What's on my clipboard #3 - first draft fiction

The following is an extract from my current fiction work in progress.
I've not written in the first person before, so this is really an experiment for me! The extract is a rough first draft, written in sprints, and totally unedited - so please forgive the wild leaping between tenses.

“Let’s take the stairs, it’ll be quicker,” Mum said. She was unusually quiet. We hefted the stuff up the first flight of stairs. I slammed the heavy suitcase down on the landing, panting for breath. I am horrendously unfit. I’m not fat; just feeble.
“This is, essentially, awful.” I said.
Mum glared at me. “Just get on with it, please, Katie. It’s not that bad.”
I looked at the small shoebox in her hands as scornfully as I could. We carried on up the stairs, getting increasingly sweaty and agitated until we reached the fourth floor. 

The door to the flat swung open, and standing there was a short girl with untidy hair.
“Hi!” she said. “Come on in! I’m Becky!” I rolled my eyes back and sighed.
“I’m Katie, and these are my parents.” I waved in the general direction of the only adults in the room. My Dad looked at Becky’s legs for a beat too long and then held out a sweaty hand.“Mike, pleased to meet you, Becca.”
“Becky,” she smiled widely, and held out her hand to Mum.
“Karen,” Mum said, distracted by the sunshine pouring in through the kitchen window, “Look at the light in here! Have you seen it, Katie?”
I’m getting impatient to see my room. “Yeah, lovely. What number was mine, Dad?”
Dad wrestled with the box and dug in his pocket for the keys.
“Two,” he said, looking at the keyring.
“Great!” Becky piped up, “You’re next door to me!”
“Oh good.” My will to live was being sapped away by my embarrassing parents and this relentlessly cheery teenager. “Shall we?” I gestured towards the corridor.

This piece was written by me, Ruth Sedar, and I claim all copyright and author's rights. Please contact me for further information.

Magical Lantern Illuminations - Gung Hay Fat Choy

At the end of February I was very lucky to visit the beautiful Magical Lantern Illuminations at Chiswick House and Gardens, in London.

The gorgeous annual light show celebrates Chinese New Year - gung hay fat choy!

Here's a small collection of photos from the event - all photos were taken on a Motorola Moto G 1st gen, and only cropped for size. No filters. If you want to use any of these, email me for permission. Some have previously appeared on my Instagram account @paintnothingnow.

Never Forget: Just Write

After a long drought and two languishing fiction works sitting quietly twiddled their metaphorical thumbs in the hard-drive, I have finally been inspired to write fiction this weekend. Maybe the Spring time flowers are helping, or the extra hours of daylight, but I am at long last ready to write again.

It all started on Saturday afternoon by binge-listening to some of my favourite music from University, and it got me to thinking how few accurate representations there are of being a student in fiction. Everything I've ever read has leant so heavily on the side of cliché that it becomes tedious and predictable. I want to write something accurate, funny, and (hopefully) heart-warming enough for at least one student, somewhere, to read it and say "This is me."

My major "This is me" moment happened last year when I read Caitlin Moran's How to Build a Girl, and wept with laughter at a plage in central France. In her main character, Johanna, I saw huge amounts of my teenage self in uncomfortably accurate HD. I want to give someone that same feeling of familiarity, of toe-curling embarrassment and of wanting to defend that person to the last. So I #amwriting.

This bad-ass elephant from the Magical Lantern Illuminations in London never forgets to write. If I could drink liquids by pouring them into my mouth through my nose, I wouldn't forget either. Elephants are ACE.

Why Inspirational Quotes Don't Work

We’ve all seen these quotes, often wrongly attributed to some poor, dead philosopher who can’t argue back. There’s whole Twitter accounts dedicated to trying to make the digital population feel energised, motivated and generally better about their lives. But does it work? Are these supposedly meaningful timeline messages just the online equivalent of graffiti on the toilet wall? Let’s assess the statement.

Beautiful things happen in your life when you distance yourself from negativity. Apparently.

Beautiful things happen

They do, yes. However, your definition of ‘beautiful things’ will undoubtedly differ from mine. A short, but not exhaustive list of things I think are beautiful:
Puppies; having the correct change; perfectly crisp toast smothered in butter; love, I guess; peeling the foil lid off the toothpaste in one piece; stars, probably?

To use an actual proverb, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. In terms of your beautiful things, you do you.

In your life

What does this actually mean? Is it suggesting the aforementioned beautiful things will happen to me, or just in my life? This could easily mean things will happen to other people, or inanimate objects in my life. In your life. My skin is part of my life. So is catching the bus. This part is too vague, and not worthy of further assessment.

When you distance yourself from negativity

Okay, let’s have a go on this bit. If for some reason I was in the vicinity of someone prejudiced or bigoted, I would consider that negative. As such I would distance myself from that person by either leaving the immediate area, or ensuring I never speak to them again. Would something beautiful happen? I’d be far, far away from an idiot, so that is a tick in the box for me.

If you consider something like climate change, would you distance yourself from that? No. You would stay. Either to help improve the world through encouraging renewable energy, for example, or stay, because leaving planet Earth is yet to become an option. You can’t distance yourself from a negative environmental certainty. If you did, would something beautiful happen? You’d be ignoring the future of the planet in favour of running around, fingers in ears, going “la-la-la I’m not listening”. No tick.

Nope, this quote doesn’t work; it’s all wonky. Beautiful things don’t happen as a direct result of experiencing no or fewer negative things. People are moulded by their experiences of the world, both good and bad. “Distancing” yourself is not enough, and running away or hiding from negativity won’t make it go away. We must face the monsters under our bed and care about each other. No amount of inspirational quotes will activate change; only the actions of willing people can do that.

To sum it up, I suggest a small, almost imperceptible edit: 

Be positive.

February round-up

How was your shortest month? Here's my February highlights.

Feb 1st - 7th
I kicked off the month with my good friend Jess, setting the world to rights and drinking medicinal amounts of wine in Firebug, Leicester. I hadn’t seen her in far too long and a thorough catch up was needed. We covered most topics including mutual friends who were now married (frightening) or had kids (more frightening - how are any of us from school possibly old enough to deal with this?), horror films, general life and her new Doctorate. She is super clever and I am very proud of her.

My family of cacti have been spruced up and after many years in their own pots, have moved in together. They all came from the Eden Project at various times, and moved home with me in December last year. I like my succulents to be well-travelled. Their new residence is a not-terribly-old casserole dish from Whitemoors Antiques Centre which was the princely sum of £2.00.

Top left - Brian, Lord Bucketon. Top right - Gary. Bottom right - Rufus.

 Feb 7th - 14th
The month brought lots of video games and pizza with my boyfriend – he lives in London so we are roughly 100 miles apart most of the time. It hasn’t always been this way, but we are currently doing the long distance thing which means jaunts to London or Leicester, and trawling the shops for decade-old PS2 games and treats from the old fashioned sweetie shop.

I finally found a record which had been hiding in a safe place for a long time – it’s one of my treasures and I’m super pleased to have rediscovered it. For the benefit of the tape, it's a 12" vinyl copy of Manic Street Preachers single You Love Us, released on Heavenly in 1991. I've probably played it twice, and I mostly Gollum over it. It's reminded me I have tickets coming for a gig in May and I think it's close enough now to get officially excited.

My preciousss.

Feb 14th - 21st
I’ve walked a lot in February – at the time of writing, my Fitbit One says 84.34 miles (135.73 km), and this is a bit below my normal monthly average. I’m not a huge exercise fan, but I would walk 500 miles. Ahem. I've taken photos from my walks before, which you can see here. Bonus features from walks this month include discovering some brilliant road names, finding beautiful spring flowers and hearing a skylark singing just outside the city.

What's your favourite Leicestershire street name?

Feb 21st - 29th
The month is rounded off with a trip to the capital to spend the weekend doing fun stuff. We’re visiting the Magical Lantern illuminations at Chiswick House and I am SO EXCITED for it. I absolutely love gardens and ones filled with beautiful Chinese lanterns in the dark sounds amazing.

It's a leap year! I love leap years. This one is especially brilliant because it means I am one extra day away from turning 30 next year. Thirty has always sounded worryingly grown up, but as I fully endorse the Peter Pan message, I won't grow up; it's a trap.

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows - or maybe not.

Here is a little known fact for the day – you don’t have to be okay, all the time.
Surprised? Don’t worry, all will become clear. Put down that fake smile and come with me.

Lifestyle and beauty bloggers, to name but two kinds, often present an image of jovial perfection; a glossy haired, toothsome happiness surrounded by kittens and muffins and must-have eyeshadow palettes.

My presented image is the wonky thing we all see each day. I choose to talk about things that happen to me, or things I question, or just simply have the odd moan. You can still be productive in this way, but for this, I’ve come under fire from some people for being a misery. Or rather, sounding like a misery. I can absolutely assure you I’m quite alright, for the most part, and a lot of my angst is worn like an old overcoat; something I can slip on when the mood takes me.

Here is a short list of things I categorically love:

• My boyfriend, family and friends. These are my favourite people. I think people are ace and my people are especially brilliant.
• Toast. Yeah. Toast is incredible. Toast with jam, toast with almond butter, toast with coffee. All the baked goods, all the time.
• Being healthy. Generally speaking, and touch wood, I am in rude health.
• Puppies. Like WHOA. Hell yes, puppies. If there are cocker spaniel puppies near me, I’ll basically have a cute overload and melt.

I’m not going to tell you about the things I hate, because it would take too long, and frankly it would depress the hell out of all of us. But what I am saying is it’s okay to hate things, to question things, and it’s fine to be sad sometimes. You don’t need to face the world with a plastered on grin or have it all together. You can be covered in mud, trailing bits of twig in your laddered tights, sobbing deliriously into a Thermos flask filled with your own tears (if you like, or soup is good). Being alright isn’t mandatory, but it can be a small beam of sunlight into what can be a dreadful day. What I’m really saying is be you. Always.

Thursday: benefits, squirrels and fruit bowl politics.

Today I gritted my teeth, swallowed my tea and walked two miles into town to register for unemployment benefits. This isn’t the first time I’ve signed on, and I doubt it’ll be the last dealings I have with the DWP. The last time I was officially titled 'Jobseeker' was thanks to "education, education, education". Like a lot of people my age, we were fed the ideal of education being your liberator, your passport to the world of work, so I went to university.

I graduated with my degree, followed it up with relevant work experience and then took a post-graduate diploma course to further my prospects as a modern, urban human. Education³ soon became

"employable, experienced, quite good at application forms". That excitement soon paled into nine months of unemployment, six spent on benefits. It ended well when I finally got a job. One I enjoyed, and one that led to my first career.

Writer, GSOH, WLTM new employers for meaningful employment. Contact me on Twitter for promotional posts, cute animals, and the occasional old-man-shouting-at-clouds observations.

The UK is keen to paint a picture of employment bliss. Figures from the Office of National Statistics released yesterday (17/02/16) sing the praises of the final quarter of 2015. According to the ONS, unemployment fell by 60,000 to 1.69 million in the last three months of 2015, and pay increased by 2.0%. Wowzers! It’s worth noting Christmas temporary jobs are often well underway by October, and paid hourly bonuses – let alone monstrous bankers’ bonuses – are paid out at the end of the year. Funny, that.

What I want to know is this: How many of these extra people in work are still in their jobs? I know in my old company the UK workforce would increase by roughly 2,500 to care for the extra business Christmas would bring. You only need 24 companies to recruit similar quantities of staff to quickly find the 60,000 people suddenly in temporary work.

These tiny daffodils are growing valiantly on a scrubby patch of ground beside a very busy road. Hope springs. 

This time, I’m out of work. I have several years of NI contributions on my side, but hell, do they make it complicated. Regulations are there to stop people from screwing the system, we all know that, but I just need some money. I need a haircut, for a start. There are so many options and clauses it makes your head spin.
“You can have this apple only if you don’t already have some bananas. If someone you live with has seven apples, you can’t have any. Have you been sourcing your own apples? What variety? Have you eaten them? Have you ever given one to a passing squirrel?” Incidentally, I am well up for being paid in apples. I like braeburns best.

Hopefully my adventures in unemployment will be short lived. I hope the people represented by numbers are still in work. If not, I’ll see them in the queue. But only after I’ve juggled with fruit, claim codes, and reimbursed my squirrel friends.