(Char) Emily Writes

Welcome to my second monthly book club... and I say monthly loosely as I've had to throw two months together. The reason for this being that I've been too stressed (what with finishing my degree online through a pandemic) and unmotivated to read, which means I haven't read as much.  However, I'm back with book club and ready to get stuck into some literature.  Got Me Thinking: 1984 by George Orwell Starting off with 1984, all I can say is... wow. I absolutely loved this book, although it was hard to read as it was depressingly close to home at times. For instance, doing planned activities such as exercise at certain times got me: that's exactly my life right now. Everything is so planned out in an attempt for some normality. Like one of my old lecturers from university had said, I wonder what George Orwell would have made of everything going on right now. Orwell is so perfectly subtle with the way he gives the reader information. It leaves you wanting...

Ever since I was a young girl, I've had a love/hate relationship with food. Sometimes, it was a comfort blanket for when I was feeling down. I didn’t have the easiest childhood, so it was something to turn to. Other times, it was some evil thing that was going to make me gain weight.              Of course, I did gain a lot of weight due to my comfort eating. It made it harder to fit in at secondary school, being one of the few overweight children. A few years later, when I was 14 years old, I decided to start restricting my food and drink. Only eating one meal a day and drinking water for breakfast and lunch.                 I lost an unhealthy amount of weight in a short amount of time. People started to worry, raising concerns with me. However, I didn’t notice any difference. Looking back now, I realise how underweight I was.  ...

I owe a lot to Weston Writer's Nights, an organisation that holds masterclasses and networking events for writers. The first time I had ever read a piece of my work out was at one of their events. They then encouraged me to submit my work to BBC Radio Bristol, where I was then interviewed about my writing. I sat down and spoke with the founder of WWN, Jasmin Perry, over the phone about how she started it all. About Jasmin   From Weston-super-Mare. Been writing her whole life. Currently editing her first novel which she finished three weeks ago and has been writing short stories during lockdown. She loves dystopian and fantasy novels that make big statements, such as The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and 1984 by George Orwell.  After finishing her masters degree in creative writing, Jasmin founded WWN in June 2019.  "I've always enjoyed writing and I wanted to be an author, but I didn't know anyone growing up. And I didn...

Over the next week or so, my support worker asked me to list some things I like about myself. I tried doing it on the phone with her but felt too embarrassed. Why is being nice about myself so hard? Probably because I've had years of being awful to myself, and others being the same way. No matter how hard it is, today I'm going to show some self-compassion. I'm going to list at least five things that I like about myself. There's no doubt that I may struggle with this and I'm nervous about posting it on the internet. But self-compassion needs to be a more accepted thing. How we view ourselves matters. 1. My Eyes I'm going to start with my eyes as I've spent a long time hating them. In the past, I've researched how to make your eyes appear bigger, I've tried eyelash growing serum. People have called them "Asian eyes" as if that's some kind of insult (don't worry, I don't associate myself with people like that anymore). Bu...

When I was a child, I was given a china doll from my Nanny Bear (named after her big fur coat that she always wore) after she passed away. It lived on my top shelf, opposite my bed. At night, it came alive. With stiff arms and legs, she would walk up and down the shelf. Too scared to move, too scared to scream, I just stared at her. Afraid that she would climb down the shelf and make her way over to my bed. Although she didn't walk over to me, a tiny, shaking girl in her bed, she did flash monstrous eyes which would light up a blinding green. Slowly, she would turn her head, a wicked grin spreading across her face. Frozen in a position as if she was about to take another step. She looked into my eyes. Dead. I was paralysed by her green stare. I didn't get rid of her at first. As she was my nan's, I felt some attachment to her, like I had to love her and keep her. But, man, was she a bitch. Every night, she would repeat her same old cycle: walk, smile, stare with ...