Tea Stains and Daisy Chains: June 2014

My latest article for Eat More Cake

10:31

The Writing Process Blog Tour

17:00

So, I was asked to do The Writing Process Blog Tour by Lorna Holland on Twitter (@themaxdog)- thank you! You can find her responses on her blog here.

If I'm honest, when Lorna asked me, I had no idea what she was talking about and had to turn to good old Google to enlighten myself. Once I'd done this however, I was pleased to have been asked but replied with a questioning, "I don't really write books though?". Apparently that doesn't matter, so I'm just going to answer the questions in relation to the random stuff that I happen to be writing at this moment in time. Here goes!

What am I currently working on?

Hmm, what am I currently working on? That is a very good question. Several months ago I could have told you that I'm attempting to write a book (when I say book, I actually mean a fairly pathetic story), but I seem to have run out of inspiration. I've written as much of the plot as I've managed to plan in my head and now my imagination has failed me. Obviously, if I were to be serious about it, I would persevere nonetheless. But unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I'm just a girl who loves to write as a hobby, so can afford to pick up and drop my projects whenever I feel like it. However, I have taken on several semi-commitments, which include writing for a few online magazines/websites. These are Kettle Mag, MyStudentStyle and Eat More Cake. After enthusiastically signing up to get involved with all these things, I suddenly realised that this meant that I had to write at least three articles per week, plus regularly updating my two blogs. This is fine at the moment, but I've just got a job (yay, at last!), which starts in the next few weeks, so I decided to make myself a 'Writing Schedule'. Don't judge; I just REALLY need organisation in my life, otherwise EVERYTHING goes wrong. So, the answer to the question now depends on which day you ask me. If it's Monday, then I'll be working on a post for this blog. If it's Tuesday, I'll be writing an article for Eat More Cake. On a Wednesday I'll be updating my Student Survival Kit blog. Thursday is Kettle Mag's slot, followed by MyStudentStyle on Friday. Then on Saturday, I will be finishing off Friday's article, which leaves Sunday as a day of rest! (Or most likely, I'll get bored and will start writing on a random whim of sudden inspiration). I've only been following this timetable for a couple of weeks, so I have no idea whether it will stick, but it's the thought that counts, right?

How does my work differ from others of it's genre?

Seeing as I don't have a particular genre, this is a little tricky. Therefore, I shall do as I've been conditioned never to do in exams and will attempt to manipulate the question to suit my answer. So essentially, I'm going to try and tell you why my articles and blog posts are different from those of any other aspiring journalist or student blogger. I think this mainly lies in the fact that I myself am different. Most of the other young writers I've come across on Twitter and Google+, are currently students, who are often at university. Many of them are doing Journalism degrees, or perhaps English Literature. While I do hope to go to uni in 2015 to study English, at the moment I'm just living at home with my mum, my dad, my brother and my cat. As I said above, I have just managed to get a full-time job at a shop in town, which will be my first ever employment! So, as you can see, I'm not the most experienced or street-savvy 18 year-old out there. But, I do think that my own personal experiences (such as my five traumatic weeks at university), have allowed me to discover a lot about myself and to develop my own style of writing. In fact, although I enjoyed and did well at my English A Level, I didn't really do much writing outside of school until a few months after I returned home from my short stay at uni in October this year. Does this mean that as soon as I become a student, I'll no longer be 'different'? No, of course not. My style will hopefully just improve, thanks to all the reading and writing that comes hand-in-hand with an English degree!

Why do I write what I do?

This is probably the same for most of you, but I find writing incredibly therapeutic. My first two blog posts (here and here) really helped me to figure out what was going on in my confused little brain. Things that I find hard to say out-loud, seem to come flowing out of my fingers and onto the page without the slightest hesitation. As well as that very selfish motive, I also write what I do in order to help other people who are going through something similar. If I can stop just one person being boxed-up and conveyor-belted away to university just because they don't know what else to do, then that will be mission accomplished. Or even if one of my posts brightens the day of just one sufferer of depression, then that will make it worth the effort (not that I'm finding this particularly strenuous, yet!). Oh, and one more selfish reason- I think I want to be a journalist one day, so I need to get as much writing experience as possible while I still have the time!

How does my writing process work?

I'd love to tell you that I have a very structured and effective 'writing process', but unfortunately, I just sort of dive in and see what happens. Once I've got an idea for an opinion or commentary piece, I tend to sit at my laptop and just let the words flow, which unsurprisingly has a fairly unreliable success rate. Doing things like this means that I have to spend quite a long time editing and changing things around, but I don't really mind. To be honest, when I start writing something fairly creative or opinionated, I only have a vague idea of where it's going when I start. I find that whatever it is, seems to take shape almost of its own accord, meaning that I'm often pretty surprised by the outcome. When I read over it, I often wonder where on earth all the ideas came from! However, if I'm writing a news article or something that requires a bit of research, I usually make some notes by hand, as I find it easier to just use the laptop as a tool, rather than having to constantly flick between Word and the internet, or wherever. Then all I have to do is type the piece up, which is the easy part. When I write essays, which I did a lot at school, I am slightly more conventional, in that I make a plan before I start. This just helps me not to go off on a tangent or start rambling about some unrelated topic. So basically, my writing process isn't particularly unique or exciting. In fact, it wasn't really something I'd thought about until I was asked if I'd like to take part in this blog tour; this has been informative for both of us!

And that's me done! I hope you've enjoyed reading my answers. I know I'm not really a 'proper' writer, but I think this is a great opportunity for anyone who writes in some shape or form to tell others about their passion.

I'm now passing the baton on to the lovely and very talented Sian Elvin! You should be able to find her answers here in a week's time :)

Harriet x

bbc top 100 books

The BBC Top 100 Books- Brave New World

09:39

book

MyStudentStyle book review- 'The Storyteller' by Jodi Picoult

12:42

bbc top 100 books

(A variation of) The BBC Top 100 Books List- My Challenge

09:46

Right, if I'm want to study English Literature at university in a few years time, I think I need to get my act together and become a little more 'well read'. When I saw a list similar to this on another blog, I arrogantly thought to myself "Pfft, I bet I've read most of them". Let's just say I was swiftly removed from my high-horse.

In spite of my shame, I've put a line through the few that I have actually read. But, I've made it my challenge to have read ALL of them by the time I go to university (hopefully) in September 2015.

I have no idea whether this is remotely possible, but it sounded like a nice idea. Anyway, if I haven't read them all by the time I go (which, let's be honest, is VERY likely), it doesn't really matter. What's important is that I'll have read more than I have today.

I've started with A Brave New World and I'm going to do a very brief write-up once I've finished each book. I suppose I'd better get off my laptop and actually start reading...

~~1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen~~

2 The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien

~~3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte~~

~~4 Harry Potter series – J. K. Rowling~~

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible- (I'm not planning on trying to read all of this before I go to uni, but I do Bible reading every day so at least that's something)

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8 1984 – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

~~10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens~~

11 Little Women – Louisa M. Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

14 The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger

19 Robinson Crusoe- Daniel Defoe

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Enduring Love - Ian McEwan

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

~~36 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis~~

3~~7 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini~~

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

~~40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne~~

~~41 Animal Farm – George Orwell~~

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – L. M. Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

~~48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood~~

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

~~59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon~~

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~~61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck~~

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

~~64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold~~

65 The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Dubliners – James Joyce

76 The Inferno – Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White

~~88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom~~

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

~~99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl~~

100 A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

Harriet x

article

I've still been writing, I promise!

12:46

blog

3 Awesome Websites I Found On Twitter

20:45

article

Is this your idea of a healthy relationship with food?

10:32

As I was scrolling through (and largely ignoring) the articles on the Daily Mail Online app this morning, this one particularly caught my eye. Of course, this is by no means the first product to be launched as a 'zero calorie' alternative, but the fact that this isn't even food seems to take things one step further.

Diet foods vs zero calorie 'foods'

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the ever-evolving array of 'diet foods', which are now available in most supermarkets. These ranges, such as Morrisons' 'NuMe' and Sainsburys' 'Be good to yourself', offer people the chance to make healthy choices, whilst still enjoying good quality food. However, by removing all nutritional value from a product, just because it tastes nice and contains 'too much' fat or 'too many' calories, surely turns the whole idea of a healthy relationship with food on its head? Food is our fuel. Imagine pitching 'zero calorie noodles' to a group of starving farmers in Mali; the concept would be simply bewildering. We eat to give us energy and encouraging people to forget this is not going to solve any problems.

The problem of obesity

As we all know, some of our diets do contain a higher number of calories than necessary. However, in my opinion, trying to tackle this problem by giving people what they want, only without the calories, is only going to cause more issues. Having these calorie-free options available seems to simply enforce the idea that we can't learn to control ourselves around food. Are we really so desperate for chocolate that we need to stick a 'listerine strip-type product' in our mouths to get some satisfaction? Surely if it's just the taste we crave, then eating just one square of actual chocolate would do the trick and wouldn't result in dramatic weight gain. This would also encourage a healthy relationship with food, something that seems to be somewhat compromised by a calorie-free option...

Eating disorders

Is it really surprising that 1.6 million people in the UK are affected by an eating disorder, when food is labelled by the media and advertising as so distinctly 'healthy' (good) or 'unhealthy' (bad)? By offering these so-called 'unhealthy' foods in a zero-calorie form, the implication being made is that eating these foods results in weight gain and eventually, obesity. However, it's perfectly possible to enjoy 'bad' foods as part of a balanced diet. In fact, as part of treatment for eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, sufferers are encouraged not to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy foods; they are told that there is no such thing. In many cases, the sufferer has eliminated all these 'bad' foods from their diet and must now learn to re-introduce these 'fear foods'; something which is unsurprisingly difficult when surrounded by the message that these foods should only be enjoyed in flavour-form, without the calories, fats and sugars.

Unfortunately, as the levels of obesity continue to rise, it's unlikely that these products will be removed from the market any time soon. But hopefully, people will start to realise that the suggestion that calorie-free 'food' offers a healthy alternative, is a complete contradiction and simply makes 'zero' sense.

Harriet x

culture

My Day of Great Adventure

11:48

A train journey from St Albans to Kingston. No big deal, nothing out of the ordinary, right? Probably not, for the average eighteen year-old; but for me, this was a big day. This would be the first time I went into London on my own and the first time I planned a journey for myself. A few months ago, when I was struggling to see how I'd make it through the day, I never would have imagined that I'd spend a Saturday morning giving customers a gait analysis in a running shop, followed by an afternoon and evening in London at a university art exhibition.

When my cousin's girlfriend suggested that I go to her end of degree exhibition, I agreed enthusiastically, but knew that in reality, it probably wouldn't happen. I didn't know where it was going to be held, but it seemed pretty unlikely that I'd manage to get myself there. Anyway, I'd almost definitely feel awkward and out of place. Assuming she'd just asked out of politeness, I forgot about it, until she got in touch nearer the time with a date and a plan. It was at Kingston University at the end of May and lots of her family were going too. Despite the voice that was screaming, "Tell her you can't! You won't make it there by yourself! You can barely even function on your own!", I said yes. I must have been feeling particularly brave that day. Once I'd officially committed myself, I started to really look forward to it, as I was excited not only about seeing her and my cousin, but also about seeing her work.

The evening before the exhibition, I researched my train journey and wrote down all the connections and changes on a post-it note. This in itself was new to me, as I'd always relied on other people to organise any travel arrangements. Even in doing this simple thing for myself, I felt more confident about it all and wondered why I hadn't done this before- there was no complicated formula to it that everyone but me understood. It was so easy and I realised that the only reason I hadn't done it before was lack of self-belief, rather than lack of ability.

Arriving at St Albans train station on Saturday, I felt very grown up. I was clutching my new purse as I walked in and looked up at the information board. In the past, I would have taken a step back at this point, allowing whoever I was with to check the train times and buy the tickets. About six months ago, I would have been too scared to queue up at the ticket office and ask for a return to Kingston, but now this felt completely normal. I got myself to the right platform and waited for the train. I realised that, although this felt like an adventure to me, to the majority of other people around me, this was just a mundane part of their daily routine. When I got on the train, I started reading a book that I'd brought with me. Before, I would probably have felt too self-conscious and embarrassed to do this, but this time I decided that nobody else is interested or bothered in the slightest in what I choose to do on the train; it's only me who thinks everyone else is laughing at me! Anyway, reading on the train is hardly out of the ordinary!

About 10 minutes before we actually arrived at King's Cross St Pancras, I put my book away and got my ticket out, so that I was all ready. (Hopefully in the future I'll learn to be a bit more relaxed and will get it into my head that the train is going to stay at the platform long enough for me to get out!) Thankfully, I'd been to St Pancras many times, so was quite confident that I knew my way to the underground, but I still followed the signs religiously, just to be certain! My parents had been sure to remind me to go Southbound on the Victoria line, something which they probably had reason to worry about, as in the past I would have just followed someone else and not noticed the different directions. I took the underground to Vauxhall, where I would then take the overground to Kingston. When I arrived at Vauxhall, I looked at my yellow post-it and saw that the connection I'd planned on getting wasn't leaving for another half an hour. Last year, I would have just accepted this and waited, but this time I checked the information board and saw that an earlier train on platform 8 to Strawberry Hill was also stopping at Kingston. While I was waiting for this train, I listened over and over again to the announcements, just making sure that I had definitely got it right! Once I'd heard the recorded voice say 'Kingston' for the third time, I was pretty sure it was going to be okay...!

When I arrived at Kingston, I decided that I fancied a cup of tea, so went to the little stall on the platform. For some unknown reason, I used to think that café owners would see me as a nuisance and a bother if I went up and ordered something. (Obviously, this is completely irrational, because most would be begging for customers!) But this time, I even had a little chat with the guy who made me my tea and found out that he'd been to his friend's art exhibition the weekend before! I left with a smile on my face, realising that having a short conversation with me was far from an irritation to him; in fact, it probably made his day just that tiny bit more interesting.

Now that I'd finally made it there, I was looking forward to getting to the exhibition and meeting some new people, which is something that would previously have filled me with dread. I was still a bit anxious about fitting in and knowing what to say, but I needn't have worried as everyone was lovely and made me feel so welcome. The exhibition itself was for the final-year university art students to showcase their work, so there was a lot going on. I hadn't really seen any of my cousin's girlfriend's work before, so it was amazing to see it displayed so professionally. Maybe I'm slightly biased, but hers was definitely among the best there! This was actually confirmed by people who know what they're talking about, as she was approached by several galleries wanting to exhibit her work. As for my worries about fitting in, the art students were probably the best role-models imaginable for individuality and acceptance; I had never seen so many quirky outfits and wacky hairstyles under one roof before! The atmosphere was so relaxed and chilled, so I felt as though I had every right to be there, celebrating with a friend, just as everyone else was. We all went out for a meal afterwards, which was so much fun and I felt confident enough to chat to different people.

All these new experiences obviously took it out of me, as I almost fell asleep on the train home!

You may be wondering why I've bothered to write a post about a journey that probably seems pretty insignificant to most of you. To be honest, I'm also wondering this myself! I guess I just wanted to show that progress and achievement is all personal. If you do something that you wouldn't/couldn't have done before, you deserve to feel pleased with yourself. Also, I think that reflecting on these small achievements (like I have done by writing this piece) is important, because otherwise they are easily forgotten and overshadowed by failures (such as getting a rejection letter after a job interview). So if you were hoping to take something away from reading this, then maybe you can just think about how you might reflect on the little steps you take, which may help you to feel more motivated in your daily life.

Harriet x

My latest article for Eat More Cake

The Writing Process Blog Tour

So, I was asked to do The Writing Process Blog Tour by Lorna Holland on Twitter (@themaxdog)- thank you! You can find her responses on her blog here.

The BBC Top 100 Books- Brave New World

MyStudentStyle book review- 'The Storyteller' by Jodi Picoult

(A variation of) The BBC Top 100 Books List- My Challenge

I've still been writing, I promise!

Before anyone gives up on me and decides that I must have lost interest in this whole writing lark, I'd just like to gently point you in the direction of the various articles that I've been busy on over the last couple of weeks!

3 Awesome Websites I Found On Twitter

I just thought I'd share a few of the great websites that have been brought to my attention through the wonderful (if a little distracting) medium that is Twitter-

Is this your idea of a healthy relationship with food?

Diet foods vs zero calorie 'foods'

The problem of obesity

Eating disorders

My Day of Great Adventure

About Me

Contact Me

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