Comfort Blankets

Having declared not so long ago that I had abandoned N1 for N3, I made the mistake of using one of my protagonists from N1 for Sally Q's Character Workshop earlier this year. I stupidly went and fell in love with him, and the bloody book, all over again. The trouble is (excuse coming up here...) we've been together a lot of years now, this book and I, and it's like a mad bad old friend without whom I can't quite bear to live, despite its appalling treatment of me (or should that be the other way around?).

Okay, I admit it, N1 is my comfort blanket. I feel particularly safe fiddling with chapter fourteen; I like that bit best.

Oh, Leigh! I hear you cry in exasperation. You'll never get a damn thing done like this.

I know. I know.

Sooo, I have to tell you that, having been re-inspired by many happenings this year, I am killing all my darlings (including a few characters), cutting out a terrifying amount of crap, and oh-so improving the rest. Such fun!

When you edit, do you, like me, find yourself going back over the same favourite bits over and over, or are you ruthless and determined and plough on through? (Or do you, even more like me, sit and procrastinate on Blogger/YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/iTunes, etc.?)

A New Start

Now I know you only come by to read my sparkling wit and wisdom, and that no one's interested in the progress of my writing, but did anyone see what I did in the sidebar there? Notice anything different about the word meters? Did you? Mmm?

Well, those of you who eagerly tune in to watch the colour faltering along pixel by pixel, will have noticed that since last May I have written only shorties – I have even subbed some, and am in great danger of impersonating real writers here – but shorties have only ever been part of what I want to do. I want to write novels too.

So, exactly how many words have I written since joining the Novel Race last year?

Ahem.
Next question please.

Lisa's parting words have shocked me into realising what I fraud I am: I'm not a writer who writes; I am a writer who procrastinates. Yet I still have the very chance that she has lost: To Finish The Bloody Book.

In truth, I have finished the book, but it's crap and I can't face the interminable rewriting that it needs to knock it into shape. Thus, I am shelving it, and starting again. God. Did I just say that?

Must have done. Because last night, I finally settled down to start novel 3, originally planned over two years ago. And now, if you take a little gander at that sidebar, you'll see 3,000 words already written.

Carpe Diem, and all that.

Location Location

Some of my settings are based on real places, but sometimes I change the names. In two cases, I wanted authentic croft names, but not actual croft names (i.e. houses in which people might actually be living).

The solution manifested itself by luck when I happened upon an old parish map hanging on the wall of a local pub. From that I was able to identify a number of derelict crofts, and thus select genuine-sounding names (for they were indeed genuine) without fear of upsetting anyone.

For villages and towns and cities, I generally use real names, except in the case of one particular town – which had absolutely nothing to recommend it – for which I fabricated a name, although I don't really know why.

Do you pluck your setting(s) out of your imagination, or use real places? Or both? Do you use real names too? If not, how do you go about making them up?

How do you Remember?

You know when that fantastic plot-line jumps into your brain? And you're not sitting in front of your computer/writing pad... How do you remember?

1. In the middle of the night:
a) get up, go to desk, and write/type the whole thing down, dialogue and all?
b) turn on the light, and make detailed notes in a moleskine*-by-the-bed?
c) fumble around in the dark for a pencil/pen/lippy and something to write on?
d) spend the next hour constructing complex associations until convinced that nothing will be forgotten, and then it all is.
*insert favourite brand of notebook here.

2. During the day:
a) keep a notepad and pen handy at all times.
b) have a dictaphone/mobile-with-voice-record.
c) carry a BlackBerry®/palm top into which everything can be typed on the spot (and wifi-ed to the computer at home)
d) Do nothing, it'll all be remembered/forgotten anyway.

Later:
a) Every detail is remembered/recorded.
b) Every detail is forgotten, other than it was a Really Fab Idea.

I'm a middle-of-the-night girl, with a notebook by the bed. What are you?

Oh Dear...

You Should Be a Film Writer You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen! What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Of course, when they turn my novel into a film...

The Novel Race - They Let Me In!

As if posting my targets for 2008 wasn't enough of a commitment, I'm in the Novel Race [gulp].

I have committed to complete the first draft of Bully's Boy (which is novel no.2, and the sequel to no.1).

If I have time [ha ha ha] I will get serious about All For Fabien (novel no.3), and just in case I finish that one, I have up my sleeve ... [peers up sleeve] ... Going with the Flow (novel no.4)!

Now you might think that this is a bit optimistic, but I can type at nearly 65wpm, and get an hour-and-a-half every evening in which to write (assuming himself doesn't want supper, I've done all the washing, the children have put away their toys, etc.). So, allowing for a couple of evenings off a week, I should get three novels written in about, oh, ten weeks. Easy!

Anyone spotted the deliberate mistake yet?

Cracking on

Since complaining last night about how little progress I'd made, I've been stonking along. Ten thousand words edited today, and I'm really happy with this novel now.



I've just reached the chapter where one of my characters visits this viewpoint. I love both the view, and the description of it (which is grossly over-indulgent). The trouble is that this photo doesn't do it justice; the strait is straight, if you see what I mean, and, as a 180° panorama, this picture should really be viewed on a curved screen. So, if you wouldn't mind sticking your nose in the middle of it, and bending your screen around your head...there, that's better. That's what it looks like! Dramatic, eh?

Eureka!

I've been working really hard the last few evenings, doing real money-paying work [resists temptation to spit], and I've been going to bed with a buzzing brain, and thus, insomnia. As a consequence, I have had some hours to rehash plots, characters, titles, names and so on.

Last night, about half past midnight, number-three-novel title came to me. This was a Eureka! moment, and I sat up in bed like a shot. Of course, a proper writer would have a Moleskine and pencil beside the bed. Me? I found a dried-up felt-tip and a copy of Women's Weekly's Christmas Special; but it sufficed, and I wrote down my new title.

Now why is it, when the baby's still wailing at 2am (after three drinks of water, a cuddle, milk, Nurofen, Medised...), or when a child has been sick in its bed, or when you go into labour, men just mutter "this is not a good time" and go back to sleep? And then, when there's absolutely nothing wrong and you just need to write something down (knowing perfectly well that he won't wake up, because the chimney hasn't fallen in) he wakes up!

The funny thing was, he was really concerned. Was I alright?
"Yes, sorry, just, ahem, thought of...er...a...um...a title".
"Oh," he said. "That's good. Have you written it down?"

I shan't grumble about him leaving the milk out for, what shall we say, three days?

Achievements & Targets

Projects	2007	2008
Words written	73,359	>100,000
Shorties plotted	46	40
Shorties written	19	26
Flashes written	31	10
Poems written	3	5
Novels completed	1	1-2
Novels plotted	4	0
Novels started	2	1
Total Submissions	53	100
Hits	1	>1

Another Novel Idea

Just got back from a night out at the pub, where we ran into some dear old friends (hence the particular lateness of the hour). Unfortunately, the conversation turned to writing and I have come home with an already-quite-detailed idea for another damn good novel, to add to the three I already have in waiting.

If only I could find the time to actually write something down (other than my Message - 00:39).

Your Messages & Nothing Else

I have done nothing today (apart from look after three small children).

Jane came round this morning (with various additional small children), and we talked about writing (as far as that was possible), which was lovely (in a lovely-things-you-can-do-with-kids-around sort of way). She's been thinking about my novel and, bless her, has been trying to help me think of a title.

I cannot think of a title.

I go to sleep thinking about it hoping that I'll wake up in the morning with the answer. I dread discovering that I did, actually wake up with it once, but forgot to write it down, and then forgot that I even had it (this is a possibility).

It's not that I don't know what the book is about - I reckon it has a strong and obvious premise - but all the obvious titles are just that. Obvious. Too obvious. Clichés. Tired old hackneyed idioms. I need something different.

So, I've done a lot of thinking today, but I haven't actually done anything...

...except my Message (21:24).

A Story a Week

When I started working on short stories, the ambition was to write one a week. After the first month I was already behind, when someone told me that Della Galton wrote ninety last year. Please don't tell me that she was also looking after several ankle-biters at the same time...or I might just have to give up.

So, how well have I been doing? I started on the 24th March when the baby was two-weeks-old. (Well, there were a couple of guys ripping my kitchen apart too, so I couldn't do any baking.) Now, the baby is, erm, twenty-nine weeks old. So I must have twenty-seven stories by now.

Er, no.

I have good weeks and bad weeks, but if I spend more than a month on each story, I feel that I'm not going to get a reasonable return on my time. You'll notice two assumptions at this point. One is that I'll get any return for my time, and the second, that my time is worth something. It is, of course; if I weren't writing, I would be watching TV (and learning useful tips about cleaning the house), or actually cleaning the house (ha!).

One of Jane's stories was recently placed third in a competition. Now, Jane's grammar is bad and I am asked to proof everything; so, I hold my head up, knowing that it was my grammar & punctuation that won the prize. It was all her plot, though, and she's good at plots. Grammar you can learn, but plots come from the soul. Although I'm not quite sure where Jane's come from - she writes fantasy after all.

So here I am, still twiddling my thumbs. The baby being whisked away in an ambulance was a great excuse for procrastination, but I think, maybe, I'll get my head down this week instead. I put on 2lbs with the stress of it.

Although that might just have been the chocolate.

Is this where it starts, then?

Well, not quite.

It actually started about eighteen months ago when my friend, let's call her "Jane", suddenly admitted that she was writing a novel. It was then that I remembered that I too was writing a novel, although I hadn't looked at it for a long time. (So long, in fact, that I had to retype it all - the BBC Micro no longer being my computer of choice.)

So, unless I'm prepared to go right back to the very start (which I'm not, because my memory absconded when my first child was born), it started in March 2006 with 20K words of a novel that I hadn't looked at for over ten years.

Jane, in fact, turned out to be writing a trilogy, of which she had completed only the first 250,000 words (a fantasy trilogy, you understand). She instantly put my meagre jottings to shame, and I determined to prove that I was worthy to sit at her kitchen table, drinking tea, and talking about Writing.

Nine months later (I don't seem to be able to gestate anything in less than nine months), the first draft was ready for editing. I spent a further three months loving it, hating it, and ignoring it in turns, before finally submitting it. It was dreadful, of course, and my wall is now papered with rejection letters, but it got me off the sofa, and into the study.

And so, as the novel disappeared into the clutches of the Royal Mail, I settled down to wait for my Marvellous Manuscript to be considered by the Great and the Good. I kept myself busy by producing another child, and seeing if I could keep its siblings from feeding it too many raisins. Jane, seeing that I had nothing better to do, suggested that I write some short stories in my copious spare time.

It was a terrible idea, and one for which I will never forgive her. Having just spent nearly a year in front of the computer, I was looking forward to spending some time refocussing my eyes. I also felt the need to ask the man who lives in my house what his name is (I knew it once). But, sadly, I still haven't had the chance.

Six months on, my Marvellous Manuscript is now scrap for Jane's kids to scribble on, the first three chapters of the second novel lie lonely somewhere deep in the harddrive, and my husband has started to cook his own meals.

I now sit, awaiting the acceptance or rejection of my first batch of shorties. I sent a dozen out to various women's magazines at the end of August, and now jump every time the phone rings. Usually, it's just Jane to ask if I've got any spare chocolate (she should know better); but I do, at least, now have a certain sense of anticipation with which to greet each day. The arrival last week of an acknowledgement card from The People's Friend caused much excitement. 'They've opened the envelope!'

It remains to be seen what they did with the contents.