10 reasons I hate editing

So it's been a few days since we've blogged, but Houdini and I have been submerged in several hundred pages of paper editing my novel. We are nowhere near finished and I am beginning to hate doing this, but it has to be done. Reading out my novel to Houdini didn't work out too great. My throat gave out so she went hunting on plot bunny island. Unfortunately she came back empty handed so she is in bad books at the moment.

Anyway here are the 10 reasons I hate editing:

1. It's time consuming
2. Correcting grammatical and sentence structure errors is soul destroying
3. Getting 1/3 of the way through editing and realising that the dates in your timeline are completely wrong or that events are completely impossible and everything has to be changed
4. There's so much to do
5. Having to rewrite entire chapters because some were written at unholy hours as part of Nanowrimo and make no sense at all
6. Realising that you've accidentally borrowed a character from somewhere else
7. You changed the name of your character half way and have to go back and change it, but then you forget why you changed it in the first place and go back to the old way, once changed you remember why you changed it and then have to change it back again.
8. You realise that you need to do some more research to check your info is correct, but you've taken the books back to the library and the info isn't on wikipedia
9. You find characters who were going to be part of the original subplot simply disappear or 'morph' into other people
10. You find you've accidently deleted a chapter when writing, or you have to delete an entire chapter which seemed like a great idea at the time and took ages but really doesn't work

If you have any of your own please feel free to post below.

A word from Houdini...

Hello vacant minds,

My name is Houdini the cat and my silly owner has left her laptop open, so I thought I'd type a few words and introduce myself. Firstly, a few words about me: I'm three years old and I can read and type. My hobbies are escaping from closed rooms, playing with my toys and making a mess wherever I go. I also like foraging for plot bunnies to confuse my owner and helping her write her stories.




Today I've been helping Thistle to edit her first novel 'The Stepmother'. As Thistle read her novel to me I was kind enough to point out errors in spelling, capitalisation and grammar. I even corrected some of the errors myself.

I haven't read any books before although I do like watching the occasional tv programme and film, but I thought that the first chapter of the book was good, but Thistle tells me there are another thirty chapters or so to go.

Fortunately, after every chapter she has been feeding me treats, although I have noticed that the less mistakes I spot the more treats she gives me. I know it's cheeky but to be honest I'd rather eat the treats than edit a novel

Don't tell Thistle that though will you?

Giving up and starting something new

I have been working on my current novel on and off since just before christmas. The novel is in the fantasy genre about a modern day girl ending up in a fantasy world similar to Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and the Narnia adventures.

I came to a decision about this novel today which is that I think it's time I gave it up at least for the time being. I'm not feeling the words, I'm struggling to write it and not due to writers block, I just don't hear my characters voices and my heart isn't in it. To be fair I have done much on it, I have written the first chapter three times and it still doesn't feel right and I've done the second chapter twice.

I have actually found writing this hard because of the total fantasy element of it, everything I write even the landscape has to be totally improvised and it is proving to be much harder than i thought. The novel is written down in terms of what happens beginining to end in a synopsis format so hopefully I can return to it in the future, and I even have a map I drew of the fantasy world which my character enters and travels through. Truth is the enthusiasm has gone and I am no longer enjoying this project, looking back I can't remember the last time I did enjoy writing or thinking about this without the sense of dread that went with it.

Now although I may be putting my fantasy novel on the back burner that doesn't mean I will stop writing or blogging. In fact I have another novel idea which has been in the pipeline for longer than my fantasy novel and it is that idea that I am full of enthusiasm for writing for. I am going to write another historical fiction story but unlike "The stepmother" which is based on characters who didn't exist but lived in a historical period, this novel will actually be based on a real person. I don't want to give too much away, but the new project will have the working title "The Orphan Princess."

So anyway I'm off now to go and play with my new plot bunnies.

Reading, cycling and other stories...

I finished reading Philippa Gregory's The Red Queen last night and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it although I wish the book didn't stop where it did. I should like to have continued reading about the exploits of Margaret after her son became King in the early years of his reign and I would like to have seen more about her relationship with her new daughter in law the future Queen of England. I think that both of these subjects may be addressed in future novels by Philippa as I understand from her biography that she is working on two further novels, one about the future Queen Elizabeth and one about Jacquetta her grandmother, and so I am certainly looking forward to reading those also.

On another positive note I discovered today that Alison Weir will be making an appearance at the Cheltenham literature festival in October 2011 to publicise her new nonfiction book on Mary Boleyn sister of the tragic second wife of Henry VIII Anne Boleyn and so I'm very much looking forward to seeing her and cant wait to book a ticket to see her once they go on sale in August.

As for me I'm starting to relax on my first day off and have taken up cycling again. since moving to my new flat I have had little chance to explore the local area and so after using my bike for the first time in two years to cycle to my parents house (on flat tyres I might add), I decided to get the bike out again today and go for a ride around. I found a lovely little park where I could imagine sitting down for a picnic and it would be a nice place to write too.

I'm going to sit and write now, Houdini (my cat's nickname due to her escape plights- I swear I will have to write them down one day) seems to sense this so has decided to plant herself directly across my laptop keyboard pinning my arms down as usual and paws me from time to time to remind me that she is still there. I'll update tomorrow on how I'm getting on.

Achieving the Achievable

Much is made of those who achieve the unachievable, completing tasks which may have seemed impossible to complete. For many the idea of writing a novel remains merely that, but for those of us who have achieved this impossible task we know that it was never impossible in the first place.

Writing a first novel can seem intimidating it certainly was to me when I first started and I think that is why so many people give up or can take years and years to achive their dream. Novel writing is not impossible and for me the way I went about doing it was by breaking down the novel into smaller pieces. After all a novel is made up out of words and writing a few words is easy enough. Turn those few words into a few hundred words and that is a page, a few thousand words a chapter, and then one chapter at a time the novel comes together and so it continues. This unachievable task is achievable and this is what I keep telling myself as I write my second novel - a seemingly daunting task- but no matter how much I break it down it doesn't make it any less daunting.

Attack of the plot bunnies!!!

There is an invasion taking place even now as they sweep across the world. Taking simple thoughts and words in our minds and twisting them to suit their own needs. They are the plot bunnies and their targets are writers who are going about their daily business. They catch us at our most focused and most distracted moments, when we are walking the aisle's of supermarkets, driving to work, taking our daily shower. Invisible to the human eye, they can attack us anywhere leaving us with thoughts and novel plots which are incredible to the mind, worse still in these crazy moments we rarely have the means to pin them down, hold them captive and they escape us leaving us to wonder, what was that? They steal are memories too and once gone they are difficult to retrieve.

As writers what can we do? Should we defend ourselves against them, and stop this infiltration of their kind? We could allow the invasion to continue but improve our methods of capture so that we can hold them for as long as we wish. Then we could study them to our hearts content, turning them over and examining every inch of them but we will have to be careful for should they ever find a way to escape, they will take with them our ideas, our thoughts and our dreams. They may even find a way to steal the tools of our trade which we use to capture them with or worse still cause them to malfunction in an irreversible way.

Not one of us is safe, not even me dear readers. I was accosted by one such bunny this morning on my way to work. I had barely stepped inside the building when he hopped down the stairs and cut across my path causing me to curse that not even are work places are safe from them.

My warning to you: They are coming, the plot bunny's are on their way and no one is safe from the mass destruction that they can cause.



If you know another more peaceful way in which we can work with them please comment below. Together we can combat this invasion, the attack of the plot bunnies.

Too stressed to write

So I am having a very busy and stressful week at work. I'm doing some intense training which is incredibly exhausting that I am barely able to keep awake in the evenings. I can't wait for my week off which is next week as I want to be able to do some writing again.

Its so strange that when I was doing Nano I was simply able to make time in the day to write and I have no idea how I did it on a daily basis. It must be possible but I will have to figure out how I can put writing back on the schedule.

Robbed of eat pray love!

I'm very sorry to say that when I went into work yesterday the copy of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, I was two-thirds of the way through reading, had disappeared from my desk. It turns out the books owner (who was not aware that I was reading it) had taken it home. Worse- he was not in work yesterday and I had to wait until today to talk to him about it and will now have to wait again until he has finished reading it until I can finish it.

This all makes me quite frustrated but another book that I have been wanting to read for some time, fell into my lap yesterday. I am a big Phillipa Gregory fan as you may have previously seen, and The Red Queen was the only book of hers that I had not read. A friend was lending it and the white queen to a mutual friend and so I have intercepted it with the intention of reading it and passing it on to her once she has finished it.

This has considerably lightened my mood and I have already made a start on it, I actually think that having read most of Eat Pray Love has put me in the mood to read it as well. Maybe this will also give me an incentive to write too?

Eating, Praying and Loving

I'm currently reading the novel 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert and I have to say it's very different to the books I normally read. I had heard of this book having seen the trailer's for the film starring Julia Roberts, but despite being a fan of Julia, I didn't find the film appealing and decided not to see it.

At work I came across a copy of the book, which belonged to a colleague and one evening I picked it up and had a look and started reading the first few pages. It seemed quite good, I like the voice telling the story and as we were quiet at work and I was bored I carried on reading it. Having now read two thirds of the book I have to say that it's quite good, I particularly liked the 'Eat' or Italy part of the book and it has certainly made me think about a few things.

One of the question's the author is asked on her journeys is what is her word? The word which describes her and it got me thinking what would my word be? I'd like to think that my word could be writer or dreamer. but I can think of other words too like procrastinator, optimist, aspiring or caring. There are probably many more words that have slipped my mind right now, perhaps some that I don't think apply but other people may do.

I tried to apply the same idea to my main character, but I don't think her character is developed enough yet for me to be able to identify a word for her, and I'm barely qualified as someone who cannot do the same for myself. I think instead I shall continue with the writing whilst Eating (to keep me going), praying (that I will finish it) and Loving (the writing I'm doing and what i am actually writing).

In the meantime Eat Pray Love is at the top of my list of movies I want to rent.

Welcome Back!!!

This blog has been permanently on my mind since I guiltily deserted it last December but the time has now come for me to get my act together and carry on with it even if it is for no other reason than to help me get the momentum going of writing everyday.

Since we last spoke, I have to admit that I have done little in the way of writing, partly because I was ill for a while with Pneumonia, partly because I have moved to a small flat of my own, and partly because I ran out of the motivation and steam required to write a novel.

I have actually rewritten the first chapter of my novel three times already and i am still not satisfied with it, but i think it's time to leave it alone and move on and I am happy to report that I have done chapter two and have made some headway on chapter three.

It has been hard getting back into writing and I had been attempting to write everything on the computer but i was discovering that i was too easily distracted by the wonders of the universe, namely the blogs of Miss Snark, Slushpile Hell and Bookends. I am not even at the stage yet where I can submit a proposal and yet I am already reading up on tips and tricks for writing query letters. This would be a good thing if it did not deter me from writing.

Writing the novel on the computer wasn't working for me at this particular stage so instead I decided to do it by hand- which is what I have done for both of the previous novels I have written (why did I not think of doing this in the first place?) I love the feeling of the clean, crisp white sheets of paper under my pen and it has brought back my love of writing and it only goes to show that it doesn't matter how you write as long as you write.

It's nice to be back x