Surprised by Joy

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

On Saturday the 23rd of November, I’ll be taking part in this year’s C.S. Lewis Festival alongside other Women Aloud NI members. A couple of years ago when I took part, the theme was ‘Surprised by Joy’, for which I wrote the following flash fiction piece. I hope you like it!

It was a terrible, miserable, frozen, windy, brown-grey day; the sky the embodiment of ‘bah humbug.’

Jasper just wanted to sleep through it, but circumstance wouldn’t allow. There were presents to buy, food to arrange, parties to go to, decorations to put up – all the rest.

It wasn’t that he hated Christmas, it was just that he was exhausted and the holiday always poked at him, knowing just where his insecurities lay.

“Haven’t you settled down yet?” one great-aunt or another would invariably ask, only for all the other family members to pile in and spend no less than a half-hour discussing the intricacies of his love life, or lack thereof.

There would be advice – “You’ve just got to put yourself out there, you know?” – and there would be teasing – “Look, Jasper, even the cat has a girlfriend!” – and it would be miserable. All of it.

Jasper had tried to find someone, he really had, but there was nothing for it – no one out there for him. He was alone, and he was lonely. That was just the way things were.

Dragging himself around shop after shop to get everything sorted, Jasper’s mind wondered as his mood lowered still. It took someone calling his name three times before he blinked and looked up, coming back to himself.

There she was. He had to blink again to make sure he was imagining things. Joy Pringle – Jasper’s childhood sweetheart, who had moved away when they were twelve and, in all honesty, he had never gotten over.

“Joy!” he exclaimed. “I’ve found you!”

She laughed, the sound like jingle bells. “I found you, more like. I’ve been looking for you for years. You aren’t on Facebook.”

“Ah, well,” Jasper stammered, cursing his previous negative attitude towards the site. “I– I’ll sign up now.”

Joy smiled at him, the sun rising in her cheeks. “Oh, no. Not now. I’m about to meet some friends for a drink. Do you want to come?”

“Yes,” said Jasper, glad he pulled himself out of bed for such a glorious day.

SCBWI Con 2019: A Comedy of Errors

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Sketch by Imogen Foxell

This past weekend was The Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators annual British Isles conference. Having won one of SCBWI’s Margaret Carey scholarships, I got to attend with all expenses paid. And wow, was it one heck of an experience, even if it didn’t quite go to plan.

Having studied in England for University, I’ve travelled back and forth there a lot of times over the years and it was not uncommon at all for me to return with tales of a wacky adventure and/or a war wound. This past weekend was a bit of a return to that.

I should start by saying that, before I even left, I’d been sick for about a week. Really, really sick. To the degree that, I spent most of that week wondering if I was going to make it at all. But I pushed through, packed my bag, and got on a plane.

Minor inconvenience number one (aside from being sick): a short delay taking off. This in itself would barely be worth mentioning if it weren’t the first of many, many things that went awry. How many things can go awry in three days? WELL!

Things kinda started off on the back foot for another reason: I was going entirely broke. Our rent went out the day I set off, the very start of the month, which means our bank account was empty. Over empty, in fact. Even our overdraft was gone. (October was a hard month, you guys.) But anyways, this shouldn’t have been too much of a problem because of the ‘all expenses paid’ bit. My travel was free, my accommodation was free, and of course the conference fee itself was covered. What I also had was £5 on a gift card leftover from my birthday that should work in a long list of places. I double-checked the balance and the list of places before I left, and I planned to get myself a bottle of water in the airport WH Smith once I’d gotten through security. Sounds simple enough, right? Except it didn’t work. Of course it didn’t. The person at the till conjectured it was probably because an airport WH Smith probably doesn’t count as a normal WH Smith.

*deep breath* It was gonna be one of those days. Continue reading →

School Days

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

During the intro session to my most recent round of counselling, I was asked (amongst other things) what my experience at school had been like. Terrible, I said.

In a previous blog post, I described a little of what happened around the implosion of my time at university. Elsewhere, I made reference to not being diagnosed with things (mainly, dyslexia and a sleep disorder) until much later that also definitely had a part to play in the terribleness of way back when.

Then, most recently, I listed ‘studying’ as something I wanted to in my autumn goals.

I have not, thus far, went into any of that in any great detail or brought all of those threads together to tell the full story of my failed studies and my plan for (hopefully) successful studies going forward. Today, that’s what I want to blog about. Or definitely that first part, because I don’t want this thing to be a million words long. I’ll tell you about my academic history here, and then I’ll come back and detail my future study plan in a separate post. Sound good? Good.

Okay, so… *takes deep breath* where to begin? Being a March baby, I was always one of the younger ones in my classes, starting school at age four. As far as I can remember (which isn’t very far at all), I had one year of playschool before Primary One.

In Northern Ireland, primary school is seven years (P1-7), high/secondary school is five years (1st to 5th form), and then sixth-form (two years: lower sixth and upper sixth) can optionally be studied at that same high school or at a college or “tech.”

I did three years at one primary school before my parents decided to move me to a different one for P4-7. This was a really great move and one I’m very thankful for. As I’ve said already, I don’t remember a lot of my early childhood, but I do know that I hated that first primary school. I vaguely recall getting in trouble a few times and struggling a lot with my reading and writing. In hindsight, struggling with reading and writing was probably a big reason why I got into trouble.

I still had my issues with reading and writing in my second primary school (I had them all the way up until university, in fact), but the environment of that second school was entirely different. I stopped being yelled at by teachers for being a kid and I started to thrive. I wasn’t very well-liked by the other school kids, but I was too oblivious to actually realise it at the time.

I was ignorant. It was blissful. I look back on those four years with affection.

Then high school happened. Continue reading →

Nightmares in Bliss

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Today I’d like to share a blog exclusive: an older piece of flash fiction by myself that’s never been seen before. It’s written exclusively in dialogue, but I like how it turned out. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments section.

—

“I spy with my little eye…”

“Do we have to play this?”

“…something beginning with M.”

“You’re just gonna ignore me, then? What if I play the silence game instead of your stupid–”

“It’s a mouse.”

“What?”

“A mouse.”

“Where? No, don’t just shrug at me! Are you serious? Macie, if there is mouse I’m gonna scream, I swear.”

“Relax.”

“Oh, you relax! Were you making that up?”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t believe you! All your stupid games and pranks. Why did you bring me up here, anyway? I’m cold.”

“Here.”

“No, I don’t want your jacket. Take me home.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I was just trying to lighten the mood. Take the coat, please.”

“Well, okay. But you have to tell me why we’re here. It looks like it’s going to rain, and we’re miles from anywhere.”

“This is where it started.”

“Here we go. Where what started?”

“Us.”

“Mace–”

“Okay, okay, hear me out.”

“Fine. What is it?”

“This, my darling, is the place I was sitting when I first saw your face.”

“Here?”

“Yip.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I’d run away. This is always where I came.” Continue reading →

DeptCon Adventures in Dublin

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Last Friday and Saturday, I was in Dublin for the fifth annual DeptCon: Ireland’s Biggest Young Adult Book Convention.

It was super fun and I’m now, almost a week later, almost recovered. Let me give you a rundown:

I couldn’t sleep the night before. I tried but, like so many other nights, just couldn’t manage it. So I caught the 10.35am train from Belfast on thirty minutes rest, fueled by tea and enthusiasm.

On the journey down, I finished reading Savannah Brown’s poetry collection and started reading her novel. I had them with me anyway so I could get them signed.

Savannah is someone I’ve been watching on YouTube for years. I’ve been meaning to get to her books since they came out, so this was the perfect opportunity to bump them off my TBR.

Once arrived at Connolly Station, I made the forty-minute trek to my hotel. It was in the north of the city: somewhere I’d never stayed before, but I’d charted the route via Google Maps in advance and found it easily enough. I had just enough time to pick up my key and dump some things out of my heavy rucksack onto my comically sized bed (more on that later) before walking forty-minutes back into the centre of town for event registration and panel number one: Natália Gomes, Savannah Brown, and Connie Glynn. Continue reading →

October Reading & Writing Update

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

What I Wrote in September: 7,000 Words Total

  • 2 Poems (100 Words)
  • 2 pieces of Micro-Fiction (400 Words)
  • 3 Blog Posts (2,000 Words)
  • 900 Words of Non-Fiction
  • 1,000-word Essay
  • 2,700 words of Fan Fiction

What I Read in September:

Currently Reading: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

My ‘To Be Read’ List for the Next Four/Five Weeks: 

Exciting Things Cometh!

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

For a little while, I hadn’t been doing quite so many events. That’s just changed. I’ve gone from having a relatively quiet summer to having a series of awesome things lined up for Autumn.

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago but had to hold off making it public because there was an embargo on the news item near the end. What’s happened in the meantime is that I read at the most recent Flash Fiction Armagh as well as at a Women Aloud NI event for Culture Day.

On Thursday the 10th of October I have co-ordinated a Short Story Showcase at Books Paper Scissors in Stranmillis. Then, hot on the heels of that, is DeptCon5: Ireland’s biggest Young Adult convention which I will be attending (just as a regular attendee, not as a speaker or anything).

November is, of course, National Novel Writing Month, and I’m hoping to get along to Purely Poetry in October and December, but by far the biggest thing I have lined up for the coming months is the SCBWI Conference.

I was absolutely thrilled to discover that I am one of SCBWI’s Margaret Carey Scholarship winners for this year. The start of NaNoWriMo will be a little delayed for me because, from the 1st to the 3rd of November, I will be in Winchester attending talks and panels and meeting literary agents face-to-face!

You can realistically expect plenty of blog posts on my return. I cannot, cannot, CANNOT wait!

On Being Privileged

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Life is complex and often full of contradictions. I think most people accept this on some intellectual level but, when faced with a single fact or data point, it can be all too easy to jump from it to one conclusion and then the next without stopping to ponder what alternatives might exist as part of a more nuanced story.

That’s a lot of big words to express what perhaps seems a lofty idea, so let me give you a realistic example to truly get to the heart of what I’m talking about: in my previous post, What I Make As a Writer, I broke down the facts and figures of how I’ve survived as a disabled self-employed person so far. On the one hand, I have had to manage on welfare payments. On the other hand, I talk about having lived rent-free with my parents while I got on my feet.

Receiving welfare is, in some ways, a privilege because – while necessary for basic survival – it’s not something open to everyone in need for a myriad of reasons. Compared to the people who need it but can’t access it, we’re lucky. Yet, at the same time, we’re unfortunate to need it in the first place.

Living with my parents sounds like a more clear-cut thing. Yes, my existence there was rent-free. In some ways, that gave me financial freedom. But not when you understand what a toxic, neglectful, and downright abusive environment that place was. Most weeks, I had £10 to live on. Ten pounds to call my own after I paid the minimum amount off my credit card and student overdraft. An overdraft I was privileged to get in the first place, get disadvantaged enough to need. Continue reading →

What I Make As a Writer

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Some people are oversensitive about money. Some people will be scandalised that I’m about to break taboo in talking about it.

Some people, in my humble opinion, need to get over themselves.

I mean, yes, this stuff matters to some extent (I wouldn’t be blogging about it otherwise) but, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not half as important as we make it out to be.

It was back in May that I promised to lift the lid on my personal income but, all of the above said, I’ve actually gotten a slight case of cold feet between then and now.

Please understand that, when I criticise people for focusing on things that maybe don’t matter so much, I’m including myself in that too.

In my first post I was all like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna be radical and awesome, breaking down barriers and laying all my sh*t bare!’ And then, having calmed down and thought about it some more, worry started to set in that people would see how little money we’re actually talking about and write me off as barely a professional.

I asked myself if I should wait until I was earning more before sharing my figures. Then I remembered that I was entirely missing my own point. I’m not making this blog post to be impressive, I’m doing it because I genuinely believe more open and honest discourse is needed and that everyone would be better off for it.

So, without further ado, here’s me putting my money where my mouth is:

I started freelancing during tax year 2013/2014 – the best part of six years ago. I’d just quit a “normal” job from hell (it was a call centre. Enough said.) and didn’t really know what I was doing, but I was enthusiastic. Foolhardy.

I was also living rent-free with my parents, which is a depressing yet important piece of contextual information.

For the first eight months, I earned nothing. Not a single penny. I call this my ‘year zero.’ Continue reading →

Summer Successes and Autumn Goals

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

This post is third in a series. You can find part one (covering January to April) here and part two (May to August) here. As outlined in those previous posts, I’m tackling this year in chunks, setting myself goals for four months at a time, rather than having a single set for the whole of 2019.

It seems to be working out.

My only year-long goal – the Goodreads reading challenge – has me sitting at 44 books completed off a total of sixty. That’s 73% complete/4 books ahead of schedule.

Before I get into my goals for the rest of 2019 going forward, let’s take a minute to recap on my summer goals and how well I did (or didn’t) achieve them.

In May, I set myself the following tasks:

  • Lose more weight
  • Continue to submit my first novel to agents
  • Make edits to my second novel and send it to beta readers
  • Draft yet another novel during Camp NaNoWriMo in July
  • Attended two publishing conferences
  • Complete my tax return

From that list, what I didn’t do was lose weight or write a third novel. The number of things I achieved (listed below) definitely outweigh these two failures, which I’m obviously delighted about, but they are still two pretty big failures. Though I will point out that I did take part in Camp NaNoWriMo, as planned, and got a few words towards book three in my trilogy. Overall, I wrote 25,000 words during July, much of it fanfiction works in progress that I wanted to get out of my head at long last.

Here’s the full list of what I actually did achieve: Continue reading →