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.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
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?
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?
Monday, 30 May 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
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.
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.
Friday, 27 May 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, 26 May 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
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?
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?
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 23 May 2011
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
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
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Painting the Perfect Picture
When I was in Primary School, we used to sing a hymn that began: "I'm going to paint a perfect picture, a world of make believe..." Creating a fictional fantasy world is something that many authors who write in the fantasy vein have to do and it was also something that I had to do today to prepare to write my novel.
I have to admit it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, afterall how do you create a world from scratch. My earliest design started as a large diamond shape made up of 4 diamond shapes (the 4 kingdoms making up my world) but I quickly realised that this wasn't suitable fof my needs. Being a bit stuck I decided to seek help a la google, so I typed in 'how to create a fantasy world' by which I found a link to Holly Lisle's website http://hollylisle.com/. Holly is a published fantasy author with some great tips to wannabe writers and using her help and that of my artistic house mate I was able to create my world.
Creating the world and the objects in it was the easy part, naming all of the villages, towns, rivers, forests, deserts, mountain ranges, oceans and lakes was the difficult part. That's the part which has taken me hours, through dozens of internet searches from river names locally to latin translation websites I looked everywhere trying to name everything. It's not happened, my main mountain range which all my characters will have at some point have to cross still hasn't be named but I will cross that bridge (or should I say mountain) when I get to it. :-)
The next stage for me was to download pictures of the various places that I have imagined for my book. I am no great artist and can barely draw to save my life, so I have been googling for images and have also been using Deviant Art which is where my background image of my fairytale castle comes from.
I thought researching my previous novel which was set in the 18th Century was hard as i was trying to be as realistic as possible in terms of architecture,fashion, history and customs; but this fantasy novel which I have free rein on is so much more difficult to write as I am having to literally make things up as I go. At least I can use the internet to help me, I don't know how writers such as Tolkien and C S Lewis coped with out it when creating Middle Earth and Narnia. I don't even know where they came up with some of the names from. All I can say is that they must have had amazingly overactive imaginations.
I have to admit it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, afterall how do you create a world from scratch. My earliest design started as a large diamond shape made up of 4 diamond shapes (the 4 kingdoms making up my world) but I quickly realised that this wasn't suitable fof my needs. Being a bit stuck I decided to seek help a la google, so I typed in 'how to create a fantasy world' by which I found a link to Holly Lisle's website http://hollylisle.com/. Holly is a published fantasy author with some great tips to wannabe writers and using her help and that of my artistic house mate I was able to create my world.
Creating the world and the objects in it was the easy part, naming all of the villages, towns, rivers, forests, deserts, mountain ranges, oceans and lakes was the difficult part. That's the part which has taken me hours, through dozens of internet searches from river names locally to latin translation websites I looked everywhere trying to name everything. It's not happened, my main mountain range which all my characters will have at some point have to cross still hasn't be named but I will cross that bridge (or should I say mountain) when I get to it. :-)
The next stage for me was to download pictures of the various places that I have imagined for my book. I am no great artist and can barely draw to save my life, so I have been googling for images and have also been using Deviant Art which is where my background image of my fairytale castle comes from.
I thought researching my previous novel which was set in the 18th Century was hard as i was trying to be as realistic as possible in terms of architecture,fashion, history and customs; but this fantasy novel which I have free rein on is so much more difficult to write as I am having to literally make things up as I go. At least I can use the internet to help me, I don't know how writers such as Tolkien and C S Lewis coped with out it when creating Middle Earth and Narnia. I don't even know where they came up with some of the names from. All I can say is that they must have had amazingly overactive imaginations.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Happy Birthday!
It's a very special day today as two very important people were born on this date. My sister was born 22 years today and ruined my chances of being an only child forever :-P . As for the other very special lady, I think it would be fair to say that "it is a truth universally acknowledged" that she is very well known would have been celebrating her 235th birthday had she been alive today.
I am of course talking about Jane Austen, author of my favourite novel Pride and Prejudice. She has been a huge influence on my writing and I absolutely love all of her books. I have to confess something to you though. I only properly discovered Jane Austen earlier this year. I had heard of her of course but I had never read any of her books or seen their televised adaptations- it's very embarassing to me having to admit this to you.
For christmas last year, I was given 100 Classic books for the Nintendo DS and seeing the novel on there I decided to give it a go and ever since then I am quite literally hooked on Austen to the point of obsession. After reading the rest of her novels and falling in love with Mr Darcy I felt inspire to write again, despite having never written anything other than fanfiction and the odd few stories in my childhood.
It was P&P which made me feel like I could do anything, and that was when my first novel idea popped into my head. It's an incomplete Regency story with the powerful head strong Austen inspired heroine and a multidimensional male lead. Incomplete as it may be, the idea that I had got me writing again, and I think that had I not read p&p I would not have completed my first novel in Nano and would not be sat here typing this now.
I am of course talking about Jane Austen, author of my favourite novel Pride and Prejudice. She has been a huge influence on my writing and I absolutely love all of her books. I have to confess something to you though. I only properly discovered Jane Austen earlier this year. I had heard of her of course but I had never read any of her books or seen their televised adaptations- it's very embarassing to me having to admit this to you.
For christmas last year, I was given 100 Classic books for the Nintendo DS and seeing the novel on there I decided to give it a go and ever since then I am quite literally hooked on Austen to the point of obsession. After reading the rest of her novels and falling in love with Mr Darcy I felt inspire to write again, despite having never written anything other than fanfiction and the odd few stories in my childhood.
It was P&P which made me feel like I could do anything, and that was when my first novel idea popped into my head. It's an incomplete Regency story with the powerful head strong Austen inspired heroine and a multidimensional male lead. Incomplete as it may be, the idea that I had got me writing again, and I think that had I not read p&p I would not have completed my first novel in Nano and would not be sat here typing this now.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Good Tidings we bring...
I have excellent news which I wanted to share with all of you. I am pleased to finally announce that I have completed my first draft of my novel 'the stepmother'. I have decided to leave the editing of the novel until after christmas and have a short break from writing.
I have to say I am very relieved to have finished. Once nano had ended i found it increasingly difficult to keep the momentum going despite the fact that i only had 3 chapters to write after the end of nano. This normally would have taken me 3 days and no more than a week, but for some reason i found it incredibly difficult to write. It wasn't so much because i did not know what to write, because i did but i just couldn't sit down and do it. I had lost my motivation.
I was talking to my sister yesterday, who is unemployed as a result of government cuts brought on by the financial crisis. She is very depressed about it and I am trying to help her by giving her something to focus on each day, and knowing that she is a fan of the Twilight Saga and a reader of fanfiction, I suggested that she write her own story. My sister is not a writer and creator of stories as i am but she is a good poet, she told me she would not know what to write about. I am not very familliar with twilight- haven't read or seen and don't intend to (not into vampires or werewolfs at all)- I asked her to imagine that two of the characters were in the back of my car right at that moment and i asked her to think about what they would talk about. We had a short discussion about it and upon my return i decided to try out my own advice in a roundabout way and wrote a letter to my MC. It really helped me and i think i may have been suffering from a mild case of writers block. Nevertheless that block has now been lifted and today I wrote the last two chapters without any problems.
As a result of the completion of this draft I shall be updating my blog over the next few days, but i do intend to keep this going. I have another idea for a novel which has been bubbling under since mid nano and I intend to write that, and then go back and edit 'The stepmother'. I will use this blog to continue to show my daily trials with writing and documenting my efforts where possible.
I have to say I am very relieved to have finished. Once nano had ended i found it increasingly difficult to keep the momentum going despite the fact that i only had 3 chapters to write after the end of nano. This normally would have taken me 3 days and no more than a week, but for some reason i found it incredibly difficult to write. It wasn't so much because i did not know what to write, because i did but i just couldn't sit down and do it. I had lost my motivation.
I was talking to my sister yesterday, who is unemployed as a result of government cuts brought on by the financial crisis. She is very depressed about it and I am trying to help her by giving her something to focus on each day, and knowing that she is a fan of the Twilight Saga and a reader of fanfiction, I suggested that she write her own story. My sister is not a writer and creator of stories as i am but she is a good poet, she told me she would not know what to write about. I am not very familliar with twilight- haven't read or seen and don't intend to (not into vampires or werewolfs at all)- I asked her to imagine that two of the characters were in the back of my car right at that moment and i asked her to think about what they would talk about. We had a short discussion about it and upon my return i decided to try out my own advice in a roundabout way and wrote a letter to my MC. It really helped me and i think i may have been suffering from a mild case of writers block. Nevertheless that block has now been lifted and today I wrote the last two chapters without any problems.
As a result of the completion of this draft I shall be updating my blog over the next few days, but i do intend to keep this going. I have another idea for a novel which has been bubbling under since mid nano and I intend to write that, and then go back and edit 'The stepmother'. I will use this blog to continue to show my daily trials with writing and documenting my efforts where possible.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
So I succeeded...
Hey readers, it's me I am back for good as Take That once sang. This last month has been tricky and I found it next to impossible to keep my blog and novel for Nano going at the same time, and as a result the blog suffered. On a more positive note I did manage to hit my 50,000 words for Nano and am officially a winner (Yay!) I do still have some work to do and have three more chapters to write but the end is certainly near and this makes me so very happy.
The problem I have now is motivating myself to write those last three chapters to finish, now that nano has finished the pressure has been relieved and as a result I haven't finished like I should have done, and this is something I seriously need to get on and do, especially as I know I will feel so much better when it is done. Strangely enough the next few chapters should be some of the easiest to write and I have them planned out in detail in my head. I just have to sit down and convince myself to do it.
I actually have quite a busy weekend ahead of me, I am out all day tomorrow, I am out tomorrow night, working saturday, and then out saturday night so I do have limited time available, but I shall persevere and get this novel finished if it kills me.
On a slightly different subject, I understand that Amanda Vickery's series on the Georgians began tonight although unfortunately I missed it. I hope to watch this over the next few days and once I have I will post a review for it.
Will be in touch soon xxx
The problem I have now is motivating myself to write those last three chapters to finish, now that nano has finished the pressure has been relieved and as a result I haven't finished like I should have done, and this is something I seriously need to get on and do, especially as I know I will feel so much better when it is done. Strangely enough the next few chapters should be some of the easiest to write and I have them planned out in detail in my head. I just have to sit down and convince myself to do it.
I actually have quite a busy weekend ahead of me, I am out all day tomorrow, I am out tomorrow night, working saturday, and then out saturday night so I do have limited time available, but I shall persevere and get this novel finished if it kills me.
On a slightly different subject, I understand that Amanda Vickery's series on the Georgians began tonight although unfortunately I missed it. I hope to watch this over the next few days and once I have I will post a review for it.
Will be in touch soon xxx
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Invasion of the literary kind
So I have hit just over 20k on my first week of Nano and am quite rightly over the moon about it, but something terrible has happened. An idea for a second novel, a fantasy novel, has popped into my head and I have been faced with the most awful dilemma. What should I do about it?
I have written down the idea and made some notes on character names and places but thats about it... well actually it isn't whilst sat at work the other day I wrote the first chapter/ prologue. Unfortunately we are losing our external email and internet access at work tomorrow so I had to email my writing to myself so that I did not lose it. Knowing as I did that it might distract me from the novel i am writing for Nanowrimo I composed a letter to myself for the email attached to the file and I thought I would post it here as it's quite funny:
This is the excerpt you wrote on that lunch the other day- hopefully by the time you've read this you will have completed the final 1300 words for today, if not no chocolate for you tonight!!!!
You are not allowed to open this until you finish novel one- do not even think about it even though you want to- I know you are thinking about it now so Stop it Stop it stop it!
You will never be able to finish 1 if 2 is in your head
PS novel 2 can be commenced in approx 2 weeks if you get your act together!!!
BTW I did complete the final 1300 words if you were wondering and the chocolate was eaten.
I have written down the idea and made some notes on character names and places but thats about it... well actually it isn't whilst sat at work the other day I wrote the first chapter/ prologue. Unfortunately we are losing our external email and internet access at work tomorrow so I had to email my writing to myself so that I did not lose it. Knowing as I did that it might distract me from the novel i am writing for Nanowrimo I composed a letter to myself for the email attached to the file and I thought I would post it here as it's quite funny:
This is the excerpt you wrote on that lunch the other day- hopefully by the time you've read this you will have completed the final 1300 words for today, if not no chocolate for you tonight!!!!
You are not allowed to open this until you finish novel one- do not even think about it even though you want to- I know you are thinking about it now so Stop it Stop it stop it!
You will never be able to finish 1 if 2 is in your head
PS novel 2 can be commenced in approx 2 weeks if you get your act together!!!
BTW I did complete the final 1300 words if you were wondering and the chocolate was eaten.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
One week in...
Ok so, I am one week in and I have already committed mass murder by killing of three people no less, two of which were... children! so not only am I a mass murderer but I am also a child killer, and there is more death to come.
It has been a difficult week and an exhausting week. This was my first full week at work and my first attempt at writing 3k words a day and it was hard, challenging but also fun and rewarding. 3k may seem quite a high target when the minimum you can do for nano each day to hit your target is 1667, but I write regularly anyway and whilst I could have done the 1667, I prefer to write in chapters and have been aiming to do a chapter a day, and for me a chapter works out at 3-5 scenes at around 3k words in total.
Throughout the week my preferred method of writing was doing approx 1-1500 words before work and then the rest after work,or alternatively writing on my lunch hour, when i could not write before work. I was surprised by exactly how well I committed myself to the task in hand despite the many committments i had outside work. When I think about it I know that I worked 35 hours had 5 hours worth of work lunches the last two of which i wrote in, I also had guiding and also dance classes and yet I managed to schedule in enough hours to do my nanowrimo.
As the week wore on it did get more and more difficult to write, but for me this was because I was exhausted and ran out of steam. Yesterday was a bad day for me. I did not write before work, I then managed only 500 words on my lunch hour which i knew were dreadful and I had written 1000 only the day before in the same time of approximately 30 mins after i had done all my other tasks i do at lunch like eating and so on. When I got home I could not motivate myself to write 2500 words, I was too tired and i knew that what i had already done was nowhere near good enough. Holes had started appearing in my research and I had no names for the minor charactors who were new to my plot, I could not even come up with names for them off the top of my head.
I had to take a break from nano, even if it was for one night only. I went onto our Nano region chatroom but word sprints were going on and it just made me feel worse than I already did. so I logged out of the forums and the chatrooms had a few games of solitaire and spider solitaire,turned off my computer and went to bed. As a result I woke up feeling much better, and even more beneficial to me, my main characters inner voice had returned. She had gone on a days holiday on friday but now she was back and she was talking to me and telling me her story once more. In the three hours that we had in our Nanowrimo meet up for our region in gloucester I wrote 2000 words despite being surrounded by distractions of children, a very busy coffee shop and also the alarms on the coffee machines. I was really pleased with myself and this evening I easily completed my last 1000 words. Yes its true that I am still technically 3000 words behind where i ideally wanted to be, but I don't care and I am still going to make it. Besides I may still catch up anyway.
so 6 days in 15500 words down and 34500 words to go approx. Yay!!!
It has been a difficult week and an exhausting week. This was my first full week at work and my first attempt at writing 3k words a day and it was hard, challenging but also fun and rewarding. 3k may seem quite a high target when the minimum you can do for nano each day to hit your target is 1667, but I write regularly anyway and whilst I could have done the 1667, I prefer to write in chapters and have been aiming to do a chapter a day, and for me a chapter works out at 3-5 scenes at around 3k words in total.
Throughout the week my preferred method of writing was doing approx 1-1500 words before work and then the rest after work,or alternatively writing on my lunch hour, when i could not write before work. I was surprised by exactly how well I committed myself to the task in hand despite the many committments i had outside work. When I think about it I know that I worked 35 hours had 5 hours worth of work lunches the last two of which i wrote in, I also had guiding and also dance classes and yet I managed to schedule in enough hours to do my nanowrimo.
As the week wore on it did get more and more difficult to write, but for me this was because I was exhausted and ran out of steam. Yesterday was a bad day for me. I did not write before work, I then managed only 500 words on my lunch hour which i knew were dreadful and I had written 1000 only the day before in the same time of approximately 30 mins after i had done all my other tasks i do at lunch like eating and so on. When I got home I could not motivate myself to write 2500 words, I was too tired and i knew that what i had already done was nowhere near good enough. Holes had started appearing in my research and I had no names for the minor charactors who were new to my plot, I could not even come up with names for them off the top of my head.
I had to take a break from nano, even if it was for one night only. I went onto our Nano region chatroom but word sprints were going on and it just made me feel worse than I already did. so I logged out of the forums and the chatrooms had a few games of solitaire and spider solitaire,turned off my computer and went to bed. As a result I woke up feeling much better, and even more beneficial to me, my main characters inner voice had returned. She had gone on a days holiday on friday but now she was back and she was talking to me and telling me her story once more. In the three hours that we had in our Nanowrimo meet up for our region in gloucester I wrote 2000 words despite being surrounded by distractions of children, a very busy coffee shop and also the alarms on the coffee machines. I was really pleased with myself and this evening I easily completed my last 1000 words. Yes its true that I am still technically 3000 words behind where i ideally wanted to be, but I don't care and I am still going to make it. Besides I may still catch up anyway.
so 6 days in 15500 words down and 34500 words to go approx. Yay!!!
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Honesty is the best policy
Just wanted to give you an update on my Nano progress. To date i am just short of 10k and doing well so far. One of my main problems at the moment is that I am spending all my writing time on my Nano and so i know my blog is suffering for which i apologise. I think if it wasn't for the fact that i work full time and am doing funny hours this week it wouldn't be so bad, but it is the way it is and what i've been doing is an hour before work in the mornings and then an hour or two until i hit my 3k target in the evenings starting at ten pm.
So sorry if i have been neglecting you but I am updating my twitter page with my progress too and twitter updates appear to the right hand side of this page so as long as i've updated for the day I have an excuse.
Whilst nano is on my blog posts will inevitably be more infrequent however I will do a minimum of 2 blog posts a week to keep you updated.
To all the other Nano participants this year good luck to you.
_________________________
9119/50000 words
So sorry if i have been neglecting you but I am updating my twitter page with my progress too and twitter updates appear to the right hand side of this page so as long as i've updated for the day I have an excuse.
Whilst nano is on my blog posts will inevitably be more infrequent however I will do a minimum of 2 blog posts a week to keep you updated.
To all the other Nano participants this year good luck to you.
_________________________
9119/50000 words
Monday, 1 November 2010
and the race is on for me vs me: NANOWRIMO Day 1
This is a very short post as it has been a very long day.
I stayed up to midnight on the 31st October and I wrote 1k words and upon return from guiding tonight (and after work) I wrote another 2k although I cannot post this on the NANOWRIMO sight as it has been up and down like a yoyo today.
With 3k done I am officially cream crackered and looking forward to sleeping in 30secs time. Todays chapter was also difficult but the characters voice (its a first person point of view) seems to have got louder in my head and I feel like she is telling me her story and I am just writing it down and not so much the creator.
Fingers crossed this continues, and I will try and get a word count tracker for on here to show my progress tomorrow but for now....
1 day down 3k written and 47k to go so thats 3000/50000
I stayed up to midnight on the 31st October and I wrote 1k words and upon return from guiding tonight (and after work) I wrote another 2k although I cannot post this on the NANOWRIMO sight as it has been up and down like a yoyo today.
With 3k done I am officially cream crackered and looking forward to sleeping in 30secs time. Todays chapter was also difficult but the characters voice (its a first person point of view) seems to have got louder in my head and I feel like she is telling me her story and I am just writing it down and not so much the creator.
Fingers crossed this continues, and I will try and get a word count tracker for on here to show my progress tomorrow but for now....
1 day down 3k written and 47k to go so thats 3000/50000
Sunday, 31 October 2010
No more chocolate!
It's been a busy day today. I had my first Nanowrimo meet up which was so much fun and the people are so nice and now I can't wait to start on Nano I am counting down the hours already and plan to start writing at midnight (despite being on an early shift tomorrow!)
It's been busy tonight as well. My parents do not do halloween and last year we didn't do it either as were working and had other stuff going on. This year we decided to do it and I spent hours cutting up bin liners to frame the porch with I put an orange sainsburys carrier bag over the porch light, printed off pictures of pumpkins and posters with 'knock if you dare' and 'Happy halloween' on which I then coloured in (I had no colour ink only black). We had two bags of bitesize chocolates- Mars and Maltesers and I tipped them into a bowl and then had another bowl which i filled with newspaper and tissues etc and then covered each with newspaper and the kids had to choose between each bag.
Within half an hour the Mars and Maltesers were gone, so i went digging in the cupboard and tipped in a packet of penguins- we had more kids and those went too! my housemate came home and she had some club bars so we put those in and then they went. At 8pm we'd run out and we must have had 35 kids in all based on the amount of chocolate they went through and we had groups of 4, 5 and 6. The kids were like buses it would be quiet for 15 mins and then we would have people knocking every few minutes 3 or 4 groups at a time. It was crazy!!! Finally, we ran out of chocs unfortunately so I took down the decorations and turned off all the lighting and to date we have had no other visitors.
My only disappointment is that all the chocs are gone :-(
It's been busy tonight as well. My parents do not do halloween and last year we didn't do it either as were working and had other stuff going on. This year we decided to do it and I spent hours cutting up bin liners to frame the porch with I put an orange sainsburys carrier bag over the porch light, printed off pictures of pumpkins and posters with 'knock if you dare' and 'Happy halloween' on which I then coloured in (I had no colour ink only black). We had two bags of bitesize chocolates- Mars and Maltesers and I tipped them into a bowl and then had another bowl which i filled with newspaper and tissues etc and then covered each with newspaper and the kids had to choose between each bag.
Within half an hour the Mars and Maltesers were gone, so i went digging in the cupboard and tipped in a packet of penguins- we had more kids and those went too! my housemate came home and she had some club bars so we put those in and then they went. At 8pm we'd run out and we must have had 35 kids in all based on the amount of chocolate they went through and we had groups of 4, 5 and 6. The kids were like buses it would be quiet for 15 mins and then we would have people knocking every few minutes 3 or 4 groups at a time. It was crazy!!! Finally, we ran out of chocs unfortunately so I took down the decorations and turned off all the lighting and to date we have had no other visitors.My only disappointment is that all the chocs are gone :-(
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Still plodding along
I am happy today. Why you may ask? Well I did more work on chapter 12 and it is now complete - well sort of as I had to split it into two chapters and so the second half of chapter 12 is about to become chapter 13 which I will be working on in the next day or so.
I am really happy about this as from my previous posts you probably saw that I had been struggling a bit with this chapter and although I need to do some editing etc., it is almost there. What makes this all the more special is I actually have been working today and did a full day shift but still managed to come home and do 1500 words so I know that I will be able to cope when NANOWRIMO begins on monday.
As for whether I am sticking with my current plan of working on the stepmother for nano or whether I write something completely different and totally unplanned I haven't decided yet but I think I probably will stick with this idea for now and work on the next novel after NANO.
On the negative side I have sacrificed my zumba class tonight to stay in, however, as i'm still suffering from the cold that I previously mentioned and am also working til late I had very little time to squeeze the class in.
Oh well.
So now I am going to reward myself with some Nanoforums yay!
I am really happy about this as from my previous posts you probably saw that I had been struggling a bit with this chapter and although I need to do some editing etc., it is almost there. What makes this all the more special is I actually have been working today and did a full day shift but still managed to come home and do 1500 words so I know that I will be able to cope when NANOWRIMO begins on monday.
As for whether I am sticking with my current plan of working on the stepmother for nano or whether I write something completely different and totally unplanned I haven't decided yet but I think I probably will stick with this idea for now and work on the next novel after NANO.
On the negative side I have sacrificed my zumba class tonight to stay in, however, as i'm still suffering from the cold that I previously mentioned and am also working til late I had very little time to squeeze the class in.
Oh well.
So now I am going to reward myself with some Nanoforums yay!
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