Back To My Old Self…

Wow, I’ve been stressed lately – more than I realised. Today, I’m feeling quite healthy for the first time – despite being stuck with needles a fair number of times to try and find a vein to take four tubes of my blood(!) – , I’m not stressed about going back to uni because I love my course, things are going well with my family and my fiance, there’s rehearsal tomorrow and I love rehearsals, and I’VE BEEN SINGING!

It’s been so long since I’ve properly let loose and sang. It’s so difficult at uni because I’m so damn conscious of everyone around me, in case they’re laughing at me or wanting me to shut up. I like to sing LOUD songs, and HIGH songs – as shown today by the songs I sang, which included “Time To Say Goodbye” and “You Raise Me Up”, and “Defying Gravity” from Wicked.

I’m so happy!

“Wait… your childhood was… happy?”

This is the first time I’ve written a story where the main character – as in the character I write about the most etc – has had a happy childhood. There are no skeletons in the closet, no awful memories from long-forgotten incidents arising, nothing. She just had a lovely, happy childhood in a lovely place with a happy family, plenty of family friends surrounding her to look out for her and it’s made her the person she is when I’m writing her. Well, it makes her who she is when she finds her feet and stops being such a *****, which she’s being at the moment, but being at the Academy has changed her a little so she’s struggling to find her feet.

The rest of the characters around her have pretty tumultuous pasts – well, some of them do. Others had happy childhoods, and others had quite normal ones – up and down but nothing out of the ordinary. I’m so used to writing stories where every character has a past, and something terrible has happened to them, and whilst it’s all well and good and makes life interesting, the brooding character with a troubled past is only interesting for so long – both to read about and to write about – so I felt like writing on a blank canvas, if you will. This is a character whose upbringing has left her quite a normal, well-rounded individual – so I’m starting afresh, I’m not having to look back and think “Hmm, would she really do this bearing in mind what’s happened to her?”.

There’s a lot of variety in my characters this time around, and I’m starting to properly develop them, which is making it a lot easier to write. One of the big themes so far has been how the Academy has changed people, based very much on how university seems to have changed people in just the short time we’ve been there, and having that right at the start of the trilogy has really helped me to get some developed, 3D characters who will only develop more and more as the novels go on.

Excited IS the word!

First of all, a little introduction so you’ll understand exactly why I’m so excited. Me and my fiance both love the song “Hey Soul Sister” and, as an extension, the band who wrote/played/sang it, Train. They’re like “our” band, we play their songs on guitar together, we sing them, we have it on in the car all the time – songs like “Hey Soul Sister”, “Marry Me” (my particular favourite, for obvious reasons!), and “50 Ways To Say Goodbye”. So whenever I hear one of their songs, I immediately think of him, and even though just recently it’s been hard because he’s back home and I’m at uni, just listening to a Train song makes me smile.

We also both like Mumford and Sons, and when I couldn’t get tickets for their tour, I was quite upset. Then, two days later, Train announce that they’re doing a small UK tour – only a few dates. So it was like fate, we weren’t meant to get the Mumford and Sons tickets because otherwise we couldn’t have had the Train ones. I was fairly convinced there was no way I’d get tickets – if Mumford and Sons sold out so quickly, what chance was there of getting Train ones?

This morning, I managed to get us tickets via the LiveNation pre-sale. Words can’t even describe how excited I am – me and him, going to see “our” band!!! So yes, I am a very happy bunny today. In other exciting news, I go home tomorrow for the weekend again! I know most people are quite happy to go home and then not go back until Christmas, but not me – I love my family to bits, and I don’t think I’d enjoy a weekend where I don’t see them and my fiance. I like it at uni, I’m making new friends and everything, but I still wouldn’t be here without my family, and I think it’s important to remember that.

I love sunny days!

It’s a beautifully bright, sunny day today, which is a good thing – I think it cheered me up somewhat during that uncomfortable ride to the hospital. I would gladly have a thousand blood tests at once rather than have another one of those because it is so painful, especially when your kidneys aren’t exactly perfect – mine protested quite a lot because I drank… well, I don’t know how much, but it was TOO MUCH – squash and it was so uncomfortable, especially seeing as the appointment was delayed slightly.

So, I’m at home again, trying to summon up the motivation to change into more comfortable and summery clothes (I’m thinking pyjama bottoms are the only option here), whilst slowly comfort eating every sweet item we have in the house because it hurts a lot. On the bright side I’ve made some progress in other areas – I feel quite motivated to write today, and I’ve sorted out a provisional playlist for a singing booking I’m doing next month. It’s also two weeks until I go on holiday and 18 days until I turn 18, which is all very exciting stuff. So, all in all, not an awful day – not the best, but the scan didn’t show up anything untoward which takes us one step closer to finding out what’s wrong with me, which is always good – and the sun is shining, so I think it’s time to sort out this chocolate face mask and relax.

Inspirational post #4 – Happiness

 

 

And another thing…

Welcome to June! Hope it is a lovely, sunny month for you all. For us, the weather isn’t looking so promising – we’ve just emerged from a heatwave (well, a British heatwave – highs of about 32C, nothing compared to the usual 40C temperatures of places like Australia but hey, a lot of us are pale or ginger over here and we don’t deal with the sun very well) and entered what looks set to be the British summer, plenty of rain and cold temperatures and not much else all summer! Personally, I don’t mind – I’d like nice weather, but I don’t want it to be sweltering all the time. If we can have a week of nice weather for when we go on holiday, that’ll be peachy keen.

I hope all other aspects of June are happy for you all, just like I hope every month is happy for my lovely readers and followers 🙂 for me, the month will consist of finishing my exams and struggling to adjust to life without homework or revision for the next three months, and starting to worry about results day no doubt. I’ve also got the sponsored midnight walk on June 30th – you can find out how to sponsor me on the page called, well, “Sponsor Us” (at the top of the blog), and please do sponsor us because it’s such a worthwhile cause – so I’d better get in training for that, and hopefully this will be the month where I really see a major improvement or, even better, the complete disappearance of this pain and illness 🙂

So, pinch and a punch, first day of the month – happy June, everyone!

Revision Day (warning, may contain sweary gifs)

Today is going to be a revision day for me. Revision days are always a funny kind of day, because you start off really motivated like –

And then your revision comes at you and you’re like, “I’ll start in a bit” –

You drag yourself to your bag to get your revision notes for a different subject.

Then you look in your bag and realize just how much revision you have to do.

So, you start writing. You manage two minutes, three at the most, and feel like you’ve just climbed Everest, cured world hunger, brought about eternal peace and written a 10,000 word dissertation on the preservation of cute widdle hedgehogs in the Forest of Dean.

… then you realize how much more work you’ve got to do, and just how soon your exams are.

 

This cycle repeats itself throughout the day, and this will form my day in a nutshell. It will end like this.

All Change!

So, with the arrival of my new friend (her name is Lucy The Slut and she is beautiful), I will hopefully be updating my blog more frequently because I won’t have to wait for the family computer to be available! It also means I should be able to get some more writing done, I’m finally starting to see some real improvement in how I feel – I spent today with a group of knights in Harlech castle (I’m not hallucinating from the codeine, it actually happened!) and it was great, if very cold and windy!

It’s been a few days since I blogged (in fact, I haven’t blogged since my epic rant about not being allowed to have an opinion these days), but that’s really because…well, not an awful lot has happened. I moved a few things around in my bedroom and tidied up a bit, but I didn’t think that was really worthy of a whole blog post. Maybe one day, but I don’t think the world is ready for that just yet. I haven’t really done anything of note… playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and going to the doctors has taken up the bulk of my time since the 1st.

Still, got some good times to come – going to spend Monday with my boyfriend, seeing as it’s a bank holiday and I don’t have college and he doesn’t have work, so that’ll be nice. Might be going to see preparations for planes during the Jubilee and the Olympics but I’m not sure when it is, but I’m looking forwards to it (even though I’m from a Navy family, I can’t deny there’s something beautiful about planes). Hopefully being stewards for the Hope House pyjama walk next week, and then getting on with some training for our sponsored walk in June (you can sponsor us here ). We’re going on holiday for my 18th birthday in July, and I absolutely can’t wait! And it’s nearly exam time, which isn’t such a great thing on the surface… but it means the end of college and the start of summer (and, hopefully, starting university!) is drawing ever closer!

Hope you all have an enjoyable weekend, however you spend it 🙂

Maddy x

Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition!

So, as you may notice, I’ve spruced things up a little around here. I liked the old design, but it was a little big dark, the writing was a bit too small and.. I don’t know, it didn’t really seem to have the pizazz this new one has. I’m feeling really summery at the moment and the bright oranges and the big font and the funky letters that this one has really reflects my mood, so this theme should last the blog the whole summer! Unless everyone absolutely hates it and stops reading my blog because of it, that is.

Another thing that’s new is that I’ve added two new pages, across the top of the blog. The first one, titled “Christopher Maine”, basically means that I won’t be bombarding you with publicity in the future about him, but I’d love it if you could have a look if you haven’t already, follow his blog and consider purchasing/sharing the link to his book. The second is somewhere you can ask me questions (either about myself, my writing or whatever else within reason), make suggestions about the blog and just express your views on it in general. It’s all explained in the page itself, go check it out!

Last but not least, as well as being able to follow me on Twitter (@maddyleigh94), you can now also follow me on Tumblr! I warn you, I’m a lot less “delving into serious issues and giving my opinions” on there – today my posts have consisted of things related to Glee and alpacas (my first favourite animal, closely followed by Adelie penguins and red pandas, if you were wondering), and before that it was mostly Disney. Tumblr is where I let my “Maddy” side out – on here I’m Madison, I’m all business-like and blogging (pfft, yeah right!), on Tumblr I’m Maddy, where I’m 17 going on 7 and still obsessed with cute fluffy things, glitter and Winnie The Pooh!

An apology…

I haven’t posted for a couple of days, and I apologize. On Friday evening, I had to go to the doctors and it turns out I’ve got a kidney infection (they had to call the pharmacy and tell them not to close to make sure I could get the antibiotics I needed!) which, if anyone has ever had them before they’ll know, is horrible. I can’t remember the last time I felt so ill, and thankfully the antibiotics are starting to work but the pain is still agony – it’s one of the worst pains I have felt for such a long time, and I just can’t get comfy, so I’ve spent much of the weekend hiding away under a quilt feeling sorry for myself.

Today I finally got myself outside in the sunshine, which was nice – it has made me feel better, but I am still hurting a lot so once again, I apologize for the lack of blog posts. I had my drama performance evaluation on Friday and it went as well as it could’ve done considering how ill I felt! Hopefully I’ve done alright though, because I can’t re-take that exam! So it’s been quite an eventful weekend this weekend, but not in a good way. I’m also really missing my boyfriend, who’s having a training weekend ready for his medieval group, but I’m hopefully seeing him tomorrow so I’m all smiles on that front 🙂

I can’t get over how beautiful the weather is. It’s so warm and sunny, and apparently the beach has been pretty busy, and it’s so hard to believe that it’s only March! British Summer Time is here and in full swing, but I don’t know how long it’ll last! Knowing my luck, we’ll have this beautiful week of sunshine when I’m too ill to really enjoy it, and then BOOM, we’ll have three months of constant rain and thunder and cold weather. But I don’t want to jinx it, so I’m going to be happy for now and say, YAY SUNSHINE! Heard Louise Dearman’s first single, “Here Comes The Sun” today, and it’s so lovely and summery, it really got me feeling happy 🙂

Hope you’ve all had a happy, sunny, smiley weekend!