Author: <span>Natalie</span>

Box Explosion

I’m sorry for the lack of posts lately and am going to apologise in advance for the lack of posts over the next couple of weeks.  My visa medical and interview were in London last week and the week before, so my time has been really tied up with all things immigration!

Everything went well 🙂  Which means that now the house looks like an explosion of boxes!  Sorting, packing, ebaying… Lots to get done and in only a short amount of time.  Which means my writing, and this blog, will suffer :/  But only for a couple of weeks and then I can get settled in and focus on my work in progress again.

I’m finding it amazing how much junk I’ve accumulated over the years.  I always try to clear things out every so often – ebay or charity donations – but now looking at things in terms of “how much will this cost to ship to America?” is making me realise just how many things I need to get rid of.  Not the shoes though, obviously 😉

So, I will try to do a couple of updates along the way but I fear the boxes are plotting to overthrow the living room so I must get back to work!  See you all in a couple of weeks when I’ll be typing from our shiny new home in America 🙂

October 3, 2011
Natalie Natterings
6 Comments

Delving In

So, after looking through all of my folders and organising (ish) my past writing projects, I’m going to delve into what will be my work in progress.  It’s pretty strange reading something that I know I wrote, but that I can’t remember every detail of.  That obviously comes in handy for editing though!

I have a series in mind for this novel, but also a sort of off-shoot series based in the same world but with a different side of things being shown.  I don’t want to go into too much detail as the ideas are still working themselves out in my head.  But because they’re doing that constantly, I’m a little torn between focussing on this novel first, or what would be book one of the off-shoot series as it could stand alone without a problem.

I guess I should just dive in and see though.  After all this time it’s almost like I’m scared to look – partly in case it’s terrible and I hang my head in shame and partly because I don’t want to let myself down by not being able to put enough time into writing at the moment.  Moving country is taking up a lot of my time right now.  Who knew! 😉

September 21, 2011
Writing
0 Comment

Language Evolution

In last month’s Writing Magazine, Michael Legat wrote a short paragraph talking about two phrases that are in common use: “north of” and “grow”.  He noted how their use has changed and you now hear them in sentences such as “He earns north of one hundred thousand” or in terms of “growing your investment”.

He posed a question to ask if we really need “north of” or “grow” in these contexts when there are already perfectly functional words such as “more than” and “increase”?

For me, it isn’t about a need for these words more than it is about enlivening language.  Using “north of” and “grow” gives a much more exciting and visual image to what you’re trying to convey.  Especially when you’re talking about something as dull as salaries and investments!

So I’m not sure I really see this as a language change, but more of a language growth or evolution where people are improving their conversations with more visual and colourful terminology.  Perhaps this points to people being more aware of their language’s capabilities and I definitely can’t see that as a bad thing!

September 8, 2011
Writing
10 Comments

All At Once

This month has been very much like the old saying: you wait for one bus, then two come at the same time.

Brian and I have been waiting for almost a year for my visa to be processed and, just as I start Camp NaNoWriMo, it all comes to the last stage!  Which is great news, don’t get me wrong 🙂  We’re really excited and I’m really nervous about the interview because I have no idea what they ask!  But it has meant less time for writing and so I wanted to say sorry for lack of updates on here.

Camp NaNoWriMo, I had to forget about all together.  This is the first year they’ve done it and it’s basically NaNoWriMo but in the Summer.  For anyone who is unfamiliar with the NaNo concept, you’re given the challenge of writing 50,000 words of a brand new novel, or a 50,000 novella, within 30 days (or, as August is longer, within 31 days for Camp NaNoWriMo).  It’s a lot of hard work but it really is a lot of fun too 🙂  This new idea of going to camp has a few changes, like instead of the forums they have “cabins” where you and 5 other people get to spur each other on, chat about your progress and help each other as much as possible.  The forums on the main NaNoWriMo website are still active with Camp chatter, but the cabins are a great addition on the Camp website!

My camp experience, as little as there was of it, was very good!  If they do it again next year I’ll definitely take part.  But for now, back to organising things for my interview!

August 18, 2011
Writing
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Welcome To The Future!

That’s what a friend just told me as today I’ve taken the plunge and signed up with Twitter.

So now I can tell everyone about when I go to buy carrots or whatever else fits into the 140 characters – generally writing related, no carrots to see here 🙂

I did find out that there is another Natalie Westgate though and she had already taken the username, which threw me to start with.  Natalie_Westgate would have been a nice alternative, but Twitter only allows 15 characters for names and guess how many characters NatalieWestgate is?  You guessed it, 15.  So no underscore for me :/  But after many tries I found something that worked!  So, if you want to follow me or tweet me (or do other things that I’m unfamiliar with on Twitter!) then you can find me at @N_Westgate 🙂  I’ll update the “follow” icons on this site to add one for Twitter after I’ve got used to tweeting!

Wish me luck.

July 29, 2011
Natalie Natterings
9 Comments