Saturday, 27 July 2013

Building confidence

Just a short post, because I want to get back to my holiday (in other words, I may go to the groceries in a moment to buy lactose-free milk...). But hello, dear readers! I'm having a whale of a time out here in Trinidad; the sky is amazingly open and just invites me to daydream frequently.

I have been doing a fair bit of writing in my super fat notebook, though not as much as I would write if I was at home. Just bits and bobs here and there, little snippets of short stories featuring the same character's life. My older cousin snatched my notebook last week and read some of it while I sat next to her and pretended not to notice.

Inside I was dying to know what she would say about my writing. And mostly just dying inside.

First of all, I was surprised she could read my handwriting because it has seriously declined since summer began. When she was finished, she handed it back and I just stared at her expectantly, waiting for a comment. I got none.

So I prompted her, and found she had some useful critiques for my work. Which was good for two reasons. One, constructive criticism is always good to help the improvement process and two, I think I can now handle anyone just randomly reading my stuff. My cousin is quite a fierce person, so for her to be positive about my writing was incredibly encouraging.

Hopefully one day soon, I'll be shoving my writing in people's face, begging them to critique it instead of them prising it from my unwilling hands.

Saturday, 6 July 2013

Sun, sea, sand and more sun


So some of you may know that my mum's from Trinidad. Most of my family live there (her side, anyway. I haven't got a clue where the majority of my dad's family live. Barbados? America? Here??). I have a huge family and haven't really met them all, and if I have it was when I was too young to remember. This summer, we're going to do a massive family reunion which should be great!

My mum, brothers and I are going over there for six weeks for our first family holiday in twelve years. Plus my best friend since we were three will join us for the first two weeks, because I will get lonely struggling to understand what people are saying to me. My grasp of the Trinidadian accent is appalling.

But where does that leave us, my beautiful readers and I? What shall become of our delicate relationship?