Category: Updates and information

Typical Girls Don’t Rebel*

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(From The Slits song Typical Girl)

I think it is probably because I have always been quite tomboyish that I have always been suspicious of the idea that gender might be hardwired in some way. I’ve always been more into the idea of gender as something that you do, something that you acquire or learn, rather than something that you have or are born with. As Judith Butler suggests ‘Gender is a kind of persistent imitation that passes as the real.’ It’s a role we all play. And, of course, it always seems that this hardwiring just happens to support traditional gender roles. How very handy.

As part of my research for Choose Your Future I have been looking into this idea. Are men really incapable of reading emotions or do we just not encourage them to learn? Are women really no good at reading maps or does the social belief that they are stop them from even thinking that they are. After all, if you are that person who doesn’t fit the stereotype, do you admit it or do you downplay your own ability in order to fit in.

It is surely far too difficult to separate nature and nurture. One of the first things that children pick up is what is expected from their gender. Parents are also so very concerned with their child fitting in. Even now, my mother expresses dismay at my fashion choices and tries to encourage me into things that she thinks are more feminine. As well as pointing out babies to me in the hope that I’ll find them so cute I won’t be able to resist my urge to get pregnant.

At the minute, I’m reading Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. It could not be a more apt title. The relationship between the social and biological is extremely complicated and who can say which came first. Does our brain effect how we behave socially or does society effect the way our brain functions? What does the fact that some male brains process emotions in a different place to some female brains really mean? Can we really make judgements about behaviour from looking at which parts of the brain light up? It is not as obvious as you might think.

It certainly does seem true that social factors can effect our perceptions of our own and others’ genders. For example, women given a talk about women who achieve well in maths and science did better on the maths test that followed than women told the opposite. (It goes without saying that the ability of all women was, in actual fact, about the same.) Similarly, women tend to rate their ability at socially unacceptable traits such as being good at maths as being worse than it actually is.

What I think when I hear about research that suggests gender differences are hardwired is what’s in it for them. Why would it be good if these differences were hardwired. And of course, the answer to that is in the title of the blog. Typical girls don’t rebel; they are polite, demure, do the housework, stay in their place. And typical boys keep all the power for themselves.

Choose Your Future – New Project Excitement

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Blimey, it has been busy these last few days. What with exam papers to mark and supply work going haywire, I seem to have been nowhere near my computer lately. At the same time, I am enthusiastically scribbling chapters of a new novel at any spare moment – on the tram or train, before I go to sleep and over breakfast. No moment can go to waste.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, this will be a different genre and style from Shattered Reflections although some of the concerns are the same – sexuality, gender, power and violence – but also adding in other of my pet concerns such as the nanny state, reality TV and the class system. It will be set about 150 years in the future which is fun as it allows me to create a whole new world. In fact, as I am grumpy and given to moaning about everything, it is definitely not an issue finding things to write about. In fact, it is more difficult trying to rein myself and keep to the subjects that I have so far planned for.

I am toying with the name Choose Your Future but this has already changed a couple of times and will probably again. (I didn’t settle on Shattered Reflections until quite near the end of the writing process.) Certainly, it will be a title about choice as that is a major theme. I have written about 40000 words so far (more, actually, as that is the total from what I have had time to type up. There are notebooks waiting for that privilege).  At the current rate, it shouldn’t be too long before I have a first draft although that is just the first step in a long process of editing and reading, it is still quite exciting.

New Challenge Needed

On By kepagewriterIn 30 Day Book Challenge, Updates and informationLeave a comment

Well, the 30 day book challenge is finally over. A sigh of relief then, definitely. But also the certain knowledge that I would like to keep up the blogging pace and I would now have to think of my own subject matter. No fun, this having to think lark.

So I would like to say two things in this blog. The first is a great big thanks to all of you who have liked my posts and those who have started to follow me during this last month. It is incredibly flattering and always a surprise when people like my posts and I never really expect it. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to see the inside of my head on the page. Sometimes I don’t even like it in there all that much. So, thank you all.

The second thing is I am looking for a new blogging challenge. Something similar to the 30 day book challenge which was good because it wasn’t reliant on my finishing a book under a time scale. If you know of anything like this, please let me know and I will consider doing it.

Time is on my side…

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Time management is not an easy skill to acquire. Everyone feels they need more time. My husband, no matter how much he does at work, always laments the one thing he didn’t get done. There are never enough hours for him.

i used to be terrible at managing my time but organising a teaching schedule everyday is a lesson in the value of prioritising. It’s a lesson you learn quickly if you don’t want to drown in a sea of lesson plans. The other lesson you learn pretty quickly is that you never get to the end of the to do list. The to do list is a process rather than a thing. It grows and changes but it never goes away. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many that should be devoted to work. Everything gets done eventually. Nothing is ever as urgent as it seems. No job is worth having no spare time for. Live to work or work to live has always seemed a fairly obvious choice.

It’s a little different with writing. I’d much rather write than do promotion. Making time for promotion is difficult because I almost never want to do it but I always want to write. I’d rather write than plan lessons or even worse, deal with some ridiculous piece of bureaucratic nonsense that teachers seem to spend far too much time having to do.

The real world will insist on interrupting and at the minute it is the world of working supply. This means that I don’t always know what I’m doing from one day to the next but it also means that I have no planning. Knowing that there are only certain times in the day when you can write is very focusing. It means I definitely have to do it and I have to do it now. I don’t spend three hours playing Sims because I think I have all day. I’m used to having to write when I can find the time. I still try to make sure I do it every day, even if that means writing on the train. That way, I feel I have achieved something, even if it is very small compared to wasting time days because I think I have all the time in the world.

Constant Contact

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It’s been a weird couple of months. For various real life reasons – my own illness and my mother being in and out of hospital – I haven’t been able to have much of an online presence. As a result, I have been running up and down the road between my home in Sheffield and hers in Newcastle. Book promotion and blogging have been the furthest things from my mind. And even if I had been able to think about such things, she has no internet so it would have been impossible anyway.

It is astonishing how out of touch I felt. And how deprived I felt when I was there. It has quickly become second nature to be constantly connected. I don’t just mean in terms of social networking either. The idea that the knowledge of the world is at your fingertips is an easy one to get used to. Why bother racking your brains trying to remember something when you could just look it up? Especially when to takes such a long time to get my brain into gear some days.

It wasn’t that long ago, when the Internet was a mere babe, that we had to put up with a dial up connection. (OK, so it was about ten to fifteen years ago but that isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things.) It was a chore to use the Internet then; the tying up of the phone line, the constant loss of signal, the slowness of pages loading, the fact that downloading was nigh on impossible. All these things seem chronically old fashioned now. Now that we are used to being able to hop onto the web wherever and whenever we are.

It was interesting to note that when my mother came home from hospital, her main mode of conversation was the phone – the land-line not her mobile. She talks to people all the time and wouldn’t think of anything else. She does have a mobile from which she sends rambling texts which are signed off love mam. But she only does that as a last resort, when, for whatever reason, I am not able to speak to her.

By contrast, I can’t think of the last time I picked up my land-line and phoned some one from it. In fact, I could probably get rid of it if not for the insistence of my mother and my in-laws that this is the way we should communicate. If I want to speak to friends I use Facebook, I text. If I have to actually speak to them, I phone using my mobile. (It should be obvious to you that I absolutely hate it when people say I’ll message you or Facebook me even when that person is me. But then I was suitably pedantic when people first started to use text as a verb.)

It is quick and convenient to text or use Facebook. The recipient can choose when to reply and you don’t have to worry that they will be bathing the kids or sitting down to dinner or whatever. It is also incredibly lazy. Why waste the energy that having a real conversation would take when you can send a one sentence text? Convenience and quickness have become the baseline of our communication.

The other thing I have noticed lately – and I am guilty of it myself – is that no one is ever bored any more  Everyone feels the need to be constantly entertained. Just look at the commuters on the average train and you will see them staring at screens of various sizes, doing things that seem crucially important but probably aren’t. All are lost in their own little worlds. Even in the pub you often see groups of people or couples who are not talking but messing with their phones. Virtual communication 1, Real communication 0.

Obviously, this could have a huge effect on everyone’s social skills. Especially now that younger and younger kids seem to have phones. Furthermore, what would happen if no one daydreamed any more  If every second was taken up with some form of electronic attention. Would all the great – and currently hypothetical – novels of the future remain unwritten? No more great discoveries would be made. (If Newton had been sitting under the tree playing on his IPhone when the apple landed on his head, would he have been able to draw himself away from Angry birds for long enough to hypothesise about gravity?) No more exciting leaps into the future. Sometimes you have to just be sitting staring out of the window, watching the world turn, to see the one thing that would make the world just a little bit better. Or sitting under a tree.

20 years ago today…

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I know its my age – the looming horror of forty which is only just over the horizon – that is making me think back over my life. Maybe I have just got to the age where you can’t help but think that you have had your halcyon days. The music, the films, the TV were all better then. (I don’t really believe that, by the way, there is still excellent music, films and TV. My tolerance for the rubbish has just got lower.)

20 years ago, I was in my second year at university, in a student house with five other people. The house was damp. We were burgled and the landlord genuinely suggested that we spent a night without a door rather than have and come and fix the one that the burglars broke in their haste to get our stuff. My library books got so damp that I had to pay for some of them as they were unusable.

None of us had a car. Or a computer. In my third year, I eventually purchased a word processor. It was huge and useless. Like a really slow electric typewriter. It felt like the height of modernity. The university wasn’t much better. They had BBC computers where you had to manually add the formatting. It really did seem like it would never catch on. Compared to my current electronic dependency (it does genuinely seem as if there is always some piece of equipment charging), it seemed like a more innocent time.

I never imagined my mobile phone would become such an integral part of my life. As ever, I was probably one of the last people to get one and then one of the last to get a smart phone. It is just so very tempting. To phone. To upload a photo. To be in constant touch if you so desire. No one ever needs to worry. There is no need to lose touch. Communication is so easy. Easier equals better, right? That seems to be where the march of progress is taking us.

Could communication be diluted by the ease with which you can do it now? No one ever thinks that just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. 20 years ago, if I wanted to phone home, for example, I had to go across the road to the phone box (as we decided this was better than fighting over the phone bill) and hope that the person on the other end would agree to reverse the charges. This would usually end with someone – one of my housemates usually – banging on the door so they could use the phone. I’m not saying this was fun – and in the North West rain, it almost certainly wasn’t – but you did have to make it count. You didn’t feel compelled to inform people that you’ve just eaten a ham sandwich. Or that you were bored. (If you’re posting that you’re bored on Facebook, you need to seriously think about what you are doing with your life.) When did it become obligatory for people to communicate about every aspect of their lives? 

I seem to be suffering from the opposite problem at the moment. I can’t seem to find worthy detail to post. I’ve got Facebook block. Nothing seems important enough. I can’t help sitting in front of my screen and think who cares. Don’t get me wrong, I like Facebook. It is useful for keeping in touch with people who live a long way away and who I definitely feel closer to than I would have done but for the most part it just seems like the root of all inanity.

It surprises me, this nostalgia. I always thought that I was quite cynical. It turns out I am a romantic at heart. Who’d have thought it? Perhaps communication, like knowledge, should be hard won. It should have meaning and it should be thoughtful. Perhaps I should update my status to ‘my longing for the past is only matched by my happiness that I no longer live there.’ I don’t miss standing in a cold phone box but I do promise to think before I post.

So I can call myself a writer now….

On By kepagewriterIn Becoming a writier, Updates and information5 Comments

So it is out in the open now. I have written a novel and it is out on Amazon. A wider circle of people now know. I can safely say to be people that I am a writer. They can ask that question and I can say ‘Oh, a novel.’ Previously, I always avoided using the word writer. Even though every spare second was spent writing. Anyway, I had an real job. And that was what I gave as my occupation if anyone new asked. It would have been pretentious to use the word writer before this point. And a little embarrassing. I’m not sure why I thought that I needed the solid proof of being published but otherwise, I think, it would have seemed a little too much like intellectual masturbation.

I was always writing though. I think that as I have not previously mentioned it, people think Shattered Reflections appeared fully formed in the months since I have been unemployed. However, this is a work that has been years in the making. Writing sentences, paragraphs whenever I had the chance: on the train to and from work, when I had finished planning lessons, instead of reading in bed at night, while I ate my breakfast. Notebook upon notebook which then had to be typed up, checked and checked again. Without the last months of employment freedom, I would never have managed the final steps but the actual novel was virtually finished by then.

But now I am getting used to saying it. Although still with a small feeling of silliness. As if it is still not quite real. Perhaps because I am not making very much money from it at the minute which means I will have to get a ‘proper job’ when the money starts to get a bit low. And I’m getting used to the ‘oh I’ve always thought I would like to write a book but I wouldn’t know where to start.’ Well, you just start. For me, there was never any choice but to write. I’m not expecting to become a best-seller or make millions. (I mean, it would be nice, obviously but it is not my main motivation.) Regardless of how many copies I sell, how much people like it, I will always write because I have to and because I enjoy it.

Strange Days, Indeed

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and information2 Comments

I wasn’t really sure it could get any stranger. The whole process of publishing Shattered Reflections has seemed surreal. But now that it is out in the world, potentially being read right now, I have to admit that it feels a little bit weird.

Part of it is nerves, undoubtedly. Obviously there has been feedback, checking and what have you before but this is different. For a start, people will actually be paying for it. Previously, it didn’t seem quite real.

Everyone close to me has been superbly supportive. Immediately, people are buying the book, liking my facebook page and I am hugely grateful to them. But it does make me nervous, people I know reading it. It is rude in places, violent in others with a fair bit of bad language thrown in for good measure. I’m not sure I want people who know me to be able to see into the darker reaches of my mind.

My book. My novel. They are exciting words, good words. Not like the words what next. They are frightening, difficult words, no fun words. But they are the ones that I will be working on over the next few weeks.

Shattered Reflections: Now on Amazon

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and information2 Comments

At last. Shattered Reflections is on the shelves in Amazon (Is it still a bookshelf if the bookshop is virtual?) and will be available on Kindle in the next couple of days. It is both exciting and absolutely petrifying. I feel like it is the most amazing and the most stupid thing I have ever done. It’s like letting people into a corner of my mind – a pretty scary place at the best of times.

It is strange for other reasons as well. I will never have to edit or re-read this book. It is finally finished. Over. It is out of my hands. I will never have to think about the characters again and as I have grown quite attached to them over the years, this makes me a little sad. It feels like having a friend move to the other side of the world – I may have occasional contact with them but, in fact, they don’t belong to me any more.  I have to hope that people enjoy reading about them as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

Now I have to decide which of the myriad scribblings which are currently waiting patiently in the draw of my desk I should start work on now. A whole new set of characters to get to know and develop. Of course, there is the matter of promoting this book and I know that this will take up a lot of my time but that seems more like work. Starting a new writing project is definitely a pleasure.

Check out Shattered Reflections on Amazon here

What next, that is the question…

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Okay, so I have finally finished proof reading Shattered Reflections and I am actually – against all the odds – still quite pleased with it. I think that I have solved all the issues that have been pointed out to me. The proof of that, I guess, will be what the wide world makes of it. A little bit scary that, but while I will continue to write even if no one buys this book, that is not the same as not wanting to be read. Everyone wants to be read. To me, that is more important than the amount of money I might make. Numbers of readers, that is my main concern. So I have to have faith in it. I have to hope that others will love the characters as much as I do, will think it relevant, touching, emotional.

The proofs have gone back and I am glad – while I obviously think Shattered Reflections is good – that I do not have to read it again. I will be happy to say it is finished and put all my notes and work away. It is tempting to keep tinkering but that is more to do with fear of actually putting the work out there than improving the book.

So the big question is what to write next and obviously I have ideas and I have been writing bits and pieces in the meantime. I try to write everyday, even if it is only a couple of hundred words. (The real world, where I have to go back to teaching in September, keeps intruding. How rude!) To that end, I decided to look through the draw where I have kept all my writing. Twenty odd years worth of writing as it turns out. Things that I had forgotten about. It is strange in some ways that Shattered Reflections should be the first thing to be taken to fruition. It certainly isn’t the first thing I’ve written. There are any number of projects here, some more complete than others. The question is whether it is a worthwhile exercise to actually look through it or whether it would just be a huge exercise in procrastination. I mean, could anything I thought when I was 25 still have relevance, still be worthwhile. Its hard to know.

Of course, there is also promotion and marketing to be done for Shattered Reflections when it is becomes available. And I am quite looking forward to the opportunity to work on my website and on learning about all the ways the Internet can help me. I am determined to be pro-active even though it is not really my nature. It has to be.

It is all excitement from here on in, then. For new projects and old. For the future. You’ll be hearing from me soon.