Dear Julian,
So, this is weird. You've been in my head for a long time - fully formed and raring to go. And I've been keeping you in, just waiting for the next month to start. But you're here now (almost), it's almost time to let you out so I thought I'd say hi. I know you're ready, and I can only hope I am too. I do not want to let you down or the story I know you have in you by, I don't know, losing the plot as it were (that was a bad joke, get used to them, they'll be following you around for all of November).
Because other than knowing you and your brother and a few ideas about general happenings, I have no idea how this is going to go; who you're going to meet, what food you want to eat, if you'll cry or even if you'll get out of this alive. Sorry, that makes it seem like you are completely in my hands but really, it's the other way round. I need you to let me know what you want, where you go, who you love and whether this ends well for you. Because until I meet you on November first, I am just as clueless about your life as I am about my own.
Because then, when I pick up my MacBook for what I'm sure will be the hundredth time that day, open TextEdit and make the document, I will finally get inside your head and understand you. And I'm so excited to finally meet you. I just know you'll be one of the best I ever write, best I ever meet even, because you are already three dimensional up here in my mind before you've even got a plot or friends to interact with. So you must be pretty charismatic.
The reason I love NaNoWriMo so much is because this month, your life and my life will merge and even the times I'm not with you, I'll still be thinking about you. It'll be a little bit like you're my husband, only it'll only last thirty days and you only exist in words. I hope we have a good time regardless of whether we win. We're in this together and it'll only work if we get on. So try not to be over complicated or do things out of character I then have to delete or get lost in a plot hole I have to work you out of. Just be yourself - no pressure. But let me know if I'm going wrong. Yell or scream or just hit a dead end. Anything.
I know you can't reply. I mean, you can but it'll really just be me and so... you can't. And also, if you were real and got this you'd be thinking you'd lost your mind. But just so you know, it's really helped me to write to you. I feel like it's really beginning and I'm nervous because, unlike last time, I know what I'm getting into; and I just want it to be as intense and wonderful as last year. So it's important to me that you're on my side in making this work.
I hope you're excited about this like I am. Japan means I won't be able to plan the way I want to, or might have done. And it also means the first chapter of your great American escapade will be tainted with jet-lag and the smell of a days worth of travel. But it'll be good - I promise! Or at least, I promise I believe that it will be.
So, by the end of the first of November I'll have given you a road-map, a car and a lot of emotional baggage. What we do with it is up to you.
Lots of love and lots of luck,
Grace
Your Writer
PS. I write much better when it's fiction. Promise!
If you want to know more about Julian or my novel, just comment or @ me. Or you can wait til it's over.
Friday 16 October 2009
Thursday 8 October 2009
My Father and Books
Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged - sometimes I'm in the place and sometimes I'm not!
Felt like a lot of significant things have changed over the last year and a couple of things have crept up on me which are serious wake-up calls to just how close I am to being a fully functional human being.
The first is, obviously, UCAS. UCAS is not only scary because of the ever present possibility of me not getting in anywhere and having to take an enforced gap year, but because of all the other things that go along with applying to university. This time next year (hopefully) I will be living alone - and more scary than plans for university are plans for money, travel, things I need to bring, things I need to buy, general skills I can see I am lacking...
But that's not even the scariest thing. More recently, the relationship with my parents has changed slightly. I am an only child, meaning in general I have no choice but be relatively close to my parents. We live in a small but perfectly formed flat, but as with all families, we tend to trip over each other as much as we sit in mutual contentment.
I think the scariest thing is how, gradually, the relationship I have (and I'm going to be specific about my dad not because I love him more but simply he reads more and listens to music) with my dad has been more equal. This month I have reccommeneded my dad two books: 'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh' by Michael Chabon and 'Paper Towns' by John Green. And he's liked them both.
This may seem ridiculously small a moment to, after weeks of silence, warrant a blog post. And it's not like it's the first time my dad has valued my opinion or taking my advice over art or media of some description. But it feels a little bit like, after years of my parents essentially saturating me in culture and art that has influenced my tastes, opinions and, possibly, career ideas, I can start to pay them back.
The things my parents have opened my eyes to are some of the most valued parts of my life. Writers like Raymond Carver or Douglas Coupland, art like Peter Blake or Richard Hamilton, films like Heathers or The Royal Tenenbaums. It's not as though I never would have found these things on my own, but it means an awful lot to me that these things have come with my parents, and I can discuss them with them. It has formed a huge part of my relationship.
And now, it seems, my life has started to break away from theirs. Now I am becoming an individual person, who has interests outside of those of my parents and specifically my daily use of the Internet to find things, I can start to find gems of my own (like the two books mentioned to name but a few) and give these experiences back to my parents.
Turning this relationship into more of an exchange than a hierarchy (not that we were really ever like that, I had them wrapped around my finger) is the next stage of our relationship. We won't be living together, we won't share day to day experiences and so it is comforting to know that a relationship of cultural exchange will still exist, stronger than ever, which means we can stay close wherever I end up. I want my own life - but it's important that as many people as possible from this life can fit into that. My parents have already found their place, and that is as scary as it is heartening.
I am aware this has been happening gradually over some time - but it is just this week it hs truly hit me the implications. This time next year, whatever happens with UCAS, I'll be an adult. And being treated like one won't be a luxury but a way of life.
Incidently, if I would reccommend them to my dad I would reccommend them to anyone! You should read both/either because they truly are thoughtful, simply tales of haunting stories with characters that are both interesting and who ring true. Very different but equally wonderful.
Felt like a lot of significant things have changed over the last year and a couple of things have crept up on me which are serious wake-up calls to just how close I am to being a fully functional human being.
The first is, obviously, UCAS. UCAS is not only scary because of the ever present possibility of me not getting in anywhere and having to take an enforced gap year, but because of all the other things that go along with applying to university. This time next year (hopefully) I will be living alone - and more scary than plans for university are plans for money, travel, things I need to bring, things I need to buy, general skills I can see I am lacking...
But that's not even the scariest thing. More recently, the relationship with my parents has changed slightly. I am an only child, meaning in general I have no choice but be relatively close to my parents. We live in a small but perfectly formed flat, but as with all families, we tend to trip over each other as much as we sit in mutual contentment.
I think the scariest thing is how, gradually, the relationship I have (and I'm going to be specific about my dad not because I love him more but simply he reads more and listens to music) with my dad has been more equal. This month I have reccommeneded my dad two books: 'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh' by Michael Chabon and 'Paper Towns' by John Green. And he's liked them both.
This may seem ridiculously small a moment to, after weeks of silence, warrant a blog post. And it's not like it's the first time my dad has valued my opinion or taking my advice over art or media of some description. But it feels a little bit like, after years of my parents essentially saturating me in culture and art that has influenced my tastes, opinions and, possibly, career ideas, I can start to pay them back.
The things my parents have opened my eyes to are some of the most valued parts of my life. Writers like Raymond Carver or Douglas Coupland, art like Peter Blake or Richard Hamilton, films like Heathers or The Royal Tenenbaums. It's not as though I never would have found these things on my own, but it means an awful lot to me that these things have come with my parents, and I can discuss them with them. It has formed a huge part of my relationship.
And now, it seems, my life has started to break away from theirs. Now I am becoming an individual person, who has interests outside of those of my parents and specifically my daily use of the Internet to find things, I can start to find gems of my own (like the two books mentioned to name but a few) and give these experiences back to my parents.
Turning this relationship into more of an exchange than a hierarchy (not that we were really ever like that, I had them wrapped around my finger) is the next stage of our relationship. We won't be living together, we won't share day to day experiences and so it is comforting to know that a relationship of cultural exchange will still exist, stronger than ever, which means we can stay close wherever I end up. I want my own life - but it's important that as many people as possible from this life can fit into that. My parents have already found their place, and that is as scary as it is heartening.
I am aware this has been happening gradually over some time - but it is just this week it hs truly hit me the implications. This time next year, whatever happens with UCAS, I'll be an adult. And being treated like one won't be a luxury but a way of life.
Incidently, if I would reccommend them to my dad I would reccommend them to anyone! You should read both/either because they truly are thoughtful, simply tales of haunting stories with characters that are both interesting and who ring true. Very different but equally wonderful.
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