It's finally time...

After waiting and waiting for weeks, it's finally here....the summer holidays! *cries in relief*

Now, I know most people will be grumbling and saying that no one needs as much time off as teachers/TA's do, but let me tell you something - when you look after over sixty 4-5 year olds every day for weeks on end, as well as dealing with their parents - you need a break. Otherwise you'll just burst into tears and have a nervous breakdown. I love my job, I really do, but when you've had to put up with kids arguing with you (yes, even at that age), parents shouting at you, children getting hyper because it's approaching the end of term, as well as dealing with the 101 things you have to do as part of your daily job anyway....trust me, you're glad for the break.

On another positive note, we finally have internet in our house - hooray! Although the slight downside is that I'm now away for the next four weeks...but I have constant internet access where I am anyway, so there's really no excuse now for me NOT to blog regularly (apart from y'know, sheer laziness).

Anyway, the real point of this blog was this....

I think I'm finally ready for a Critique Partner.

I'm at that stage in my novel where I've edited (most of) it, I know what I want it to sound like...I now need someone to tell me how to whip it into shape, and to call me out on some of the dreadful writing I know is in there, but I just can't see it. And of course, I will reciprocate in kind :).

I guess I'd just love someone to read though it and let me know as someone who; A) isn't related to me and B) has no obligation to be nice to me because of point A, whether or not my story works and what I can do to improve it.

This is a big thing for me - for years my work has been private and I've shied away from sharing it with anyone because I'm just simply too terrified that people would hate it. Now, I think (and I honestly don't mean to sound arrogant here) I finally have a novel that I'm willing to share with the world.

So if you're a YA author and you're at all interested in becoming my CP, please just let me know :). I'd love to send you a couple of chapters for you to check out (don't worry, I won't bombard you with the whole thing at once!). The email address you can contact me on is: rachelsramblingsblog@gmail.com.

Or alternatively, feel free to leave me a comment in the comments section of this post :).

Like I said, it's a two way thing, so I'm more than happy to critique your work in kind. And just so you know folks, now is probably the best time for me to review your work as I have a long loooong summer ahead of me ;).

Happy writing!

July IWSG: Procrastination station

Welcome to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group!

IWSG was set up by the fantastic Alex J. Cavanaugh (you can view his blog here) and the group now was it's own awesome website here. Go and check them both out, now! Or y'know, once you've finished here ;)

I know, I know, I'm a day early, but if I thought that if I posted now, I'd have time to actually take a look around all the other brilliant writing blogs out there tomorrow, and offer some encouragement to all you other lovely writers!

I don't actually have anything specific to blog about this month, but I thought I'd share something interesting I've discovered about myself this month anyway.

So, for the past few weeks I've been working on my novel idea, and I'm pretty excited about this one. For once, I don't find it hard to write – I'm simply enjoying the process of writing it. But I have noticed one thing – if for whatever reason, I don't get to work on it for a day or two, I do find it much harder to get back into the swing of writing when I do open it back up again. I procrastinate like crazy...and yet, when I do finally get to work on it again, I don't want to stop!

I guess it's like any hobby you do – when I started learning guitar, I remember my guitar teacher telling me to keep my guitar out somewhere where I'd see it, so I'd pick it up, and practice more. At first, I didn't believe him but I soon learnt that, actually, it was true – if my guitar was out on display, I was much more likely to pick up and strum away than if I'd had to get it out of it's case every day.

And I think the same applies for my novel. So instead of just having it on my computer, and procrastinating whenever I think about loading it up, this month I'm going to be thinking of ways to keep it 'out in the open' – whether that's blogging more about my progress, never shutting down my computer, starting a notebook with all my notes about the novel in (this is actually my first novel that I haven't done this for), or just listening to music and thinking about ideas for the next scene – I'm determined to keep this novel visible, so I don't forget about it, even for a day.

How about you? How do you keep writing instead of procrastinating? And I'd love to hear if any of you are working on something that you're so enthusiastic about too :)!

Happy writing!