Recycling Old Manuscripts (ten years on)…

 

Back in 2011 I did a guest post over on Notes from The Slushpile about recycling old printed out copies of manuscripts to read press here. The post was a bit whimsical, a tad serious and whole lot of silliness. Firstly it did have some useful ideas on how to re-use manuscripts rather than just throwing away in the paper recycling bin, but also had some bonkers ideas too.

Fast forward ten years, and I am back thinking about the same issue, because I’m having building work done of my house, and had to therefore either store of get rid of all the prints out of old versions of all my books. As storage costs, disposing of it won, however I didn’t want to just put it in the green bin, so we did re-use it as much a possible.

I write mostly YA – which are big books, and due to my dyslexia, I find editing on the computer very tricky, as I need to use a ruler/finger to track my reading, and especially with developmental edits I have to LITTERAL Cut and Paste Roald Dahl style.  So this is lots of paper. Now I know some of you will be saying it is bad for the environment (I know) but I do use rainforest managed paper. So ten years and nine book later, each with multiple edits, and that is a lot of paper.

You may ask; how this can have changed since 2011? That surely I’d be doing the same kind of re-using. You’d be right – but you’d also be wrong. In ten years, my offspring have grown and are now teens. Teens change everything.

Football boots…

Yep, my manuscript has been used on multiple occasions to help my son dry his football boots. (This will be particularly funny to anyone who actually knows my son!)

Planting…

Yes, in 2011 we were using the manuscript to make pots for seedlings. We still do this, but we also use it for projecting the floor when the teen is tending to his plants and cuttings.

Art…

My youngest is doing GCSE Art, and one of the projects was sculpture. This was done in the lockdown, so sourcing materials was tricky. But there was no reason to panic when you have a box full of old manuscripts that can be used!

FIRE…

It is the season for bonfires, and my manuscript apparently burns well. Although as we currently have no heating, I am wondering if we should have kept some!

Any other ideas on how to re-use, re-cycle or re-propose old manuscripts, would be gratefully received.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surviving Lockdown - What Fresh new Procrastination is This?

So everyone’s facing the third week of compulsory Lockdown, and the signs of personal or family meltdowns are probably starting to show.

Unlike my husband and children who still have their structure – still working and schooling just from home, all my structure has gone. As my structure was all based around the school runs and getting the children to various after school clubs -  and fitting my writing and business work around them -has disappeared. So it's me who's getting the cabin fever.

I’m lucky, we are all healthy and my kids are older and more independent, and they don’t need me to home-educate and entertain them, and we’re also very fortunate to have space that we are not in each other’s faces the whole time. But I still have no structure and being at home all apart from one hour of exercise a day is a lot of time to fill.

I have been writing, but we have the issue of not enough computers to go around, my husband has his work laptop, my daughter on her school laptop- it has left my son working on the family PC, so writing all hours is tricky. I do write long hand and try and type it up when my son is on is lunch break, but isn’t exactly perfect.

So in short; long days + little structure + limited access to a computer has resulted in me getting cabin fever.

The one thing that has really helped me combat cabin fever and keep me sane, is the one thing that is usually the enemy of any creatives that work from home: Procrastination. And of course following lots of kid lit folks on social media have meant there has been lot of fresh new procrastination projects to keep me busy and stop my mind for spiralling into dark palaces.

So far I spent a few hours rearranging and photographing my book shelves for fellow Gold Egg, Becky Hamilton’s call out for ‘SHELFIES’ for an exhibition she’s organising for the Bath Fringe festival.

As a family we spent an afternoon, packing up the Easter Craft stuff that my son has brought to do fundraising for his expedition (now cancelled sue to corona virus), in to packages, and then randomly delivering them to neighbours houses that have children to help entertain during the lockdown. 

I spent a good twenty minutes taking photographs of the art that’s displayed around the house for Chitra Soundar’s #ARTonWalls over on twitter. 

A whole morning has been spent finding suitable reading material and photographing our sizeable menagerie after Paula Harrison nominated me to participate in Gareth P Jones #PetsGetReading . 

We are also taking part in the #NationalBearHunt, setting up changing scenes of teddies in our front window for the local children to spot when they are on their hours exercise. 

I know all these things may sound mundane, and daft, but taking part in these ever more creative Procrastination Projects, has really helped me combat cabin fever and stay sane, by breaking up the monotony of long structure-less days.


So thanks to everyone's inspires fresh new procrastination projects for they have really been keeping me sane!