On the other hand I have a lot to be grateful for. I did get another job. I still have a roof over my head. I didn’t lose everything because of it. But I am finally angry at the chances I didn’t get. The opportunity to realise what was happening and defend myself. The opportunity to make a complaint and get justice. The opportunity to make my own decision about when I left Royal Mail. By the time I understood I was being bullied it was too late. Perhaps my biggest problem in moving on is that I haven’t got angry. Maybe getting angry and feeling low is a way of letting go of some of the negative emotion that has been bottled up this past year.

Anyway Friday 1st January 2010 is a new day of a new year of a new decade (there goes that decimal system again!) I decided to do a positive thing involving post it notes and pretty coloured pens. And looking forward.

It’s something I first did on a Graduate Works programme with the fabulous Will & Rupert. The general premise is that you get post it notes and pens and write down all the things you’d like to achieve or do in life. However crazy or unrealistic they seem. Or however dull and mundane. But all the things you want to do. You then narrow them down to the things to REALLY want to do and stick them on a big piece of paper in any way you want. I go for the vaguely chronological approach & have arrows and doodles… but when I did it with the Royal Mail Grads there were plenty of different interpretations.

The next steps are to draw up a three year plan. And then a more detailed one year plan with achievable goals (you know… the SMART ones!) Of course I haven’t quite done it like that this time. I’ve skipped the three year bit because to be honest I’m not quite sure where along my time line I will be by then. I decided a while ago to ditch the new years resolutions. Nothing new and crazy here. Just building on each years successes and move on to the next step in achieving my ambitions.

In 2009 the things I contributed to meeting my goals were:
* Started teaching my niece Spanish
* Did lots of internet dating
* Blogged regularly (and hoped people read it!)

Thanks to my NaNoWriMo attempt I also realised that I really wanted to go into Journalism. I might pursue fiction in later years, but it isn’t my priority right now.

So in 2010 I will…
* Continue to teach my niece(s) Spanish
* Complete the Michel Thomas Spanish CDs (I’ve made it up to CD5 in the past!)
* Continue to blog
* Submit pieces to paper/magazines both in print and online
* Get my writing published (and hopefully get paid, but that is really a 2011 goal!)
* Keep an eye out for the knight in shining armour
* Go on the dates I postponed due to illness at the end of 2009…
* …but give internet dating a break for a while. It’s quite tiring!

2010 has to be better than 2009. Friends and family are so important to making it that way. During the past year I’ve been a bit of a hermit at times. I hope that my many cancelled trips to London and other places haven’t left everyone thinking I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. Over Christmas I realised how wonderful it is to be around people who know you well and who can share your dreams with you. And in 2010 I’ll make so much more effort to see the people who bring a smile to my face and pick me up when I’m down.

That’s enough soppiness for one day. Or even a whole year. How did I get from number systems to sentimentality?!!!

My blog moved to helenthornber.com on 15th March 2009. Since then I’ve had over 10,500 pageviews from over 5000 visitors, which may be nothing compared to Google, but is a big achievement for me (I feel like I should be making pretty graphics with all the stats like the ones I shared with you yesterday!)

1. The Real Me
My most popular blog post this year has been ‘The Real Me‘ (and not far behind is it’s follow up ‘The Real Me – Part 2‘). It was a blog I’d been unsure about writing so I’m glad my honesty about mental health has had such a positive response.

2. Geek Chic
Another popular blog. A surprise hit that sums up my own combination of girlie and geeky!

3. Waterstone’s Woes
I’m not known for keeping my opinion to myself so every so often I have a bit of a rant. Of all of them this has been the most popular. I still think that Waterstone’s should hire me as head honcho and then all their problems would be solved!

4. Adventures of a novice foodie
Back in August I decided to make the most of my summer holiday by cooking up a storm. Once of my proudest moments this year had to be successfully making sushi that looked like the real deal and tasted yummy. (The giraffe fried egg was pretty impressive too!)

5. Blog 101
Reaching my 100th blog was a big milestone that proved I could stick at it. But it was Blog 101 that I really enjoyed writing. Instead of waiting for the day I’m famous enough for the BBC to invite me in I decided to do it myself! Watch this space in 2010 for ‘Strictly Blog Dancing’, ‘Have I got Blog For You’ and ‘Top Blog’!

Starting at the end of January 2010 I will be doing a monthly feature and I’d like to hear from you. If you (or anyone you know) would like to share your story the details and deadlines are below.

If you have a story to share send your contact details (name/email/number) and a brief outline of your story to hello@helenthornber.com

Bullying at Work
According to a TUC sponsered survey* in 2008 bulling in the workplace is on the rise. Although the bullying itself can be traumatic enough, the effects can last for years afterwards. From personal experience I know how difficult it can be to recover and rebuild your life, yet the information out there with advice on how to do this is minimal and hard to find. I’d like to share the stories of how others have survived workplace bullying and raise awareness of the issue.
•     Have you experienced bullying at work at all in the past five years?
•     Did you report it?
•     Did you leave your job?
•     What steps have you taken to recover and move on with your life?
Get in touch by Friday 8th January 2010

Climate Change & the Recession
The combination of climate change and the recession we’ve been made aware of how wasteful our society can be. We’re encouraged to save energy, make more informed choices about the products we use and raise awareness ourselves. I would like to share your stories of the interesting ways of making the most of the resources you have.
•     Have you made significant/extreme changes in one or all areas of your lives?
•     Have you had success in business, life or even love because of changes you’ve made?
•     Have you experienced a crazy coincidence or life-changing event because of changes you’ve made?
•     Have you had a big reaction to the changes you’ve made?
•     Are the changes you’ve made because of climate change, the recession, or both?
Get in touch by Friday 5th February 2010

Married too young?
A significant proportion of people who marry in their early 20s are getting divorced before they hit 30. There doesn’t seem to be a week goes by without a report of another young celebrity splitting with their fiancé or divorcing their other half. I’d like to speak to couples who’ve married young and stayed together. I’m also interested in hearing from those who’ve separated or divorced.
•     Are you between the ages of 26-30 and did you marry before 25?
•     Why did you marry so young?
•     Did anyone have a problem with you marrying at the age you did?
•     If divorced, how soon after marrying did you know it wasn’t going to work? Do you think age has anything to do with it?
Get in touch by Friday 5th March 2010

Please Note: All contributions will be treated in strictest confidence and where necessary can be anonymous in the features I write. They will be used as portfolio pieces to submit to magazines and newspapers as well as being available on helenthornber.com

* Data taken from surveys conducted by UMIST and sponsered by the TUC and CBI in 2000 and 2008 http://www.emplaw.co.uk/content/index?startpage=data/12mar00.htm

Now it’s Saturday and about 15000 words behind target. I tried writing yesterday and managed just over 100 words. It’s not looking good right now. NaNoWriMo does not allow for illness, especially not an entire week of brain failure. As I write this blog my brain is struggling less than 200 words in.

I haven’t given up yet. Purely because I refuse to give up whilst I’m still ill. Realistically I can’t see myself being able to write 3500 words a day for the rest of the week. And that’s based on me being in a fit state to write from tomorrow, which I’m not sure I will be. But there is still the part of me that is determined to succeed. Just last weekend I could visualize the finish line and see myself getting the 50,000 words I needed to win. Now that seems like it is a million miles away.

But then there are the times you get stuck. I get on a roll and see my word count soaring in a couple of hours, then I hit a turning point. I’m suddenly at a cliff edge and can see the other side, but there’s no way across. And this is where Twitter keeps me going. Within minutes of tweeting that I’m stuck I had people suggesting solutions and pushing me on. @rebeccablain tweeted “Even corrupt leaders make stupid decisions” and that set me off again. I’d be so caught up in my lead characters moving through the story I’d forgotten that the other characters were there to help the story along. Their stories and actions could be independent of the main characters, yet inadvertently create the situation that would get them across the void and onto the next bit of the story.

I’m up to 19000 words and just over half way through the month, but I’m determined to hit the 50k mark in the next two weeks. A few more days of 3000 words and I’ll make up the shortfall and before I know it (well probably the last couple of days of the month!!!) be sprinting to the finish line.

This Halloween will be considerably quieter and more sober, but hopefully just as significant. At midnight it will be November, and I will be writing the first few words of my NaNoWriMo novel. 50,000 words in one month.

I spent last Sunday evening listening to David Nicholls and Nick Hornby talk about their latest novels as part of the Durham Book Festival. They shared that they write about 500 words a day. I’ll be aiming for 2000. The reality of this is starting to finally sink in. Juliet Naked is 85,000 words, by the end of November I’m aiming to have written around two thirds of that. I shared this with David and Nick as they signed my books afterwards and they both looked quite horrified. Two published authors caught in the headlights of imagining getting that many words down in such a short space of time. It should have been enough to make me run away screaming from this crazy month ahead of me.

With less than 36 hours before it kicks off my mental state switches between complete fear and total excitement. I sometimes also just stop thinking about it or make myself believe that 50,000 words is easy to do. In reality I haven’t got a clue what this month will bring or how I’ll juggle work, conferences, tutoring, social life and an average of 1667 words a day. But the one thing I know is that deadlines work for me and if it means most of my weekends in November will be spent making up for the words not typed during the week it’s more likely than not I will do it. It is a huge challenge, but one I’m confident I can succeed in. (In a weeks time I’ll probably want to delete that last sentence!!!)

Back in August I set myself a challenge of writing a blog a day over 18 days. In that time I wrote 19 blogs, averaging 512 words per blog. A total of 9722 words in just over two weeks. At the start it was daunting and seemed quite difficult, two weeks later I was finding it much easier to write. Although I wasn’t considering NaNoWriMo at that point it was a nice warm up. And although it may have been only a tenth of what I have to write in the month, at least with NaNo there’s no worry about editing or uploading (which can take up a good bit of time when you have a few links and pictures).

I have finally decided which of my stories I am going for, though it has changed a bit since I started in February. Tomorrow I’ll be gathering all my research together, handy for reference if needed as I go along. I think I have an idea of the first chapter, again not what I had originally written. I am starting from scratch though some of the work I’ve already done may find it’s way in to the book once I start the editing process… but that’s December and onwards. I have some intensive writing to do first!

The only other concern in November is what will happen with this blog? I’d like to think that I’ll keep up at least a couple of posts a week, venting my frustrations and general feelings about the NaNoWriMo challenge. Or just a way of getting out of my system anything that is diverting attention away from getting my writing done. I hope you’ll bear with me through the ups, downs and possible silences that November will bring. And I promise whatever happens I’ll be back to full blogging duty in December with plenty of festive cheer.

Something clicked on Sunday night which made me understand why I’m so adverse to joining a writing group, or share my work with other writers in general. I can’t put it down to anything Nick or David said, but just more my own opinions on their books and where they come from.

One Day I enjoyed immensely. It is the first book to make me cry in a while. I haven’t read anything by David Nicholls before, but following this will be buying and reading Starter for Ten very soon. The book follows two characters Emma and Dexter over twenty years, on one particular day each year. Both characters are flawed, at times frustrating and annoying, but I always wanted things to work out for them. I liked them and I like the story. I was gripped and it was one of those books that when I realised I was coming to the end, wanted to know what happened just as much as I didn’t want it to end.

By contrast Nick Hornby is an author I have read before. High Fidelityis my favourite of his novels. Juliet, Naked had three main characters and again they were flawed, frustrating and annoying. Unfortunately I didn’t care less what happened to them. The story was compelling and I wanted to see what happened in the end, it kept me entertained. But I really didn’t care about the characters. I wanted to, but I found myself apathetic towards their fate. The reason I want to pick up another Hornby book as soon as possible is to reduce the disappointment I felt with this book.

But both books I read, enjoy and critique as a reader. Not as a writer. Writing doesn’t stop my enjoyment of books. Sometimes after reading a particular chapter or finishing a book I really enjoyed it will inspire some ideas of my own. However if I don’t enjoy it I’ve never been tempted to think about how I would have written it. As I read I get lost in the story, and if it’s good I’m too absorbed to critique it at all.

I think this is my problem with writing groups. I don’t care what other writers think about my work. I am writing for myself, and for readers who might enjoy the story. Firstly I am writing for me, because lets face it if I don’t get published I don’t want it to feel like a waste. Secondly for my readers, even if that only ever ends up being friends and family, I don’t want to waste their time. Eventually I hope I’ll be caring about what agents and publishers think. But I don’t care if another writer would have written this in that way. Or another writer thinks that this should or shouldn’t have happened. I write because I love reading and I love writing. Not because I want to impress anyone.

If I get the opinion of a few avid readers that’s far more valuable. People who genuinely love books and love stories. When people are reading as readers they want the story to be understandable and to flow. I want them to be absorbed into the reality I have created and care about the characters and what happens to them.

Wherever criticism comes from I think I have good enough judge of my own work to know when to take it on as it will improve my work as a whole, or when it just comes because someone doesn’t enjoy the genre, or the way I have written. I’m sure there are people out there who will hate One Day and will love Juliet, Naked. Their opinion is no more or less valid that mine. As I hope I develop a knack of writing fiction, I’ll also discover who’s honest opinion I can trust to help me develop my work to be the best it can be. As a writer there will always be people who dislike what I write. I’m hoping there will also be people who love what I write, and someone out there to publish it.

p.s. After Sunday night I’m a little bit in love with David Nicholls… he is gorgeous, geeky, funny and an author! I think he might be my first proper author crush!!!

So I have to do it. This week. Back to Body Balance. Back to working out at home. And in a week or two back to Spinning as well (one step at a time, I need to motivate myself before I kill myself with exercise!)

Both exercise and writing need to be staple parts of my routine once again because in a couple of weeks it will be November. And November is NaNoWriMo. That’s National Novel Writing Month. I will be trying to write 50,000 words in one month. To be honest I’m not thinking about the reality of it too much. My plan is that every spare minute between work, sleep and exercising will be spent writing. I do have a weekend in London planned. But that is three hours on a train each way. Plenty of writing time even then.

For me the aim of NaNoWriMo is to get past the mental block I have about writing fiction. As with blogging I just need to do it and as I do I am sure I will find my voice. I am not expecting 50,000 words of fabulousness at the end of the month. 50,000 words with the potential to be fabulous after copious amounts of editing would be a great achievement.

First I need to decide what I am going to write. I have two ideas which already have outlines and a certain level of character development. I have a further two with nothing much done so far. For a while I thought I might just dive into something new and see what happens. But if what happens is writers block I have nothing to push me on. No cues to get me writing again. That could be fatal and mean I stop before I’ve even started. So it’s down to the two ideas with outlines, characters and some initial efforts to get them down onto paper.

Sooo… which one do I pick? I’ve written a synopsis of both and sent them to a few friends for their opinion. It took me a good couple of minutes of hovering over the send button before I let the email go. The friends I’ve sent it too are mostly bookworms. One has already written a couple of scripts which I really enjoyed. Another sells books for a living and has probably seen thousands of synopsis better than my attempts. Two I’m in a book club with and together we’ve pulled apart novels that other people have poured their heart and soul in to writing. I’m petrified that someone will reply with the email equivalent of incessant laughter at the thought of me writing a novel. It isn’t that my friends are cruel. It is that I am feeling quite insecure.

If nothing else I’m hoping NaNoWriMo will boost my confidence about writing fiction. Whatever I write is never going to be liked by everyone so I need to learn how to be confident about my writing. I will have to learn how to differentiate between helpful feedback and negative criticism. And work out which are the people I know who will read my work as it develops and give me an honest and useful response.

I am scared that whatever I do write might be completely wrong. I might get to the end of the month and discover I can’t write fiction at all. But this is precisely why I need NaNoWriMo. To push me out of my comfort zone and see exactly what I’m made of!

On the 1st October it will be a year since I decided to quit my job in London. One of the goals I set myself was to use more of my time to regularly write. Another thing I am proud to have achieved. My persistence in blogging has stopped me from being scared of putting words on a page, I’ll now happily write something I know is rubbish and come back and redraft it later. The difficulty used to be getting the thoughts from my head onto paper. Now the longest part of the task is usually uploading pictures, adding links and the final proofread.

I am also grateful for the existence of Twitter. Without that I’d still be writing to an audience of my closest friends and family. Twitter has allowed me to share my blog with so many, and I am so pleased that people enjoy reading it. And now it seems that people are starting to find my blog via other routes. A couple of weeks ago someone followed me on Twitter because they’d read my blog first!

It’s taken me over two and a half years to reach blog number 100. During that time my life has changed in many ways. Where will I be by blog 200? At the pace I’m writing now it’s likely to be in less than six months. The next few months will be lots of fun though. From October I’ll be a tutee for a few of the students at Trevelyan College. Once I get them settled in I’ll be challenging myself to write 50,000 words in a month thanks to NaNoWriMo. By December I’ll be ready to relax for Christmas and enjoy some time with friends and family. Before I know it, January will be here and I’ll be celebrating one year since my move to Durham. And I’d like to think that by the time I reach blog 200 I’ll have had something published somewhere other than here.

But I’m not wishing my time away. The past year has flown by and I want to enjoy as much of the here and now as possible. And share it with you.

The thing that needs to be said in my 100th blog is THANK YOU! Thanks to all of you who read my blog. If I hadn’t got Google Analytics letting me know that you are all out there I might have given up before now. The more you visited my website, the more I have written. You’ve stuck with me and been the life that my blog needed to survive and grow!

Anyway enough of the soppiness… time to write Blog 101!

There are becoming two strands to this, writing and business. This is where my wish list comes in. The things I’d love to be paid to do. The things I’d still want to do even if I won millions on the lottery and could choose not to work.

Journalism: A regular contributor to The Guardian (Weekend/The Guide/G2) and Marie Claire. A weekly/monthly column would be great, as well as the opportunity to write opinion, comment and features.

Novelist: Get the stories out of my head onto paper, but have a real deadline to work to. Deadlines are great for me. I will always achieve a deadline even if it means a couple of days with no sleep at all.

Business: Communications, HR and Marketing are all passions of mine, and predominantly self taught. But I have taken every opportunity to learn, train and build on my knowledge. I’d love to work with small businesses, who are passionate about what they do, as opposed to selling their soul and being obsessed about making as much money in the shortest time possible. My motivation for this is not to make millions myself, but to prove to the world that business can be about so much more than a huge profit. Local businesses run by people who care about the community. It’s the future.

Three careers not just one, but it’s something to aim for. However small steps are required. I’m not going to become a national literary treasure and saviour of North East small businesses overnight.

And as a blog is a chance to interact, not just broadcast this is where you, dear readers, get a chance to help me start taking those small steps in Journalism. Starting on the bottom rung. Do you know anyone who needs a writer? Online magazines, local newspapers… anyone or anything I could write for and get published? My blog is my portfolio and I’m pretty versatile on what I can write about.

If you do, please email me and with your contacts or direct them to my blog. Or both.

As for the aspirations of novelist and business I have plans there, too but you can’t possibly imagine how happy it would make me to get my writing out there, beyond the pages of helenthornber.com

Thank you lovely people for reading!