Re-Reading Your Story So Far

During the Victorian Era books became far more affordable. With the improvements to the printing press, national literacy skills, and in general the price of making a book fell. Not only did this mean more people could get their hands on books, but also more people were writing books. To be fair there wasn't a lot to get up too, your choices were needle point, sit  in your house and hope someone drops by, or you could always die of polio writing seemed like a pretty decent pass time. 

Paperbacks became very cheap and people could either by a whole book or some books were sold a chapter at a time. In fact paper backs were so cheap that people would tear out the pages as they finished reading them and throwing them away. 

I feel myself doing this often. I finish a chapter of my life and I was to rip it out and throw it away. Sometimes because it was a difficult time, or  things haven't turned out how I wanted, other times things have all been great but for one reason or another I just find it difficult to look back on that time. 

When a boyfriend broke up with me when i was eighteen it broke my little teenage heart. Of course being eighteen I believed we were in love, the real thing that was going to go the distance and no one had ever had a love like this before. Of course like most teenage loves, surprise surprise, it didn't quite turn out like that. So I decided to start ripping this chapter apart. I changed how I looked, made my hair go from black to bleach blonde, I wore clothes I had never dared to before, changed how I did my make up and removed all traces of him from my life. I told my friends not to ask about him, hell I made sure they didn't say his name around me. A bit extreme now that I look back but I was a heartbroken teen and I wanted to pretend like that year of my life had never involved him let alone revolved around him. 

When my Grandmother died I wouldn't walk down the road her house was on. I didn't want to see a place that was once a place so full of love and family and happiness belong to a stranger who didn't know I use to love running around the bush in the front garden, and they had never attended one of the BBQ's in the back garden where my Grandmother would always rent bouncy castle for the grand children. It was difficult to look at a place where so many memories were formed and now I wasn't allowed in. I didn't want to forget my Grandmother but I preferred her house to become a dream house that exist only in my memories and the physical form doesn't exist any more to me.

Then there are friends, because I so often scrub out sections of my life. I clean out everything I don't want, and just carry forward what I am happy with means I am terrible at keeping in contact.I mean if you rip out a chapter it is hard to go back and just re-read the bits you enjoyed. I had some really close friends as a teenager, but then my Mum sold my childhood home and I no longer had a base in the place they lived it meant it was more difficult for me to stay in contact. Then when I would visit I was almost insulted that they had carried on their life with out me, they had made new friends and got on with their lives and they grew into people with these lives I hadn't been apart of. Although I still cared about them we know longer knew  other, and now when ever I see them post on-line I feel a prang of sadness for a friendship that once meant the world to me and now had faded. I find myself telling the stories of my teen years less as I slowly tear these pages from life. 

However recently things have been going pretty good for me. I have a nice flat, and I get to spend more time with my family. I am talking to my brother more, who has always been one of my favourite people, and I have a boyfriend who is caring and funny always tries to makes me feel good. A website decided my writing was good enough to let me be one of their contributors, and I have even landed a full time job. Then just the other day I was sitting in my room and something suddenly reminded me of one the places I had hated living and I stopped myself thinking about it, while telling myself " no you are trying to forget about that" and like a blinding light I thought to myself NO. 

I am not going to keep ripping pages out of my life. Everything I have been through deserves to be in my story. Things have made me unhappy and angry and sad, but the memories of my past should also be able to make me feel happy and I should be able to enjoy where I have been.

Maybe I should reach out to more people from my past and re-connect or maybe I should remove them from social media and just be happy that I got to experience them in one of my chapters, that were shared what we did when we did. Rather then watching their lives go on wishing I was still part of it. 

I am ready to start my Hardback and stop ripping apart the Paperback.

Rella 

Xx

The Role Model For Your 20's

As you grow up most people want to be like their parents when they grow up. I know I did. My Dad is a Police Officer and I remember telling all of my friends about this. To the point that I would make up stories that he would take me on police chases to impress the other kids in the playground ! And my Mum, well I though she was the greatest Mum ever, and of course I still believe this, so I wanted to be a mum as good as her while fighting crime just like my Dad. Even my big brother was a role model. I thought he was one of the smartest coolest people ever. Everything he did I wanted to do, he was great at computer games and sometimes he would even let me be Tails when he played Sonic ( though this often resulted in my flying off screen and my brother having to take the controller off me to get through the difficult bits) .

As you get older you realise that there are so many people you can look up and admire and want to emulate. Of course my family are still and always will be a huge influence on my life. But I have other people I also look up to. For years these people were celebrities, that seem to live on another planet that no one could get access too. But as the internet expanded and grew and Social Media loomed out and grabbed every-bodies attentions I started to realise that there were other great people in the world and some just as close to home as family. 

There are two people that I really look up to, and they are both people I know personally. Girls I have had drinks with, gone shopping with, talk about boyfriends with and talked about what we want for the future, and then I have seen them take their dreams and run with it and it is truly inspiring. 

Stephanie Ellen Model

The first is a girl who I met when I was about 16, Stephanie and me had a similar friendship group and a we shared similar interest and our worlds collided. I remember at the time she had mentioned modelling a couple of times, but at the time I just thought that it was one of those interest you have as a teen but it will probably never happen. 

One of Stephanie Ellen's early modelling work

But Stephanie did take no for an answer and she made it happen for her self. To be honest it is really impressive. I remember her first sharing her photos online, and I thought to myself " Oh they are pretty, but she probably won't keep it up for long" not because she wasn't any good, she is very good, but still being a model is one of the dream careers that so few achieve; but still the photos kept rolling in and they were getting better and better, and she wasn't slowing down. She was doing all this while studying Law and it was so impressive. Then at the start of this year, she quit her job and now is a full time model. 

She is always making bookings, and it seems she is often fully booked. It's just so awesome to watch someone go from talking about a dream job on a bench in your home town to seeing someone grow, peruse and and work hard to get to where wanted to be. 

The work she makes now 

Find her page here

Sarah Cook - Film Writer 

The second person is a girl I went to Uni with, Cookie is a brilliant and passionate girl who is incredibly friendly and fun to be around. I met her in my first year and we shared an interest in music and were both taking some of the same classes and I thought she was pretty cool from the get go. In our third year we had to choose between a dissertation or a creative project, and Cookie decided to take the creative option. I remember talking about her project, a website dedicated to her love of film and thought it sounded pretty good, and it made me wish I had come up with her idea rather then taking the dissertation option. 

 She created it and wrote frequently on it  for the duration of our third year honing her writing technique and growing in confidence, and after we graduated she kept up her website,and he hasn't stopped working on it. Every day she mentions what she's been working on, editing and interview and review and it is amazing what she has achieved. She started getting press passes to interview stars of films, she would get spots on the red carpet at film premiers and this year she was sat with other media big shots at the BAFTA announcements. 

It was because of her that I decided to start my blog. And her perseverance is what encourages me to write when I don't feel like it, or when I have sometimes felt like this is all a waste of time. Because I am able to see someone who I know grab on to future that she wants for herself and MAKE it happen its just so amazing. She is currently writing a film and that seems to be getting some real momentum behind it. 

Cookie's Short film 

I feel so often we are quick to put people down. If someone says to us that they want to reach for the star we would roll our eyes and think " yeah what ever". People are so quick to think you have your head in the clouds of idealistic wishes. If someone says they want to be a model or a writer they will say y "but what's your real job going to be?"I remember when both of these girls started out I thought to myself, "yeah nice idea but it it won't last" because that's what people do, rather then offer our support and encouragement they instead wait for them to fail and say told you so. Where as maybe if we said, "you would be great at that !" or " What you are doing is really impressive" or " I believe in you" more people would reach their dreams.

What has been so great about seeing people you know climb the ladder of success is you can see the hard work they have put in. It would be an insult to Cookie and Stephanie to say this has just fallen into their lap. They really have worked for everything they have got. You here celebrities say that all the time, but it hard to believe because they just seem to appear from no where and get paid incredible amounts of money and seem to live a blessed life. I don't doubt they worked hard but it seems so much more impressive when you can see each step of some ones dream becoming a reality. 

I hope both of these girls continue their amazing work, and inspire others to give their dreams a chance. Hard work really does pay off and I must say both of these girls seem so happy with their lives and I hope one day I will be able to look back on my hard work and see how far I have come.

Rella Xx

50 Books in a Year Challenge 2014 And how Game of Thrones Ruined my Life

So last year I didn't really set myself any New Year resolutions . Instead I set myself goals, as I felt re-branding them as goals made them less threatening. These Goals included get a new job, move out of the flat share, live a healthier lifestyle, start a Blog and complete the 50 Books in a Year Challenge. 

Well this blog now exists so I completed that one, and I did move out I also did go to the gym for a while and even went running a few times, and I am thinking when it warms up here I would like to start running on the beach, and I also feel my choices when it comes to food are healthier. I try to consume as little caffeine as possible, I have swapped sugar for sweetener, little changes that help me feel better about myself.

Now that leaves two goals that I have sort of missed the mark on. In terms of a new job I have been looking and had a good few interviews, but I am yet to leave retail but that won't stop me trying, and I am hoping that this year might offer me some new opportunities. 

And the Reading Challenge, 50 books in a year. It seemed so do-able. That's roughly one book a week, I am pretty fast reader and I own a lot of books and my To-Read list is out of control, so I wasn't short for options. I started off strong as well. I read the collection of books by Jennifer Worth, her memoirs which have also been turned into the BBC show Call The Midwife, and these books were fantastic and in particular In the Midst of Life had a real impact on me and I would urge all of you to go pick up a copy. 

I then went on to read another fantastic book The Help Kathryn Stockett, I have written about this book in a previous post if you want to find out more about it, but once again I urge you all to go read this book. After this I decided to try a genre I don't normally read by picking up Horns by Joe Hill. I picked this book because it was going to get turned into a film staring Daniel Radclife I wasn't expecting to enjoy it but I really really did. However I am still not too sure if the Horror genre is for me.

After that I decided to try a genre that I use to love but don't read as often as I use too, YA, Once again I picked a book that was getting turned into a film Maze Runner and I was totally disappointed. Characters were one dimensional the protagonist was pretty much a Manic Pixie style of character. I found it to be very weak. Though I did like the idea of the story I just wish is had been executed better. It is safe to say I did not pick up the rest of that trilogy. I had a very similar experience with another YA trilogy Matched by Ally Condie. Again I felt character were very flat,and the story was very slow and in many parts very predictable, 

I then moved on to author Rainbow Rowell. I had heard great things about her work, so I picked up Fangirl.  First of all I loved the cover for this book, and I also loved it was about an 18 year old just starting college in America, and I feel this is an age range that is often skipped. I tend to find books are either about teens ages 15-17 or then are about mid twenties plus. I loved this book. Her Characters are well fleshed out, they are flawed and they are believable. She is very in touch with this generation that has grown up on line. It was very relate-able and a down right fun read. 

So I then went a picked up her other book Eleanor and Park, I didn't enjoy this as much as Fangirl but her writing style is so good it kept me engaged. I would say this book is for people who are a fan of John Greens Paper Towns as I often thought back to that as I was reading it. 

I then moved onto Insurgent by Veronica Roth. I am still not too sure how I feel about this book. It started out very strong, but towards the end I feel the writing slipped and I found it hard to work out which character was speaking and would have to flip back to the start of the chapter to find out which chrather it was about. 

So by this type it is April and I have a good few books under my belt. And I was out in town looking for some books to take on Holiday with me as that May I was going on my first ever proper Holiday aboard. Sun Sea and all that, and of course I wasn't going to part take in that with out a book to keep me company. I was in The Works, because who doesn't love a good bargain and I have come across some great deals in there. Little did I know I was going to come across a deal that would ruin my 50 Books Challenge.

They were selling all of the current Song of Ice and Fire books, also known as Game of Thrones, for £29.99! 6 books for £29.99! Who can say no to that ? I had never seen the show, but I had wanted to start watching it but I hate watching anything that I know is an adaptation of a book with out having a stab at the book first. Because I enjoy the process of reading far more then watching something, so if something has a great storyline I would rather read it and know what's going to happen on screen rather then starting a book knowing how it is going to go down. 

So I see this offer and think GREAT its a bargain and that's an easy way to fit in 6 books into the Challenge.Oh how wrong I was. So It's the day before the holiday and I start reading the first book in the series. I was nervous that I might not like it and I had no time to go get anything else and I really didn't want to take a book I had read before, and it starts off pretty good and I finished a good few chapters and I quite confidently pack it in my carry on and the second one in my case. I thought I could plough through them both during my weeks holiday to Tenerife. 

I loved book one. It was a lot to take in with all the new characters and the relationships between them. There were about a million people with the name Rob, Robert, Robb Robett, Robbie ect but I had never read a fantasy book like this before. The idea of a book with Knights and Kings and Jousting and Feasts had never appealed to me because I thought they would either be silly romances or just blood baths and battles that just didn't interest me, but this as so much more exciting. I liked all the secrets between characters. The rivalry, and love and tensions between families. I loved that women and girls were interesting people rather then just pretty faces and I torn through the pages. It took almost the full week to read it but on the plane home I was already on book two. 

And this is where it all started to go wrong. This book introduced more families and more history and a main character from the first book was dead but I trudged through but this book took me weeks to read, the longest it has taken me to read a book in a long time. I as tempted to give up on the series by this point but felt I should at least give book three a chance, plus I wanted to know how some of the story lines were going to play out.

Book three was fantastic ! I was pulled right back in, People were killed off the you didn't expect and stories turned in unexpected directions, yeah it was still taking me a few weeks to get through the book but reading one chapter of George R R Martins work can be really tiring. He can first more description into a paragraph then you ever though possible. It can be a read joy to read and some times a total chore. 

I am sure you can see how the nest book went, I wasn't so keen on but by that point I was in too deep, and here I am the first month of 2015 and I am still working my way through what was suppose to be my Holiday reading. I am on the second to last book with 120 pages to go. But I am enjoying this one, it's just with every page you are worried about your favourite character dying, and the next chapter could be someone who you have been reading about since book one or it could be a whole new person you have to quickly learn about and why they are important, and I never felt I could take a break from the books because I was worried if I did I would be lost as to what was happening because I would forget what everyone was up to.

 I have definitely stepped out of my comfort zone with these books and for the most part I am really enjoying them. Plus I quite like the TV show as well as I have allowed myself to watch episodes as I finish the books they are based on. 

Though when I finish the final book in the series so far I know it will be a relief but at the same time I will be counting down the days till the next book it released. I have definitely got myself into something pretty deep with these books. 

This year there is anew Reading Challenge I have seen floating around Blogs which looks pretty good and i wouldn't mind having a stab at. I don't feel like I have totally failed at this challenge because I feel the point of reading 50 books in a year was to force readers out of their comfort zones and I definitely did that. 

Rella

Xx