Day Four – Plague! (by sarah)

Here is painting number four - The Ice Cave, and as of last night I am no longer the only sick bunny. Alaric came home from work yesterday and had to cancel cubs - he never does this but unfortunately he has picked up a stomach bug or maybe this bug - what ever - he is ill. He was not in a state were he could take Jean and her friends to school this morning either which was DOOM and LOOM but fortunately their parents stepped in meaning they are doing both school runs today 🙁

But apart from that things are good and I am on the mend which is fortunate if he is on the down (really hope he isn't!).

Anyway for those of you who are interested today's advent for the girls is one of my Blanket Farm tales - Baa Baa Blue Sheep.

Day 3 – The Guarding Frost (by sarah)

Day three of Advent - The Guarding Frost. This one is actually for a story idea 🙂

It shows Ician in her tower and The Guarding Frost which is the bird. I have also ordered Christmas cards and stickers and things using some of my illustrations and what not. They are £2 each or 10 for £15 next year I will be aiming to get bulk prints done so they will be a lot cheaper but if you want some year you are basically buying the limited print run I've done to see how well it works.

Also if I can fix my laptops audio there will shortly be Sarah's Christmas Collection including PErcival's Christmas Wish and The Little Book of Festive Poetry in CD format.

I am still sick annoyingly and have started to cancel stuff for the rest of the week which is very sad as it included the Frozen weekend I was going to run for Jean and Mary - fortunately I hadn't gotten around to confirming it with most of the parents so most of the kids didn't know.

On the other hand the upcycled graze box advent is still going down with a huge amount of excitement with the girls 🙂

Today's is The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry - yeah I'm not doing all Christmas story just kids stories I've written - a future version may well be just winter/Christmas stuff.

Excitement! (by sarah)

Well it's day two of advent so here is number two of the Ice/Snow paintings I've done. I've been kind of pottering and managing scanning of more paintings and even doing a few new paintings as well. There was lots of craft with Mary which has left everything rather glittery - the lovely little thing curled up with me and let me sleep until 11 this morning, I can just about speak this afternoon so am on the mends. Of course I had to miss what should have been my comedy showcase thingy for the end of the course I was doing but hey ho - onwards and upwards and I have actually achieved things today.

The girls are loving their advent and Jean is even putting up the wrapping paper covered boxes in the window. Tonight they had The Little Book of Festive Poetry 🙂

Also I actually managed to eat some food that wasn't just leaf salad or soft fruit! I did give Jean an ultermatumn that there will be no house decorating until room tidying is done - she thinks we are evi now.

I have Elsa nails 🙂 Jean is after stealing the nail vanish.

Christmas Has Hit The Snell-Pym Household (by sarah)

Here is the first of the water colours I have painted as an Advent thing. I am also doing something slightly different for the girls Advent this year, involving the stories I have written for them which I hope to get some good pictures of, to share.

Alaric has been blasting the Christmas tunes and Jean did her Christmas shopping at the village craft fayre at the weekend. I am still mightily ill and have been emailing people to say I can't make things this week which sucks - next week I could have afforded to be ill - never mind - especially as it means I have had to rest and just watch films as I wasn't capable of really knitting or writing or anything and that was the good bits the bad bits were spent in bed not sleeping.

The girls are both uber excited about Christmas and I feel sad I couldn't sort things to put the decorations up tonight which had been the plan. Jean has been occupying herself by making Christmas decorations and Mary is trying to be good for Christmas and was even convinced to sit still for bed time story - they had Percival's Christmas Wish though Al had to read it as I have no voice.

We are now sorting out mine and Al's Advent treats though we didn't get to do the main shop for them but it contains Toffee Apple Cider and Root Beer.

Christmas is go and no Humbug do I want to hear!

The Dyslexic Author (by sarah)

This week is Dyslexia Awareness Week, it is also the begininng of an insane writing challenge called NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you write a minimum of fifty thousand words in a month and I have been doing this challenge and a picture book sister challenge called PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month) since 2009, which is now scary long ago.

When I first started the challenge and using the forum I felt very edgy, being severely dyslexic made me hesitate to enter into online written discussions with grammarian monsters - the sort that correct friends' emails. How was I ever going to compare to such writing experts when sometimes I can't spell mine or my kids' names correctly?

Trying to belt out a novel is an amazing experience but it is also an emotionally fraught one, especially for those low on self confidence. Self confidence is a key to success - it is not the only key but it is one of the main three - Self Confidence, Endurance and Improvisation/Adaptability. Dyslexics, due to our education system and social attitudes, tend to be high on intelligence and low on that whole confidence thing. To keep going with the writing you kind of need to believe that your story is good enough, that your imagination is fantastic and that everyone is going to want to read it. Many authors go through a cycle of thinking their stuff is amazing and will win a nobel prize, to sinking into a pit of despair over how rubbish it is.

But dyslexics have an added edge of nerves, an extra question over their abilities. Not only is there the language structure issues but there is the widely held idea that if you cannot spell you cannot write. This is wrong.

And it turned out that the way NaNoWriMo works is fantastic for boosting dyslexic writers. It goes something like this - everyone is rushing to get down as many words as they can, you are encouraged to leave the typos as they are and just keep going, everyone has typos, inversions of letters, missed letter where they are just typing so fast. Normal people see these and correct them, the dyslexic brain may think that that is the correct spelling and at other times it will see it as wrong - but conversely it might see the correct spelling as wrong and correct it to something incorrect - DOH!

What this means though is that when you are sitting in a cafe or pub with a group of writers your red line squiggles are no longer an issue - everyone has them. Then there is the concept that you can edit a book with mistakes in, no matter how many mistakes there are, but if there is no book to begin with you cannot edit it into something. This frees you up to write.

One of the things I also found was that increasingly I was learning language intricacies and histories and that I could grab the grammar nazis by the proverbial and correct them if and when they started. Grammar is not a fixed thing - look at the history of writing and you find that Shakespeare couldn't spell his own name, that names themselves are pretty fluid, that grammar is just basically a mark up language to tell the reader when to breathe when talking out loud.

But can a dyslexic ever be a writer, be a published author, a journalist?

Yes, they can, and when they do they tend to be multi-genre writers, not brilliant for becoming a household name but good for writing how-to and last minute books, to be able to switch the brain from science to sports to craft, to be journalists (with patient editors!), to be non-specialist all round jacks of all trades. And, increasingly, this is becoming acceptable back in the realm of fiction, thanks to authors such as Neil Gaiman.

So where does that leave me? I have said repeatedly that I must be insane trying to be a writer whilst being very very badly dyslexic but, you know what, I wasn't - I find that being dyslexic helps with research for stories and articles, as I can't rely on words or even the grammar. I often have to use both plus the context, meaning that I can often pick up on the big or small picture, the hidden concepts and deeper meanings. It also stops me making stupid assumptions as I can't take the writing literally and if it doesn't seem right I am forced to ask, to check. For science writing this is extremely important.

Now before we go any further, dyslexia is not something I can really define; it is just a part of how my brain is wired so I will not say that my writing success is because of, nor in spite of, the dyslexia. It could have stopped me; it was a hurdle, and it has stopped many but mainly because they are told they can't do things because of it. Also, yes, I am contrary and stubborn so when people told me I could not, or that I would find stuff hard, I was determined to show them I could do it - especially when my intelligence itself was under attack.

But would my life achievements have been different without the dyslexia? I kind of think not, I just had to take a different path. And that path has been strange and winding and this last week I have found myself writing craft workshops, reading my kids poetry and stories to kids whilst dressed up in ridiculous outfits at various kid clubs, being asked to perform my page poetry at several events, asked to run writing days for adults and kids, getting sci-fi stories accepted, writing blog copy and presenting my project Cuddly Science which includes script writing and picture book writing and report writing and talk writing.

And that was just this week. This last month included articles on sci-fi/fantasy and science and crafts and gardening and grant applications, and this last year saw me become a member of the Poetry Society, British Science Fiction Association and the British Science Writers Association (and yes that does confuse me especially as there is also the British Hen Well-Fare Trust that we got the chickens from too!), I have been asked to present awards to school kids and I completed a Science Communication course - something I dismissed as a "can't" during my undergraduate degree, due to the dyslexic issues.

I now firmly place myself in the role of writer, of author and so do others. I am finally what I was told I could never be - a dyslexic author. It was not trial free and it is not yet over, it kind of will never be over and I'm ok with that.

Back to NaNoWriMo, I find myself actively encouraging dyslexics to write - to take part and I love wondering around the forums and Facebook pages and twitter seeing articles like this pop up and I love to be able to say to those who are worried, those who are struggling, don't give up, you can succeed at this. And that doesn't just go for writing, it goes for every aspect of career and life 😀