If you’ve decided you have 15 hours a week in which to write, and you’ve set aside those 15 hours, those are the hours you write and nothing short of an emergency should stop you from using those 15 hours to write. This kind of failure to produce is called time slipping away. Time can slip away in little slivers like the icicles you break off that form in your freezer, or it can slip away in huge chunks, like icebergs breaking off from a glacier.
How to Write Damn Good Fiction: James N. Frey (Macmillan, 2002)
Thursday 28 February 2008
Talking about Crime….
Hurrah for the lighter mornings!! I have started getting up at 7.30ish and seem to have more energy and enthusiasm than I have had for a long while. Have I done any writing yet? Well, my submission to the Debut Dagger has gone and I have been sorting through all the ‘ideas’ and notes I have been making over the last few months.
We had a meeting of the ‘Poison Pens’ on Saturday where I read out part of my Entry for the Dagger and then realized what was wrong with it! I don’t mind. I know it’s not perfect but writing the synopsis was the best thing I have done this year in terms of the novel. One thing that did come out at the meeting was the idea of Get it Written, then get it Right!!
Had a wonderful day on Monday when I took one writing friend to meet another – the second one having worked as part of the National Crime Squad. This meant the morning consisted of talking about both crime and writing and I was so stimulated and motivated that when I got back I began planning the next few months. I’ve got to be serious about completing this novel - I’ve told too many people! It isn’t going to get finished by April (which would have been 6 months since the start of this blog) but I do hope it will be completed in the first half of the year!! I had been going to watercolour classes with my auntie and uncle which I have really enjoyed, but I realized I was spreading myself too thin and so have withdrawn from those; freeing up more time for writing!
We had a meeting of the ‘Poison Pens’ on Saturday where I read out part of my Entry for the Dagger and then realized what was wrong with it! I don’t mind. I know it’s not perfect but writing the synopsis was the best thing I have done this year in terms of the novel. One thing that did come out at the meeting was the idea of Get it Written, then get it Right!!
Had a wonderful day on Monday when I took one writing friend to meet another – the second one having worked as part of the National Crime Squad. This meant the morning consisted of talking about both crime and writing and I was so stimulated and motivated that when I got back I began planning the next few months. I’ve got to be serious about completing this novel - I’ve told too many people! It isn’t going to get finished by April (which would have been 6 months since the start of this blog) but I do hope it will be completed in the first half of the year!! I had been going to watercolour classes with my auntie and uncle which I have really enjoyed, but I realized I was spreading myself too thin and so have withdrawn from those; freeing up more time for writing!
Active Body, Creative Mind
Taken from this months timetowrite.com newsletter from Jurgen WolffMore evidence that exercise is good for your creativity as well as your body! Marketing professor Stephen Ramocki, of Rhode Island College, found that a single aerobic workout was enough to make college students more creative for the two hours following their exercise. This has been demonstrated previously with animals: fit rats and monkeys do better at problem-solving than inactive ones. Exercise increases the supply of oxygen and blood to the brain and stimulates the production of important brain chemicals. ACTION: If your resolution to get more fit has stalled, restart it. Find an exercise that doesn't require your full concentration, so that your mind can wander. Walking in a park, swimming, or using a cross-trainer at a gym are all ideal. Be sure to have a pen and pad with you or nearby you so you can record any great ideas that come up.
Thursday 14 February 2008
Finished!
No. Not the novel. My entry for the Debut Dagger. It's been sent (and paid for) this morning so I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It's been good to have a deadline and I feel that having to write the synopsis has certainly focused my attention. So for that I thank the CWA! Just have to get on and finish the novel now! I am giving myself a rest for weekend, but the next job is to totally plot the novel and the word count for the next few months. Hopefully this novel will be completed in the first half of 2008!! No Excuses!!!
Tuesday 12 February 2008
But is it any good?
Today I am struggling with the age-old trauma; 'Am I actually any good at this writing business?' Doesn't help that just as I am tweaking the final 3000 words for the Debut Dagger I have a crisis of confidence!! Not a good idea really to look at what other people have written (and have been published with) but I have been checking out other novels that have been written in the first person. Here are three openings:
These days, I see Carla everywhere.
Emerging from Green Park station through the morning crowds, I catch sight of a woman just ahead of me, a tumble of auburn hair falling on narrow shoulders and that quick, jerky way of moving that she had, and for an impossible moment I think, Carla! Joanna Hines: Improvising Carla
My name is Salmon, like the fish: first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn’t happen. Alice Sebold: The Lovely Bones
What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the end game of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies and concealment and every variation on deception. Tana French: In The Woods
These days, I see Carla everywhere.
Emerging from Green Park station through the morning crowds, I catch sight of a woman just ahead of me, a tumble of auburn hair falling on narrow shoulders and that quick, jerky way of moving that she had, and for an impossible moment I think, Carla! Joanna Hines: Improvising Carla
My name is Salmon, like the fish: first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn’t happen. Alice Sebold: The Lovely Bones
What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the end game of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies and concealment and every variation on deception. Tana French: In The Woods
Friday 8 February 2008
Start the story when the kettle is boiling and not when you’re filling the tap
Good advice! I am still trying to put together my synopsis and first 3000 words for the Debut Dagger - although this morning I seem to have murdered my laptop!!
The action should open when your character is facing some sort of crisis. It ends when the conflict is resolved, but first there is a struggle to overcome. An accomplished first scene contains the seeds of the story to come, reflects the atmosphere of the novel, introduces at least one important character and enough mystery to entice the reader to turn over to page two, and from page two to the end of the chapter. That is where you establish the pace of your story, a pace you must maintain to the finish. Things must be going on in which readers can become immediately and easily involved. The opening needs to seduce and attract the readers attention e.g. ‘I should have seen it coming’.
The action should open when your character is facing some sort of crisis. It ends when the conflict is resolved, but first there is a struggle to overcome. An accomplished first scene contains the seeds of the story to come, reflects the atmosphere of the novel, introduces at least one important character and enough mystery to entice the reader to turn over to page two, and from page two to the end of the chapter. That is where you establish the pace of your story, a pace you must maintain to the finish. Things must be going on in which readers can become immediately and easily involved. The opening needs to seduce and attract the readers attention e.g. ‘I should have seen it coming’.
Tuesday 5 February 2008
Karen Maitland: Company of Liars
Last night I attended the launch of Karen Maitland's Company of Liars at Lincoln Waterstones. Karen was - once upon a time - my Creative Writing tutor!The evening consisted of Karen reading out the chilling Prologue to Company of Liars and then her being ‘in conversation’ with her publisher. This was followed by a question and answer session. It was a bewitching evening and I made copious notes. I learned that the Runes are more than a mere bag of stones used for fortune telling at parties. In fact, the story Karen told about using them on a train, leads me to think very differently about them.
What was interesting was that, although the novel only took a year to write, the research has been ongoing for about ten years; although there is also another novel (The Owl Killers) which will also soon be published. Listening to Karen speak, you can see she is totally fascinated with the subject matter and she even admits herself to being a compulsive researcher. This obviously paid off as her publisher stated that the novel ‘shone through like a beacon.’
I’m not sure when I will get to read it – the book being 548 pages long and me with a novel of my own to write – but I promise to do a review as soon as I have the time…. I can tell you that the cover is beautifully illustrated and will look good on any bookshelf!
On this day of ill omen, plague makes its entrance. Within weeks, swathes of England will be darkened by death's shadow as towns and villages burn to the ringing of church bells.
While panic and suspicion flood the land, a small band of travellers comes together to outrun the breakdown in law and order. But when one of their number is found hanging from a tree, the chilling discovery confirms that something more sinister than plague is in their midst. And as the runes warn of treachery, it appears no one is quite what they seem, least of all the child rune reader, who mercilessly compels each of her companions to tell their stories. And face the consequences.
Take a leap of imagination and embark on an unforgettable journey through the ravaged countryside ... with only a scarred trader in holy relics, a conjuror, two musicians, and a deformed storyteller for company.
See: http://www.companyofliars.co.uk/
Minutes are like.....
Minutes are like raspberries. There are never enough in one place so you have to wander along picking and plucking until you have a lovely big bowl full.
Lynne Hackles in Writing Magazine: March 2008
Lynne Hackles in Writing Magazine: March 2008
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