The Lightning Process

I've been meaning to write for a while about how I got better from ME/CFS. Those of you who have met me face to face will know that I had several really bad years with CFS; I was mostly housebound and completely unable to work. Any time I did something really tiring, like meeting friends in London, I'd pay for it with days or weeks of pain and exhaustion.

Weekly Vitamin B12 injections helped by relieving the brain fog. I also did daily meditation, as recommended by the NHS, and paced myself. I did try to gradually increase the amount I was doing but without any noticeable progress. So I resigned myself to feeling like an eighty-year old woman although I was in my mid-fifties, and to a life where the internet was my main contact with the outside world. I had my lovely family around me and I told myself that I was happy.

Then a friend sent me a press cutting about the Lightning Process and I was desperate enough to try it.

The first day of the three-day course, I set off fearfully. I had a half hour's drive to get there, which was more than I was sure I could manage. All the way there I was turning over in my mind how I'd get back. Would I be able to drive? Would I need a taxi? Or maybe find somewhere to stay near the training venue?

That afternoon after four hours or so of training, I drove back home happily. I drove to a local wool shop to get wool. I cooked dinner. I drove my son and daughter-in-law to Slimming World and back. The change was amazing.

At first I kept very quiet about it. The Lightning Process sometimes has a bad press because of people apparently making extreme claims about it and I didn't think anyone would take me seriously until I'd been better for a while. And to be honest it felt like early days and I wasn't sure how I was going to be next month or next year.

Five months after the course, I was looking for work and found a part-time job at an after-school club. I was nervous about taking it; would my energy hold up? Well, it did and I felt happier than I had in a long while. No more state benefits for me I was getting paid, and getting paid to do a job I loved.

In April it will be two years since I did the Lightning Process. I'm working, I'm cycling, I'm learning Spanish and I'm happy. At the moment I'm trying to get fit enough to go on a skiing holiday.

I think we can call that a success.

Don't give up the day job?

From Bo's Cafe Life

I've just been reading You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing and it made me think about what it's like to be a professional writer.

Scalzi has an interesting history. He's known since he was around fourteen that he wanted to write for a living because it was easy for him compared to say, maths. He's making a good living at writing but not mainly based on writing novels (or not at the time he wrote You're Not Fooling...) He's written a lot of non-fiction including articles for various publications and he's willing to take on most commissions if they pay well enough.

It clarified for me why I don't want to be a professional writer. If you're a writer you have to write whether you want to or not. Now I've done my fair share of writing for a job and quite enjoyed it. I had five years in the Civil Service mostly drafting documents, and I had regular reports to write in my last job for The Place2Be. That was fine but it's not what comes easiest to me. If I had to choose a job based on making a living at things that I'd want to do anyway, I'd choose to work with children.

And I do! (And what's even better is that we'll soon be getting a cook at our after-school club so I won't have to do the one bit of the job that I don't really care for.)

You know you're doing a job you like when you don't keep having to remind yourself "Well, at least I'm getting paid for this."

According to Scalzi, most fiction writers earn their living at something else. For him it's non-fiction writing; for me it's working with children. I'm not ready to give up my day job and I'm not sure I ever will be. What about you?

Pictures I Found On My Phone

I was going to call this post something posh like "2012 Retrospective" but then I decided to go with honesty: these are the pictures I found on my phone. They remind me of some of the good times I had last year.

Probaby Denbies Vineyard, probably summer 2012

Bonnie enjoying the summer sun

Walking near the New Inn at Send

Rufus in his hammock

Where I work, sans children (because of issues with photographing other people's children and putting their pictures online)

Geek get-together during NaNoWriMo (note the amazing camera work and I wasn't even drunk)

Christmas Reindeer at Covent Garden

Skating at Somerset House

Flooding upriver of Hampton Court Palace

After-Christmas Cats with their new cat tree

Somewhere I also have pictures of the family over Christmas and New Year but you've been spared those. The photos of Box Hill today are still on my phone. Be grateful for small mercies!

Next week it's back to work but until then I'm enjoying the holidays. I hope you are too.

New Year Family Fun

Here is Bonnie winning herself some gems in the Hobbit game; sadly the whole party of dwarves got eaten but she had the most gems, so she was the richest, dead dwarf of us all.

Cats at Christmas

Rufus caught a bird yesterday and we found it rather messily dead on the kitchen floor. But to make up for it, I got a lovely card from the cats today.

The envelope said: TO OUR SERVANT NO 1

In case you can't read the dialogue:

Rufus: What's all this Christmas fuss about?
Bonnie: It's a time of goodwill to all cats and their servants. (Not mice.)
Bonnie: All I see is an empty dish.

Bonnie: Didn't we get the servants a present?
Rufus: Er Yea. I left it somewhere. I know, on the floor in the kitchen.

Mouse: I don't think I like Christmas very much.

I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas time. (If you're not, then you might like to go here: http://exmoorjane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/if-christmas-suddenly-blindsides-you.html )

Best wishes to one and all!

Merry Advent!

From Tea with the Squash God

I hope you're all coping with the run-up to Christmas! I'm behind with my present-buying and card-writing and work is slightly insane at the moment; that's what you get when everyone is stressed out and the children are over-excited.

But other than that, everything's fine! What about you?

I did it!

I thought I'd given up at one point but somehow I could never bring myself to abandon the challenge completely. I think this might be my worst story yet but I'm sure there will be salvageable ideas in it.

My poor main characters are currently exploring a distant future and I think I ought to bring them back home before I call it quits.

I grew to like some of my main characters, although the Dad (sorry, I mean Papa because he's French) was a bit of a grumpuss and I wish I knew why my very main character was shying away from any sort of relationship.

Anyway, it's done. Now I can do all those things that I've not been getting around to, like Spanish homework and Christmas shopping.

Oh, and if you want a book that is actually a good read, I'm still recommending Ice Diaries by Lexi because that book has stayed in my mind ever since I read it. I know it will be high on my re-read list when I get my Christmas present, which this year is going to be a Kindle. Yay, Kindle!

Random Penguin

Okay, now I've done it. I've included a random penguin and a crocheted chicken suit in my Nanomuddle.

I was doing so well the first eight days then I ran out of plot. It's been an uphill struggle since then and I'm getting desperate.

Oddly enough, I kind of expected this. I know that I always get to a stage where I have nothing left to write and have to pull ideas out of the air. I was hoping that inspiration would hit and that something good would arise out of the randomness, as happened to Erin Morganstern with The Night Circus.

I obviously thought about that too much because I ended up with a travelling circus in my story.

And although I'm not writing fanfiction, I'm sure my debt to Star Trek, Dr Who and Lexi Revellian is showing.

I'm also collecting characters as I go along. At this rate I'll have a cast of thousands which is not easy when you're trying to work out who should be talking in a scene.

Still, it beats worrying about what we're going to do for Christmas.

Ice Diaries

Ice Diaries came out this week. It's the latest book by Lexi Revellian and I loved it. She just goes on getting better which I wouldn't have thought was possible.

Tori is stranded in an England covered up to 20m deep in snow; can she find her way south to warmer climes?

There's a great cast of characters and I was so drawn into the story that I was surprised to look up from the book and see autumn leaves instead of snow! I recommend it.

If you pop over to Lexi's website you can read the beginning of the book for free as a taster. I admit I didn't bother; after Lexi's previous books I went straight to amazon as soon as I saw it was out.

Only two problems:

1. I nearly put the book aside in the middle when it became too tense.

2. I should have been writing my Nanonovel instead of reading a whole book in two days.

Meh. It was worth it!

On the first day of Nano

I've written 2000 words.

It always surprises me how tired I feel afterwards! I need to write 1786 words a day if I want to get to 50k by the end of November, allowing for two days off. Because I do have a life, and I've got a brilliant day of skating and Christmas treats planned thanks to where my Beloved works.

The first day or so is usually the easiest as I use up all the story I've already worked out. I wonder how long it will be till I run out.