Operation First Draft

The last time I posted here was nearly 2 years ago. It was at that point that I finally worked out how to write the book I have had swirling around in my head for years. Rather than split my energies and try and write the book as well as update the blog, I chose the book.

For the last two years I have been planning and reading and researching and planning some more and now I am ready to get a complete first draft down on paper. I have saved my annual leave so I am only working part time until the end of February. The first three chapters have already been edited by some good friends and as a result, the book has found a focus, one I had not anticipated, which is exciting.

So I have my research, I know where the book is going, and I have allowed myself the time.

Best get on with it.

That's All Folks!

I am no longer updating this blog.

I am still driving trucks and I have also started speaking at events on the reality of life on the road and about working as a woman in a male-dominated environment.

If you want to know more about what life on the road is like, follow me on Twitter.

If you would like me to speak at your event, please contact me through Twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you like my writing and want to read more of it, I regularly contribute reviews to For Books' Sake.

Thanks for reading!

Why I learned to stop worrying and love driving

I feel that this blog is coming to the end of its natural life. To be honest, it has never really taken off, never really flowed, not for me or for you, my readers. I have tried on a couple of occasions to change the direction of the blog, to make it more personal, but it never felt quite right. I think if I wanted to write about more personal stuff I would have to start a new blog, but I don't really want you to know too much personal stuff about me, because, well, it's personal.

So since I will probably be winding it up in the next few months, now is the time to write all the posts I have had floating around in my mind for the last few months but just haven't got round to writing.

The thing is I love driving and always have. I have always loved the freedom and the independence. I am never happier than when I am moving around thinking, whether that be walking, driving or rowing. Driving for a living means I get paid to do what I am happiest doing.

I thought it was something about what driving facilitates that I loved, so I tried to go into teaching it to facilitate that in others, but I was never that keen. I thought it might be the technicality that I loved and tried to write about it to enthuse others, but I bored even myself. Underlying all of these attempts to take driving further was the underlying belief that, being a fairly clever and well-educated person, I ought to be doing something more with it, that driving itself wasn't good enough. I had a constant voice in my head asking, 'yes, but what are you going to do when you grow up?'.

But then I stopped. Because the fact is it is driving itself that I love. Sitting in a chair, looking out of a window for hours on end is not considered a worthwhile way to spend your time normally, but if you are driving, then you can sit and look out of a window for days and days and not only is it worthwhile, they actually pay you!

Over the coming months, on top of my work driving trucks for Royal Mail (nights, long distance - best thinking time) I will tow boats down to Cornwall for my rowing club, will pick bands up from airports for the Wimborne Folk Festival and will be a fleet driver based at the Olympic Park as a Gamesmaker for London 2012. If ever faced with a situation where I have to volunteer for something, my first thought will always be 'do they need any drivers?'. So if ever I volunteer to drive you somewhere, don't be too grateful. You're probably doing me a favour too.

Breaking the drought - this time it's personal.

When you haven't written for ages you feel like the first one after the drought should be fantastic, something really worth the wait. Like when you've been single for a while the first lover should be absolutely mind-blowing. But this is reality.

So why has it been so long?

Because I don't know who I am.

I got into this whole social media thing at the beginning of last year, wrote a few posts, made some connections with other people, got a few Twitter followers. And then it all stopped. I had a confusion of online personas, connections that didn't feel comfortable and a muddled blog which did not know whether it was a feminist diatribe or a source of information about driving regulations or something that tried to combine the two and much else besides.

So who am I and what do I write?

There is definitely a feminist crusade element to my choice of career which I've written about before. But when I started to read feminist blogs and get involved in the discussions I found myself either feeling like a fraud or simply intimidated.

I do know a phenomenal amount about driving rules and regulations and have written about the rules of the road. But when I set up a separate blog to share all the stuff I know about driving, I bored myself stupid within a couple of weeks.

I know there's a book inside me somewhere and I've been reading lots of non-fiction this summer to try and work out which style would suit me. I wanted to explore how much of me I wanted to put into my writing, how strong and how present the authorial voice should be. I read Simon Garfield's 'Just my type' where the author as a thinking, feeling person is not really present at all. I read Edward Platt's 'Leadville' and liked the way he wove his own story into those of the people he was writing about. I then read Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Eat, Pray, Love' which is a book I had avoided for many years, primarily because I knew it would be one that would really chime with my own mind and I couldn't cope with the envy that she had written it and not me. It annoyed me for that very reason and because I hate to see a version of myself in literature, it makes me feel like a cliche, but equally I loved it and couldn't put it down.

The fact is that the only two occasions where pieces of writing have really flowed in the way that I want writing to flow have been this deeply personal blog post and the eulogy I delivered for my Grandad's funeral. Both have been well received and both came straight from the heart out onto the page. I spent 8 years at university and thought at one time of being an academic but writing from a position of impersonal observation and fitting into the strictures of academic convention feels stultifying to me. I am no longer prepared to play with identities that don't fit or to hide behind factual knowledge. So it looks like this blog is going to get personal.

Oh bugger.