was forgiven years ago when I won the Orange Northern Woman Short Story Award for Long Anna River, and spoke the immortal words, “I just want to thank my Mum for all her support.” Publishers and agents: a mother-daughter relationship hangs in the balance. Won’t you give me the chance to top up the goodwill again with a bit of, This book is dedicated to my Mum? Go on. I’ll give you cake….

On Fear

“It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality” – Virginia Woolf

Today has been a good day.

For a start, I managed to only lose half of it to reading fanfic, and have, as a result been feeling supremely virtuous, diligent, and self-disciplined. I have made some (minor) headway on my paper, I’ve got some kinks ironed out in the website, I’m reconnecting with my fictional characters, and my lovely friend posted a reply on my Facebook page (where I’d posted a link to the website: self-promotion FTW) telling me she thought it was wonderful and had no idea I was such a ‘prolific writer’.

‘Prolific writer’. Verbatim. I cannot tell you how much I needed to hear that.

See, here’s the thing. Since I was tiny, I’ve always written. If anyone has visited the Bio on my website (and if not, why not? Go now! Nah, I’m just kidding: stay here and listen to me witter for a bit…), then they will know that I wrote my first “novel” at the age of five. Yes, I do the air quotes when I say it out loud as well, but it meant a lot to me back then. Writing isn’t something I do, it’s something I am. I read, years ago, about finding your Flow – the thing you do just for the sheer joy of doing it, for getting lost in it. That’s writing, for me. Without it, I’m diminished, as though something very fundamental is missing from my life. And I do believe that’s part of what scares me, because this feeling is like being on fire, it’s like being in love. It’s like jumping off a cliff with no idea if the pool below is deep enough to cushion the fall, or if I’ll go careening at breakneck speed into rocks hidden beneath the waterline. There have been other things, Big Things, going on for me over the past number of years, things that have needed to be worked through, and I’m not sure I had enough room in my heart to make space for this level of, well, obsession as well. I kind of feel like I turned my back on a fundamental part of me, because I didn’t have it in me to give into it properly. And now that’s a little bit tinged with regret, because here I am, older and (hopefully) wiser, and I’ve been denying something that I need the same way I need air and sleep.

Wow. Sorry. Deep.

But my best friend and I had a long conversation last night about fear and self-confidence, and the triumph of the one over the other. My doctoral viva, almost two months ago, was not a particularly positive experience (I passed, but with substantial revisions to make) and it was only last night, talking to C, that I realised just how much of a blow it had been. The thing is, I have it on good authority that every single doctoral candidate walks into the room terrified that their work isn’t good enough, and, for the vast majority of them, that turns out to be entirely unfounded. And, technically, it was unfounded for me: the feedback I got was positive – I have a publisher for my thesis, for heaven’s sake – but the fact is, there was a lot that my examiners decided they wanted me to do differently. It’s like having all your worst fears confirmed. God, I hope this is good enough. I really don’t think it’s good enough. I’m terrified it’s not good enough…

Oh.

It’s not.

This is my thesis. My baby. Three years’ work and counting; a lifetime’s preparation and love and Fangirly adoration. To hear that it’s fallen short of the ideal has been an absolute blow to the core of me, and it’s been incredibly difficult to come back from it. I will – I do – I am. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’m some kind of delicate, fading flower that can’t take criticism, because that would bode very badly for a future in (a) academia and (b) writing, both of which would bode badly for my sense of self. I will come back from this; it was simply a question of connecting with the fact that I’d been knocked away from it in the first place. It would take a lot to knock me out altogether, and I want this badly.

But not quite as much as I want to see my novels in print. And, by finding other things to do with my time; by not making space for this burning desire; by allowing the Angel to whisper in my ear; by procrastinating and prevaricating and letting years slip by without trying, what I’ve accomplished is a soft cushion of certainty that I have not failed to get them published. How can you fail to achieve something when you don’t try?

It’s scary. It’s huge and scary and it terrifies me in a way that nothing else does. But that’s not a good enough reason anymore…

Look at Me, Ma! I'm Blogging!

Well, here I am on the internet, a lone voice crying in the wilderness. If anyone's reading this, hello!!! And I mean that in the slightly maniacal way it sounds as I haven't really been on Blogger long enough to have any friends yet so I'm a little bit starved for attention.

Why am I blogging? Well, my lovely shiny, brand-spanking-new website is now up and running at www.rachaelkelly.com  and this will be where I feed news of my adventures in publishing to that site. It's time to get serious about getting my novels into print - some of them have been hanging around, completely finished, for ten years now. I write sci-fi. If I don't get my thumb out, it's not going to be sci-fi so much as social realism by the time they see the light of day.

Also, I'm finishing up my thesis at the moment and, while that technically means I have *no* time on my hands, what that translates to in real terms is that I spend most of my life online. I might as well so something productive with my feverish procrastination.

In exciting, thesis-related news, though, I have a publisher for the little darling when it comes out of the other end of this extended brain fart I'm currently experiencing. Very, very exciting. My baby's gonna be a book!!! I don't want to say anything more than that for now as no contracts have been signed and I don't want anyone to get spooked. But holy, mother-lovin' yay!

So, hi internet, this is me. I'm Rach and I will be sporadic and undisciplined at best regarding this blogging lark. I will probably segue off into all kinds of non-writing related stuff, although I will try to save excitable fangirly stuff for my other blog.  But sometimes I just want to get all enthusiastic and squee in the hope that someone is listening. My family may even pay you for this service; it's either that or choke me until I stop talking some days.

Other stuff that I will certainly wax lyrical about is thesis-y related things, probably a lot about Mark Antony and Cleopatra (they are my guys. I own them. Back off), the novel that I'm working on which isn't the novel I should be working on - or in fact, the thesis I should be working on, and the indignity of job-hunting with an almost-PhD. Hopefully one day soon that will become the indignity of job-hunting with an actual PhD, but that would involve me finishing the damn thing...

Watch me! Follow me! Be my friend! And then, three years from now, you can say, "Oh yes, of course I used to follow her blog before she was famous..." and everyone will be all like, "Wow, you are the awesome!" Also, I have cake. Virtual cake. Okay, I don't have cake, but I'd give you cake if I had some...