Day 35: Dear Me

Dear Me, Right, deep breath. This isn't going to be easy, and you've been putting it off for nearly a week, but it's ok, you've got this. Promise. So, firstly, it's not OK. Not really. Not at all in fact. About a week ago, you received one of the two calls that every child dreads, the one that boils...

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Day 34: What's The Point Of Twitter?

When I was first given this topic on day -2 of this writing challenge I will admit to briefly considering the true, but admittedly rather generic platitudes I could envisage throwing its way: 'Twitter...

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Day 33: Elephants

Eyes lock A moment's pause, a hitch of breath. A thud down through the pit of your stomach Suddenly aware of your tongue, your lips, the moisture in your mouth, the tension of muscles as you slowly swallow for no reason. A sigh. Of contentment, of relief: a burden lifting. No distraction, no gimmicks,...

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Day 32: Dear Future Husband

Dear Future Husband, Hi :) Alright, so, nice one Abi, a smiley face potentially not the best first impression, but I'm nervous OK: a life sentence is a pretty big deal, and I was just trying to be polite. I have so many questions, least of all who you are, where you are, and how we might come to...

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Day 31: Fate and Fairytale

It's funny when you look back on the choices and circumstances that have led you to a certain point or place and consider the exact chain of events that have resulted in your now day-to-day. I read a quotation recently that proffered the idea that "There's nowhere you should be other than where you...

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Day 30: Man buns

The man bun. A seemingly simple thing. A sweep of hair, a grasp of hands, a twist of the wrist: done. The archetypal feminine re-purposed to serve the strongest of jawlines, cheekbones and shoulders. There's...

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Day 29: Sabotage & Sleep

This is getting boring now. It's what 3, 4 days in a row where I've found myself this close to the deadline, this much in need of sleep, this desperate for words, just any words. This isn't creativity, this is sabotage. Live to work, work to live, there's a fine line between passion and pressure and...

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Day 28: and counting

So I've just got in from coming inexplicably and hilariously 4th in a St Patrick's Day-themed pub quiz, in honour of my housemate's birthday. (The quiz was St Patrick's Day themed in honour of St Patrick and his day though, just to be clear) This is a really bad habit that I've gotten myself in to,...

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Day 27: Learning to be unremarkable

So I've done that thing whereby I've come home intending to go to bed early and fend off anymore illness and promptly fallen asleep without having written anything, only to wake up at 20 to 12 bereft of words, the owner of one considerably befuddled head. It's now 23:48 and I'm not sure what I can...

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Day 26: Mums

Mums. A mother is a funny thing. We have all had one at one point or another. Some more than one, some still none to speak of. Like Mother like Daughter, Mum's the word, and Mother knows best. I love my Mum, and for her sins my Mum loves me, but this isn't always the case, not for everyone. It's...

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Day 25: Still nothing

Again I've gone almost a whole day and not typed anything in this big, blank box in the back end of blogger. Oh I've written today, yes, I wrote on the train on the way home, but by its very nature the result is a somewhat rambling stream of consciousness, so I'll spare you that. I realise that in...

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Day 24: That Friday feeling

So it keeps happening that I find myself in the pub on a Friday night not having written anything as the clock approaches Midnight. Again I remind myself that this challenge was never designed to impede on other experiences but rather enhance them, but at the same time I am beyond glad that this sense...

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Day 23: "Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes."

And some people, sir, do both. It was tempting today to simply offer a quotation from the master, Terry Pratchett, as a mark of respect, but even without the impossible nature of narrowing it down to a single string of words, I can't help but feel that would be less a tribute, more a disservice to...

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Day 22: The Octopus of Pain

Today I had to make the decision to gather my things, switch off my computer and leave work early. I was attempting that age-old trick of simply powering through and pretending that there wasn't in fact intense pressure building up somewhere behind my cheekbones, and that it wasn't pushing inwards,...

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Day 21: Ever wanted to just switch off your brain?

Set yourself a challenge to write every day for 40 days, there's nothing quite like it. A day without a writing direction, without any kind of useful inspiration, and just starting to type 8 minutes before a new day. Make that 7. And now 4. I need to write something, anything, but my brain is...

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Day 20: Socks

Socks are funny things. I know people who point-blank refuse to wear matching socks, and one person who will colour co-ordinate his entire outfit right down to them. Since leaving University I now pair my socks differently to how I used to when living at home, to the way that my parents taught me. I...

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Day 19: My Favourite Person

I don't have one. Or at least, not yet. The title of favourite person is one not easily-earned, but then nor should it be. I want my favourite person to be the person I can't wait to spend time with, to shower praise and good things upon, but not be afraid to call them out when they're in the wrong....

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Day 18: Breakfast

It's 3:33pm and I am yet to have breakfast. I can count the number of times I have eaten breakfast in the last month on one hand. Comfortably. I "get" breakfast and its ever-en-vogue sister brunch, but it simply doesn't factor in my alimentary arsenal. It being the 'most important meal of the day,...

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Day 17: What I would like to spend my next 25 years doing

More. More of what I love, more of what makes me happy. More of the things I know and love, and more of the things that I don't. Yet. More sitting in parks in warm, sunny places with a notebook, pen and the assembled untold stories of the people passing by. More laughing. More late nights, more long...

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Day 16: Accents

Accents are a distinguishing thing. Patchwork and nuanced they hint at a back story, mottled and daubed with flecks of countries, conversations and circumstances we have known. It's through this inflection and intonation that we map the journeys of others, the rivers of speech patterns carving their...

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Day 15: Glasses vs. Contact Lenses

I have never worn contact lenses. I've never really had a desire to. Some people want to be rid of glasses, of contacts, so completely that they take lasers to their eyes in an effort to permanently negate the need for them. I on the other hand like wearing glasses. I like the way I look wearing them...

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Day 14: An empty mind

These are simply words to fill a page, words to fulfill an obligation. I am the very definition of spent, and it is sheer determination alone guiding my finger touches across this keyboard. When I set myself this challenge I'd not really comprehended the task I was undertaking. 40 days is a surprisingly...

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Day 13: The History of the Pub

An experiment. How I came to be sitting in this pub; a literal history of the people in this pub. Literally. In an effort to in-absolutely-no-way pass off some of my writing burden I asked the 6 people assembled to write a line on the topic of how they came to be sitting where they are. In the pub. 1....

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Day 12: Sleep

We spend a third of our lives sleeping. We sleep in, with, and around. Encouraged by those around us we sleep on it, sleep it off and often lose it altogether. Sleep is the facilitator of...

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Day 11: Gin

I am in the pub drinking celebratory gin after Wales vs France in the rugby. Also in shot, a less-than-celebratory Frenchman. Normal service will resume tomorro...

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Day 10: Ampersands

I love ampersands. I can't remember my first encounter with them but they were always this odd, intricate, grown-up looking thing that clearly required a PhD and an overly mature outlook on life to be able to conjure. Now I've reached the age where friends are stockpiling letters after their names...

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Day 9: A New Film That Has Come Out

I have not seen 50 Shades of Grey. This somewhat negates my discussion of it in relation to the title of this post, but only somewhat. But we'll get to that. From what I have read however, the books are really not well-written, which alone is a more than good enough reason not to bankroll it in my...

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Day 8: Strangers on a Train

There's a guy sat opposite me on the tube, writing in a notebook. Another one. I was about to be doing exactly the same thing, but now I don't feel I can. It might feel like I'm copying. Almost as if when I chose to store my notebook in my bag along with my new writing pen, as I do every day, that...

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Day 7.

1 week. I've blogged 7 times in the past week and the experience has been all manner of things: enlightening, draining, really rather tricky. 1 day. Today. Today has been, well, a day. Let's leave it at that. Again I find myself the wrong side of 10pm with words spilling from my fingertips and...

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Day 6: Why I love music

It seems fitting that I should get in from orchestra and have to write a post about why I love music. Maybe one of these 40 days I will have planned in advance and not be frantically writing at gone 11pm... Maybe I should revisit a topic a week for 40 weeks once Lent is over, give some of them their...

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Day 5: Describe a train journey

Day 5: Describe a train journey I really love train journeys. I mean, really love them, even that one the day/few days before Christmas (delete as applicable) where the world and their 55 wives stage a mass festive exodus and it's breathing room only as far as the eye can see. Especially that one. There...

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Day 4: Forgiveness

Forgiveness, culpability, remorse. Ultimately, forgiveness is a positive thing. Its precursor bitterness, however, is the kind of thing that festers. That clenched fist of hurt and anger that rests uneasily somewhere between your ribcage and your belly button, like the drop of fresh ink on parchment,...

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Day 3: Dreams vs. Reality

Day 3: Dreams vs. Reality It's 7 minutes past 10, and I'm sat in a bar in Brixton, yet to pen today's post. I want to do justice to the topics so kindly contributed by everyone, but in all honesty I posted the challenge on a whim, expecting to quietly be able to take down the status, barren of suggestions,...

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Day 2: Make-up

Day 2: Make-up Make-up hack for literally anyone: 1. Wear some 2. Don't 3. Re-evaluate options 1-2 as often as you see fit For something I wear every time I leave the house, the topic of make-up leaves me oddly bereft of writing inspiration. Make-up is one of those strange things that somehow manages...

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Day 1: My Nose.

My name is Abi, and I am a writer who doesn't write. In an effort to remedy this, an arbitrary period of time that lends itself to a self-imposed writing challenge. Lent: 40 days; 40 topics suggested by friends. Day 1: My Nose. I pierced my nose. I paid a guy in a shop to shove some metal through...

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