My Name is Christine...and I'm Addicted to Books

My husband knew when we met that I liked to read, he just didn't realise how much I liked to read. He thought I was a book a week girl, and really how bad could that be?

When we moved in together, the problem was hidden by my illness. For two months I didn't read a single book, and in hindsight that should have been my first hint that I needed to go to the doctor. When you've constantly add a book on the go since you were a toddler (holding a book upside down still counts, you know) then suddenly not caring about reading should have set off the panic alarms. But I had just finished my final college exams in history, a subject well known for its heavy reading list, and we presumed that I was just burnt out. Anyway, even if I had suspected that something was seriously awry, I was feeling way to lethargic to actually do anything about it.

I was married and on honeymoon before I read another book. I was on medication for inflammatory arthritis by then, and felt clear enough to read Breakfast at Tiffany's (I was honeymooning in New York, it was the obvious choice). I only bought one book there, and a magazine of short stories. Again, very strange for me, but I didn't realise it at the time.

Back home, with a fibromyalgia diagnosis finally under my belt and some effective medication, I began reading again in earnest. I discovered young adult urban fantasy, and started writing my first novel. Slowly, my reading climbed up to its pre-illness level, and our Ikea bookshelf began to fill up. So much that we had to buy a new one. Books were stacked on window sills, on my bedside table, and on my office desk. So much so that I started to do that tell-tale addict activity: hide the signs of my purchases.

I was reading a book a day, or at least every two, so I stuffed all the paper bags from bookshops into the green bin when my husband wasn't looking. It's not that he would mind, he's very easy going, but because I was embarrassed.

He recently asked me to consider throwing out my books. I gave around a dozen to a charity shop, and called a halt to it there. He brought up the subject again the other day, talking about how much space my books take up. I now have a couple of cardboard cartons full of books in the cupboard under the stairs. However I pointed out, reasonably enough, that I let him have his Warhammer models on full display, so he needed to be respectful of my collection. He left it at that, though he does seem overly keen for me to get a Kindle. To help my hands, apparently. Hmmm.

Writer's Block

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.


This week's topic is how we deal with writer's block, but honestly? I don't believe in writer's block. I think writer's block is a fairy story we tell ourselves when we want to avoid the fact that we're not being productive.


Obviously, we have days when we feel lethargic, fed up, and writing 200 words can seem like an uphill struggle. But, I think that describes bad days in any job, I don't think that it's unique to writer's. But because we're on our own clock we can get away just saying to hell with it.  


Of course, I could be just grumpy. This is very possible, as I have been sick for the last week and am sleep deprived. Every time I lie down I get a coughing fit. This means I get no sleep, and I wake up husband several times a night. It's easier to come down downstairs and work. Of course, then I wake up my dog with my periodic coughing fits. She's not speaking to me now, and every time I cough she gives me a withering look. She honestly does. I'll have to bribe her with a rawhide chew.


What do you guys think about writer's block?

Fostering: It's A Weird Trip

Yeah, I know. The title isn't exactly social worker friendly. But there you go.

I looked after a three year old girl a couple of weeks back on a respite placement. That's when the child's usual foster carer needs some time free, usually for a holiday or because of ill health. She was a lovely child to have, and even though I knew she would be going back to her usual foster home at the end of the week it was impossible not to get attached.

When she left, I couldn't believe how quiet the house was. Even at night time, when she should have been fast asleep in bed, it was like I could feel that the house was emptier than it had been. I folded up some of the clothes that she'd left behind and put them in a drawer to send to her foster mother. I stripped the bed, washed the sheets and put away the Peppa Pig DVD's. What was worse, was that my husband and I realised that we'd started to talk about her like she was dead. 'Remember when she used to do this? The way she did tumbles to music?' I wasn't very upset when she went, because I had known all along that she was only with us for a week. But, knowing that I was probably not going to see her again was hard.

Then I got a call last week asking could we take her for ten days in September! I'm really looking forward to it now, and I'm going to get all her favourite things in. Also, it was her birthday in August so I can now buy her a birthday present without feeling like an over the top foster carer/stalker.

Having an energetic three year old will take some organisation on my part though. I need to get some systems in place to stop me doing the same amount of work I did last time she stayed (tl;dr: none).

Looking forward to it now, she's arriving September 2 :)

Five Top Twitter Tips For Writers

I'm relatively new to the world of Twitter. I held out for a long time because I thought that 140 characters was a ridiculously small amount of space to say anything worthwhile in. But since activating my profile a couple of months ago it has become a staple in my tabs bar, and a place for much procrastination.

But how can you get the most out of your twitter account? The micro-blogging site can be a really effective tool at any stage of your writing journey, but only if you you it correctly. That's where these ten tips come in.

1) Have a small focus: Twitter is at its best when it's used to track a particular industry. If you are looking to become a professional writer, then you should primarily follow other writers, publishers, agents, and aspiring authors. If your best friend is on twitter, then yes you can follow her too. But if you follow widely and indiscriminately, then the tweets in your feed will be mostly useless to you.

2) Follow people who give value: This links in with the first point, but there are many people who tweet useful links for different professions. Elizabeth Spann Craig is a published author who tweets links to useful advice from people at all stages of the writing cycle. I've found her links (and her own posts) invaluable.You can find her at @elizabethscraig.

3) Go for quality, not quantity: It's true that the more people that you follow, the more people who are likely to follow you. While you should bear this in mind, following people just to up your own follower count is counter-productive. First of all, as I said before, if you don't enjoy the person's tweets then you get no value from the follow. Also, if a person is only following you because they want you to follow them then they won't be interested in the content of your posts. This will be a particular problem if you intend to tweet links to your blog, or build a buzz about a book release. It's better to build meaningful relationships, rather than shallow connections.

4) Keep self-promotion to a minimum. Yes, twitter is a good vehicle for promoting your book/blog/published short story, but keep it polite. There's a difference between telling someone at a party that you have a book coming out, and jamming the title into every topic of conversation, from the price of baked beans to Kim Kardashian's wedding. Have some news that you think would interest your followers? Tweet with a link, no more than twice in one day. And that second time is only to account for different time zones.

5) Have fun: Twitter is a fun medium. You get to find out news as it's happening through a cascade, often before the main news sites and channels have released it. You get to read pithy takes on current events, find out random facts and meet some very entertaining people. Who doesn't want to follow a person who's having fun? Enjoy yourself and the rest will take care of itself.

Oh, as writers we hear a lot about developing a platform, but sometimes it can be difficult to do. Luckily, Rachael Harrie is holding her third Writer's Platform Building Campaign. It's a great chance to meet new writers, and you can sign up until August 31st. Head over here now to take part.

Paper Hangover, Beer Festival and Lucille Austero

I've had a cold hovering for the last ten days and it hit yesterday with a vengeance. Today it's even worse, and I look disturbingly like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer crossed with a laboratory mouse i.e., all red nose and watery eyes.

Still, tonight I have to go out because it's beer festival time. Remember I was writing part of the programme for a beer festival a few weeks ago? Well it's on tonight, and as the husband and I are beer buffs, and as we both wrote in the programme, we're heading along. I love offbeat, imported beers so this promises to be fun times.

Anyone read about the world markets? It's vertigo-inducingly scary. In a Lucille Austero way...

Got to love Arrested Development.

 Every week Paper Hangover gives a blog prompt for the YA writing community, and this week they want to know the five apps that you use most for writing or recreation. So here are mine:

1. Focus Booster : This is a great app for reducing procrastination. It is a little window that changes colour as the time you set to complete a certain task runs out. It makes you more concious of your time, and therefore more productive.

2. Write Or Die : This menacingly named app lets you write in a window, which turns pink when you've gone too long without typing. When it reaches dark red it plays a punishment sound, such as a baby crying or Hanson's Mmmbop. This app forces you to keep writing, thereby increasing the number of words you can churn out in a set amount of time. Great app, but for first drafts only.

3. Tweetdeck : This is a great app. I use it for scheduling tweets about my blog, which is handy because most of my readers live in different time zones to me.

4. Kindle for PC : I haven't yet succumbed to the lure of the Kindle, but this app means I can read self-published books by my writer friends on my computer.

5. Angry Birds : I haven;t yet succumbed to the lure of the smartphone, but I play this regularly on my husband's Samsung Galaxy. Seriously glad I don't have it to hand, as it would be another large thief of time.

What about you? Any useful apps that you couldn't live without? Hope you all have a great weekend!

There Goes The Neighbourhood...

My husband and I recently moved to a new house. It's in a great location for my husband's job, I'm near my family, and it's further away from a convenience store that sells chocolate than our last home was. Doesn't sound like much of a plus, but I've lost ten pounds. Win.

The one issue was our next door neighbour. Now, she seems nice enough, if a bit nosy. She's the kind of person that knows everyone else's business, and that in itself doesn't bother me. It's the decline of close knit neighbourhood's that has lead to a lot of social problems after all, such as increased crime and depression. However, she seems to take an inordinate amount of interest in our household waste.

Every time I go outside the house when she's there, she reminds me that the council will collect my bin on a certain date. I've explained to her that I don't find the council good, and, as in Ireland you have to pay every time your bin is lifted anyway, I've decided to go to with a private company. Despite this, she sent her son around to remind us about the bin situation a couple of weeks ago. I politely explained our arrangement again. During the week I saw her lifting the lids of our bins to look at what was inside them. How strange is that?

Last night, she called around to make her case at 10.50 pm. Who does that? I'm sorry, if you're calling unannounced to my house at almost eleven, then it needs to be urgent. You need to have seen someone vandalising our car, need help in some immediate way, or be a card carrying member of  An Garda Síochána (the Irish Police Force). Our refuse is collected, it's not piling up on the pavement posing a health risk to the neighbourhood, so what's the problem?


It would seem that by not conforming to the bin collection system of the community, that we are bringing down the neighbourhood. Which is quite ironic coming from people who have a Third Reich-esque eagle on top of their property and hang the Irish tricolour. In other countries, I know it is perfectly normal to hang a flag from your property, in Ireland it is connected with strong nationalist political views and sympathy with the IRA. Now, I'm not saying for one minute that my neighbourfolk hold any of these extreme political ideas, but that their questionable taste in house adornments doesn't exactly reflect well on the rest of us. People in glass houses and all that.  

Road Trip Wednesday: Real Life Settings

The nice people over at YA Highway a ‘Blog Carnival’ every Wednesday, where the contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week the prompt is: What is the most inspiring setting you've ever visited in real life? My answer is fairly predictable and boring for an Irish writer, it's the west of Ireland. The landscape is so beautiful in a harsh and rugged way, and the wide open spaces give your mind room to think properly, away from the constraints of concrete buildings, neon lights and worries about bills, the day job and city life. I'm definitely a Dublin girl at heart, but I love the west. I dream about going on a writers retreat there one day.

What about you? Any inspirational places?