Advice from a self-confessed mess

It's been a while. That is not to say that nothing's happened - far from it. There has been so much going on in fact that I need to nutshell everything within an inch of its life in order to not break some kind of new waffly record.

I'm doing ok. For a long while I felt completely burnt out, but what's new? I worked a lot on the NaNoWriMo draft, which didn't help. It got to the point where I had read and edited it so much that I probably knew the thing by heart, so I had to take a couple of weeks away from the project and book stuff in general which helped immensely. I'll elaborate on that side of it later, but talking of the NaNoWriMo draft, I am excited to share that it is being released as an eBook and paperback this Friday called, Stuff I'll Tell You To Do That I Won't Do Myself: Advice from a self-confessed mess. I think the title probably makes the book pretty self-explanatory, but here is the blurb for it anyway:


Part self-help book, part memoir … with a twist.

Cara takes you through the events that have shaped her life – from a skin condition which left her housebound and compulsions that made her feel mentally isolated, to her struggles to communicate after trauma and her battle with anxiety. It includes some observations on life and the lessons she has learned from pain – but whether she takes her own advice is another story ...

This book covers:
~ Anxiety
~ Disordered eating
~ The destructive nature of fear
~ Comparison in the age of social media
~ Identity
~ A new take on shyness
~ Dating
~ Growing up with red hair
~ Transformation
~ Panicking
~ Chronic skin conditions
~ Trichotillomania and dermatillomania
~ An (OVER) organised mind
… and much more.

It is broken up into two parts, with the first part written in late 2019, and the second during the summer of 2020 after the events that made this year what it is and how it affected one thirty-something woman trying to navigate it all.

She is not an expert on life – she is a mess.

***

I'll break down all the work I've done on it since my last post as there is a lot to cover, but it's a little complicated to explain because I decided in early June to add a Part 2 to the book, so I think I'll start with that side of things:

• On Wednesday 10th June, after feeling like the book needed to be expanded after everything that's happened this year, I started writing a Part 2. I'd already written around 418 words in advance as a sort of outline with some ideas etc. with a further 511 words on the Wednesday then 386 words on Thursday 11th June. They are very low word counts for me, but pretty good considering during both days I was working on edits for Part 1. 
• I didn't do any more work on Part 2 for three days until Monday 15th June when, after a really successful day, I felt excited and inspired and ended up writing 2,017 words. The following day I was only able to start writing at 9pm, but ended up writing an additional 1,112 words.
• On Wednesday 17th, I had a night off (and watched the film Splash if you were interested - it's still great), but the next day I was ready to get on again. Once more, I could only start at 9pm, but I still ended up writing 1,201 words. 
• On Friday 19th June, over the day, I wrote 2,869 more words. Broken down, I did 407 words in the morning, 958 words in the afternoon and 1,504 words in the evening (although half of those words were copied over from existing work - regardless, I'm still putting it as part of my word count).
• With that, I ended up roughly finishing Part 2, bringing the total word count to 8,528. 
• Over a few hours on Monday 22nd June, I went over everything I had written before sending it off to Mum for her opinion and ended up bringing up the total to 9,186 words meaning I inadvertently wrote 658 more words.

Right, that's everything for Part 2, so now I'll cover how editing the whole book went.

• On Monday 11th May, I did a read through/edit of the book which I finished on Tuesday and on Wednesday 13th May, Mum and I went through my edits which we finished on Friday 15th May.
• I tried to work on the book again on Monday 18th May, but had to give up. Mum wanted to read through it on her own anyway, and we went through her edits over the first week of June, which we finished before reading through it again from Wednesday 10th June. Mum and I took a break for the weekend then started reading through it again on Monday 15th June. We finished on the morning of Thursday 18th June, and it was during this read through that it felt like it was nearly there; something had shifted and it was now a book instead of a draft, if that makes sense. 
• On Monday 22nd June, Mum and I started to work through the draft again, but I suddenly snapped and knew that if I looked at those dratted words again, I'd go crazy, so we took a break and over the day I read through/edited Part 2 (the part I could bear to read as it was still new) and on Wednesday 24th June, we went through my edits before I put both parts together. In the afternoon, we started reading through the whole draft again then began work on it again on Monday 29th. We eventually finished that read through on Tuesday 7th July and on Thursday 9th July, we did a quick read through, changing all wes to yous. I had been debating for a while whether to do 'we' or 'you' (remember it's a non-fiction self-help book) but I finally settled on you, for the most part. My whole thinking behind 'we' initially was that I wanted the book to feel like 'we are all in this together', and by having you, I was worried that it would feel a little detached, but after some research online, and doing a lot of thinking, you made the most sense.
• Mum and I then tried to read through it yet again on Monday 13th July, but this was the aforementioned day that I realised I'd read it too much and had lost all objectivity. I was bloody fed up with it to be honest, and so we read through/edited Part 2 which we finished the same day. Mum then said she would read through the whole book once more (she is a saint) as I literally couldn't see those words again otherwise I think my eyes would have started bleeding.
• It took Mum a few weeks, and during that time, I decided to take a step back from all work. When she was done (I didn't make a note of the date), we went through her edits.
• Something remarkable happened on Sunday 9th August: I finally felt like reading through my book again, which I did over two days and loved it. Whilst I was pleasantly surprised with the book itself, what I really loved was woking through it and making edits as I went. Mum simultaneously read through the book on her own, and on Wednesday 12th August, we came together again and went through both sets of our edits which we finished working through the following day. 
• After that, I began work on the after: the cover (hello Canva, we meet again), the blurb, announcing the book on Instagram, setting up the paperback and ebook files, STUFF THAT IS SO SMALL BUT TAKES THE LONGEST TIME IN THE WORLD).

If I'm being honest, I think this has been the toughest book I've ever had to edit. I'm not sure if that is because it deals with some very hard times in my life, or whether this strange year with all its twists and turns made it harder, or a bit of both. Regardless, it's done now and I hope those who end up reading it, like it.

In other writing news ...

On Thursday 9th July, I started working on a new short story which was sparked by something very small and random. I didn't have a clue what was going to happen in it, but I still ended up writing 1,590 words after dinner. On Friday 10th, over an hour or two, I wrote another 1,447 words and ended up finishing it, bringing the total word count to 3,037. It is about half the size of my usual short stories, but who cares?

On the evening of Sunday 12th July, I started writing a new short story I'd had an idea for and wrote about 779 words. I was very distracted (I was on dating apps concurrently - it didn't go well), but pleased to have made a good start on it before the week had even begun. I was too tired to work on the story again until Thursday 16th July when I wrote 1,095 words over an hour or so before lunch, bringing the total to 1,874. In the afternoon, I wrote another 2,133 words. I wrote 345 words after dinner, which was a struggle as I think it had hit me that I'd written a lot and suddenly felt at the end. I really had to dig deep to find the words. After it was pretty much done, I read through it, making quick edits and changes as I went, and officially finished the first draft which came in at 4,624 words before sending the story straight to Mum for her opinion, as per.

Seeing as we're on the subject of short stories, I've been doing some thinking about them and what's best so when I've established more of a solid plan, I'll share what I'm going to do with them...

Book wise, I've read a fair bit but there were two standouts (... although saying that, there might be some excellent books I've completely forgotten about):

• I reread The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I read it for the first time in my late teens and honestly didn't understand what all the fuss was about, but this time, I certainly did, and it just blew me away. I borrowed my mum's copy, but I am going to get my own as it is one of those books I want to highlight entire sections of and keep on my bedside table. A wonderful book that feeds your soul.
• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. One of the most divine books I've ever read that from the first page will reduce you to happy, poignant tears. Lessons on life shared in the form of beautiful illustrations and quotes. Just like The Alchemist, I am keeping it on my bedside table as a reminder of how I'd like to live my life.

You'll be pleased to know I'm out of news to share and so I will leave it there for now. 

Until next time,

Cara x