This Year, Remember....

The creative process is a process of surrender not control.
Look towards the pleasure of success rather than the fear of failure.
Life is too short not to realise your dreams.
Talking about pumpkins doesn’t make them grow.

My New Years Resolution is to:
Schedule time for writing. Plan my other life around my writing.
Clear my life of things that stop me writing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Maybe.....

.......we don't go to hell for the things we do, maybe we go to hell for the things we don't do.
http://www.chuckpalahniuk.com/quotes.php

Only one type of book....

There is only one type of book that comes with the guarantee of never getting published and that’s the one that isn’t finished. Mo Hayder (Writing Magazine: January 2008)

That's the plan...

Christmas will soon be here and then swiftly from nowhere the New Year will be upon us. I intend to have a strategic plan of action prepared to take me into the Writing New Year....

As well as the January edition of Writing Magazine, I have been reading a number of Self Help books. Do they have any relevance to writing? Well, I came across this little poem:

If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t
It’s almost certain you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost
For out of the world we find
Success begins with a fellow’s will –
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you’re outclassed, you are
You’ve got to think high to rise
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can.

Excuse Me....

.....but it's Christmas. Writing has (unfortunately) been placed second to the seasonal commitments I seem to have become involved in. People assume that because you aren't 'working' in the paid employment kind of way, that you have nothing to do. Its my own fault for not have a specific routine as yet, but I have been to a school fair; selling raffle tickets (chaos), a nativity play (blink and you'll miss your child!), and an assortment of Christmas parties where you are expected to part with your cash!! Coming up, we have our annual 'scout' party, the Lincoln Santa Fun Run (I am attending as supporter of partner), the family carol evening, not to mention Christingle and more carols...

And did I mention the cat has been ill (two nights in the Park View Hilton) and my brother gets married in a weeks time?? My mind is too full of organising, planning and spending money!!

On the plus (writing) side, the January edition of Writing Magazine and Writers News kept me busy for a number of days and I did attend my Poison Pens group on Saturday. This was a mixture of highs and lows. I was glad to see everyone and hear what they had all been up to. There had also been a discussion as to whether the group would continue in the new year. I am pleased to say that it was decided it will. Phew! I really like the other members of the group as they are all committed to their writing, and attending the meeting always boosts my determination to get down to writing when I return home.

The downside however, was that I read out the beginning of the novel I started during NaNoWrite. I came away confused as I seemed to get three different perspectives on what I had written. I think this highlights my own confusion with the story, and I certainly need to do more work on the plot. The piece I read out is written in the first person and I had intended to write the whole novel in the first person of three people; each taking over when one finishes their piece; thereby having three sections to the novel. (understand?) It was suggested that this might be too much and I should mix the three up. It was also suggested that I needed dialogue in the narrative. Help!! Too many ideas! I need to go away and really think about what was said. Hopefully, when we meet again in January I will have more structure to the plot and the characters. That's the plan at least!!

Email from NaNoWriMonth

We had 15,333 folks cross the finish line this year, which was a new record for us. Way to go, champions of 2007! And now a word to those of you who didn't win. If you missed the 50K goal, you might be feeling a little disappointed. Or embarrassed. Maybe you're just reading this to help dig that guilt-knife a little deeper into your spleen. Yet another project where you started out strong and came up short, right?

Wrong. If you signed up for the challenge and wrote 5,000 words, you did great. Successfully pulling off anything creative given our ridiculously high standards and congenitally overscheduled lives is a miracle, and sometimes that battle just can't be won in a single month. Even 1000 words is an achievement, and more fiction than mos t people write in their entire lifetimes. So keep writing. Next year, we'll be doing it all over again. The great thing about noveling is that you learn something invaluable every time you do it.

To live a creative life,

we must lose our fear of being wrong. Joseph Chilton Pearce.

This quote came from The Artists Way by Julia Cameron; which I read instead of writing this week....but the book certainly had a lot to say, such as; we squander our own creative energies by investing disproportionately in the lives, hopes, dreams and plans of others. Their lives have obscured and detoured our own.

The two main aids to creativeness Julia encourages are 'Morning Pages' and 'Artist Dates'. I have heard about morning pages before (Julia suggests doing 3 each morning) but I have always been a bit sceptical of their worth. I suppose I am concerned about the time they take and what I could be doing instead!! She says the stuff you write, is the stuff that stands between you and your creativity. I think I shall stick to my blog.... Artist Dates are time with yourself in the pursuit of creativity; whether going to a gallery, walking in the park. It should be a self-nourishing activity.

She also discusses the issue of control (something I am forever in pursuit of!) and her comment is; The creative process is a process of surrender, not control! Creativity requires faith, and faith requires we relinquish control! Leap and the net will appear!! Look for synchronicity in everything we do!!

My Stars...

...for last week said: Don't try to do everything this week when you have the chance to do one thing well. Saturn warns that if you spread yourself too thinly you risk ending up doing nothing properly. You know your strengths and you know your priorities. Now decide how best to combine them. That about sums it up!!

Excuses, Excuses...

I know I said 'No Excuses' but I think I just went and burnt myself out!! The NaNoWriters challenge is over and I fell short by 30,000 words!! But I am not going to beat myself up (much) about it as I started a novel and managed to prove to myself that sitting down and writing something can be quite easy. I just need to remember not to overdo it as it can be quite exhausting!! I do intend to finish the novel and it would be nice if I could carry on as before until the end of December, but I am sure Christmas and all the things that go with it, will have something to say about that!!

I think the main areas I need to focus on at the moment are:
Forget Should and Ought. Just think 'I would like to...'
Concentrate on my self worth and not my achievement.
Express my needs. Remove distractions. Eliminate Negatives. Don't let your friends squander your time. Clear your life of things that stop you writing.
Set lower and more realistic standards.
Prioritise. Don't overload my timetable!
Take time out to exercise and relax.
Look towards the pleasure of success rather than the fear of failure.
Schedule time for writing and plan your life around this time.

And this should lead to a very Merry Christmas!!??

I was doing so well....

It's a week later and I am ashamed to say I have not moved any further on with the novel. Consequently I am about 20,000 words behind!! What happened? Life!! It all started off so well!!

Neil Gaiman has sent us participants a small pep talk in which he says the feeling of wanting to give up is quite common. That's how novels get written, he says. You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I need to go off now and find a word or two...

How much factual information should you put in?

Today I have reached the grand total of 18,377 words. I need another 10,000 by Saturday night to be on track for 50,000 by the end of November!!

Stopped today to think about places and where my characters are going - literally. My question to you (and I have sent it to a number of writing friends) is:
I have been told not to give names to characters who aren’t important as people think they are important if given a name. What about places? In my novel I have a woman who leaves the home she shares with her husband and goes back to her place of birth. This is the village that is important and so I have named it (it does exist!). However, do I need to give the place she has come from a name? I see it as a big city but I have not described it other than her living in a new house on a housing estate. How much detail is needed? Ta

I would never write about someone who is not at the end of his rope. Stanley Elkin

Piece in last Saturdays Times (3rd November 2007) by David Baddiel I suspect…one of the reasons that Dumbledore’s sexuality is not in the books is that it may not have been present to Rowling when she was first writing him. Because most writers do not write with everything all sorted out beforehand. For most authors, writing is an organic process, where they improvise around some basic ideas that eventually coalesce (unite) into a story, like a shape emerging from the fog. Characters, once interacting with others within this process, grow and develop in unexpected ways, and sometimes it’s only at the end of it all – the point where Rowling is now, of course – that the author realizes exactly who they are.

This is something I am beginning to realise. Once you start, the characters themselves take over. An article by Noah T.Lukeman at: http://www.writersstore.com/article.php?articles_id=148 states; Many writers mistake the outer life of a character for the inner life and assume that by offering a physical description and a few surface details they have created a character. A writer’s job is to move beyond your characters physical traits and deep into the depths of who they are. You have the depths of your characters psyche before you and it is your job to plumb them. Authentic characters will have such a rich life of their known that you’ll often find them thwarting your plans; once they are real, living people, they act like real, living people: whimsically and unpredictably. This might mean throwing out much of your original plotting.

I can see my characters and I am living their lives. I just hope to don't have to commit murder for them...

Double Figures!!

Total Word Count stands at: 11,404
That's about 3000 words today; which isn't bad with the interruptions.
I decided to monitor what I did with my time today and this is what happened:
8.30am Out of bed, breakfast, general jobs, check email, blog
9.45am Writing
9.55am (honest!) Mum rings - have I got 5 mins?
10.55am (an hour later!) Writing
11.35am Cat wants feeding, read and recycled weekend papers, dealt with post
12.25pm Lunch, emails, text messages
1.10pm Writing
2.45pm Other half home, catch up
3.25pm Afternoon nap
5.00pm Tea, Computer, emails, blog
Total Writing Time = 2hours and 20minutes.
Off to the gym now to celebrate the double figures!!

Monday Morning....

I need to write quite a bit today and tomorrow in order to catch up.....Trying to get motivated...

Sue Grafton has sent us all an email via NaNoWriMo and she has this to say: For reasons absolutely unknown to Science, many writers begin their novels with a burst of enthusiasm. There's a measurable outpouring of time and energy........This hype, this glorious feeling of Omnipotence sometimes continues unabated until Chapter Two. A little note of doubt may creep into your consciousness. This, I assure you, is not about the merit of the work you've done so far. It's an artifact of your own insecurities. You're probably beginning to wonder what your mother will think of those steamy sexual passages. Perhaps you're suddenly uncertain your immediate family will appreciate your rendition of their annual drunken Christmas antics that result in all those accusations, renunciations, and slamming of doors. You might suspect that your mate might take a dim view of what's visible through the little window you've opened onto your soul.

This is my advice. Disregard the nagging voice piping up from the back of your brain. You aren't stupid. You won't fail. You won't humiliate yourself (that much) in front of all your family and friends. The important point is to keep up your momentum regardless of the fact that you might stumble now and then. Most people you know have never written a novel at all, let alone pounded one out in a jam-packed thirty days. Look at it this way; you're not compelled to show your manuscript to anyone, right? In fact, I'd advise you do the opposite. Keep it under lock and key. Guard it with your life. This is your opportunity to express yourself, safe from the opinions of the dolts around you, who don't know bad literature from good.

Literary quality is in the eye of the beholder and who's to say your novel won't be right up there among the greats? All you have to do is work. All you have to do is push. Focus on the job at hand. Ignore the urge to second-guess yourself. This is not the time for introspection; it's a time for charging on. Believe in yourself. Be determined to keep the promises you made when you first began. Your commitment to do this will see you through, even over rough ground.

So. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and write. You said you would do this so nod your head and say, "I will do this. I will do this. I will do this." And then do this.

So, I am off now to DO IT!!

Interview with a P.I.

What did I learn?

• If someone disappears, think about how much (if any) planning went into it? What precautions were made to prevent detection?
• Investigate those around the missing person – who did they go off with? Did they take as many precautions?
• People will always have a history somewhere – what were they doing 5 years ago?
• Investigations are simply about collecting information; drip, drip, drip, and then fitting the pieces together.
• All investigations go through high and low stages. You think you have found someone and then nothing! Most investigations will reach a dead end at some stage. Stories don’t go in a straight line….
• Often it is the long shots that produce a result!
• The most information comes from simply talking to people. The use of the Internet comes a close second. A P.I. has to be able to gain peoples confidence and trust. People like to gossip. What do people say when they let their guard down?
• Information can easily be elicited from people who don’t realize they are being questioned. How much information do you give away to strangers?
• Perhaps easier to find someone in a rural area rather than a city because of this.
• Knock on doors, knock on neighbours doors, ask about old school friends. Think about reasons to keep in touch. Whom did they confide in?
• Sites such as Friends Reunited, Facebook can provide interesting details.
• The Data Protection Act prevents access to personal records i.e. bank, health, police etc.
• Not everyone is on the Electoral Roll.
• Buy a shredder; preferably a cross cut one!!

What a Day!!

No, I haven't broken the double figures mark yet, but I have completed my first 'interview' for writing research. I recently sent an email to my writing buddies asking for any help re: missing persons i.e. how to find them. For reasons of National Security I shall not be naming names, but I was lucky enough to meet up with a real-life Private Investigator yesterday. As the person who set up this little meeting was also an ex-police officer with a wide range of experience, the couple of hours I spent with them yesterday was invaluable. Only drawback now is that my head is spinning with so many ideas as to where to take my story....and then there was a power cut last night just as I sat down at my laptop!!

Why, when you sit down to what you hope will be a nice 3000 words, does the phone not stop ringing?

Tuesdays Target was 9996 words.
Actual amount written in 3 hours (with 4 interuptions) was 7366 words.
But I also did some preparation for Wednesday mornings interview…

Bonfire Party 2007

Sunday morning I was up early and off to the shops to get some extra stuff for our little party Sunday evening. Came back and was all alone, the shopping had been done, the house was ready for the party, and so I sat down and started to plan out a plot structure and the order of events in the novel. And then it happened. I simply dived in and just went for it!!

All the preparation and planning, that I had been panicking about not doing, actually went out of the window, and I simply began to write. Ideas came to me as I typed (still with a sore finger) and I just went with them.

All this time I think I had been waiting for someone to push me in.
Perhaps I was scared of starting the challenge; of starting something so large, scared of writing something terrible, scared of what others might think. But I have told so many people; in the flesh, via my blog and FaceBook, it will be embarassing if I don’t complete the challenge.
But I have started now and I don’t intend to stop until have reached the magic 50,000.

OK, so I did not complete the necessary 6664 word count for Sunday evening, but it is a start. I actually wrote 2088words between 12 noon and 3.30pm (3 and a half hours = 2000 words). This consisted of 2 full pages. I only stopped when my guests began to arrive…

Bring it on!!

PS The party was Fab!! We didn't invite as many as last year, but I am a firm believer in Quality Not Quantity.....(and that will probably be my major stumbling block with the NaNoWrite Challenge!)

The Real Sin....

Finally, for tonight, something for me to focus on in the morning (when my finger feels more like typing) There is nothing wrong with failure. The real sin is not trying…

Vivid Verbs

Think about the effect you want to have on your reader. You create a mood by what you focus on i.e. dead flower heads in the killer’s garden. Strong vivid verbs are a must i.e. crack, straddle, slice, discard, shoots etc.

Show characters experiencing the external world and use specific examples. Instead of ‘it was very windy’, the information will be more vivid if you have the wind blow a leaf into a characters face. Not ‘He was fat’ but The mans shirt stretched across his belly. She could see the folds of his stomach. This is implicit. There is a picture here, an image.

Avoid passive verbs and tenses; was, got, make, went, were, is, are, am etc. He watched is more forceful than ‘he was watching’. He frowned is better than ‘he looked annoyed’. The dog barked is direct. Take out any ‘there was’ and ‘there are’. Adverbs (ly) can be made redundant if the verb chosen is accurate and powerful ‘she stopped suddenly’. Without the adverb the sentence is more abrupt she stopped. Don’t start sentences with as, then, just then, because. These tell rather than show!

Say Corgi not dog, Crocus not flower. Don’t allow this, that, these and those to stand alone. Check for quantifiers – words like often, very, some, many – replace these with something more accurate. Also replace ‘as if’ and ‘seemed’.

Show don’t tell - Hints and Tips

Remember the golden rule of Show Don't Tell. The best way to demonstrate this is to show you: Instead of ‘she was a tomboy’, how about; she was the only girl who always had a sticking plaster on her knees.

Or how about when describing emotions; That night, lying in her damp sheets, she listened to her heart. Across the room his face stared out of the photograph that seemed already to be yellowing. She stared into the dark, imaging she could see dust gathering on the frame. He was gone.

Use strong, accessible, specific images to invite your readers into the characters world. Experience what the character experiences: He watched the last red strand of sky fade to dark. “That’s that,” his mother said. Then his heart broke.

Phrases like ‘Henry was overcome with grief’ cannot by themselves tell the tale. You need the characters bodies; arms, eyelids, knees, to fully convey to the readers that the character is a human being who is suffering or savouring or fleeing or fuming. Good fiction is about human interaction, and human interaction takes place in the realm of emotion. Let your characters hearts break, let their laughter ripple, let their shame consume them.

Bonfire Night

Hope everyone is having a fantastic night! I am at home looking after a scaredy cat who does not like the loud noises. The other half is playing a gig (www.7dw.co.uk/) in Birmingham with an audience of celebrities (members of James Blunt's band).

The challenge tonight was to get on top of the Novel Writing Challenge but what has happened? Not a lot!! Firstly, I am trying to type and no word of a lie it is very painful, as I have snagged my nail and the side of my finger is red raw. Having a plaster on only seems to make matters worse but not having it onI keep catching it on stuff! The plan was to have written 6664 words by tomorrow but I can’t see it happening…. I know, 'whatever happened to No Excuse?'

The Angst of Hero Naming

The tale of a hero beyond compare,
With flashing eyes and perfect hair.
Flawless words flowed from my head --
Until I reached that first damned said.
Now the true strife begins at last
As floundering in a sea of names, I'm cast.
Rosebud and Cloud are far too cute,
And he's no Bob, beyond dispute
Corwin? Hilton? Lane or Bard?
Naming a kid couldn't be half this hard!
A couple dozen names go by,
(My hero gives me the evil eye)
I search the shelves for baby name books
(Kept hidden to avoid occasional odd looks)
With frantic haste I start paging through,
No, no --Androcles will never do!
No Mac or Mark or Michael here
Such names are too plain, I fear.
Nicholas has a nice sound it's true --
But I've used it in a book or two.
So to stranger, archaic lists I turn
No he's absolutely not a Vern!
Trying to keep plot lines in my head -
Would what's-her-name take a Loki to bed?
Hours of writing time frittered away
That can't be the dawn of a new day!
I sit and curse that first damned said --
Oh the hell with it! I'll call him Fred.

From: NaNo for the New and the Insane: A guide to surviving NaNoWriMo by Lazette Gifford
http://www.lazette.net/Free%20Stuff/NaNoBook.pdf

November 2nd

It has started then.
Yesterday....
Nothing uploaded from me to the website yet.
Watch this space.......

On November 1

Begin writing. At this point, you'll be able to begin updating your word count on the Author Info tab of the Edit Profile page. You can do this on the honor system by just typing in the number, or you can paste the whole book in and let our robots count it for you. If you paste your book, please scramble it first, using instructions in our FAQ. You can also post an excerpt of your book in the same area of the Edit Profile page.

The turn-out so far has been phenomenal. Between our main program and Young Writers Program, we'll have over 90,000 authors on board by the end of the week, making this officially the largest NaNoWriMo since the event was first adapted from an Andorran mule-wrestling ceremony back in 1999.

Hello fellow NaNoWriters and Good Luck!

NaNoWriMo Starts Tomorrow

Email from NaNoWriMo: The secret of NaNoWriMo is this: There is a door in your brain. The door has been there your whole life. You may not have noticed it before because it blends in with everything else in your brain. So what does this door have to do with your novel? Your job this month is not so much writing a book (which is intimidating) as it is finding that door (which is easy). It's easy because you'll have guides in November who will take you right to it. These guides are also known as your characters. They're kind of an abstract notion now, but you'll meet them in all their glory in Week One of NaNoWriMo. They'll be a strange lot. Insecure warlocks. Stamp-collecting squirrels. Teenage detectives. Whoever shows up, go with them. And go quickly. You may have a general sense of where you're going together; you may not. It doesn’t matter. Just write your allotment of 1667 words (or more) on November 1. Don't edit any of it. Editing is for December. Then come back and write another 1667 words the next day. And the next. And the next.

By Week Two, you'll be at the door. A few words later, you'll be through it. You'll know you're there because the writing will feel different. Less like work, and more like watching a gloriously imperfect movie with cringe-worthy dialogue, heaps of confusing tangents, and moments of brilliance so delightful that you'll want to scream. Once you've stepped through that door into the vast reaches of your imagination, you'll be able to return there as often as you like. It's an enchanted, intoxicating place, and there are other great things besides novels in there.

Title, Theme and Plotting

There’s a little black spot on the sun today
It’s the same old thing as yesterday

So, blurb (just about) cracked and plot ideas coming to me thick and fast, decided I needed a title. Now, I have an idea to start the novel with some lyrics from The Police song King of Pain (album Synchronicity - 1983) so I thought about taking a line from the song as my title. Unfortunately they all seem either too long or complete nonsense when shortened. So, working title at the moment is Black Spot, but it fails dismally to set off any of the Why, What, How? questions a title should. I think I need to define my theme – what does my novel really say?

So how are we going to Plot this novel? I have read, heard and met many authors and none seem to write in the exact same way. Because of the nature of the challenge, I think the best way to write this novel (in a month) is to locate the Starting position, have a Rough Map in my pocket; have some idea of where I am going, and what the Ending should look like…

What a lot of the books and authors do agree on however, is that a Novel should start at a point approaching a crisis. I started to watch a new adaptation of Frankenstein on TV the other night; where the story on the screen started at the moment when the monster is loose and then cuts back to show how the monster got there! That got me gripped for a while, but then the story kind of fell apart.....but they had certainly read the formulae for a Gripping start i.e. Set seeds, introduce characters etc.

I Remember

The initial idea for this novel came from a workshop I did with Rod Duncan http://www.rodduncan.co.uk/ (there's a video on the site somewhere of our group).
One of his exercises involved us 'remembering'.

I wrote at the time: I remember the first time I saw him it wasn’t the tattoos I saw but his piercing blue eyes. I remember the smell as we walked into the house for the first time. I remember when Michael disappeared from the back seat of the car. I remember the large field and the trampled corn behind the house on the ridge. I remember the pool so blue and so still in the early morning before anyone else had woken up. I remember wearing a white blouse with a black pattern on for the funeral. I remember meeting his wife and knowing it wouldn’t last. I remember Caroline when she was three stone heavier and laughed more…..

Rod then passed round a number of items and told to sniff! We were then asked to write a piece based on our feelings / memories. I wrote: When I was nearly 15 I had a friend who told me that the juice of a lemon bleached your hair. She also told me that it would be all right if we stayed out all night down the riverbank with some boys. I had believed her then as well.

This exercise set off a thousand ideas and memories, and forms the basis of the novel I hope to write in the next month.

Preparation is Key

Feeling pleased with myself as I think I have just about cracked the plot. I spent yesterday going through the cuttings I have saved regarding missing children / abductions, as well as other articles of interest I have collected over the years.

I attempted to write a blurb for the book. It's only in draft form at the moment, so I am keeping it to myself. But it's a start...

Inspirational Quotes

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about. (Benjamin Franklin)

Even if you're on the right track, if you're just sitting there ... you'll still get run over. (Will Rogers)

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. (Pablo Picasso)

A house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived. (Rose Macaulay)

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair. (Chinese Proverb)

You can spend your life trying to be popular but, at the end of the day, thesize of the crowd at your funeral will be largely dictated by the weather. (Frank Skinner)

First Lines

The girl screamed once, only the once. (Ian Rankin / Knots and Crosses)

She had just over three hours to live, and I was sipping grapefruit juice and tonic in the hotel bar. (Jack Harvey / Bleeding Hearts)

When Edward Carney said goodbye to his wife, Percey, he never thought it would be the last time he’d see her. (Jeffery Deaver / The Coffin Dancer)

As soon as he opened the door, he could hear the screaming. It ripped through the damp air and shrieked in the yews. It echoed from the gravestones and died against the walls. It was like the sound of an animal, dying in pain. Yet this sound was human. (Stephen Booth / Blind to the Bones)

Don’t ask; What happens if I do?

Ask; What happens if I don’t.

The trouble with wanting to be a full time writer - other than the lack of wage slips coming in - is that it is a huge gamble. I could spend the next year writing everyday to be told at the end of it that I have written a pile of rubbish!! But how will I know unless I try? It's a question of belief! We all need to follow what feels good and right and ignore the doubts.

Having been through a rough time over the last few months, I realise now how important it is to increase your positive experiences and the things that bring you pleasure. We all need to identify what is really important in our lives. We all need to follow our dreams and desires. Live fearlessly and passionately and don't settle for second best!!

The Only Consequence is what we Do!!

Today is the 22nd October. It is nine days since I handed in my notice at work and became a full time writer - or as some might say 'unemployed'.

What have I done in those nine days? Well, I call it preparation....

I have decided that in order to give myself a running start at this full time writing lark I will attempt to complete the Write a Novel in a Month Challenge (NaNoWriMo for short). Details at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ The challenge runs every year from the 1st to the 30th November and the idea is to write 50,000 words of your novel - from scratch - during the month. That works out at 1667 words a day!! I figure if I can spend a month doing that many words a day with a deadline pushing me on, once the novel is written and the challenge over it will be easy to keep on writing...

I have actually not been working for about 3 months now, but until the 12th October I was signed off sick. The story of that episode is on my other Blog, but I can honestly say that I didn't feel very much like doing anything much until the beginning of October. Prior to that I had been doing a lot of reading so I suppose my time was not entirely wasted in terms of writing.

At the beginning of October I decided I was serious about this writing lark and gave myself 10 things to complete within a week. The list included sorting / cleaning a number of areas of my life, finishing a book review of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn for the local paper (since published), organising notes taken on various topics, updating 'To Do' lists and finish reading a number of collected articles, books etc. These items were all ticked off except for 'Research the New Novel'. And then I found out about NaNoWriMo..... If anyone decides to join me, my profile is: JoBoz