Birmingham

Birmingham station has changed a bit since I was last here. I came here on tour in 2014, spending most of my time walking between the Broad Street Ibis and the Rep theatre, sweltering in the summer heat and waiting for the Library to close so the theatre could take over the air con. 

When I arrived in 2014, the station was covered in hoarding and adverts about the new exciting station that was being built. It wasn’t terribly exciting, hoarding is pretty much the same wherever you go. But now, in 2016, Grand Central, as it is now dubbed, is finished, and enormous. The outside is covered in mirrored panels, with a large eye-shaped advertising board on one side that watches you, and tries to get you to buy things. Very Orwellian, and very appropriate for my dystopian novel. I took a note of it whilst I ate some lunch in one of the many eateries, all of which were not allowed to provide bins, which in itself made the whole thing seem a little 1980s in a different way. 

I had great intentions for my time in Birmingham. I was going to wander the jewellery quarter and take notes on the warehouses and victorian buildings, find somewhere to sit and add to my word count. Those plans were slightly scuppered within 15 minutes of setting out. 

It was raining, which in itself is not a huge problem, I was prepared. I know British weather, and I’d brought a waterproof and changes of clothes. The rain itself didn’t bother me. Until. Until I was crossing a road to get to the jewellery quarter, where, somehow, I slipped over. I felt myself go and, in slow motion, it seemed, watched as my feet disappeared to one side, my backpack leant me sideways and there I was, like a turtle, on a road. It was a terrifying few seconds, until the cars started just going around me. Well, Merry Christmas to you all too. 

“Are you alright?” shouted a kind woman, who was also sporting a huge backpack, on the other side of the road. So I wasn’t still in London, and it was possible for people to give a shit about others. How nice. 

Limping slightly, and lamenting my formerly clean trousers which now had a long stripe of muddy rain water down one leg, I begrudgingy headed towards St Paul’s square. 

The church was rather lovely, at least from the outside. I have to admit to being a little grumpy from hurt pride, so I didn’t investigate inside, justifying it by saying that my character wasn’t likely to go inside a church either. 

It took another 20 minutes for me to get genuinely fed up of the rain, and to be somewhat desperate for the loo. As the heavens opened properly, I headed for the lovely Birmingham Central Library, who had a cafe, a workstation and, most importantly at that point, a toilet. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon typing, getting down nearly 2000 words of the novel, and the character’s journey. 

I spent the evening with my lovely friend Laura, who was kind enough to put me up for the night, and to invite me to join their writer’s group (PoW WoW) for and evening of ‘gluttony and ghost stories’. It gave me the idea that it might be nice to go to other cities and visit other writing groups, see how they work and hear work by people around the country. Perhaps next year, eh? 

It was wonderful in the back room of the Prince of Wales pub, warm and cosy with plentiful food. Most of the 20 or so writers there had a ghost story to tell, which gave the evening a wonderful Jackanory feeling. I have to admit, that I was close to dropping off a few times, due to the soothing nature of being read to, like 20 bedtime stories. I shook myself, obviously, because I wanted to hear the tales. And I’m glad i did, for they were of excellent quality. I hope to return some time to visit them again. 

In the morning, it was off to Manchester.

The Adventure begins...

At some point a month or so ago, it seemed like a great idea to start my research adventure on the 13th of December, even though I knew that my work Christmas party was on the Monday beforehand. I didn’t drink much, to be fair, just a single beaker of wine (they’d run out of wine glasses by the time we made it there after a show shift), but I had stayed much later than I planned putting the world to rights with a lovely colleague. So, dragging myself out of bed at 7am to pack, check my bag four times and leave early enough not to be affected by the ludicrous amount of problems on the underground, was challenging to say the least. 

But I made it to Euston on time, to discover that my train was terminating early in Northampton. Not such a good start. Trying not to worry, I lumped my enormous hikers rucksack onto a spare seat and plopped down next to it. Much of this first journey was spent staring at the scenery that moved past the window, and very enjoyable it was too; when one is used to London’s tightly packed buildings, even one open field among buildings becomes exciting. Many notes were taken in my novel notebook (yup, I have one, ask the creative collective, they’ve seen the rainbow highlighting) about scenery that could conceivably still exist in 18 years time, when the novel is primarily set. 

Having made my connection at Northampton, I managed a little snooze on the train, trying to ignore the persistent fear of missing my stop, even though the train terminated there. Hey, I can’t be held accountable for my sleep-deprived brain.

Here's my itinerary, for those who are interested: 

London - Birmingham (13th Dec)

Birmingham - Manchester (14th Dec)

Manchester-Leeds (14th Dec)

Leeds - Durham (15th Dec)

Durham - Carlisle (15th Dec)

Walking a section of Hadrian's wall (16th Dec)

Our Creative Collective (with thanks to Nadia for the title)

For much of my life, I’ve found it hard to make friends. Its not a statement written to elicit sympathy, its a fact. University was a lonely time, the years following not much different. With my closest friends far from my door, loneliness was sometimes impossible to counter. I found myself shrinking, making a smaller version of myself to become more acceptable, more palatable, less me, since, in my mind, I must be the problem. 

That all changed when I stepped into a glass fronted conference room in trendy Hackney last October. The venue was all show, no substance beneath its exposed pipe-work and hipster coffee, but the table, glass-topped and filled with books, was surrounded with comfy chairs ready for eager writers to sit and create. 

To say I was merely nervous would be a lie, I was excited and incredibly anxious. I knew the next 6 Saturdays would be inspiring and helpful, instructive, but I couldn’t have guessed the profound effect it would have on my life. 

Nine more women gradually filled up the table, took a seat self-consciously and prepped notebook and pen on the polished wood, and the conversation turned to books. As the weeks went on, we shared our work, sometimes with pencils and pens to edit or suggest, sometimes with party poppers and noise-makers celebrating triumphant sentences. Our laughter rose to the roof and strained the plate-glass windows, and gave the baby disco next door a run for their money. 

When the last class rolled around, and we parted ways from the pub after lunch, we all knew it wasn’t the end of the story (and yes, that pun is very much intended). With a selection of dates scattered in diaries, we made promises to keep it up, to motivate each other when times were hard and celebrate when success called. 

That was over a year ago, and we’ve managed it. Not only have we written, laughed and read more, but we have found something else: friendship. I wouldn’t have, couldn’t have imagined a year ago being a part of a group of such incredible and inspiring women and having the privilege to call them my friends. Having a community (a creative collective, as one member so perfectly put it) not only helps with the practical aspects of being a writer, but lifts you up and keeps you going, keeps you writing and inventing and staring into space following white rabbits. 

They do not see me as small, or quiet, or nervous because with them these shrouds disappear. With them, the loud and happy girl who shrank like Alice through school and university, through depression and fear, recognises herself again. Each time I sit with them, as we eat cake and discuss books and writing, I grow. Little by little, these women, these writing Grrrls, these creative companions give me back my confidence and zest for life; they chase away the anxious demons that whisper in my ears and keep me from being the woman I know I am, not the woman who has become so tiny that people don’t see her at all; they call me friend and my heart sings, breath courses through me and I know I can continue, both with writing, and with life. 

To all the Grrrls, and to the woman who brought us together too, thank you, from the farthest reaches of my mind and soul, thank you for seeing me, for accepting me, for being my friend and for being such incredible inspirations in everything I do.

Long may we continue. 

Who ya gonna call?

I've been called a geek, a nerd, a dork, for most of my life; people have also thought that it was important to point out that I'm female. All the damn time, like I hadn't noticed or something. I've always just thought of myself as me.

Apparently that wasn't an option.

I played gameboy games as a kid; I followed franchises and watched flash animations until my eyes were so tired all I could see were badgers. I've cosplayed, read comic franchises religiously, collected figurines and worn Wonder Woman insignia; I spent countless hours on World of Warcraft running away from random dudes trying to flirt with my character. But there's something that's been missing for so long and I think its finally starting to appear.

I could hardly ever see myself in the franchises I loved.

Sure, there were times that I could envision it: I loved imagining being an engineer on the Enterprise or Voyager; I wished for Superman's powers and Lois Lane's tenacity; I absorbed trivia and became an asset to pub quiz teams everywhere; I'm first in line to see the new Marvel films, whilst trying hard to ignore the fact that the female characters' armour doesn't cover their chests, and therefore their necks and hearts...come on, that just makes no damn sense!

But, but. I have just been to see Ghostbusters and despite a long working week I am so buzzed by the film that sleep is not coming anytime soon.

I was a fan of the original, although I will admit to not being as fanatical about it as some. I was always more of a Superheroes/Star Trek/Doctor Who kinda gal. I love the original films, don't get me wrong, but the new one is something incredibly special.

Its special because I can see myself up there; I can see four realistic women being portrayed in a 'nerdy' franchise and I swear I nearly cried I was so happy.

There are so many reasons why this film is important, but I'm going to try and summarise a few of the top priorities:

1) Girls and Women could totally love the original franchise, but if they were specifically looking for women to emulate in the playground, pickings were slim. Speaking as a woman who grew up pretending to be the Disney princes because they got to do all the interesting shit, some more obvious badass women would have been awesome. REPRESENTATION IS IMPORTANT (in case that wasn't clear).

2) This film, if people are paying attention, could really be a major (perhaps even final?) nail in the coffin of the 'women aren't funny' argument. The four main women in Ghostbusters represent many different styles of comedy throughout the film. We were laughing so hard the drink from our oversized cinema cup was basically streaming from our nostrils.

3) More than one body type is represented. And this is really important. I cannot stress this enough. No mention is made of the women's sizes at any point; they are simply four women. They are not all tiny, photoshopped and always worrying about their weight. They are JUST GETTING ON WITH THEIR LIVES. This is so damn rare in films, I can't even. You even see them eating and THERE'S NOT A SALAD TO BE LAUGHED AT ALONE IN SIGHT.

4) There's one or two brief conversations about men (mostly about the brilliant pastiche part of Kevin) but mostly, its science, Ghostbusting, research and general weirdness. This is also damn rare. Don't believe me? If you aren't familiar with the Bechdal test, go take a look on google. Go on, I'll wait.

>
>
>
>
>
>

 SEEEEEE????

5) They trolled the haters. In the film. All those douchebags who spent the months since the film was announced whining about how it'll 'ruin the original' and how 'girls can't be ghostbusters', down-voting the trailer on YouTube and generally being asshats. I won't spoiler it too much but...its glorious.

6) The costumes are lampooned for being impractical (including a wonderful jibe at Kristen Wiig's high heels) before being changed for the practical, hard-wearing jumpsuits that we all know and love. AND THEY ALL HAVE THEIR HAIR OUT OF THEIR EYES AND FLAT WATERPROOF SHOES. Yes, I'm shouting. Have you any idea how hard it is to fight evil with your hair in your eyes no matter how perfectly coiffed it is? And don't even get me started on running in heels. JUST NO.

There are so many other awesome things about this movie, but I think I'll let you go and see it and hope that you love it as much as I do.

Finally a film for us geek girls. Finally something that we don't have to prove our credentials for or wear ludicrous outfits to emulate.

Finally we can sit in the cinema and laugh at jokes that are made by people we can recognise, people who could be our friends, and jokes which are, crucially, not made at our expense.

One of Them

Last year was my first pride, the first parade I'd attended in my new skin, in my new guise. I ignored the commercialism, the sponsorship from capitalist companies that attached themselves to buses with rainbows strewn from mirrors. None of that mattered, because I wasn't there for that; I wasn't, as it was suggested by some work colleagues, imposing myself on 'their' party. They meant no malice but somehow they didn't know not to assume, not to read me in their default way: straight.

But that's not what I am, I'm not straight.

Standing on the side of the road with my friends, an amnesty international sticker plastered to one breast, tears sprung into eyes not previously fully opened.

It was the flag that did it; the pink/blue/purple striped one waved loftily by marchers smiling enough to make their cheeks ache - smiling so wide it reached to the edges of the road and spread to everyone in the crowd,

In the wake of a tragedy like the one that occurred in Orlando, solidarity and community is needed. Given that many of the people I know still read me in the way my colleagues did a year ago, I couldn't be as open about my sorrow as I wanted, couldn't without explaining, without coming out. I was still scared, still unsure about being myself.

But the time for fear is over. The time for pretending, for passing without resistance, is over. Visibility is what our community needs, to be louder, prouder, for those of us who live in relative privilege, able to express ourself with a higher level of freedom, to shout from the rooftops about our love and lovers, about our desire no longer to hide.

I am, and have probably always been, bisexual. It has taken so long for me to be able to be open and proud about this fact, due, in part, to a lack of visibility and representation when I was growing up: all our sex education was strictly heterosexual; bi characters in popular culture were categorised by the gender of their partner, not their own definition; language and stereotypes portray us as attention seeking or greedy, put us into binary boxes based on comfortable narrow definitions.

Through meeting people who've shown me that gender and sexuality are not as clear cut as the world wants us to believe, I have learned more about myself than I thought possible. I have been able to love myself in a way that I haven't done since I was a child. I am happier, calmer, I am part of a global community that gives support and companionship, that signals with rainbows and love. I am a queer woman, and I love myself for it.

So when I say I have crushes on women, I don't mean that they'd be an exception to status quo; when I call out people using homophobic, biphobic and transphobic language (and many other slurs), it's not just as an ally; when I attend a pride parade, I am not crashing their party. I am one of them.

I am Bi. I am me. And I'm not going to hide anymore.

What a jagged little pill...

Today I took an enormous step. I talked to my GP about my depression and anxiety, both of which have been a part of my life for a very long time. And I came home with a filled prescription, for antidepressants.

Over the years, I've considered this step numerous times, but always talked myself out of it. I know that some of the reasons behind my symptoms are things that have happened in my life that still affect me in ways that I don't want to admit to myself, let alone to medical professionals. I've convinced myself that I'm better without help, but, as I've come to realise recently, this is another symptom of the depression. It tells me that everyone else is fine, why can't I cope, I must be useless. I know, logically, that everyone is not fine, but that doesn't matter to the voice in my head that tells me I am not worthy, not good enough, weak. Its a horrible voice, when it goes away for brief periods, its like it's never been there and I can go on with life, imagining I will be fine. Another lie, but its hard to want to think about how awful you've felt when you finally have some respite from it.

I'm writing about this for two reasons. For one, its depression awareness week, and if you haven't yet, check out the Blurt Foundation's hashtag: #whatyoudontsee. Those who have tweeted using the hashtag are giving a glimpse into the minds of people suffering from depression. They're extremely moving and so accurate it hurts.

Secondly, I feel like I'm on the cusp of something. Whilst SSRI antidepressants take a few weeks to start working, being about to take the first pill in the packet is momentous for me. It might just be swallowing a tiny capsule of chemicals, but to me it represents taking a step towards not feeling completely awful all the time. It may not, but I owe it to myself to try.

What I have always thought of as a jagged edged pill, one with more bad consequences than helpful effects, may help me to live my life more fully, to feel less stuck, to breathe easier. I hope that it will do all these things, and allow me to see myself as I should: not scared, not trapped, not inhibited by negative thoughts, but someone who has done and can do amazing things without fearing the inside of my head.

Away Laughing on a fast camel...

I'm sitting at the table this afternoon listening to the radio and crying my eyes out. I'm listening to 'Last Word' on radio four, on which Holly Bourne is talking about the wonderful, hilarious author and comedian Louise Rennison who died last weekend. 

Rennison's books, the Georgia Nicholson series, were the subtitles and manual to my teenage years. They were where we would go to look for advice and to forget our problems by reading about a group of girls like us who made up snogging scales and traversed their teens with hilarity. 

The excitement that we felt when she came to our school for world book day (many years ago now) was enough to make us go to the piddley-diddley department right in our seats in the tiny damp school library. We listened to her reading during the day and came back to hear the same talk and same extracts in the evening, so huge was our love for her and her stories. When she read from her work, she brought her characters off the page in an incredible way, a memory which I have always kept with me and which has influenced my own spoken word style. 

She was an incredibly lovely woman, who signed my book with a shocked face thinking I'd said my name was Jas and not Jess, laughing her wonderful laugh and not worrying about sucking in her nose or placing her tongue behind her teeth like her teenage book-self Georgia was always doing. We asked her about the characters' real-life counterparts and what happened to them after the books (at the time there were only 3 or 4 books in the series, which now has 10), looking shocked at the Sex God's choice of life partner and awwww-ing at Jas and Tom. Her performance is still clear in my mind, and I've been calling on it a lot in the last few days. 

When I found out she'd died, I was shocked. I'd just been thinking about her and how important her books were when I was a teenager, and how important they still are. She was one of those people who seemed to go on and on and who would always be there, laughing and writing. She is a huge influence on me, and on my YA writing. Importantly, she showed us a world where girls weren't there to be sophisticated and chilled out, they were people like anyone else. And perhaps most importantly, that women are absolutely hilarious. 

RIP Louise, you'll be missed by many generations of young women, but we'll be able to laugh through the tears by re-reading your wonderful books.