NANOWRIMO 2018 // GETTING STARTED + FREE GRAPHICS

If you've ever wandered into the bookish or creative parts of social media, anywhere near November for the last decade or so, you'll have come across NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month is an annual internet project, and a source of joy, stress, excitement and more stress for thousands of people all over the world. The aim is to write a fifty thousand word novel in the thirty days of November, averaging out to 1665 words per day.

I've tried this a few times, but things always get in my way. I've usually been at University, where assessed essays are written around the same time, or grappling with a very demanding job and barely having time to do more than eat and sleep in my spare moments. This year, however, things are different. My academic career is done for the moment, and my work will be part time for the beginning of the month, so there is no better time to take advantage of this, and finally complete a NaNo project once and for all!

RECENT READING 002

I didn't read much non-academic material during my MA, but I did get round to a few good books and thought I would share them with you.

Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig - I picked this up on the recommendation of my good friend Kieran, who absolutely loved it, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Matt Haig is an author with a very eclectic bibliography, who writes candidly about his experiences with mental health, and Notes on a Nervous Planet is a series of vignettes in which he muses about the state of the culture we live in, and its effect on our mental health as individuals and as communities.

FIVE PLANS FOR AUTUMN - WINTER

Well, the sunglasses have finally gone back in their case, we're digging out the thicker duvets and cosy blankets, and the colder weather is here at last! I think on the blogosphere (especially the more insidey, bookish corner) we fetishise Autumn something awful. We get excited about crisp walks and hot chocolate and jumpers and forget about the constant rain and dark mornings and the various bouts of flu we'll all have to deal with.

That said I still love Autumn, and this year especially, the colder weather signals a big change in my life. I've come back down from York to be with my family, friends and boyfriend again, and I'm done with my dissertation and looking at where to go next. I've neglected a lot of things during my masters and I'm looking forward to rediscovering myself and what I love. 

A MASTERS IN LITERATURE | THOUGHTS NEARING THE FINISH

I am steadily coming to the end of my year as a Masters student. My dissertation is due in five weeks and honestly once this is over with, I'm not sure what I'm going to use my brain for. I've spent the best part of a year thinking about very little else and too busy filling my spare time with doggo walking, note taking and boyfriend seeing to think much about where to go afterwards.

For a long time I was sure that I wanted to do a PhD. My plan was pretty solidly to find a funded PhD (Oxford or UCL, y'know - somewhere I could feel smug about) and start my career as an academic. But things have changed. While I LOVE academia, and will always cherish my time as a postgraduate, the reality is that I just don't think that it's the future for me. The world of academia is largely very traditional, rigid, and somewhat humourless, and getting an essay back with glowing praise and a first grade isn't quite enough to take away the snitty comment in the feedback about how the little joke that I made halfway through was 'detrimental to an otherwise professional and impressive piece of work'.