Tag Archives: writing

Jun 21 2020
6 Comments
Daily Life

What I’ve Learned in Lockdown

As we are slowly coming out of this strange time, have I learned anything?

My initial reaction would be no, I’ve been too fearful, too worried and too anxious.

However, I really want to stay positive, so here are the things I have enjoyed:

You find out who your friends are

This is so similar to MS – you really do. Those you thought would stick by haven’t and vice versa. I called a friend weeks ago for a catch up and am still waiting the return call. In the same way, I have had the joy of catching up with people I haven’t heard from for ages.

Your Boss takes you shopping

He sourced and told me about the quietest shops and took me to them when I couldn’t get shopping slots. Along with my younger sister, who has been leaving food for me every week since this started, I am so grateful.

You have a garden

It’s random, filled with skip-dive plants and those rescued from home renovations, but I love it. I have never appreciated it more, now that we spend so much time at home.

Your son can cook

Yup, after he was told by his Uni to go home, he has been cooking a family meal once a week, a good chance for us to catch up and chat through everything that’s happening in the world.

Your son steps up

As well as finishing his Uni year, he’s also almost completed a 12 week contract with the biggest hospital in Wales, in housekeeping. I’m truly proud of him.

You keep writing

Despite the lack of coffee shops and places to write, I have had great support, especially from Russ Gascgoine, who has been sending messages to keep my writing on track. Not only that, we have had invaluable catch ups on the phone.

You teach Creative Writing online

We have run courses through MS Society Scotland and it’s been fantastic; we have uncovered hidden talents. Plus, we are starting a book club.

You shop local

Just that, shop local, if you can. For me, they are far easier to access than supermarkets and you know you’re supporting local businesses. As more shops open on Monday, I’m looking forward to staying local.

Telephone Bookcases

These have sprung up all over Cardiff and I take a bag of books every week (I’m reading a lot right now). Brilliant innovation and long may it continue after this is over.

For all of us, Covid has been problematic. If we can keep the togetherness that has bound us together over the last three months, perhaps we can look to a brighter, more local future.

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Mar 08 2019
8 Comments
Blogging

Writing The Wrongs

One of the best things about having a blog is encouraging others who also want to start one.

Over the years, since 2012 when I first signed up to WordPress, I’ve spoken with people all over the world about how to get started, how to keep up the momentum and just how to have a real idea about what it is they want to say – what they have to say.

Back then, in the dark old days, I wanted to express what was happening after my MS diagnosis, what I was feeling. I was disoriented, lost and experiencing an entire whirlwind of emotions. Plus, I was also being slowly bullied out of my job.

I reached out to a writer who had written a very personal account of her MS in a national newspaper, about her struggle to come to terms with a life with MS. It was raw and brutal, exactly how I felt. We communicated back and forward through emails and she encouraged me to start a blog. The rest is history. Thanks to her, I’ve gone from blog to PhD.

I always wanted to be a writer, so perhaps that is why I feel privileged to be following this path now. MS shunted me from the career I was building to a building career – I work as a project manager for a building company. The irony doesn’t escape me.

But I wanted something more. I love my job – it allows me the flexibility and creative talent to excel at what I do, but it’s not everything. It also has an end-point. My energy is limited, I fall asleep at awkward times, I trip over stray wires, I repeat stuff. Luckily, I work with my best friend who knows more about MS than anyone else.

Writing has allowed me to discuss, dissect and analyse every single niggle I’ve ever had with MS, and bringing up a Teenager throughout a life with MS. Abject loneliness has been replaced with a worldwide hug of immense proportions. You guys just … get me.

You’ve been through the ups and downs, you’ve seen The Teenager through the best and worst of times. You even took the time to send him messages of support when he was in a grim place and he read every single one with a smile on his face.

Writing is incredibly powerful and I didn’t realise that until I started. I poured out all the pent-up angst and you were with me through my epic Pity-Party-For-One.

It’s hard, baring your soul. But, you guys have shown me that it is so, so worth it.

If when I attain my PhD, you’re all invited. Without you, it wouldn’t happen.

Reach out and lift up …

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Sep 12 2016
25 Comments
My Ramblings

A Considered Response …

terrifyingI’ve been so fortunate to receive glowing reviews of my book on Amazon and Good Reads, and I treasure every single one (often reading them when I’m having a low day).

However, I had one the other day which made me stop and think.

The essence was, ‘loved the start but at the end … so much of it rambles on and is not really in the realm of most MS’ers, eg. taking on an MA’.

Do I ramble? Yes, most definitely. I even have a category on my blog labelled, ‘My Ramblings’.

It was more the second part which stuck in my head. Let me explain:

Due to MS, I have had to give up my entire career path. It just won’t happen, especially after being sacked for having MS. I was derailed. Luckily I was offered a job by my best friend, which, although fulfilling and excellent at fitting around the myriad of appointments I suddenly have, has no real career path. I will no doubt end my working days with this company.

I needed something else; something mind-expanding and difficult. As I struggled tremendously to complete my degree just when MS struck, I thought, ‘OK MS, you almost won, but get this, I’m going to try something even more challenging.’

I hit on the idea of a Creative Writing MA. Could I write anything else apart from my blog? Believe me, it’s looking like I can’t. But at least I tried.

I’m not that different from MSers who run marathons, who raise money for MS charities or hold cake bakes. Or the MSers who progress through their career path, defying their detractors. My way of pushing back the frontiers and limitations of MS is to indulge myself in something I never thought I would be able to do.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s been hell. I’ve cried, almost withdrew from my course several times, torn up endless manuscripts and sniffled in class when my short story was brutally dissected.

Perhaps an MA is ‘outside the realm of most MS’ers’. Just as jumping out a plane is for me. Or winning a gold medal in Rio.

My MA is precious to me – it shows me I still can. 

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Mar 04 2016
2 Comments
Emotions

The MS Muse …

WriterAfter a very rocky start to 2016, life is slowly becoming more settled.

Sadly, MS hasn’t.

Perhaps it’s the stress of everything that has happened so far this year. And what a year.

Yet, life continues and I’m absorbing the same-old challenges MS insists on chucking in my path, like some super-charged Easter Bunny with a basketful of chocolate eggs: the slower than expected recovery from the flu, the mental fog, the tiredness (I now fall asleep sitting up, gah) and the usual increase in nerve pain.

Anyway, I plan to funnel this bounty of symptoms into my latest challenge – writing 4,000 – 6,000 words of my novel for my Masters. In six weeks.

Er. What novel?

Despite all the turmoil of the last two months – very ill relative, family dramas and ridiculous politics – I’ve at least attended my tutorials. I mean, I was there. But I appear to have taken nothing in. Thank goodness I have a scribe and I’m fascinated by the notes he sends me. Did we really discuss that? Did I actually make that terribly pretentious point?

Yup.

I’m panicking. A novel. Ok, not a whole novel, but the makings of one. Erm. Must dig out my fingerless gloves and turn the heating down. Exist on eggs boiled in saucepans of soup. Could be the makings of a new diet?

In between all this, The Teenager is interrupting my feeble efforts. He swoops downstairs, randomly flies his fingers across a few keys on my computer and sings along to Oasis hits. I mean, really? And … Stevie Wonder’s ‘Sir Duke’.

This isn’t really helping. Neither is MS. So I will call upon the MS Muse: when the worst has already happened, how bad can it be?

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Oct 24 2014
20 Comments
Work and Studying

It’s A Hard Life, Being a Student…

studentIt truly is.

Especially the evening lectures, when The Teenager cranks up the guilt:

Can you bring me back some sweets?
Nope, there’s carrot sticks in the fridge.
Can you bring me back a drink?
Nope, there’s Council Pop in the tap.
I need help with my homework.
Welsh isn’t one of my languages.
I’m calling Childline.

And with that, he strops off upstairs and turns his music up. When I get back later, he’s slumped on the sofa chucking the carrot sticks at re-runs of Countdown.

Anyway, apart from that, it’s the essays that are my main challenge right now. I had imagined, when signing up for a Masters in Creative Writing, I would be stumbling around in artistically-put-together clothes (garments?), staring at the clouds then scribbling long words and my meaningful impressions of life in a shiny new notebook.

There were two problems with this. First, MS brain has reduced my observations to, ‘the clouds were pink. And white. And a little bit fluffy’. And, ‘the cat ran away. And then came back.’

Second, I hadn’t expected to write essays about writing essays. I had no idea there were so many theories and ‘-isms’ in writing. I am currently staring at a stack of books about ethnography as a research method. Out of the eight books, I have found five quotes, and two of them say pretty much the same thing.

The university library is a scary place, full of very young intelligent-looking people. And it’s very, very quiet. They can hear me scanning and dropping my piles of books a mile away. The machine hates me and the librarians at the desk tut.

I also have to write a portfolio of short stories by the end of December. This is going ok, but I seem to be writing very dark stuff. Ho hum. No idea why. But, as with everything over the last three years, I am nothing if not determined. My putty brain is being stretched to capacity. And I have decided to, gulp, publish the last two years of my blog as a book. At least I can then call myself a writer/author/deluded. I think.

I told The Teenager about my grand literary plans and he stared at me aghast. However, he quickly recovered and suggested ideas for new blog posts I could write about him. I interrupted him and told him the blog wasn’t fiction. He muttered something under his breath in Welsh, swiped the last scone and disappeared.

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