The fictional mother...

A few weeks ago I read a blog post about the roles of parents in fiction, particularly that of the mother figure, and how they often seemed to get written out of fiction novels, or if they are present, they tend to be demonised in some way. The kicker is that I can't remember where I saw the original blog post - I was sure that it was on the Waterstone's Blog but can I find it now?! If anyone knows of the blog post I'm referring to, please let me know and I will add a link.

Anyway, the reason for my post today, was because I have spent the day editing two different work in progresses, and realised that I do exactly what this other blog post was accusing writers of... the mother figures in my stories are not usually good people - Take my current novel as an example. The main character, a teenage girl with a troubled background, struggles with the relationship with both of her parents, but with her mother in particular, because they struggle to understand her. This causes many conflicts through out the story, which doesn't end well for any of the characters. involved. 
Another example, is that of Anna-Marie and Lily's mother in The Love that Binds Us. Where as she may have been a good mum to Anna-Marie whilst she was alive, after losing her, she neglects the three children she has left with on a scale that would be unacceptable, including letting one of those children be admitted to hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, rather than believe in her. In my other two novels, A Handful of Secrets and Part of the Pack, the mother figures are removed, one having died during childbirth and the other having left when the child was only young.

I have never really thought about this before now, but having considered the plausible reasons behind why I do this to mothers on a seemingly regular basis, I have come up with not one, but two possible reasons.

1) That because I am not a mother yet, I don't feel comfortable, or educated enough to write a convincing mother figure, and have them be believable and likeable, as well as add to the story in a positive way. The problem with this theory is that it hasn't applied to any of the other things I have written about. I write first person perspective novels about people who are supernatural creatures - I am clearly not a mermaid or a vampire, but that hasn't stopped me writing convincing characters. 'But they aren't real,' I hear you say; maybe not, but the sexual content that I wrote into one of my first drafts was written long before I had any experience of my own! I got my information from the novels I read (all praise the likes of Fifty Shades) and those scenes all turned out okay. So what is stopping me from writing about a mother?

That leads me on to number...
2) My mom! Now I know that I am biased because she is mine, but my mom is pretty god damned incredible. In more ways that I could list on here, and I wonder if I shy away from writing about mother figures because I know that I cannot do justice to the one that I have. I could not write a character that reflected my mom, because it would be too difficult to show that many characteristics of one person in a novel where they are not normally a main character... So, by writing them out, or by making them bad parents, I don't have to worry about what a reader will think, because I am ensuring that they are a disliked character.

That's my outlook on this whole situation, although I do plan to give it some more thought, and very possibly to try harder with the next books and try and get a decent mother figure into one of them.

Any thoughts and opinions??

I joined the Tweeting Community!!

At the beginning of the month, I made the decision to join the Twitter community as there are so many authors, publishers, and of course, the readers on there that even I was starting to wonder why I hadn't gotten around to it yet... So, I made the plunge and started having a nosey, created my profile and found a few friends to follow as well as stalking the pages of some of the authors whose books I love to read. All seemed to be going great... Then everything went mad - one of the girls I work with tagged retweeted my 'Hello' post and tagged me to get everyone to say Hello!! It turns out that she knows a lot of people - my phone didn't stop tweeting for over two hours! By the time Simon came home and said it was time to go out, I had met some lovely people, connected with some fantastic new authors and related book fanatics, as well as having got to see posts from so many book lovers it was a little overwhelming at times!

Since that first crazy few hours, tweeting life has calmed down, and I am getting into the swing of tweeting - I will admit that it is taking some getting used to as I am so used to Instagram, and the setup and expectations are so different, that I am having to think about what to put and how much I am writing! A couple of times, Twitter has cut me off because I have used too many characters!! 

Wanna follow me, or just fly by to say Hi?? Check out my profile with this link - I'd love to make some more connections with the people already using this platform!

Till next time people x

Home Alone

For the first time since the launch of Technica, my other half's Air-Conditioning business, he is working away for a few days and I have to survive alone!! It's weird, I have to admit, but I think I can survive. I have already tidied up and emptied all the bins ready for tomorrow morning. I've also been shopping and made sure that there is food for when he gets back. It is a little lonely, which is silly because I would normally be alone for the majority of the day, but somehow, knowing that he isn't coming home later makes it seem weirder. 

It's just three days, and I have plans to get plenty of reading and writing done, however, I have so far, I have managed to binge watch nine episodes of The Good Place, a series which I found today after looking for something new to watch after finishing Veronica Mars in record time! Anyone would think that I had nothing to do...

This post is taking much longer to write than it should because I'm still watching... However, I have put chores between each episode, and have gotten everything on my to do list done already. I'm seeing a new book on my list now :)

World Book Day

Who dressed up?? Be honest!! 

I did! And I'm not even sorry - and I did it twice! Despite the weather, I made it to work and we opened as usual on Thursday... well, other than the part where we were in fancy dress that is! I lost count how many time we got asked if it was for something special :) which sort of upsets me that so  many people didn't know about World Book Day - it's still a niche thing :(

Little Red Riding Hood manned the downstairs till for most of the day, with Wally hiding out upstairs! The joke stayed all day - I used it more than once, and several customers also stated that they had 'found him' :) 

I loved it, I love spreading the word about World Book Day, personally, I find it a crying shame that there are so many people who have never even heard of it! Books are such a vital part of life, even today... it's only right that they have a day to celebrate them, and that so many adults don't know what it is or what it's about needs to change. Little things like the publicity we have given it over the last few days is a great start, and if this was more wide spread, I think the word would get out there. Schools play their part - most children know the day, and what it stands for, and therefore their families know as they are likely to go home talking about it, and of course, want to dress up for it!! We need to spread the word to those without those links!

Saturday was our Book Day event, and I had another costume at the ready - Alice made her appearance! She could be found upstairs for most of the day, in and around the children's section, making sure that everyone found Wally! Yup, the joke continued, plus we had our Wally Hunt in the Children's section. Wally had a message for the children, and when they found it, they had to go tell the real Wally to receive their prize... and of course some of those winners had to be while Wally was trying to have some lunch :)

During the morning, we did a reading of one of the Book Awards picture books for the children we had in shop, and it went down a treat; they loved Fergul and got involved in the story! We also had a fancy dress parade in the afternoon, where we had Meg and Mog show up, a well as a cute-as-a-button Red Queen!!

Overall, I think it was a success, and we did our bit for spreading the word about World Book Day - here's to next year :)