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.
Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NaNoWriMo. Show all posts
Sunday, 5 June 2011
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!
Friday, 22 October 2010
key to my world
I've had an unusually stressful day today.
My car has battery problems with have got so bad that I have to jumpstart it everytime I want to use it- which is a bit of a pain- and i have made 4 journeys and on 3 of those I had to jumpstart and now my radio needs to have the key code put in to make it work again. It's gotten so bad that I'm getting a new one on sunday.
I am back to work on tuesday following my accident, so less time for writing unfortunately and this will make nano or the more intense and interesting as i will be doing it on a full time job.
I also saw my friend today who gave birth four months ago, but due to my accident and not being able to drive I hadn't been to see her so it was lovely to catch up with her and her baby is adorable and so well behaved.
I came home this afternoon, to find that the central heating still hadn't kicked in and it was 13 degrees celsius in my living room, and after checking the thermostat programmer called the rental agency. They sent someone out, and he said it was due to the pressure and he just had to push a button internally to fix it and asked for the boiler key. My response- what key? Without the key the boiler could not be opened and my heating could not be fixed. The guy who came out is coming back tomorrow hopefully if he can obtain one, and in the meantime I have been looking for a non-existant key which I think may have been taken by the chap who did our last boiler inspection as he would be the only one who touched it. I certainly had no reason to take apart the boiler. So I am sat here under multiple layers of blankets and bedjackets, my fingers turning to ice, wondering whether I will be cold tonight and would it be worth getting out the hot water bottle.
As for tomorrow, we are having a pre-nano meetup in my town which I would like to attend, however, this will all depend on what time Mr fix-my-boiler turns up and leaves by, as I will have to wait in all day for him until he turns up.
As you can see today has been a day of keys. Keys to boilers, radio keycodes, even the key turning the ignition after using jump leads on the car leading to a power pack. There are many definitions as to what a key is and does but the best one i found was, "something that affords a mean of access". This definition automatically makes me think back to my novelling project on NANOWRIMO, as a novel can give you access to worlds you never dreamed of like in gulliver's travels, alice in wonderland, the wizard of oz etc. but they can also give you the access and means to escape your world whether it be for just a few hours, half an hour, ten minutes or even a few minutes.
Novels give us artistic license to use our imaginations to their full potential,and they are marvellous tools which can influence our dreams and lives. Novels tell us that the impossible is possible,that anyone can be what they want, do what they want, believe what they want, and go where they want to without any fear of judgement.
Novels can change your own world my making you think differently about something, and some novels are a reflection of the real world allowing you to view it through different eyes. If novels are keys then that only leaves one question: Where do you want to go today?
My car has battery problems with have got so bad that I have to jumpstart it everytime I want to use it- which is a bit of a pain- and i have made 4 journeys and on 3 of those I had to jumpstart and now my radio needs to have the key code put in to make it work again. It's gotten so bad that I'm getting a new one on sunday.
I am back to work on tuesday following my accident, so less time for writing unfortunately and this will make nano or the more intense and interesting as i will be doing it on a full time job.
I also saw my friend today who gave birth four months ago, but due to my accident and not being able to drive I hadn't been to see her so it was lovely to catch up with her and her baby is adorable and so well behaved.
I came home this afternoon, to find that the central heating still hadn't kicked in and it was 13 degrees celsius in my living room, and after checking the thermostat programmer called the rental agency. They sent someone out, and he said it was due to the pressure and he just had to push a button internally to fix it and asked for the boiler key. My response- what key? Without the key the boiler could not be opened and my heating could not be fixed. The guy who came out is coming back tomorrow hopefully if he can obtain one, and in the meantime I have been looking for a non-existant key which I think may have been taken by the chap who did our last boiler inspection as he would be the only one who touched it. I certainly had no reason to take apart the boiler. So I am sat here under multiple layers of blankets and bedjackets, my fingers turning to ice, wondering whether I will be cold tonight and would it be worth getting out the hot water bottle.
As for tomorrow, we are having a pre-nano meetup in my town which I would like to attend, however, this will all depend on what time Mr fix-my-boiler turns up and leaves by, as I will have to wait in all day for him until he turns up.
As you can see today has been a day of keys. Keys to boilers, radio keycodes, even the key turning the ignition after using jump leads on the car leading to a power pack. There are many definitions as to what a key is and does but the best one i found was, "something that affords a mean of access". This definition automatically makes me think back to my novelling project on NANOWRIMO, as a novel can give you access to worlds you never dreamed of like in gulliver's travels, alice in wonderland, the wizard of oz etc. but they can also give you the access and means to escape your world whether it be for just a few hours, half an hour, ten minutes or even a few minutes.
Novels give us artistic license to use our imaginations to their full potential,and they are marvellous tools which can influence our dreams and lives. Novels tell us that the impossible is possible,that anyone can be what they want, do what they want, believe what they want, and go where they want to without any fear of judgement.
Novels can change your own world my making you think differently about something, and some novels are a reflection of the real world allowing you to view it through different eyes. If novels are keys then that only leaves one question: Where do you want to go today?
Sunday, 17 October 2010
On Smallpox, Colds and Libraries
If you have seen my twitter feed today you will know that I am feeling a bit under the weather and suffering from a virus. I'll live but this feeling ill has cost me today. (more on this later and please forgive the constant sneezing)
As you may have noticed it's been a couple of days since my last post for which i apologise, but sometimes 24hrs isn't enough hours for one day. Since my last post i attended a further two lectures at the Cheltenham literature festival, one on Jane Austen and one on fairytales, and both of these were excellently delivered and very enjoyable. I had hoped to go to a further talk on saturday on (Atchoo!) Catherine of Aragon, however when i went to purchase a ticket on thursday it had unfortunately sold out. I was very disappointed at this but what can you do...
On the bright side, Stephen Fry was the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Friday and whilst I could not justify spending the money to see him talk, i did see him signing books in the waterstones bookcase after the talk, so yay!
On Friday and Saturday I did not write anything further on the novel, however on saturday I managed to borrow a very important book for the research for my novel. My MC and her family are going to get smallpox and for some of them it will be... Gasp!...Fatal!!!! Anyway I obviously needed to readup on Smallpox in 18th Century, i knew quite a bit about the discovery of the vaccination as the guy who discovered it (named Edward Jenner) lived in Berkeley, Gloucestershire not far from where I live and have grown up from, and all kids from gloucestershire automatically get the smallpox lessons at some point (usually primary school). Whilst I knew all about Edward Jenner and how the cure was discovered I knew little about the illness itself other than it was often fatal especially in kids, and Queen Elizabeth I suffered from it. I wanted to find out a bit more what it was like to live with it but really struggled to find anything on this, other than passing references to someone with it, the stats or the aftermath or a lecture on Edward Jenner - YES I KNOW WHO HE IS FOR THE TENTH TIME!!! Sorry you have to forgive me I'm ill don't you know...
I found this book in the gloucestershire library catalogue called princes and peasants smallpox in history, but couldn't work out which of the libraries in Glos actually had it. I also tried to reserve it but with no luck. So i popped down to my local smaller library which is 5mins walk from here and has novels but not much else and i asked them about it. They told me its at Gloucester, they ring up Gloucester Library and are told its in 'the basement' do i really want it. Well duh? why else would i ask for it? They promise to check they definitely have it i give them my phone number and make my way home via the co-op for groceries and half an hour later they ring me, so i told them i would pick it up in an hour. As i was making a special journey to the main library I thought i would check their catalogue for some other books i wanted, and then turned up with a list but could not find a single one. I can find 3 books on Georgian History thats it for well over 100 years of history yet the victorians get two shelves not fair! I give the list to the library woman- not a nice lady and a bit rude who tells me these are in the basement do i want them? (I got fed up of people saying this to me) Yes i do. She asks me if i want other similar books if she finds them, and i'm like yea ok. 15mins later she comes back with one book off the list one on 18th century art a couple of others which aren't really relevant but are on the georgians and one on the French revolution! (These people are supposed to be experts with books!)
I gave up picked up a book on samuel peyps, the smallpox one and one or two others and make my way home by bus and it tips it down with rain.
I went to bed last night with a sore throat and having done no chapters, my throat got worse last night affecting my sleep and today i have gradually worsened with the temp and drippy nose that comes with a cold. Having spent the day in bed I started word on the chapter mentioned in previous post, but reading it back its pretty terrible and desparately needs a re-write asap. I copied the marriage ceremony text out of a book from "dearly beloved" to "I now pronounce you man and wife" just to get the word count, and then i wrote the consummation of the marriage which isn't too bad i suppose but isn't too great.
In conclusion, today was a waste of time, i should have stayed in bed - i'll rephrase that I should have stayed in bed and not written my chapter.
I'm going to sneeze so I will leave you all in peace now and stop babbling on about nothing, which i am prone to do when ill. Hopefully will be better tomorrow, to sort out that chapter, (Too late Achoo! Achoo!) and am going to spend the rest of the night on the Nanoforums.
Nighty Night x
As you may have noticed it's been a couple of days since my last post for which i apologise, but sometimes 24hrs isn't enough hours for one day. Since my last post i attended a further two lectures at the Cheltenham literature festival, one on Jane Austen and one on fairytales, and both of these were excellently delivered and very enjoyable. I had hoped to go to a further talk on saturday on (Atchoo!) Catherine of Aragon, however when i went to purchase a ticket on thursday it had unfortunately sold out. I was very disappointed at this but what can you do...
On the bright side, Stephen Fry was the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Friday and whilst I could not justify spending the money to see him talk, i did see him signing books in the waterstones bookcase after the talk, so yay!
On Friday and Saturday I did not write anything further on the novel, however on saturday I managed to borrow a very important book for the research for my novel. My MC and her family are going to get smallpox and for some of them it will be... Gasp!...Fatal!!!! Anyway I obviously needed to readup on Smallpox in 18th Century, i knew quite a bit about the discovery of the vaccination as the guy who discovered it (named Edward Jenner) lived in Berkeley, Gloucestershire not far from where I live and have grown up from, and all kids from gloucestershire automatically get the smallpox lessons at some point (usually primary school). Whilst I knew all about Edward Jenner and how the cure was discovered I knew little about the illness itself other than it was often fatal especially in kids, and Queen Elizabeth I suffered from it. I wanted to find out a bit more what it was like to live with it but really struggled to find anything on this, other than passing references to someone with it, the stats or the aftermath or a lecture on Edward Jenner - YES I KNOW WHO HE IS FOR THE TENTH TIME!!! Sorry you have to forgive me I'm ill don't you know...
I found this book in the gloucestershire library catalogue called princes and peasants smallpox in history, but couldn't work out which of the libraries in Glos actually had it. I also tried to reserve it but with no luck. So i popped down to my local smaller library which is 5mins walk from here and has novels but not much else and i asked them about it. They told me its at Gloucester, they ring up Gloucester Library and are told its in 'the basement' do i really want it. Well duh? why else would i ask for it? They promise to check they definitely have it i give them my phone number and make my way home via the co-op for groceries and half an hour later they ring me, so i told them i would pick it up in an hour. As i was making a special journey to the main library I thought i would check their catalogue for some other books i wanted, and then turned up with a list but could not find a single one. I can find 3 books on Georgian History thats it for well over 100 years of history yet the victorians get two shelves not fair! I give the list to the library woman- not a nice lady and a bit rude who tells me these are in the basement do i want them? (I got fed up of people saying this to me) Yes i do. She asks me if i want other similar books if she finds them, and i'm like yea ok. 15mins later she comes back with one book off the list one on 18th century art a couple of others which aren't really relevant but are on the georgians and one on the French revolution! (These people are supposed to be experts with books!)
I gave up picked up a book on samuel peyps, the smallpox one and one or two others and make my way home by bus and it tips it down with rain.
I went to bed last night with a sore throat and having done no chapters, my throat got worse last night affecting my sleep and today i have gradually worsened with the temp and drippy nose that comes with a cold. Having spent the day in bed I started word on the chapter mentioned in previous post, but reading it back its pretty terrible and desparately needs a re-write asap. I copied the marriage ceremony text out of a book from "dearly beloved" to "I now pronounce you man and wife" just to get the word count, and then i wrote the consummation of the marriage which isn't too bad i suppose but isn't too great.
In conclusion, today was a waste of time, i should have stayed in bed - i'll rephrase that I should have stayed in bed and not written my chapter.
I'm going to sneeze so I will leave you all in peace now and stop babbling on about nothing, which i am prone to do when ill. Hopefully will be better tomorrow, to sort out that chapter, (Too late Achoo! Achoo!) and am going to spend the rest of the night on the Nanoforums.
Nighty Night x
Sunday, 10 October 2010
When one chapter becomes two
So i planned my novel first by doing a full synopsis and then did a chapter by chapter outline detailing what was going to happen in each chapter. In my original chapter outline I had approximately 23 chapters that was until a minor change in the plot at the beginning which resulted in chapters 3 and 4 being about something different so 2 more chapters were added. result 25 chapters. Then chap 5 also under went some alterations and needed another chapter so i was upto 26 chapters until i came to write chapter 6 did my detailed chapter outline and realised it was too long and too much happens so now i've split the events over two chapters and i'm upto 27 chapters.
I am happier with the novel being as it is now. in the scheme of things nothing major has changed, I just wanted to show more character development and had some better ideas. It does however mean i have more work to do and also the word count has gone up dramatically.
The first draft of chapter 6 done means chapter 7 is the next thing i have to do. Events in chapter 7 are slightly Austenish but then reading her novels this year have greatly inspired my own and allowed me to pick up a pen and write after suffering from writers block for longer than I care to remember. chapter 7 is going to be exciting with declarations of love, a proposal and the consequences of the proposal which truly set the novel in motion and its definitely going to be more fun than it was writing chapter 6 (I spent ages looking for an 18th century song which would have been in existence at the right time and was in English).
Anyway I'm knackered which is why this post probably reads a bit weird so im off to chat on the Nano forums and nibble poppadoms dipped in mango chutney Yum- don't judge me!
I am happier with the novel being as it is now. in the scheme of things nothing major has changed, I just wanted to show more character development and had some better ideas. It does however mean i have more work to do and also the word count has gone up dramatically.
The first draft of chapter 6 done means chapter 7 is the next thing i have to do. Events in chapter 7 are slightly Austenish but then reading her novels this year have greatly inspired my own and allowed me to pick up a pen and write after suffering from writers block for longer than I care to remember. chapter 7 is going to be exciting with declarations of love, a proposal and the consequences of the proposal which truly set the novel in motion and its definitely going to be more fun than it was writing chapter 6 (I spent ages looking for an 18th century song which would have been in existence at the right time and was in English).
Anyway I'm knackered which is why this post probably reads a bit weird so im off to chat on the Nano forums and nibble poppadoms dipped in mango chutney Yum- don't judge me!
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Lets start at the very beginning... A very good place to start
You're probably wondering what the above quote from the sound of music is doing here. Well I worked on my prologue yesterday, which of course comes write at the beginning - (ed. lol i meant right at the beginning). I had had a really good idea for it and had been looking forward to writing it but it turned out to be much more difficult than I expected.
So what was the problem? Well I knew where the MC was, I knew what she was doing and i knew what was going to happen to her. my problem was that my reader knew none of these things. they didn't know who she was, they don't even know her name at this point so why would anyone care about her? And if they didn't care why would anyone read on?
As usual once i got going I was ok and i came up with what i thought was quite a dramatic opening, well at least i think so. The prologue starts at the end of the story and something is about to happen to the character which is very unexpected, and something you would not normally find at the beginning of a story - the end.
What makes it all the more dramatic is the mc knows what is about to happen but the audience doesnt know and they don't find out until the last lines of the prologue.
My goal here was to shock my reader to make them want to read on to find out how the character got to this point in the first place. If it was a murder mystery it would be a why dunnit and how dunnit rather than a who dunnit. I wanted them to react to my writing with words to the effect of OMG!
So how did I do it?
I set my scene and did it as simply as possible not wishing to dwell too much on long descriptions. Long descriptions can come later in the novel for now the basics were enough as vagueness can also work in your favour allowing the reader more artistic licence and free to imagine what they wish based around the simple start you give them. After setting the scene I had the mc do an action- she walked down some stairs- again giving only a minimum description of the environment. The other reason for this is I don't want people to necessarily know at this point where my character is. I then had my MC reach her destination and sit down as requested now i was able to give some more detail but only on what my mc was thinking and i used her thoughts to open up the picture more and more until you realise what is going on.
It's a bit like doing a jigsaw in which you don't know what you're making, in that you gradually build up the picture piece by piece until it's finished and then you've got the full picture.
All writers do things differently and others may not agree with the way I have done my prologue and may have other ways of doing it, what do you think? I can post the prologue here if anyone would like to read it- if you'd like to see or comment on anything please feel free to use the below comments facility.
So what was the problem? Well I knew where the MC was, I knew what she was doing and i knew what was going to happen to her. my problem was that my reader knew none of these things. they didn't know who she was, they don't even know her name at this point so why would anyone care about her? And if they didn't care why would anyone read on?
As usual once i got going I was ok and i came up with what i thought was quite a dramatic opening, well at least i think so. The prologue starts at the end of the story and something is about to happen to the character which is very unexpected, and something you would not normally find at the beginning of a story - the end.
What makes it all the more dramatic is the mc knows what is about to happen but the audience doesnt know and they don't find out until the last lines of the prologue.
My goal here was to shock my reader to make them want to read on to find out how the character got to this point in the first place. If it was a murder mystery it would be a why dunnit and how dunnit rather than a who dunnit. I wanted them to react to my writing with words to the effect of OMG!
So how did I do it?
I set my scene and did it as simply as possible not wishing to dwell too much on long descriptions. Long descriptions can come later in the novel for now the basics were enough as vagueness can also work in your favour allowing the reader more artistic licence and free to imagine what they wish based around the simple start you give them. After setting the scene I had the mc do an action- she walked down some stairs- again giving only a minimum description of the environment. The other reason for this is I don't want people to necessarily know at this point where my character is. I then had my MC reach her destination and sit down as requested now i was able to give some more detail but only on what my mc was thinking and i used her thoughts to open up the picture more and more until you realise what is going on.
It's a bit like doing a jigsaw in which you don't know what you're making, in that you gradually build up the picture piece by piece until it's finished and then you've got the full picture.
All writers do things differently and others may not agree with the way I have done my prologue and may have other ways of doing it, what do you think? I can post the prologue here if anyone would like to read it- if you'd like to see or comment on anything please feel free to use the below comments facility.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Spotlight on.... Opening lines
It's been four long days since my last post but what have i been upto? Well I have another chapter drafted and ready for editing, chapter 5 is complete and it was one of the most difficult chapters so far. Why was this you might ask? Well I knew what i wanted to write and I knew how i wanted to write it, but i just could not get going. My best chapters which flow straight from brain to fingers to laptop are the ones which have an excellent opening line. As long as I have a good opening line i have very few problems in writing as everything else just comes to me.
But how do you write a good opening line?
If i knew the answer to that question I don't think I would have had problems coming up with one. Most of the opening lines I have written for my chapters so far have varied depending on what's in the scene. The prologue (once written) will be a quote from the character on perceptions of truth, Chapter 1 sets the scene with an landscape description, chapter 2 depicts the change in time, chapter 3 is what my character can hear, chapter 4 is the weather and chapter 5 was my characters emotions.
So I have: Weather, landscape description, thoughts, feelings, and the senses, all forming the main basis of my opening lines.
From other novels I have read I have also come across opening lines which are quotes and dialogue. I do intend to do some dialogue opening scenes later but I find those type of openings dramatic and believe they should be used sparingly where they can be truly effective.
I have recently joined the NaNoWriMo community and am enjoying the conversations that take place in the forums. I expect these to really help inspire me not only with my novel but also with this blog for post ideas.
For those of my readers who are not familliar with NaNoWriMo, this is a novel writing challenge due to start on 1st November. The aim of the game is to write 50k words during the month of November. Now whilst it is true that i have already started my novel (5 chapters down another 20 or so to go), I am expecting it to be well over the 75k mark, and by setting myself the target of 50k for november that will really motivate me to get the novel hopefully finished by the end of november.
So wish me luck.... and for any of the NaNoWriMo Community who are reading this Good Luck to you too x
But how do you write a good opening line?
If i knew the answer to that question I don't think I would have had problems coming up with one. Most of the opening lines I have written for my chapters so far have varied depending on what's in the scene. The prologue (once written) will be a quote from the character on perceptions of truth, Chapter 1 sets the scene with an landscape description, chapter 2 depicts the change in time, chapter 3 is what my character can hear, chapter 4 is the weather and chapter 5 was my characters emotions.
So I have: Weather, landscape description, thoughts, feelings, and the senses, all forming the main basis of my opening lines.
From other novels I have read I have also come across opening lines which are quotes and dialogue. I do intend to do some dialogue opening scenes later but I find those type of openings dramatic and believe they should be used sparingly where they can be truly effective.
I have recently joined the NaNoWriMo community and am enjoying the conversations that take place in the forums. I expect these to really help inspire me not only with my novel but also with this blog for post ideas.
For those of my readers who are not familliar with NaNoWriMo, this is a novel writing challenge due to start on 1st November. The aim of the game is to write 50k words during the month of November. Now whilst it is true that i have already started my novel (5 chapters down another 20 or so to go), I am expecting it to be well over the 75k mark, and by setting myself the target of 50k for november that will really motivate me to get the novel hopefully finished by the end of november.
So wish me luck.... and for any of the NaNoWriMo Community who are reading this Good Luck to you too x
Apology
Dear Readers,
You may have noticed my recent absence from my blog for the last 4 days. I would like to apologise for this but I have been exceptionally busy as we had a house inspection (we live in rented accomodation) and so most of my free time has been spent on cleaning as to put it bluntly my house was a pigsty. We had the inspection yesterday so now i have time to focus on my blog.
I can also offer another excuse as I have recently discovered NaNoWriMo and have become addicted to the forums on there lol, and seem to spend most of my time reading and posting on there.
I promise you in future to spend a little of each day keeping my blog updated and if i am not able will in future provide a much better excuse.
Again I wish to offer my sincere apologies to you all.
Yours truthfully and Respectfully
Thistle xxx
You may have noticed my recent absence from my blog for the last 4 days. I would like to apologise for this but I have been exceptionally busy as we had a house inspection (we live in rented accomodation) and so most of my free time has been spent on cleaning as to put it bluntly my house was a pigsty. We had the inspection yesterday so now i have time to focus on my blog.
I can also offer another excuse as I have recently discovered NaNoWriMo and have become addicted to the forums on there lol, and seem to spend most of my time reading and posting on there.
I promise you in future to spend a little of each day keeping my blog updated and if i am not able will in future provide a much better excuse.
Again I wish to offer my sincere apologies to you all.
Yours truthfully and Respectfully
Thistle xxx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)