A.L. Michael's Blog, page 11

The Inspiration Behind My So Called (Love) Life

When you’ve been slogging away at a book for months on end, it’s hard to remember where you originally stole all the places, names, people and situations from! But on my drive through Highgate this morning, (where almost all of characters in my books live, simply because I want to live there) it occurred to me that I should give these people and places thanks for inspiring me. So here they are:

Enchanted is based on Drink Shop Do on Caledonian Road. It’s been one of my favourite arty places to hang out (although I much prefer it when it’s quiet and mostly empty, which seems to be less and less these days). I actually started Tig’s story writing in my new notebook in DSD last year, and it seemed the perfect place to set a story. And yes, their Guinness cake is just as good as Ruby’s!

Ollie is a mixture of influences, but I thought out of fairness, that I should have a blond hero for once! So the first bit of inspiration was that red herring in Pitch Perfect, the radio DJ who was literally there for that one scene where he shows his abs. The second was Aaron Paul. I freaking love that man, both in Breaking Bad (bitch!) but also in a lot of the other work he does. Plus he’s so in love with his wife that I find it adorable. I always thought it weird that he’s so rarely given the leading man role, and even rarer a romantic lead. So I thought I’d write him one. But trying to imagine an English accent was really damn difficult!

The Hobbit Hole (Tig’s parents’ house) is in Barnet, and I set it on Barnet Road, which I drive down a fair bit and always on the way to the my favourite pub The Gate. I could see Tig’s parents curling up in my favourite pub and settling down to a lovely meal every Sunday in front of a lovely roaring fire!

A lot of the wandering about North London takes part in Highgate and Hampstead, although the Brazilian Dancing part was inspired by my experience trying out Forro, which is an amazing and fun type of dance! I knew I wanted to include it in my novel! However, I set that scene in a bar inspired by Coco Bamboo in Chalk Farm, which has an awesome rooftop bar, and is one one of my favourite places to hang out in the summer in London!

By far the most interesting part to me was that Tig wanted to be an astronomical photographer. This was inspired by seeing the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Observatory.

When It Rains, It Pours- and other self-employed creative cliches

January is a bad, bad month. It’s dark, it’s rainy and everyone’s broke. Especially if you’re a terribly susceptible human like me who tries to buy people’s love. It’s a terrible time to be obsessed with proving to people that you adore them by bestowing gifts.

Every year I decide I’m going to make gifts, and then I don’t leave enough time and think ‘fuck it’. This year, I half-made stuff. I baked a lot. But baked goods didn’t feel like enough, so I probably spent more trying to make up for the fact that I dared give my loved ones homemade cookies. My brain. I know.

The point being that whilst everyone is broke in January, it’s a pretty terrifying time to be self-employed and self sufficient. The work dries up, the companies who still owe you are closed for the holidays and generally you spend a lot of time sat in a dark cold room (because you refuse to pay for heating, goddamnit, that’s a luxury) thinking about where you went wrong in life.

I spent most of January applying for jobs. Okay, I spent most of January looking for jobs, and then deciding I didn’t want to go back to service work, no pubs or cafes, and sitting on my arse helping out as an admin assistant was making me fat again. But I found a few. The phrase ‘time to grow up’ circled around my brain quite a bit. As did the ‘I’m nearing thirty and I know a mortgage is a distant dream for my generation but…’

The crux of the matter is thus: I would quite like stability.

I used to hate that word. It spoke of routine and pattern and things being the same and boring forever and ever, amen. Now I get a little bit jealous of those people who are counting down to payday, because at least they know they have a payday to count down to. They don’t have to feel guilty for taking a sick day, or taking an evening off for a friend’s birthday or to spend time with their partner. For me, my time is literally money, and I won’t get it back. Maybe that’s why so many writers are hermits.

Of course, February hit, and with it, all the work I was desperately saving up, planning and waiting for. More clients have appeared, more bookings, more varied work, more classes, more workshops. More uni presentations, and referrals and all those good things. So now instead of panicking about having no work, I’m panicking about how I’m going to get it all done.

Such is the way of the creative freelancer. Surf the waves, and save and save. I feel like that squirrel who has been desperately saving their nuts for winter, but sometimes, no matter how hard you work, the savings never go far enough. And sadly in my line of work, we have two winters. Deadzones in the wintertime and the summertime.

How do we cope with this? Well, if you’re young and excited to be a freelancer, you jump onboard and get damn excited. When I started as a freelancer, I was living at home- stability was in my surroundings, which meant my career could be messy and exciting and varied. I hate to say this, and I know many of my smarter work buddies will get pissed off, but I feel old. I feel old and tired of worrying about bills and rent and where the money’s coming from. But that’s the life I chose.

And when the work is good, and engaging and busy, you can’t even imagine how you’d fit a ‘normal’ job in there. And when it’s slow and you’re scraping by, you wonder if you’re going to be a seventy-year-old creative, still wearing three jumpers and refusing to put the heating on, whilst all your smart friends are on cruises paid for by their retirement packages.

The life of a creative freelancer is a balancing act- some days it’s worth sacrificing stability for excitement, enjoyment and creativity. Some days you’d rather do something boring and soul destroying just so you know you’re building a future in your bank account and not just on your blank page.

Do I have any advice on this subject? Beyond the fact that temping isn’t failing, that 9-5s don’t remove your title as an artist, and that money isn’t everything? Well, have goals. I want to have published enough books that I can be a stay-at-home mum and prolific author in ten years time. So what do I have to do to achieve that? Just keep writing! How I survive until then is up to me, really, isn’t it?

Surf the wave, live the dream and keep creating…just remember to save those nuts for winter, because you never know when it’s going to hit.

Excerpt from My So Called (Love) Life

Enjoy! You can buy the book for £1.19 here

Chapter One

I am really tired of being miserable, Tigerlily James thought as she marched out of Kings Cross Station. It was the last Thursday of the month, which meant the Misery Dinner at Entangled. She scanned the room for Dana and Ame, knowing that the likelihood they were on time was minimal, and headed over to her usual table.

‘Tigerlily!’ Ruby half ran over to her as she entered, pulling her in for a bear hug, all patchouli and cigarettes. Ruby was the owner of Entangled, but Tig had privately taken her on as a role model and personal saviour. Ruby had her shit together. Today her greying hair was tied back with a rockabilly red scarf, dangling ruby earrings getting caught on Tig’s hair as she pulled back. ‘Early for the Young and Bitter Club today, darling?’

‘It’s a Misery Dinner, not a club,’ Tig corrected, walking over to her usual table.

She knew there was no point arguing; the Misery Dinner was nothing if not a meeting of the Young and Bitter brigade. It was her fault. She’d decided after Darren left that if her love life sucked, her career had gone down the toilet and she was back to living with her uni housemate, well, there should at least be an excuse for monthly margaritas. The idea was to compartmentalise. Once a month they got together to talk about how shit their lives were, to wallow and enjoy moaning about it all. And then they got on with their lives. It made sense at the time, Clint had cheated on Ame, and she was going through divorce proceedings, fighting for the house and thanking whatever deity was responsible for her very modern decision to sign a pre-nup. Tig had yet to remind her that it was she, not God, who’d advised her to be careful about it all.

Which meant, a year down the line, that Ame had a beautiful house in Hampstead, but was still working for her ex-husband. And Dana had thrown herself into work ever since Elodie, refusing to move forward and look for love again, instead settling for working her way up and owning the PR company she worked for by thirty. She was twenty-eight, and almost killing herself to get to the top. It seemed better than the alternative, which involved the realisation that there might not just be one perfect person for everyone, that loves could be multiple and varied. Dana didn’t buy that.

‘You know, you girls will be old before your time if you don’t stop focusing on the negative,’ Ruby said, raising her eyebrows in what was probably meant to be a severe sort of expression. Which was pretty impossible, as Ruby radiated goodness. She was like Audrey Hepburn would have been if she’d run off with a biker and opened a cafe/bar in London at sixty. Ruby was pretty much what Tig wanted to be when she grew up.

‘We’re having dinner, Ruby. We’re not sticking pins into voodoo dolls, or cackling over cauldrons.’

‘You’re wallowing. Two months is pushing it. Seven is taking the piss. You could have almost grown a person in this time!’ Ruby raised an eyebrow.

‘Well, the whole “not growing a person” thing is definitely something to be thankful for. Can I have a margarita now?’

Ruby shook her head, clearly disappointed. ‘Madam, if you were my daughter I’d give you a boot up the bum. But as it is, I’ll settle for sending you death glares across the room until you give in and get over that idiot.’

‘I am over him,’ Tig challenged. ‘I’m just still … in shock.’

‘Shock’s immediate,’ Ruby said severely, looking over the rim of her glasses. ‘Comas can last a lifetime.’

‘You know what this coma patient could use to wake her up? A tequila-based cocktail,’ Tig said pointedly.

‘Lucky for you, the new guy needs the practice,’ Ruby shrugged. ‘I’ll bring it over.’

‘New guy?’

Tig hated when the staff at Entangled changed. She liked it to be her haven, knowing that she could walk in and it would always be the same, only the art on the walls and the cakes on display changing.

‘Short term, four months. Really enthusiastic about bar work,’ Ruby winced as a crash sounded from behind the bar, ‘despite not having worked in a bar for about two years, and being excellent at breaking things.’

‘First days are tough …’ Tig shrugged, trying for hopeful. Ruby looked past her to the door, seeing Ame and Dana come rushing in.

‘I’ll make that three margaritas for the moody madam brigade!’ Ruby chortled. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you left some bits and bobs here last week – a notebook, some letters …’

‘Oh, crap.’ So that’s where her planner was, not under a pile of clothes at home.

‘Artistic people are often awful at life stuff,’ Ruby patted her shoulder.

‘Well, thanks, I feel much better!’

‘I just meant you’re clearly a creative genius!’ Ruby laughed. ‘Hi girls, drinks are on their way!’

Ame threw down her bag, and started unwinding her Hermes scarf, honeyed brown hair falling perfectly at her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, I had the worst day, and you’ll never believe what Clint did today –’

‘Hi Tig, how are you? Well, I’m fine, Ame, thanks for asking before you launch into a diatribe about your ex-husband. I really appreciate that I’m more than just an aural punching bag,’ Tig sing-songed, honestly quite tired of hearing all the ways in which Clint was an arsehole. Especially considering she’d spent the year they were engaged and the six months they were married hearing about all the ways in which Clint was the most fantastic of human beings. She kind of just hated him for existing at this point.

‘Jeez, Tig, harsh.’ Ame frowned briefly, and then Tig saw her physically smooth down her brow to avoid getting wrinkles. Sometimes she wondered how they were friends at all. If she’d never started working at the student bar, she and Ame would never have been friends. At least then her friend was fun, silly and joyous. Now she seemed to walk around with a perpetual pinched look, eyes raised to the sky like she was waiting for a piano to fall on her head. Which would have been fine if it was just the Misery Dinners, but Ame’s misery was bleeding into every other part of her life, which, as her housemate, or lodger, was pretty damn difficult.

‘Well, Ame, you maybe should greet people before hitting them over the head with your emotional issues,’ Dana shrugged, then sighed as her phone flashed up. ‘Sorry, it’s a client, I have to take this.’ She shuffled over to an empty corner, coat still half on, long dark hair tied back in a bun. Dana was an Amazon of a woman, tall and powerful, her pinstriped suit perfectly pressed even after a long day. But she looked weary.

‘Well, Dana, maybe if you weren’t so emotionally repressed you’d hear where I was coming from!’ Ame hissed at her back.

‘This is getting off to a great start,’ Tig sighed.

‘Even when she leaves work she can’t leave work.’ Ame tried for a half smile and a shrug, looking at Tig hopefully. ‘I’m sorry, hun. I’m working on not being such a bitch all the time. How are you?’

Like an ant stuck in amber, Tig thought to herself, trying to smile back because Ame was making an effort.

‘I’m okay,’ she replied.

‘Do any work today?’ Ame prodded.

‘I worked with Petunia and Theo,’ she said in a huff, knowing that wasn’t what Ame meant at all.

‘Are you planning on getting back to photography any time soon? I know that teaching art to privileged four-year-olds in Hampstead mansions is good money, but it’s not really a career choice, is it?’

Ame had this way of throwing out hurtful comments like they were facts. Sadly, most of the time they were facts, so you didn’t feel justified in getting upset. It was just one of the many irritating traits Tig had noticed about her friend, living with her post-university. Back then they’d never had a problem. But Ame had been more fun then. They both had. Maybe it wasn’t just Tig, maybe they were all getting more bitter by the moment.

‘Ame. Shut up. She’s doing fine.’ Dana strode back over, phone tucked away, pulling her hair out of the tight bun and massaging her scalp delicately, wincing slightly. ‘You are, aren’t you?’

Tig nodded.

‘Then leave her the hell alone,’ Dana demanded, picking up her menu to signify the conversation was over. Dana was learning to become more demanding. She’d been reading a lot of personal development books, doing anything she could to get to the top. Tig suspected it was more a way of filling her time and avoiding getting on with her life than it was a result of particularly loving her job, but Dana was just quietly getting on, so you couldn’t really call her on it.

‘I’m just trying to be supportive!’ Ame was good at the outrage these days, too. ‘She’s a brilliant photographer and there are other gigs out there. You don’t have to be a wedding photographer anymore …’

‘Ames,’ Tig held up her hand, ‘I really appreciate what you’re saying. And I’ll get there. I’m making enough money for rent and a gym membership and monthly margaritas, so unless you’re about to kick me out, I should be fine. Tell us about your day.’

Ame rarely needed an excuse to launch into the tales of woe in her office, centred around her arsehole ex-husband.

‘He keeps shagging these interns in his office, and then sending them to deliver files to me, still smelling of sex,’ she raged, ‘and they look so embarrassed, because they know who I am and what he’s doing. Though, I mean, they should know better than to sleep with their boss –’

‘Ah!’ Dana pointed.

‘I heard myself say it!’ Ame said. ‘Okay, so we all make mistakes! Women are victims, men are evil! I’m not blaming the sisterhood! Okay!’

‘Um,’ a male voice said into the stilted silence, ‘three much-needed margaritas?’

Tig looked up to see the new barman, standing awkwardly with a tray in his hand. Dirty blond hair, stubbled jaw, blue eyes. He was wearing a smart white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves to reveal old-school sailor tattoos on his forearms. Exactly the type to bartend at Entangled. Friendly enough, but always with enough edge to remind you they’re out of your league. Not that she was in anyone’s league, or looking to play a ball game of any sort. Tig realised no one had answered him.

‘Hi, yes, thanks! Desperately needed!’ She unnecessarily tried to clear some space on the table for him to put the drinks down. He twitched a smile at her, which she twitched back. Ame and Dana seemed to be having a huffing match about feminist standpoints under their breath, so she turned back to the new guy. She might as well be friendly, seeing as she was at Entangled more than her own home these days. You always wanted the staff on your side.

‘How’s the first day going?’

‘I’ve only broken three glasses and spilled ice all over the floor so that Ruby tripped head over arse,’ he shrugged. ‘Not at all mortifying.’

‘First time bartending?’ she asked. Am I prying? Why am I forcing this conversation when he’s clearly hovering about like he needs to go? Shut up, Tig.

‘Nope, just out of practice. And I’m going to blame jetlag, and first day nerves, and anything else I can think of! Just yell when you want the next round of drinks. I can almost guarantee I won’t screw them up,’ he winked and strode off.

Tig smiled, remembering how awful her first day had been in the SU bar, where she’d dropped a pint of snakebite down her front and the rugby team had made her swear so effusively she was sure she’d get fired. Instead the manager had patted her on the shoulder, given her a towel and said, as long as she kept that mouth on her, she’d make it through alive.

Tig turned back to see if her friends had stopped arguing. They had. In fact, they were both looking at her like she’d morphed into some sort of terrible sea creature.

‘What?’

‘You … him …’ Ame pointed at the bar, and Tig felt a violent irritation stir in her chest.

‘I had a conversation with Ruby’s new barman, Ame. It’s called being polite. It doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly solved all my problems, will get into a relationship, go back to work, get married and have babies,’ she spat. ‘It means I was tired of you two bitching at each other once again, and made conversation elsewhere.’

They looked at her, this time like the terrible sea creature had revealed talons and a bad dye job.

‘Okay, Tig, calm down.’ Dana made soothing noises. ‘I think Ame was trying to point out, in a very positive way, that it was nice to see you making an effort to welcome a new person to Entangled. Especially a person who happens to have a penis, because you’ve spent the last seven months wanting to chop off all the ones in the immediate vicinity, regardless of who they’re attached to.’

Tig blinked. ‘And that’s why you work in PR.’

She took a deep breath and tried not to blush as she thought about her overreaction. ‘I swear I never used to be so mean. Or angry. I mean, I’ve always had the ability to be a bitch …’

‘No, you haven’t,’ Dana smiled. ‘In fact, for the most part, you’ve always been a big hippie softie. Think you might have lost that somewhere along the way.’

‘Maybe Ruby’s right, maybe the Misery Dinners are making things worse,’ Tig shrugged, sipping her drink and sighing in relief.

‘They’re helping, Tig, honestly,’ Ame said forcefully.

‘So you’re done moaning about Clint? You’ve worked through that?’

‘He hurt me, Tig. That takes time …’ Ame shook her head. ‘You just don’t get it.’

Tig closed her eyes and took a deep breath, tucking her red hair behind her ears. Living with Ame had been a bad idea. When Darren had dumped her on Valentine’s Day, and Ame found out Clint was cheating, it made sense for them to move in together. And whine (with wine) together. Tig had given up the wedding photography business and Ame let her stay in the Hampstead flat for minimal rent, which she’d really appreciated. But Ame had started to become … difficult. She lived in a permanent state of outrage, and was getting more and more bitter. Which wasn’t helping Tig to become the glass-half-full type girl she’d been before, either.

You get hurt, you wallow, you move on. Those were the rules. Tig had spent the first few weeks after the break-up almost catatonic, permanently drunk and stoned, slowly eating her way through two hundred wedding cupcakes embossed with ‘Mr and Mrs’. The next couple of months she graduated to quietly drinking neat vodka, curled up on the sofa in front of romantic comedies, waiting until the final scene to shout, ‘Sure, it’s all great now, but wait until he leaves you because your tits got too small!’

But she was past that now. She was. She got dressed, she went to the gym. She could be trusted not to warp the world views of young children, and as of today she had interacted with a male without wincing. She was improving.

‘I know what it’s like to be hurt,’ Tig said calmly, ‘and I know what it feels like to get so bitter and twisted that you don’t really like yourself anymore. I want to be happy.’

Dana nodded, with that quiet, approving presence that she had. ‘That’s great. So are you going to start up the photography business again? Back to weddings?’

Tig’s stomach plummeted. Okay, so … maybe she wasn’t so ready. She could grow, and be happy, but being around weddings again? She still couldn’t look at her portfolio without crying. Her wedding dress was hanging in the back of her wardrobe almost a year later, with the ‘five days to go!’ tag still tied around the hanger.

The problem was, she was good at wedding photography. She’d been planning her and Darren’s big day for almost three years, and during that time, meeting other brides, retailers, she’d accidentally started a business. Become an institution. The other brides liked her because she was in the same situation as them; she knew what they wanted, because she wanted it too. She’d paid for the wedding with their weddings. She was so happy those three years, meeting all these people, making plans. Finally being able to pack in the insurance job to take photos for a living, the dream she’d had since uni. It was hard not to blame Darren for taking all that away. It was harder to stop blaming herself for letting it stay that way.

‘I’m … I’m going to find a way to use my skills without doing the wedding thing just yet … maybe, at some point. Just, not yet.’

She tried not to let her positive attitude be knocked down by lack of a plan. Or any plan. She couldn’t deal with photographing babies, their pudgy little alien faces gumming at her as she tried to get them to smile without puking everywhere. What did that leave? Being a camera assistant at Harry Potter World, most likely. London was teeming with unemployed artists, and every year she felt her chest constrict as another wave of graduates flooded into the job pool.

Her friends shrugged, and thankfully Dana started moaning about her client list, and her obsessive boss who kept changing the brief every thirty seconds, and Ame went back to Clint and the bitches at work, so Tig could sit and let it wash over her. She looked at her two friends, taking in Ame’s perfect skin and flawless make-up, Dana’s expensive suits and towering heels, and wondered what had happened. Surely it was only weeks ago they were at uni, drinking pink Lambrini through jumbo straws and wondering why everyone was into dubstep? Yet here they were, prematurely middle-aged singletons, moaning about everything. At least Ame and Dana looked like adults, Tig thought sadly, looking down at her clothes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn something that wasn’t tie-dye coloured or some sort of elasticated fabric. She was sure she used to wear clothes that weren’t yoga pants, once upon a time. When she’d first lost weight, she’d experimented wearing all those skimpy little clothes she’d never felt comfortable wearing, but the truth was, even a few stone lighter, she still didn’t feel comfortable. It just wasn’t her. So she’d reverted to her hippie clothing, and tried to ignore the fact that, more and more every day, she seemed to be turning into her parents.

The rest of the meal seem to pass easily enough, and Tig concentrated on focusing individually on their problems, but had long since stopped trying to offer solutions. Ame simply wanted to moan, and Dana seemed to offer up work problems because she didn’t want to moan about anything important, but didn’t want to be left out.

‘You coming?’ Ame asked, putting her coat on and leaving a tip on the table. Dana had already run for the DLR to get to Greenwich. Ame and Tig always travelled home together after the dinners, but tonight she just didn’t feel like it.

‘I’ve got to collect some stuff from Ruby, and then I think I might go to the studio for a few hours. All this talk about my photography has got me thinking,’ she lied, hoping Ame would just let it go for once.

‘You’re going to go now? How will you get home?’

‘Probably call Sergei for a cab, don’t worry about me.’ Tig hugged her best friend, inhaling the ever-present smell of Chanel No. 5 that had always defined her, even when they met in the bar during Freshers’ Week.

‘I’m not worried about you! What if I get attacked on the way home?’ Ame said, appalled. It took a second for that glint to appear in her eye, and for Tig to realise she was joking. It had been ages since she’d been able to properly read her best friend.

The minute Ame was through the door, Tig collapsed back into her chair, breathing a deep sigh of relief. It was the first time she’d felt able to breathe all night.

‘Here you go.’ The new barman reappeared with a large glass of red wine. ‘You look like you need it.’

‘I’ve been getting that a lot today,’ she frowned. ‘Do I look like an alcoholic?’

‘You look like someone sitting in a bar with a sad, wistful look. And when I bring women chocolate cake to cheer them up, they look at me like I’m the devil.’

Tig raised an eyebrow. ‘You need to hang out with better women.’

‘I’m trying,’ he grinned.

She tensed, then decided that maybe, yes, not every man needed the Wrath of Tig. Especially when they had green eyes and toned arms and tattoos. Not that he wouldn’t turn out to be a massive dick, and it wasn’t like it mattered, but … well, he was quite nice to look at. And he brought her wine. And there was the possibility that he might bring her cake.

‘We didn’t do the name thing,’ Tig gestured between them.

‘Right. I’m Ollie.’ He reached out to shake her hand, whilst she stared at him before shaking back briefly.

‘Formal. Okay.’

‘You’re Tig. Ruby said you’re a regular,’ Ollie nodded. ‘What’s Tig short for?’

‘Tigerlily.’

‘Bullshit!’ He laughed, and watched as she raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms.

‘Um, and by that I mean, my name is Ollie and I’m new here and nervous and jetlagged and once again going to use every excuse I can to undo what I just said. Tigerlily. I like it.’ He made a face, wincing at her to see if her stern impression had weakened. ‘How about if I give you free chocolate cake and back away slowly? That sound good?’

She broke, smiling a little to herself. Somehow he was even more appealing chewing at his lip, nervously dragging a hand across his jaw. It was nice not to be the one saying the wrong thing for once.

‘It’s okay. I get it a lot. My parents are hippies.’ She paused. ‘Also, today is the first time in months I’ve managed to talk to a man without wanting to throttle him for things that my ex did, so, you know, congratulations on that. I’m afraid I don’t have a prize for you.’

Ollie tilted his head to the side like he was trying to tell if she was joking. ‘Okay, in which case, definitely cake. Let’s try and keep this whole “not throttling me” business going.’

He had a nice voice, she decided, warm, with a slight American lilt behind the London sharpness. She wondered what that was about, whether he was jetlagged from a trip back from America. And then Tig realised it was none of her business. But she smiled again, and shrugged, because you never turn down cake. A yell from behind the bar broke the moment, and he grinned, saluting. ‘Lovely to meet you, Miss Tigerlily, I’ll return with your bribe momentarily.’ He went to walk away. ‘Oh, wait, Ruby said you’d left these papers here?’

He placed a collection of letters and notes on the table, smiling as he rushed back to the bar.

Tig traced the mosaic tabletop with her fingers, riffling through the papers absentmindedly as she sipped her wine. Things were changing, she could tell. Everything was already starting to get better. Her positive attitude had created a positive situation. Maybe this rut was finally done.

There was an unopened envelope in the pile, thick and cream, her name written in royal blue ink. It looked official. Tamara was probably getting married, or Dahlia, or any of the other nice enough posh birds from uni that she had never really been close to, but who still insisted on calling her ‘bestie’ and crushing her ribcage whenever she ran into them on Essex Road.

She opened it, noticing the sweet lace edging, the soft feel of the textured paper. Expensive. She’d spent ages looking at invitations. She’d gone with a more informal feel, more shabby chic, laid-back. More like them … like her.

She scanned through the parents to the names of the happy couple. She thought she would fall off her chair with the shock, and held tight to the table for fear the world was turning on its axis. Darren was getting married. The bastard.

 

Writing to Be Your Own Hero

When I was younger, I often felt like life was happening to me, instead of ‘me’ happening to life. I was the sidekick in someone else’s story. It’s a pretty disempowering feeling, the idea that all around you people are making things happen, forging on with their journeys and experiences, and meanwhile you’re stuck, really only there to provide support to the main character, to be their shoulder to cry on and kooky best friend.

We are ALL the main characters in our own life, and we ALL have stories to tell. I’ve been working on exploring how The Hero’s Journey, a sort of template for adventure stories, can help people in their search for wholeness. We explore who we are as a hero, what magical elixir we’re searching for (our life goal/aim) and who we encounter on the journey (mentors, demons, tricksters).

When we start to look at our lives through the archetypes and metaphors, it’s easier to notice patterns. It’s easy to see that the kindly older person we constantly seek advice from is our mentor, and that often much of our problems on the path are self-imposed by our shadow selves, by doubt and fear and anger.

I’m currently working on creating a program using The Hero’s Journey to help those on a journey of wellness and health, so if you’ve had problems with self-image, EDs or are struggling to reach your fitness goals with a positive outlook, get in touch to find out more about the study I’ll be doing this year.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in The Hero’s Journey, I’d suggest looking into The Writer’s Journey.

Tagged: health, wellbeing, writing

Five Things I Wish I’d Know about Publication Days….

 

Today is publication day! My latest novel My So Called (Love) Life is available now! 

So, on this celebratory day, I thought I’d share five things I didn’t know about publication days.

1) Other writers are awesome- they support, retweet, congratulate and pretty much treat it like it’s your birthday. Which is damn cool.

2) You are not required to have a big launch party and dress up and eat canapes (but you can do!)

3) Blog tours are a good idea!Even better, if people know and have read the book BEFORE publication day.

4) It is just another day. But you probably should treat yourself anyway.

 

 

 

Meet Tigerlily James: romance cynic, North Londoner and die-hard margarita fan.Tigerlily James has been a member of the Young and Bitter Club ever since she was dumped on Valentine’s day. By her fiancé.

Surviving on a diet of cynicism and margarita-fuelled ‘Misery Dinners’ with her best friends, she’s become a romance free zone…and that’s the way she likes it. Until an invitation for The Ex’s wedding arrives. Suddenly in need of a plus one, Tig has little choice but to bin the takeaways, ditch the greying underwear collection…and start pretending to view the opposite sex as something other than target practise.

Then, she meets Ollie – ie. the perfect solution. No sex. No strings. Fake boyfriend. The only catch is that she has to pretend to be his girlfriend for three whole months.

Dating without the heartbreak: the best idea Tig’s ever had, right? Wrong!

Praise for A.L. Michael

‘I know it’s a good book when I shut the kindle cover and sigh with contentment. The Last Word totally did it for me.’ – 4* from Angela (Goodreads)

‘This is a funny, funny book.’ 5* to The Last Word from Rosee (Amazon)

‘Fresh, fast and…had that magical romance feeling and a bit of hotness that you just can’t help but love. Absolutely brilliant!’ 5* to The Last Word from The Book Geek Wears Pajamas

‘I LOVED THIS. I laughed, I cried, I fell in love. All of the emotions were felt in the reading of this book and it is definitely one of the best Christmas releases that I’ve read this year.’ 5* to Driving Home for Christmas from Erin’s Choice

‘I laughed, I cried and I was left with that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you read something wonderful.’ 5* to Driving Home for Christmas from That Thing She Reads

 

My So Called (Love) Life- the cover, the blurb, the whole shebang.

So just incase you were wondering about my latest novel, it’s going to be released on the 9th February, and you can pre-order it here, for the fairly decent price of £2.99!

 

Meet Tigerlily James: romance cynic, North Londoner and die-hard margarita fan.

Tigerlily James has been a member of the Young and Bitter Club ever since she was dumped on Valentine’s day. By her fiancé.

Surviving on a diet of cynicism and margarita-fuelled ‘Misery Dinners’ with her best friends, she’s become a romance free zone…and that’s the way she likes it. Until an invitation for The Ex’s wedding arrives. Suddenly in need of a plus one, Tig has little choice but to bin the takeaways, ditch the greying underwear collection…and start pretending to view the opposite sex as something other than target practise.

Then, she meets Ollie – ie. the perfect solution. No sex. No strings. Fake boyfriend. The only catch is that she has to pretend to be his girlfriend for three whole months.

Dating without the heartbreak: the best idea Tig’s ever had, right? Wrong!

The Blog Tour will be starting on the 12th of Feb right up until the 24th! Make sure you’re following @almichael_ and @UKcarina to be part of the fun!

 

Staying Inspired in 2015

So, I’ve decided to get a job. Like, a boring, average, nine-to-five sort of job. Just part time. And I realised this was a good idea for two reasons. Firstly, I’m getting to that sort of age where I want to be thinking about mortgages and other boring grown up things. Secondly (and more relevantly for this post) it’s these interactions that inspire.

We have to take inspiration wherever we can find it, and most likely it’s going to be in interacting with other human beings. However brilliant we may think we are, however many stories burn inside us, just sitting in our writing room scratching the far corners of our brains to etch out a story isn’t going to work. We need to be around people, to hear how their voices inflect, see what they see and how they live. Staying inspired means staying with the living, not just with memory or imagination.

So I was chatting about staying inspired with my brother, who’s a graphic designer, and he gave me a couple of ideas.

-Keep reading, keep looking around on the internet, keep finding out what people are doing in your field.

-Stay interested. If you’re not interested in other people, anything you create is basically masturbatory.

-Watch TED talks. There’s some great creativity and innovation there, even looking at things outside your field is research. Find what interests you.

-Stay healthy and active. A good burst of endorphins, or even the fresh air from a good walk can give you a fresh perspective.

-Trust your process, but don’t get angry if it changes. Human adapt, we learn and change and grow. If what once worked for you doesn’t work anymore, don’t get frustrated…

-Experiment! Collaborate! Remove fear and play! Try new things with no expectation of outcome!

I’m particularly a big fan of the ‘normal job’ scenario as inspiring, because the novel I’m writing at the moment is based on my blog. A blog I did about working in a coffee shop. I had a creative response to a normal situation, and people responded to it. And now I get to turn it into a novel! Look at every situation as the chance to do research!

How do you stay inspired?

Writing to Reach You: What does your blogging style say about you?

Most of you know that I’ve been focusing on my studies in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes, and it’s something I’m passionate about. It feels like there’s a variety of things I’m passionate about within writing, and even as I write this, I know that I should be getting started on my next novel, or maybe starting a presentation, or a dissertation write-up. And yet I’m here, blogging.

People have asked ‘why blog’ for a long while now. Is it about connection, reaching people you wouldn’t normally find? Is it simply the fact that as writers and professionals in the modern world, we are expected to have a landing pad, a sense of who we are in the internet universe? Or is it cathartic, regenerative expression that allows us to get on with our day? A little of all of these, I believe.

I’ve been exploring for a while now how blogging can make people feel better. Certainly, quite a few bloggers I know are dealing with ill health, stress, anxiety, and writing their feelings down (and the connections that follow from those blogs via twitter and comments) not only feels cathartic, but powerful in being recognised in the big wide world as ‘normal’ feelings. Somewhere, on the internet, you will find someone who is feeling how you’re feeling, who has been where you’ve been. And that’s a powerful thing. Even if you don’t need anyone to read your blog, if you just want to shout into the darkness, that’s okay too.

Catharsis means cleansing. It means release. Catharsis can come in small waves or overwhelming tides. I always think of it a little like cleaning my internal space- if I do a little dusting on a regular basis, it’s unlikely I’m going to need a big overhaul. I think there’s a difference between catharsis and purging, and it’s that one is natural, and the other is forced. To purge yourself of something is to force it from you, and that’s why we negatively associate it with some very intense religious views, and body dysmorphia. Those are the only times I’ve heard the words, anyway. Purging your demons.

I would gently encourage you, with all the experience of someone who has made continued mistakes on the internet, to think about what you want your blogging to achieve. So many wonderful blogs are about overcoming adversity, and in truth, those are the stories that others want to hear. They want you to offer a nugget of who you are, what you’re dealing with, so they don’t feel so alone. But they also want to make you their hero, they want to root for you, to find out if you’ve got a way of dealing with your stuff, so they might deal with theirs. Be a pioneer in your issues, don’t become them.

In studying expressive writing, it’s become clear that for limited periods of time, writing about trauma, or upset, or strong, difficult feelings in detail, truly exploring and expressing, can be helpful in long term health. Repressing feelings makes us ill, there’s no doubt about that. But writing continually about painful, depressing feelings doesn’t help us. In fact, it makes us worse. It reinstates our depressed feelings. If I feel overwhelmed by an issue, and I spend a couple of days writing about it, really exploring it, and then I read it through, feel settled and put the piece away/destroy it, the likelihood is that I have addressed and dealt with it. At least as much as I am able to at the moment. If you are continually returning to the same issue, if you have nothing positive to say, nothing happy, or inspiring to share, then you are reinstating your own unhappiness: you are giving it breathing space. Air it, accept it, and find a way forward.

I read a lot of blogs, and I see so many that are authentic, and jagged, and breathy and funny. The writers are dealing with pain, and learning, and laughter and confusion, and they are reaching out. Remember that feelings are temporary, but words we share are often taken up by someone. There’s a reason we so often encounter trigger warnings in the online world now- people know that their stories affect each other.

Take responsibility for your story today. Tell it to yourself first, in a soft, quiet voice. Find out what your story is, explore how you feel. Decide if you want to share it. If putting it out in the world will make one person feel less alone, or show someone how to deal with issues you’ve dealt with, if it will make someone smile or laugh or feel proud: share that with them. If your story is unchanging after months, if you are still writing about how much hatred and anger and bitterness you have, if you are searching for silence instead of voices in unison, then write in private. Or even better, switch focus and try a different tactic. In a literal way, this means try writing your feelings in third person, try writing about what an object in your room might hear, try writing from the perspective of someone you know. Feelings are contagious, and the internet doesn’t need any help in spreading misery.

Am I saying to shy away from important, difficult writing? Am I saying you’re not allowed to be happy? No. Difficult writing is important. But I am starting to see blogs where the writers are stuck in loops- nothing is improving, nothing is shaking free or changing, and every bad thing reinforces the last. Change your perspective, search for the positive, and share your story and your lessons in a way that others can benefit from.

Tagged: blogging, expressive writing, metanoia, pennebaker, therapy, writing for health, writing for therapeutic purposes

Get Involved in the Blog Tour!

Hi all!

My next novel, ‘My So Called (Love) Life’ will be released on Valentines Day, and I’m setting up a blog tour! It’s currently running from 13th-19th, and if anyone wants to review, do a Q and A, or is happy to feature me, please do get in touch (leave a comment on this post, or message through the ‘Contact Me’ page)

Either way, I’ll be revealing the cover soon, and there’ll be tons of fun stuff and prizes! Stay tuned!

A

xx

Finding Inspiration in 2015

You know what the great thing about being a writer is? You know you like to write. You have stories and ideas you’re excited about working on. You know this is who you and what you do. That’s a lovely relief.

But what about when you hit a wall? It may not necessarily be writer’s block. It might not even be that you stop writing. But there’s a niggling sense of doubt that wasn’t there before, and everything suddenly seems a bit…same-y. A little bit familiar. Because you’ve written this storyline before, haven’t you? And these characters, they’re beginning to become a little trope-like, aren’t they?

So how do we stay fresh in the face of routine as writers? Working hard and writing continuously is amazing, but we can often fall prey to our own limited life experience. We write what we know, for the most part. Whether that’s literal places or experiences, or ideas that float our boat. We ARE our stories. And if we don’t grow, they don’t grow.

So here’s some quick ideas for shaking it up:

Go outside and be mindful!- go and look at things, listen, really look at the world around you, as if you were writing it into a book, or painting it on a canvas. We so often dismiss the things around us because we see them all the time, and yet we never really SEE them.

Order something different- creatures of habit don’t take risks. Try new food! It’s the easiest way to have a new experience. Maybe your next character loves pad thai.

Go do that thing you wanted to- Go do the things that have been on your list but are always bumped down by bigger priorities. Go to a specific place, try something new, see old friends, laugh at new jokes. See art and experience people. I find this one especially useful as almost all my books are set in London, and whilst I’m a Londoner, there’s still so much of it I haven’t seen.

Travel- there is no excuse for not expanding your mind by moving your location. Hell, sit in a different seat and experience a different perspective of your room. You don’t have to go to India to change how you see things.

Watch documentaries- I never really WANT to watch a documentary, because I’d rather be hanging out in fictional worlds, but when I do, it opens up new worlds in the one we’re living in. Which is exciting and inspirational!

Talk with people, really TALK-  Have real conversations with people, about things you don’t know about, about things you haven’t considered, about things you’re on the fence about. The weather is a waste of speech. Make it count. Learn something new.

Find a new passion- My latest passions include trying to substitute healthy things into unhealthy things (avocado brownies, protein pancakes, applesauce bran muffins) and dancing around to Kisstory in my yoga pants. No-one said they had to be brilliant, they just had to make you happy.

Collaborate- a lot like the talking thing. People are interesting, and passionate, and skilful. Find someone who’s interested in things you’re interested in, and create a project.

Experiment- There is no failure in experimenting, there’s just trying for the heck of it. So have fun, try new things, and see where they take you.

 

What are your recommendations for getting inspired in 2015?