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?

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!

You're only as good as you think you are

Well it's been a very busy couple of days for me, what with trips to ikea in Bristol for bookcases, new car batteries and then back to work today. I've got to tell you that I'm a bit knackered.

I had planned this weekend to go to a pre-Nano meet up but I ended up waiting in all day for a plumber... who then didn't turn up, so I didn't go. I should have instead spent the day working on chapter 12 whilst waiting for him to arrive, but I didn't.

It's strange as I had been looking forward to writing this particular chapter since I started writing the novel's first chapter, but I found it difficult to sit down and write it, not so much due to time constraints, but due to the excuses I kept coming up with not to write it. Finally, I forced myself to start, and tonight prior to this post I have written 2000 words or so, and I think I know why I had such trouble just getting on with it.

Chapter 12 is a very important part of the whole book and features some hugely key scenes and the deaths of some characters and these deaths are pivotal in my novel as they set my MC on her path of destiny so to speak. When I planned the novel in my head, I imagined that it would be a great thing to write, words would come easily to me and it would show off my writing talent to it's full potential. I thought that when I read it back I would go 'Wow, that's amazing! I wrote that'.

So what was the problem?

I had put so much pressure on myself to make this an excellent chapter and planned things so well that when it came to writing it I was scared. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do such great ideas (which I think they are) justice and then this would affect the tone of the whole book and in effect demotivate me and ruin the novel. So I procrastinated and thought negative thoughts and this reinforced my negativity towards the chapter to the extent that I was dreading writing it. In the end my only solution to the problem was to 'just write', and so laptop in hand and opening line ready I just...wrote. It has been the hardest chapter I have had to write so far in terms of just doing it and it is the only one I have not completed in one go when I had the opportunity (I did one chapter the other day in 2 sittings because I had to go out).

So what happens next?

I know that it will be a few days now until my next chapter (and next post too), now that I am working and also I won't have time tomorrow due to shift patterns at work, dance class after work and just generally lack of free time, so I am targeting myself to finish the chapter by the end of the week, and then I will go from there. I may post less often this week for the same reason so apologies in advance for this.

On another note Nano starts in less than a week - yay!- and I am faced with a dilemma- do I carry on with this novel which is planned out and has approx 55k to go or alternatively I have been flooded with ideas for another novel- but this one fantasy- which randomly came to me when I went shopping. Problem with novel Idea 2 is that lots of planning is needed and I don't have time, so I'm going to think on it and decide what I'm going to do. Any suggestions would be welcome.

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!

Here we go!!!

Day 1 Blog 1

I have finally typed up chapter 2 of my novel. It's been a work in progress for well over a week but finally i have 3000 black words on white paper. so thats a total of 6000 down 69,000 to go. I have also bought some books today of which Amanda Vickery is the author to help with my research into the time period of which my novel is set which is the 17th-18th centurys. These books are: 'The Gentleman's Daughter' and 'Behind Closed Doors' and they will make a welcome addition to my two existing books 'The English Marriage' and 'The prospect before her', can't remember the authors so will look up and post in my next post tomorrow.

Next up of course i have to think about chapter 3, its kind of in my head already, i know roughly what i want to happen so i just need to set about writing it. My personal system is to have all my notes on my pc, on onenote and i have a page of notes for each character as well as my synopsis and my chapter by chapter outline. I then write my first draft by hand in a notebook then type this up as a second draft adding and editing where necessary. The first handwritten draft is the most difficult which is why i do it by hand- i have no internet distractions then such as email, gaming, blah de blah blah blah...

Hopefully i can keep up this blog to keep myself motivated to write and one day (fingers crossed) get this published and so on and also deter from writers block.