I am a writer, but I also have my own business in Sports Massage Therapy, am a mum to my little toddler, and a live in step-mum to my partner’s two older girls from a previous marriage. Oh, and I also like to cook, have a cat called Marbles, and like to get my heart-rate up through various box training classes. So my blog is going to be quite a varied blog and it certainly will not be a daily blog.
Blog 1. The Backdrop
Before I start blogging, I think a little background info would be useful. That way, when I start talking about my worms, you won’t think I have an actual worm farm or need to urgently see a doctor.
Sports Massage Therapy:
Before children, this was my full time job, 5 days a week. I have sinced been fortunate enough to halve my business and this has given me the perfect work/life balance. I am very lucky in my job because it literally ticks every box for me. I had a tick-list when choosing a career and this is what was on it;
Job Satisfaction. I wanted to help people.
Own Boss / Choose Own Hours. This was important to me because before I even had children, I knew I wanted to work part time rather than full, or not at all. This way I can still be there for them and spend precious time with them while still earning money and doing something other than being mum.
Active, not sedentary. When I worked in an office full time, I found I was mentally drained by the end of the day yet, very fidgety because I’d barely moved all day. By Wednesday each week I was tearing my hair out.
Physiology. I love anything to do with learning about how the body works. This is one of my geek areas. The body fascinates me and I love learning more and more about it as time goes on.
As much as I love my job, I can’t and won’t blog anything that might jeopardise the integrity of my clients. For this reason I will not be speaking much about my job. (Other than to moan about account keeping perhaps).
My Worms:
In this blog, I shall refer to my family as ‘The Worms’. We have my partner - Big worm, his eldest – Teen worm, his middle child – Little worm and our very own creation, Wiggle worm. This is an extension on my pet names for our two youngest.
Teen worm and Little worm are my step-children but I love them just the same as Wiggle worm and make a huge effort to ensure all three have their individual needs met. Not an easy task seeing how demanding babies are but now that Wiggle worm is nearly two, her needs are changing and balancing everybody’s needs is becoming easier. I say I balance everbody’s needs, but the reality is, there are 5 of us in this family, and we all do our bit to compromise to make sure everybody is happy, it is definately a joint effort!
Although I can’t juggle balls, I am a pro at juggling life. Hey, I might use that line in my Twitter Profile!
Exercise:
Some call it exercise, I call it the thing that keeps me going. It is where I have my ‘me’ time, it makes me feel good about myself, and it is where I get my energy from. Without it, I have notably less energy and can get a teeny bit irritable. If I could go every day I would, as it stands, I manage about twice a week which is all part of the juggling thing. I’m never going to be super fit on 2 hours a week but never mind. My favourite type of exercise is Body Combat or Boxercise. I love it and when I’m in a class, I give it my all and push myself until I have sweat dripping into my eyes, a purple face, and my arms are burning red. Obviously, I have my off days where I don’t work quite this hard, but this is my idea of exercise.
Writing:
I have written songs, poems and short stories since I was a little girl but the jump to writing a novel came by surprise to me because I didn’t plan to write it. The story came to me while I was sitting on a bus waiting to leave Kandy in Sri Lanka and I had to write it down to stop it going around and around in my head. My scribbled story grew as I wrote it in a note book in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. Writing in this way left my story wanting for plot, depth of character and structure. It was purely a creative outlet. In the 10 years between then and now, I have (on and off) been working on these aspects that usually come before you write a novel – not after - and now I have an entire network of novels planned with an abundance of plot, structure and depth of character. Well, it’s not like me to anything by halves.
Not only do my characters have histories, presents and futures, they have them throughout all the novels I plan to write in this series novelsbynicola. You really never know where you will see your favourite character again but you can be sure of their continuity when they do crop up. You also never know when a periphery character will come into their own in a future novel. I have plans for many of them!
I do like to make people feel when I write which is why there are sad, funny, touching and shocking elements to my work.
When Tigers Attack is the novel that started off life on a bus leaving Kandy and this is written from the point of view of Rachael Davis.
In Rachael’s past she loses her career and has to start again so to introduce her in a light-hearted way, I have written the fun and fresh series Confessions of an Office Slut. In this series, Rachael is between jobs and has found herself temping in an office. Every Thursday afternoon Rachael has to sit at her colleague, April’s, desk where she gets hooked on reading her emails and becomes more and more involved in the antics around the office central to April. This 12 week series is a full story in its own right, yet it leads neatly into When Tigers Attack.
Now that’s the background taken care of, I look forward to sharing more with you in the future. TTFN, I’m off to do some juggling…
