Here we are, in the future.

I’m back. 2 years, I know, but who’s counting?

For those wondering, I got into Nottingham university, which is why I felt like this blog was a little useless for a while; it seemed silly to write about a goal that I’d attained. Thing is, I still have this url, and it’s just sat around doing nothing all this time, so I thought, instead, let’s turn it into an amalgamation of the things I love; music, and travel.

I literally went to poland in order to walk everywhere that chopin did okay, I think I’m allowed to talk about this kind of thing!

So, in short, I’m glad to be back, and hopefully to stay, but I know that the direction this blog is going isn’t for everyone, but, maybe I can convince you!

Do you want to hear about places such as copenhagen, amsterdam, krakow, budapest, morocco? And how to visit those places on a tiny student budget? Do you want to learn a little bit more about music than you might already know? About music pieces and their strange (and sometimes hilarious) histories that you might not be able to find anywhere else?

Well, you’re in luck. Welcome to laurenthelitstudent. I am lauren, I am indeed a literature student, and this has nothing to do with literature!

I hope you enjoy!

For now, in terms of music, let me leave you with something silly, and something fun, that I think sums up how I feel about my life at the moment, and all the strange, wonderful places it’s taking me.

See you soon!

Editing the novel- night 6

I’ve spent the last few days doing pretty much nothing but editing the novel. Well, that’s not strictly true. The other night, I went to a friend’s party (because why not? I needed a break!) and the entire time people asked me when they were going to get a copy of the first draft.

It hasn’t really struck me until now that other people are going to have to read an imperfect version of my novel before most of the others read a ‘perfect’ version. That thought is really scary, so I procrastinated editing the novel an extra 9 hours more than I originally thought I needed to finish the first edits last night, because if it’s not done, other people can’t read it right?

Unfortunately, that means I’m stuck waiting on people to read it before I can get my first critiques and overall response. The waiting is awful- especially because I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve dedicated so much of my time lately to editing the novel that now that I have to wait and force myself to take a break from it, I suddenly have so much more time that I’m at a little bit of a loss.

The waiting is made worse by the idea that I could have spent so long on this novel, and they could hate it. It could be too cheesy, or forced, or too dark, or not funny. There are so many things wrong with it, that I just don’t know how to fix on my own.

That’s why it’s so important to get others to read your novel; to not just keep it locked to yourself. It’s a fresh perspective, and those people need to give honest opinions on it for it get any better.

Doesn’t make me any less stressed though.

What’s worse is having to send it to particular friends who you know won’t pull their punches in telling you exactly how they feel about it, because if they hate it you know it’s going to take a while to recuperate and get back up again, but what’s worse, is that I’m worried that they will pull their punches, that they’ll lie in saying that they like it, and, even though I know it’s not perfect yet, I’d still rather they said what they really felt to my face.

Can you tell this is stressing me out?

I’ll let you know what some of the responses are tomorrow hopefully…

-Lauren

The journey to become an English literature student- night 3

For those of you who don’t know, I’m an anime nerd. That’s right.

This week, I’ve been re-watching one of my favourites; Ouran High School Host Club, and I’ve been doing a little bit of fantasizing about Oxford while I do. That probably sounds weird, so let me explain. Ouran High School Host Club is set in an ‘elite private school’, and every so often in some episodes, the camera will pan out into a birds-eye view of the school, and something about it really reminds me of oxford university.

Do you see what I mean? I think it’s the courtyards, and also the joining of a lot of different buildings that are rectangular around the grass, or something like that.

Forgive me, I’ve spent all day at work- my poetry is not at it’s finest.

Anyways, every time the camera pans out into a shot like this, I get the same feeling I get whenever I look at Oxford. I get almost teary, and emotional when looking at it. I really can’t explain it. Sometimes I think it’s just the beauty of it that makes me want to cry, but I think it’s a bit more than that. Longing? Maybe. Belonging? Also maybe.

The thing is, I really don’t have the grades for oxford. A*BB really isn’t what they’re looking for, but that’s what happens when your brain is geared for English and you choose two science subjects, whilst trying to learn latin at 8:30am on the side.

Yeah, you can guess which subject I got the A* in…

I get upset when I think about that for too long- I’m only a grade off by ucas points standards; the English course at Oxford asks for AAA, and an A*BB is the same thing as AAB in ucas terms, so you can understand why I’m annoyed, but I wouldn’t make my teachers change my predicted grades to make them higher. I know there’s no way I could get above a B in chemistry. I might have been able to in Biology, but that’s beside the point now I think.

Still, those things are beyond my control now. I’m sure a lot of other A-level students can relate to that, and I have to make my peace with it, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

I’m so invested in my dreaming in fact, that I’m visiting oxford on my own whenever they can fit me in because I can’t make an open day, I keep looking at Magdalen college on google satellite (where Oscar Wilde studied!), and I’m still going to apply, even when I know I have no chance;

Because I have more faith in my writing than in a stupid grade, and I think that’s really important. Isn’t that all that should matter? I’m a great writer. I know I’m a great writer, and I’ll prove it.

I’ll prove it if that’s what it takes for them to give me an interview- because then they would realize that not giving me an offer would be a grave mistake.

-Lauren

P.S: Did I fool you with my confidence? Didn’t think so…

Editing the novel- night 5

So uh… Here’s an update…

I didn’t get the edits done.

Well, that’s not true, I got 3 out of 4 pages of edits done. When I say 3 of four pages, I mean I made a list of things to change, and got 3 pages of it done, which isn’t bad, but I’m still annoyed at myself.

I was so annoyed with myself and just life in general yesterday, that, in fact, I went out for a run, put some angry music on, and blocked out the world.

When I did, I ran the best I have in a long time. I almost finished perfectly. Almost. And then I spent the walk back beating myself up over the fact that I didn’t finish perfectly. It was at that point that I realized that my reaction mechanisms probably aren’t healthy.

I never thought I was a ‘glass half empty’ type of girl, but here I am. I never praise myself for things I do unless they’re completed or done perfectly. Otherwise, I just get angry at myself for not doing the absolute best that I could.

When I was doing my GCSE’s this was helpful, and I left school with an almost perfect report card, with almost A’s or A*’s completely down the board, but that sort of way of doing things doesn’t work when you get to college, or anything higher, or when you’re doing anything that you don’t constantly have other people to spur you on for.

When you constantly bring yourself down about not being the best, your motivation and stamina decreases. When I joined college I got B’s. Something I wasn’t used to, and after that my grades got worse instead of better, because every time I got something wrong I thought I was worthless, and I was so far away from where I wanted to be that I would never get there.

It’s likely that I’ll finish this year with predicted grades A*BB. If I told my 7 year old self that she would be unbelievably disappointed with me, but the truth is I wasn’t prepared for reality. Unlike most other students, I have 3 8:30am starts and 2 10:05 starts, which means it’s less likely that I’ll retain information from my classes. On top of that, my classes are an hour and a half in length, meaning it’s more likely that I will forget a third of everything I’m taught.

More than this, I take 2 science subjects. I know now that if I had taken all essay based subjects like my English literature class, I would have gotten 3 A*’s, because those are my strengths, but the truth is, my strength is English literature, and I honestly don’t know what other two subjects I would have taken other than science subjects.

At the time of choosing my A-levels, I chose Biology and Chemistry because I thought they would make me ’employable’. I thought I wanted to go into medicine, I was almost 100% certain on it, because I knew there was a job for me at the end of it.

I have a horrible fear of failure. Specifically, that I’ll never get a job to pay the bills. Once I confronted that fear, faced it, and pushed it aside, I focused on what I really wanted to do with my life- which was to tell stories that would affect other people’s way of life.

I’m sure many of you out there can relate to that.

So I changed my degree plans, told my English teacher, threw myself into my lit studies, cancelled science related volunteering plans, got a job, and changed my university visits.

It was terrifying.

And at the time, I was disappointed in myself, because I had made my family be disappointed in me.

But now, I’ve never been more proud of myself. That was the volta in my life so far; my turning point, and if I hadn’t taken it I would have been miserable.

My point is, stop beating yourself up over things that didn’t quite go to plan, because sometimes you need to make those mistakes for something good to come out of them. If I hadn’t failed a few of my science tests I never would have thought that science wasn’t for me. If I hadn’t gone on that run I never would have seen how well I could run when I had the motivation to.

What I’m saying is, congratulate yourself on the things you did do, and accept the things you didn’t. And if something you didn’t choose to do makes you unhappy, you can go back and change it.

-Lauren

The journey to become an English Lit student- Night 2

Another day passes, and still no real addition to my editing of the novel. The only real thing that happened today was me scaring myself half to death, as when I opened my manuscript to work on it, I noticed I was several thousand words down compared to yesterday.

You can imagine the heart attack I had before I realized I had opened the wrong document.

Other than that, I’ve spent most of the day making wedding plans with my sister- her hen night is this weekend, and somehow I don’t think much editing will get done for a while after that either- and reading. Knowing people who work at Waterstones has it’s perks, and I’ve been reading ‘One of us is lying’ by Karen M.McManus. I really hope I spelt her name right…

It’s a pretty great book so far- although I’m only about 1/3 of the way through- and I really recommend it. Simon was my favourite character at the beginning, but well… not anymore.

It’s been a while since I’ve finished a book, honestly. Especially one that I wasn’t made to study for A-level or other kinds of study. Mainly, I think it’s because when you study books, and when you write them, you get a bit exhausted, and can’t help but analyze almost everything.

Part of the beauty about One of Us Lying is that it’s so brilliantly simple. There’s no questioning the basic premise, or why the writer decided to write this story (apparently the most important question to think about when writing a book of your own), there’s simply the analysis of the individual characters. Since this is something pretty much all of us do on a daily basis, I think this makes it so much easier to read, and I’m hoping it’s a book that will allow me to start reading like I used to again.

Honestly, it’s a pretty exciting idea.

Let’s hope I feel the same way about this book when it’s finished.

-Lauren

P.S: As of now, I think the liar is Bronwyn, but honestly? I have no idea. I just have a hunch.

Editing the novel- Night 1

It’s not really night 1 of editing my novel. In fact, I think I’ve been editing since may, or something like that.

To tell the truth though, I’ve only really been making any progress in the last few days. No one ever told me what a daunting task editing is. When I started Nanowrimo, I was so confused as to why someone would need a whole month to edit 50,000. I thought simply writing the 50,000 words was much more difficult. Boy, was I wrong.

Today, I’ve been avoiding editing altogether. Not because I don’t want to, but just because it was taking up so much time that I wasn’t getting anything else done, and I honestly really recommend taking breaks when you’re editing.

Personally, my anxiety likes to kick off if I stay in one place for too long, or if I’m not being ‘productive’, so, it kicks off quite a lot when I’m editing, because you might only edit a word every few minutes on average. In cases like that, I have to get up, go for a walk, take my dogs, and just get out, listen to some music and clear my mind, and that’s what I did today.

Even so it’s been a stressful day. England vs Croatia (which I’m watching as I write this and am very stressed about the outcome), as well as my own personal issues, as well as booking driving lessons, I don’t think my mind could handle trying to edit on top of all of that.

Regardless of that though, it’s been a good day, and, I think it’s a good sign that even when I’m not editing, I’m still thinking of my manuscript, still thinking of my characters; how they act, talk, speak, feel.

I suppose that’s a little bit of advice for you today, no matter how incoherent the rest of this post has been (sorry but this football match is the most stressful thing), that, if you’re thinking about your manuscript even when you’re not specifically working on it, it’s a good manuscript, and deserves the hours and days you’re spending on it.

-Lauren