Blown away by the response my writing is getting! And Letter to my future spouse

Goodness me. What is going on?  Like, people are stopping me to tell me how awesome I am.

My writing is gathering momentum and I am publishing in the award winning uni mag now.  I'm loving it quite frankly.  Never did I imagine the dream might come into fruition.

Over the next few blog posts I will share what has been going on.

But for now, my new submission which has just been accepted is this one:

Letter to my future spouse.

What do you think you are doing?

Coming into my life and disrupting my plans.

I mean, so much hurt from my past. Of course the barriers are up.  Who could blame me?  By now you will know the stories, back to back.  You might be shocked to know I left some details out which I thought might be too painful for you to hear.  I even thought you might not believe me.

Even before you came along, I refused to be a man hater.  Knowing that all the human race is/was different.  I can only guess that now you are in my life (messing up my plans for a ‘cold heart for the rest of my life’) I did actually manage to find someone more than half decent.  Someone chivalrous, who treats me like a lady at the right times, like his girl the other times. Causing silly eye twinkles and grins that speak volumes. 

Actually, I know half decent doesn’t go any way towards describing you.  If you are now my guy (which you are, because you’re reading this) you will know my standards are pretty high. 

Sorry.  Sorry about that. 

Self-preservation I guess. 

Snapping at you unnecessarily might be the order of the day. That’s just me being afraid.  Please let me blow that hot air out. Then let me say sorry – and please accept my apology.   Of course I’m nervous of you.  Gee whizz you stole my icy heart.  How did that even happen?

Remember I don’t need promises of forever or that everything will be perfect.  What I need is you giving me perfect moments that I will lock away to remember when I sit in that rocking chair and smile to myself.  Your arms around me, making me feel that just for that moment, I am the most important person in your world.  Coffee dates and Sunday morning sofa snuggles.  Wine and firelight.  Music and laughter.  These are the plain and simple things that make us smile.

We have a wonderful future of making memories.  I’ll take nothing for granted.  I’ll promise not to take you for granted.  My best memory of you so far?  That long text chat we had, you remember the day?  When I was so down and filtering over the past hurts with sadness.  Do you remember what you said?  Thank you for that memory babe. It’s etched into me as (likely) the most powerful sentence a guy has ever said to me,

“You have to let me be ‘not that guy’”.

Feeling little and lost

Today I work at university as a student ambassador. Watching the new students making friends, getting lost, looking at maps and wondering what they might have set themselves up for.

Hoping to be helpful, I smile. And help them.

During lunch I read about writing. My course starts in a couple of days and I am/was so excited. This feels so right. I'm excited. I said that already. Yet I am also seeing how I have so much to learn.

Imposter syndrome is lurking a little - yet I want to do this so the only way is to DO THIS. I'm nervous. Worried I don't know enough. I need to learn! And FAST.

Something crazy is going on with me. I am considering the PHD. Yup. I said it out loud.

Potentially, I think I may have found a supervisor. She seems awesome and signs off posts with things like, "With love" etc. She shares her teachings on Patreon so I have signed up to be a supporter of her and hope that I can go ahead and learn from her and possibly have her as a supervisor on my phd...

Much as I love and adore my science academics, I just literally sweated profusely. All these potential new students, and I asked if I could just address them about the student ambassador scheme. JIKES. Being the first person to speak to them in class was a massive responsibility. The academics said yes but let everyone arrive first.

So here I was in a room full of 200 new students, plus 15 academics in science and I was saying, "Good morning and welcome, come be an ambassador and earn some money..." among other things.

Yes, I love public speaking but this was so off the cuff. It showed. My confidence is beginning to wobble ever so slightly.

I'm a registered Masters Student!

Creative writing called my name didn't it.  Big time.  Honestly, I am so thankful I finally listened.


Never before in my life have I ever felt so complete, content and happy.

On a professional level, I feel I have struggled so much over the years to work hard, prove myself and  do the uphill bit.  Uh-uh.  No more. I'm flowing downstream in the direction I am meant to be carried and I will make a success of my writing! without doubt there is a definite need for this now - given my last diagnosis which I've written in the blog post you can read last time.  Running around an NHS hospital as a dietitian which is what the dream started out as, is so far from where I am now.

Yesterday saw me writing and I was sure I saved it here for you guys but it disappeared. Yes I lost almost 2 hours worth of work that I had undertaken at university and I was sure it was likely I would be writing to you from there for the last time as next time it will be from my new university account.

I'm excited.  And ready!  So here begins the diary of a creative writing student.  That's a mouthful for the video intro from here..erm, ok what about diary of a writer?

Love always,

Louise xoxo

Do I take the Creative Writing MA?

Having thoughts of wonder. What should I do next year?  Do I need to actually take the writing degree? No, not at all. Yet if I don't I might never know how far I can go with my writing.  
Saturday evening saw me attend a showcase of readings from this years current MA writers.  One of them blew me away with her story of post modern day apolocalptic world.  Gave me thoughts but also gave me the image of life as they ended with 'she lives in Broadstairs and writes there.'  I love Broadstairs, I studied there when I was 16.  Lost my virginity there.  Too much information perhaps.  Yet within my head comes this stuff I feel compelled to write. Sitting next to the authors 20 year old son, I tried to ask questions which would point me towards how stressful this degree might be. 

Currently not sleeping, suffering quite dramatic amounts of palpitations (if I didn't know better, I would be heading to A and E at least 3 times by now) and feeling strange feelings within my body which I convince myself something is really wrong with me. Yet.  I know all of this is stress related. 
To take on another degree might see me as crazy.  
Wanting this stress to be void from me. 

Last night I researched many people who have made a success of things despite being qualified to do so.  They are consistent.  They are definite about what they say and where they are going.  This is what I need to do.  I'm passionate about chronic disease and health through nutrition. I want to write about that for sure. DO I want to be known for writing romance too? How can those two things cross over?  Or do I set one up as a total pen name? Seems rather sad to do that when I'm very much set up with a good platform online.  
Sensing a need to get away from it all and off to my friends in Bosnia Herzegovina as they would have some answers. This is my one downfall, it's the inconsistencies.  Hearing the author write on her blog (I wasn't stalking, it was research!) "I've loved it and I've hated it." Is exactly how I would describe my current BSc degree.  I'm concerned I would have chosen the wrong thing, be overly stressed and regret it.  

This morning sees me drive my daughter to college and head to starbucks to sit and write this kind of stuff. This is the sort of thing I could do all day long, happily.  Yet I also see myself on book tours and I also see myself giving talks on nutrition and making videos of such.  

What do I want to be known as?  I just don't know.  I know I would like to earn some money. Currently I'm helping the twins with their businesses too.  This takes time but do I want to be known for this? Is this something we will do together over the years or do I simply help them get started on what they want to do?  Do I use a pen name, oh I don't know, here I go again round and round in circles.

You see then we are also at a place of being able to invest in property and get a pretty good income flowing from that.  If only we could make it all enough.  Then would the nutrition degree be a waste of time? Not really, would it? It's something I can always go back over and pick up and do something with. Although this said, the blog seems to really be gaining some momentum about the things I love and enjoy talking about and if this is simply a way to go for the future then why not? 
Today, my gut feeling sees me wanting to write under the pen name, not as a secret you understand but just so my readers know under which hat they are looking at me and what they can expect to get.

My one other fear is that my writing will change. While I'm sure it will change for the better, I am the person who can't really be overly bothered with edits and taking ages to do everything. I kind of like to get the job done...then again, it will be worth making those edits.  Oh I dunno.  I need to get off to Canterbury now to get this stuff done.  This writing course which I'm loving but a massive part of me would happily sit here and keep on writing for a couple more hours.  Definitely something I could do over and over.

So what would you do? What's it to be?