A Few Haiku #poetry #100daysofwriting #haiku #amwriting

One of the things I've been hoping that will come out of this 100 days of writing project is that I'll be stretched as a writer. And that's definitely happening, the daily commitment is tough to maintain. But I'm enjoying it and I think the discipline of it is helping me a lot. I want to be stretched as a writer in other ways though.

One of the things I've always struggled with is set forms of poetry. And particularly haiku. I get confused by the syllables and knowing how many a word has. I really want to get the hang of it because I think it's something that could help me with all my writing (in terms of pacing and rhythm) not just poetry.

So for day 12 of 100 I've attempted a few haiku.

Haiku rhythm confuses
And syllables elude me
Words meaning three lines

Sunlight on water
Birds flying in bluest sky
Perfect spring picnic

Cold crisp crack and crunch
Bleak midwinter has arrived
Sharp snow surrounds all

Red orange golden
Every leaf on the ground
Autumn's presence descends

A few writing thoughts

I can't remember if I shared this already but by the end of November I was still loving the writing but I was just done with the project I was working on. Totally bored of it. Talking to others who did NaNo that seemed to be pretty normal thing. I'd probably go as far as to say its an expected part of the nanowrimo process. But that said I don't remember it being as hard in years gone by. I did have several instances of life kicking me in the teeth in other ways during the month though.

Two weeks later however I'm finding that I'm really missing the writing. I can go many months without doing a lot of writing but this year the habit seems to be sticking much more. I'm absolutely itching to do some real writing and I can't wait to find another completely free day and dedicate it to my craft. Sadly that's not likely to be very soon.

My writing is going to be my big thing in 2012 I think. Or at least I hope so.

Stop! NaNo Time!

Yes it is indeed that most wonderful time of the year - NaNoWriMo. And just because the madness that is writing 50 thousand words in 30 days wasn't enough for me this year I'm also one of the Municipal Liaisons for Oxfordshire.

It's going well so far although not as well or as fast as I'd hoped.  I've been very lacking in motivation for the past day or so which means I've not hit the goals I'd set for myself but I have hit and exceeded the standard day one and day two goals.  The goal is 1,667 words a day and I'm ending day two with 4,462 words meaning I'm over 1000 words ahead of where I needed to be. Good stuff.  I am trying to take care of myself and not beat myself about missed goals etc.

My motivation does seem to be coming back tonight and I'll need to channel some of that into other things like doing some washing and cleaning out the fridge tomorrow.  But I'm at that week one of NaNo point where I'm remembering how much I enjoy it and it's getting easier.

Being ML is very different to how I expected but I think I like it.  We gave everyone at the kick off party four index cards and had them write down a situation (or place), a person (either the name of a real person or a type of person), an object and an action.  I am loving the level of creativity in those and the amount of detail some people went into is astounding.  I'm posting one or two of those prompts to our regional forum each day and so far they seem to be triggering interesting discussion.  Today we had a radioactive tea bag and swimming as our two prompts.  Yesterday's prompt was to add some monkeys.

Writing is my passion

I'm writing again.  Regularly and in decent amounts when I do write.  It's only been this week but I've written everyday so I'm sure that counts as regular.  And today I've done absolutely loads.

I've been wanting to write I really have.  But with the way my depression crashed in and hit me I was fine if I had to leave the house and go somewhere for a set time, that I could do.  If it was something I had to do in my house like stick some clothes in to wash and something I needed to do but not at a set time that was a huge struggle.  And sadly, my lack of motivation extended even as far as writing.

But, on Monday I put fingers to keyboard once again and started typing.  Slowly but within minutes I was wondering why I'd put it off for so long.  I enjoyed it.  And it was easy and flowing and rewarding just like it used to be.  My depression induced writers block melted away like an ice cube on a hot sunny day.

Writing really is one of my passions and I hate it when that's taken away from me - for whatever reason.  I'm very happy that I've got my meds sorted out and four weeks later they are working well.  I'm finding myself again.  I'm rediscovering my passions.  And most of all I'm writing and working towards my dream of one day being good enough to have a book published.

It's a very good feeling, especially after so many bleak and dark weeks.

I am A Writer In A Wheelchair and In Print (Again)

I have an article in this months Disability Now!

It's called Triumph Over Cuts Tragedy and it's about the One Month Before Heartbreak campaign.  Mostly about the sense of friendship and community we managed to build.  To me that's probably more important that what we did fighting the cuts.

Please comment and let me know what you think of it - I love getting feedback and it's all really useful.

Finally, I'd just like to take this opportunity one more time to send huge huge thanks to everyone who took time to write, tweet, video, comment, facebook and so many other things as a part of One Month Before Heartbreak.  It might have been my idea but you are all part of the reason why it was so successful!

Some Writing Links

As my mum commented in an e-mail yesterday I seem to be everywhere at the moment.  A slight exaggeration but I have had some success and exposure lately.

I was asked to write for Community Care's Service User Blog about One Month Before Heartbreak as a promotional thing.  One Month Before Heartbreak: You Can Speak Up For Disabled People Too

The Guardian have been great with supporting One Month Before Heartbreak and they've mentioned us several times.  This Society Daily article pulled out several OMBH contribution to highlight including one of mine (my This is Disability image)

I'm now a contributor for Where's The Benefit?  The first piece I wrote for them is about the case of Riven and Celyn Vincent.

The even more exciting thing about that article I did for WtB is that it was picked up by Society Guardian on Friday with a big chunk of it quoted!

I think there are a couple of other opportunities "in the pipeline" if you will but those aren't definite.  I've certainly had a successful ten days or so!

101 in 1001 - Item 28...

Make a continued effort to become a writer

...has been completed!

OK so this is one I could probably have ticked off some weeks ago when my Disability Now article was published but I wanted that to have it's own entry.  So I decided to work on NaNoWriMo this year and then tick it off after that.  It's also an apt time to do because my creative writing course has finished and I've decided not to continue it (for now at least).

I think becoming a writer or being a writer isn't something you ever stop but more of an ongoing process.  Writing is definitely more about the journey than the destination - although we do all want to get published, you don't stop being a writer once you are published once but continue on the journey to write other things, get better at writing and get other work out there for all to see.

I'm definitely spending more time and writing more consistently than I used to though and that's definitely worth ticking this off as an achievement before.  Blogging has suffered lately but is something I'll be diving back into full force in the next few weeks as I have several things I want to blog about.

Live Blog of a Day Writing

Today my goal is to spend most of the day writing.  I'm planning to participate in the Introverted Words 7K All Day event.  And I thought I would live blog my progress as I go.

12:30 I spent the first hour or so after I was up making phone calls and checking e-mails and looking at cinema times.  I've just finished my first piece of writing for the day which was a book review.  It's in the blog entry below this one.  Word count for that is 417, total word count so far today is also 417.

15:29 I took a long break and went into town. Where I got snowed on a little (although it didn't last long and didn't settle) and absolutely bitterly cold but I did manage to get what I needed done.  Then I had lunch when I got back.  I've just finished another spell of writing and I did 1024 words in about 20 minutes.  That was on a supposed short story which I now suspect is going to be a lot longer than what I normally consider short stories. But we shall see.  Total word cound so far today is 1,441 words.

17:53 Writing isn't going very well today, in fact it's going very very slowly.  I don't have much in the way of motivation although I do have lots of ideas.  To be honest I've been feeling a bit down in general this week and particularly depressed today.  I'm not sure why.  I did decide the other day that I'm no longer aiming for 50K on NaNo and I think that was definitely the right decision as it takes a lot of pressure off.  Some of my friends won't be very happy about that I'm sure but to be honest, if thats how they feels then they don't know me very well.  I've written a couple of hundred more words and I created a character who is really nasty and everyone hates. And named them after someone who really pissed me off and upset me a couple of weeks ago. The scene I'm writing now is someone having a massive go at them.  It's really very therapeutic even if it is words I can probably never show anyone.  That's 436 words, total so far today 1877 words

19:42 I just did a five minute writing sprint and wrote 342 words. Total for today is now 2205

21:57 just spent the two hours just gone watching tv and writing on my netbook during the breaks.  I wrote 1746 words druing that time (and the tv was good). Total for today is now 3951 words. 7K might be more realistic than it was looking but I'm not sure at the moment.

23:51 Another five minute sprint 376 words written. Plan is one more long sprint and then bed, I think. 4327 words so far.

00:59 Those last several words have not been easy to come by and I didn't manage one long sprint.  If I had done I would probably have reached the 7K target but I'm really not bothered about that.

I have 5,936 words for the day (including the ones in this liveblog) and I am done. Not as successful as I would have liked (I’d hoped to better my word count from the previous 7K day) but any words are good words and there is definitely potential in a lot of them.

Liveblogging the day has made me keep a much closer eye on my progress than last week and I’ve written more often than I might otherwise if not for that motivation – as motivation is sadly lacking today. I think that’s a common end of November writers burn out thing for me though.

It’s nearly 1 am and I’m headed to bed now. I plan to blog, hopefully tomorrow, about what I’ve learned from doing these days and why I think I stuggled more with today than I did last week. If I did it now I doubt that it would make very much sense.

Why Deciding to Blog Daily is a Bad Idea if You're Me!

I originally planned to blog everyday this month.  I am officially never going to make that plan again.  It was something I intended to do in September and then I stared the month off with a cold that ended up on my chest.  No month of daily blogging for me!

And then I decided to do the same this month.

Tuesday I had a bit of a sore throat but nothing major.  My Dad's had a bad cold so I was a bit concerned I was getting one but didn't worry about it too much.  Went into Reading for the day and bought the yarn for my Mum's Christmas present.  Also did a big chunk of writing in one of the branches of costa with a bacon sandwich.  Then when I came home I decided to have a dominos.  Usually I order a large pizza and a couple of sides (if there are on buy one get one free, otherwise just one) and have half or thereabouts and then the rest the next day.  I just ordered a large pizza (especially good willpower wise as it was Two for Tuesday on pizza).  But I ate the lot.

And woke up in the middle of the night having a gall bladder attack.  Nothing like as bad as the only other one I've had but still horrendous.  But did also have my first ever kidney infection as well last time.  I was scared and freaked out and thought for sure I'd end up at the doctors if not the hospital that day.  But I managed to get myself into a place where I was comfortable so long as I didn't move which wasn't great as I kept needing the loo or a drink due to aforementioned sore throat.  I felt a lot better when I woke up on Wednesday morning and managed to avoid the doctors.  I was however completely washed out as I'd slept so badly (was up at least four times in the night).  I ate very little all day and mostly plain foods.  By the evening I was feeling back to normal and cooped up so I popped out to see the writers saying I'd stay half an hour, mostly so I could get some fresh air.  I was there almost two hours I think.

Thursday I was a little sniffly but not to bad.  Then I went out to creative writing and the cold air set me off cough, cough, cough, cough, cough.  And a bad one too.  Wouldn't have gone if I'd realised it would be that bad.  Completely full of cold!  Friday I was full of it and felt lousy and probably should have cancelled my plans for that evening.  But I didn't.  Which led to us bumping into a friend of ours and a friend of hers (who I'd not met)  who was all "have you got something for that?" and declared that I really needed to see the doctor.  My mum said that it wasn't Oh my god go to the doctor stage at that point.  And I woke up Saturday morning have dried up a lot but still quite cold-y.  I'm still coughing a lot today but it's a lot looser and my nose isn't dripping.

Oh and in case anyone was wondering, I am up to date with my NaNoWriMo attempts (apart from today but there's still time).  I was very behind but I did a mammoth catch up yesterday.  I'm not where I'd like to be, however.  And my story has disappeared.  I'm going to try writing a different idea starting tomorrow (but keep the words I already have) and return to this one at some not NaNo point in the future.

Haven't got much else to say about this week, a lot of cancelled plans, feeling bad and writing about sums it up!

The Broken of Britain

Last weekend a new campaign was set up about the proposed cuts and specifically to allow disabled people to campaign about them.  Because we are one of the groups who will be affected most severely by these cuts.  And the government have already admitted they've not looked into it fully.

The campaign is The Broken of Britain.

This afternoon I had a long chat on the phone with Kaliya who set it up.  It was really fun to get to talk to her after knowing her online for so long.  Just a shame we had such a serious topic to talk about.  I'm going to be helping with the campaign by doing stuff like keeping an eye on the blog and answering e-mails.

I also wrote a post for Scope on Monday about this project.  Spreading the word is one of the most important things people can do.  Even if you don't feel able to share your story or take part in other ways, please consider sharing the link.

Reading the stories is humbling and it can be very hard.  I thought I'd seen a lot of benefit problems as a CAB adviser and knew how they could affect people.  I was wrong.

I just posted Emma's Story - my own story - to The Broken of Britain blog.  It feels a little raw and it wasn't easy.  I've shared some very personal stuff before through my blogs but this feels like a whole different level of personal and not overly comfortable. I thought about it for a long time and did consider being anonymous as those stories are also accepted. But I knew that if I wrote what I wanted to write and I continued to promote the project plenty of people would read it and know it was me.  Plus, if ever there was a time when I feel the need to stand up for what I believe in, it's now.

Please consider supporting this project.

I am now A Writer In A Wheelchair AND In Print!

This is a really, really exciting update!  Brought to you by a really, really, really excited cripple!!

You may remember that a few weeks ago I briefly mentioned that I'd had an magazine article accepted for publication.

Well, that article was accepted by Disability Now (for their Up Close and Personal section) and I got my copy in the post this morning.  It looks amazing.  And I especially loved seeing my article and my name on the contents page.  It's also available online but I must admit the website version doesn't look as great to me. Looking at the tiny author photo and seeing myself is GREAT!

Please read it and let me know what you think!

People Say The Strangest Things by Emma Crees

Haiku

Garden reading books
Late night of barbecue fun
Summertime living

***

Stuck in house - snow

Bored, fed up, want to go

Yet warm, cosy, happy

***

Hate writing Haiku

Syllables really confuse

Write them I cannot

Bits of News

I haven't updated about my attempts at weight loss for a couple of weeks so I'll start with that and then see how much further I get before my desire to be in bed relatively soon wins.

Last week my mum was away so I weighed by myself.  I struggled a lot to balance on the scales and suspect the same would have been true even if she were here.  I gave up on Tuesday after 5 attempts which all ended up with ridiculously different weights.  Wednesday I tried again and managed better.  I was 17st 2lb which was 1.5lb up.

Today my mum was back and I was 17st 3lb so up another 1lb.  My balance was pretty good today.  I always stand on the scales three times because of poor balance, needing to hold a grab rail to get on the scales etc and wanting to be sure it's right and every single time it said the same weight which is the first time it's done that in a long time.

I think it's definitely got to be said that I'm plateauing.  Which is fine in a way but only as long as it goes no further then I have now.  I am getting sick of this constant back and forth I've been doing for the last few weeks so I've decided to take it right back to basics this week.  Hopefully that will get things moving again.  I'd started thinking of drinking mostly water as being boring again but starting today I'm drinking that more than anything else and I must say I'd forgotten how nice that can be.

My writing continues to go well as my last update shows (I think!).  When my creative writing restarted a few weeks ago (this week will be week 4) we had to give a short term and a long term writing goal.  Short term was for the length of the course and long term the next year or so.  We told those to the person next to us and they introduced us to the class.  I can't remember my long term goal and the person I was sat next to wasn't there last week to ask.  But my short term goal was to get an article published.  It was a pretty amazing feeling sat there last Thursday realising that it was only week three and I'd already achieved that goal.  I absolutely cannot wait for the magazine to come out and to see it.

I'm reading a library book at the moment and then the next one I've got is one I was sent to review.  It's an advance reader copy of a new paranormal romance which is coming out in November I think.  That will be something very different for me, paranormal romance is a genre I've avoided ever since I tried to read Twilight (which I hated and gave up on after two chapters).  It's very much not something I would have chosen for myself but I'll give it a go - after all I have been trying to broaden my horizons over the last few months (some what unsuccessfully it feels like).

Returning to Blogging, Question and Writing News

I've been meaning to update all weekend.  And I've been sat with this window open for ages.  But I'm feeling a bit off and I have so much to say that I can't make it work.  I'll be back with a proper update (a long one - I've lots to say!) tomorrow or if not then definitely Tuesday.

Oh and if you've been missing my writings check out 4 Ways to Discover Inspiration for Writing which is something I wrote for Inspired to Write.

I also have several other things "in the pipeline" as they say.  Including my very first magazine article which has been accepted for publication and will be out at the end of the month!  I am beyond excited!

More on that tomorrow but for now a side note:
 I made a few changes to my blog today which may mean if you follow it through an RSS reader you need to resubscribe.  Or at least when I made the changes it said the feed was now through feedburner (not deliberate, a side effect of what I did) which I suspect means it has a different address etc.  Being that I don't follow my own blog in a reader I can't tell you for definite though!  Can someone who does let me know please?

Good/Bad

Good: Writing a To Do List of writing tasks
Bad: Realising I have more writing tasks to do then I thought I did

Good: Getting three things done off the to do list
Bad: Showing the list to Mum and having her point out I missed something off of it

Good: having a clean house
Bad: cleaner (male) calling me love and "my love" so many times I lost track

Good: No one has cancelled sailing for tonight
Bad: High probability of getting there to discover it's off

Good: Starting a lovely new knitting piece
Bad: Not being quite sure if you've gone wrong with said knitting and if you have, where you did.

Good: Weight this morning was 17st and half a pound
Bad: Can't find the piece of paper so I can't work out the difference from last week

Good: Squashed fly biscuits and diet lemonade
Bad: nothing really

A Good Writing Day - With Links!

Last week, Mike from Artist Inlet Press contacted me to ask if I would write something for that site.  His only request was that I should write about something I'm passionate about.

I've been trying to do lots of writing and make progress with it over the last few weeks so I jumped at the chance to write that piece.  It's not a site I'd been to before but I've been reading some of it since then and it's got some very well written, lovely essays on there.  I'm pleased to have been asked to contribute and know that more people are seeing my writing.  I've been working on that today and as I wrote about sailing, really enjoying it.

Sail Away is now posted over at Artist Inlet Press.  I would welcome your feedback on it.

In terms of other writing, I also posted Don't Cut Us Out about a Scope campaign over on the Disability Voices blog yesterday.  If you live in the UK, please consider taking part in that campaign, it doesn't take a few minutes to do so.

Scope sent me a tweet saying they love the Disability Voices blog and telling me they follow my blog.  Then they did a Follow Friday of "some great disability related bloggers" and included me in that list.  I was incredibly flattered and pleased by that.

Finally I've set up pages on the sidebar which have links to all my guest blogs and articles which are online and also to my book reviews.

Unreasonable Adjustments

I wrote a while ago about entering some creative writing competitions.  I heard yesterday that I didn't win the last of them.  Which I'm totally fine with, I didn't expect that.  I did pay extra for a critique and whilst a little hard to read it is very useful.  I do agree with a lot of what the critique says although this remains a piece I am proud of.  I thought I would share it below.  As yet I haven't made any changes. Feedback is welcome

Unreasonable Adjustments

“You have the run of my home”  said Lady Howlett ending her welcoming speech and sweeping gracefully from the room.

The run of this house? If only.  Claire thought.

The idea of spending a night in a haunted house and winning £1,000,000 for doing so had seemed a great one.  An easy way to make a lot of money and probably have a laugh as she did so.  The night had barely begun and already it seemed there was a problem.

They’d known when she applied that she was a wheelchair user.  She’d been assured that there was access.  Even when she’d asked pointed questions about ramps and whether she’d be able to get her wheelchair into the disabled loo, they’d stuck to their vow that they could accommodate her. 

All she needed to worry about, they told her, was whether she really could spend the night in a certified haunted house.  The fact that they made such a big deal of it being “certified” had amused her.  How did they get it certified?  Claire didn’t believe in ghosts and she’d hoped to prove they didn’t exist.  The people who certified it as haunted weren’t trustworthy.  It wasn’t as if the council had rules and regulations (no less than two sightings a week, for a year) and an official haunted house inspector who had to sign off on these things.  She'd thought it would be easy.

Claire hadn’t been surprised that the access wasn’t exactly as she expected.  It rarely was.  However, this was something she hadn’t encountered before – surprising given she’d been in the chair for 42 years and thought she’d seen it all.

The gravel entrance hadn’t phased her, nor had the steps.  Ramped access is often around the back, by the bins, or otherwise out of sight.  So she’d waited. 

Angelo had returned about half an hour later and with the help of another silently hulking man had carried her up the steps into the house.  She’d protested that a lot as there’s nothing worse then being in somewhere you can’t get out of and knowing you’re trapped.  Her words had been ignored and she’d been taken against her will into the house.

There she was, apparently, she had the run of the house, but in truth, she probably didn’t.  It looked as though she wouldn’t be able to get out of the room she was in without help.  Everyone else in the room was milling around looking at the windows and heading towards the door.  They were all ignoring everyone else as well.  This was going to be a long evening.  A boring evening it seemed.  Just one hour later Claire realised just how wrong she’d been.

****

First, she’d decided to have a good look around the room they were in.  It was a big room with lots of art on the walls so that took a good 15 minutes.  She was one of two people left in the room at that time – the other person was steadfastly ignoring her so she simply did the same.  That was unlike her; she was an extrovert and found it very hard to shut up.  Something told her however that this wasn’t the place to go making friends and being nice, it wouldn’t go down very well with the other contestants.  Getting out of that room proved easier than she expected.  The step she thought she’d seen turned out to be nothing.  Strange, but she accepted it.  It wouldn’t be until later that she realised just how strange that was.

Then Claire had figured that seeing as she was going to be there all night she’d go find out where the loo is.  It’s always worth doing these things ahead of time.  Particularly when you need a disabled loo – don’t want to be discovering that it’s locked and no one knows where the key is when you’re absolutely bursting for a wee. 

She didn’t expect that this was the sort of place where it would people would be having sex in it if it wasn’t locked (why was that, was there some sort of weird places to have sex scorecard doing the rounds? 50 points for a disabled loo!) but you never know.

That was the first sign that the steps weren’t the only problem she was to face that day.  She never found the loo. 

She spent thirty minutes looking for it.  To be fair, it wouldn’t have taken that long to search all the places she did but she kept getting distracted.  Firstly, by all the art and other things she spotted.  Lady Howlett had some really unusual – and unexpected – items in her home.  And secondly by a really strange feeling.  It was creepy – a cold sort of tickly sensation crawling up her back and making her hair stand on end.  She shook it off – she had to, she didn’t believe in ghosts!  There would be an explanation she knew, she just needed to find it.  But first to find the loo.

At the end of the thirty minutes, she came across Angelo standing silently at attention in the hall.  Claire wasn’t sure why he was stood in that particular spot in front of a blank piece of wall (she was later to realise, the only blank piece of wall she saw in the entire house).  Wandering over she spoke to him

“Hi Angelo.  It is Angelo, isn’t it?”  He didn’t answer, didn’t even blink.  Unnerved she continued “Um, well, anyway.  I was wondering if you could tell me where the disabled loo is?  I’ve been looking for a while and I’ve been everywhere I can see.  But I can’t find it.”

Angelo shrugged as though he didn’t care.  It was a strange sight and it infuriated Claire.

“Maybe you could go find out where it is if you don’t know?” she asked, she’d experienced this lack of knowledge from staff members before – too many times to count.  “Only I know there is one because I asked before I came.  The person I spoke to told me there was one and I’d be fine.”

Angelo stared at her for a full minute.  Just when Claire was beginning to think this was useless he suddenly moved his left arm and pointed.  He didn’t say a word and after waiting briefly to see if there was more to come Claire simply turned and started going in the direction he pointed. 

She was very confused and more than a little angry not least because he had pointed back the way she came where there definitely wasn’t a disabled loo.  It seemed she had no choice but to do that. 

A few minutes later she was beginning to calm down and she suddenly realised that she’d come further than she had before.  In fact there hadn’t been enough building to go this far before.

Claire didn’t believe in ghosts.  She really didn’t.  But she was beginning to get a little bit freaked out by all of this.

Suddenly a little bit ahead she spotted that familiar sign that signifies disabled parking and disabled loos worldwide.  The little guy in the wheelchair with his arms out in front like a zombie.  She was pleased she’d started looking for the loo when she had because now she really was heading towards the desperate stage of things.

Opening the door, Claire couldn’t see any of the usual items you’d expect in a disabled loo.  No bins or grab rails.  And, no loo.  She figured that maybe it was a bit further on so she went in.  The door slammed behind her ominously. 

Wheeling back and then back further Claire was astounded by how far she’d come.  She’d been able to see that this was a big room but hadn’t expected something as big as this.

All of a sudden, Claire felt a weird buzzing sensation surround her.  Her vision went fuzzy with lines all across it.  That lasted about two, three minutes (although it felt a lot longer).  Her ears will filled with a loud ringing sound something like church bells.  The result was that Claire was very disorientated.  As quickly as it had started, the sensation finished.  Claire shook her head to clear the residual feeling.  And realised that somehow, unexpectedly, she was back outside the house on the gravel driveway where this had all started.

Screw scared of the ghosts, Claire was scared by what had just happened.  And more than a little pissed off.  She shouted and shouted for help, shouting herself hoarse in the process.  But no one came.

Claire waited all night.  It wasn’t until just after dawn that anyone came.  Angelo turned up at that point along with his hulking companion.  They carried her, protesting, back up the steps into the house and deposited her in front of Lady Howlett.

“Well, Claire, yet another failure to spend the night in my house.  I am disappointed.  No million for you.”

She explained to Lady Howlett that this wasn’t fair, she hadn’t wanted to leave the house, she’d just wanted to go for a wee.  

Lady Howlett made no response to Claire.  She just turned to the two men waiting and said

“Get this waste of space out of my sight.”

They picked her up and carried her from the room once more.

****

Lady Howlett had expected that to be the last she heard from Claire.  After all, she’d never had anybody come back at her for failing to win the million before.  She’d also never had a mouthy, independent wheelchair user as one of her contestants before.

Claire, however, believed in complaining.  Spending most of her life in a wheelchair had taught her that you often were treated badly for being different and that you were just expected to “put up and shut up.”  The way she’d been treated by Lady Howlett and her staff was appalling.  If she didn’t do something about it, some other wheelchair user was going to have the same horrific experience at some point in the future.

First, she’d tried writing a letter, and then a second when the first was ignored.  Unfortunately, that didn’t get a reply either.  Unfortunately for Lady Howlett, that is.

Claire’s next step had been to speak to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.  They’d been shocked to here of what had happened and had helped her to put in a case for disability discrimination.

Seven months after that, the case came to court.  Neither Lady Howlett nor Angelo appeared to dispute the charges.  That resulted in Claire automatically winning her case, which the tribunal described as “one of the worst cases of disability discrimination in years”

Claire learned that it really is worth making a stand when you need to.  She won £2.1 Million pounds for the discrimination and because she lost the chance to win the original £1 Million prize. 

As for Lady Howlett?  She never held another of her “Haunted House Nights” nor was she ever heard from again.  Claire liked to think that was because she’d learned the lesson of treating people with respect, and that you should, always, always make reasonable adjustments to accommodate people who are disabled.  Truthfully, however, she’ll never know.

Lovely Day Writing Update

What a lovely day!

I'm working my way though a writing to do list (which includes updating this blog) but I never thought I'd be able to sit outside with my netbook and work on it today.  Such a great surprise!  It does make me wish that I'd realised how warm it is early though.

What else am I working on with my writing?

I started planning my NaNoWriMo novel for this year.  I have two ideas at the moment.  Unfortunately however they wouldn't work as a combined story.  I am beginning to think the more definite idea I have is probably a long short story and not a novel  though.  The other idea is a lot vaguer but   has the potential to bring a lot of mayhem and madness and a huge variety of characters, all of which could prove very useful in a NaNo novel.

I'm keeping a notebook of stuff that I carry round with me.  It has what I'm spending (am keeping track this month), things I need to remember or to do and writing ideas in it.  Several writing ideas and a couple of pages on both of my NaNo ideas. One of the others is an idea for a Chalet School fanfic.  Which is my first fanfic in years.  I started writing it yesterday and I'm enjoying it but I appear to have made a mistake in my facts so it will probably have to be an AU. Not a major one though.


And I've got two articles, a short story, a poem and another fanfic (for a different fandom) on my to do list as well.  So I'm busy busy but I'm enjoying it.

If this week isn't the last week of sailing (and I suspect it will be) the week after will be.  I'll miss sailing and more importantly miss the people over the winter.  But somehow with the way writing (and reviewing although I don't have any planned right now) have been going lately I don't think I'm going to have time to be bored.

Blogging for Scope!

On Tuesday I spent some time researching writing competitions and writing opportunities.  And, being cheeky I also asked Scope how they choose their bloggers.  The end result being that I'm now one of their bloggers (and I also have one other writing opportunity for another organisation).

You can see my blog on the scope page It comes complete with an old photo - my hair looks nothing like that now but I don't have a more recent on that isn't stupid.  (Rocky Horror photos I'm looking at you) and a bio.  It's a bit strange writing about yourself in the 3rd person but it's a very writerly thing to do.

My first post for Scope is called Disability: It's Not All Negative.  Let me know what you think.

Books with disabled characters?

One of my friends sent me a tweet today asking if I knew of any fantasy books with either a disabled main character or a disabled character who plays a decent role and isn't a token crip sort of thing.  I was very pleased because she's able-bodied.  That normally wouldn't be a "yes, pleased" thing but I've been reading a few articles writen on news sites about disability today (by disabled people) which are absolutely full of missed the point comments about disability by able-bodied people. Some of which were downright insulting and some were just stupid but most were frustrating.  So being asked for book recs is, in a roundabout way, a good thing

And I can't really think of any.  I did receive a book to review today which is fantasy and which has a main character with CP.  But obviously, I'm not going to rec a book I haven read yet!

The interesting thing is when I e-mailed the author of that book to see about getting a review copy (in other words to crawl and beg, but hey it worked!) one of the things I said to him was that not enough books feature disabled characters.

So then after I got that tweet I started wondering about books in general with disabled characters.

The first one that came to mind was Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult.  That's a really good book (I did hate the ending but that had nothing to do with the disabled character, it just sucked as an ending IMHO) and it really handles having a character with OI (I have no idea how to spell the full version of that) well I think.  I don't know much about OI but I do know about being a wheelchair user, and she got really close to the experience.  In fact there was one moment when Willow, the crip in the book, mentions this one thing about being in a chair and I was blown away because it's in no way obvious about being a wheelchair user and I wouldn't expect it to be there.  I'm not even sure it's something I would mention if asked.

For the crips out there, I am talking of the problem of having long hair and having casters (front wheels) on a wheelchair.  We all shed hair, it happens.  If you've long hair and are in a chair, it will end up wrapped around them and caught.  And it builds up.  It's a pain in the arse and needs clearing out periodically.  And it's pretty disgusting.

Anyway, back to books.  It took me literally 20 minutes to think of any other book with a disabled MC.  Lottery by Patricia Wood was the only one that comes to mind.  That's a good book but I preferred Handle With Care I think.  Click on the link to see what I thought of it.

I can think of other books which handle disability issues well such as A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell (I absolutely LOVE that book, must find the time to read it again).  But books with disabled characters or disabled characters who aren't token characters? I can't think of any.

Obviously, that doesn't mean they aren't out there and knowing myself like I do I wouldn't be surprised if one came to me in the middle of the night or in the shower or something.  But it is a bit disappointing that it's so hard for me to think of any.

So if you know of any, rec them to me.  And in the meantime I'll be in the corner getting over my cold.  And plotting my own book with a disabled main character and all that.  Because if I can't read about them, I'll clearly have to write about them.