Tag: wip

Writing: NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo Check In

How is everyone doing? Managing to get your words done?

If not, don’t worry – I always find hitting the daily word targets is always harder mid-week than it is at weekends, usually because mid-week we’ve all got work and other commitments demanding our attention.

Writing little and often works a charm sometimes – 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there. They all add up in the long run, and a month of intense writing is certainly a long run!

For myself, I’m happy with what I’ve got so far – 6517 words at the moment. I had the 1st day of NaNoWriMo off work, or else I’d be way behind. I’m hoping to get a little further ahead with a few sprints tonight as I’ve got family visiting over the weekend so opportunities to sneak away and get some writing done will be few and far between.

I have to say, too, that Write or Die – both the online version for when I’m sneakily writing in lunch breaks at work and the paid for version I use when I’m at home – is a Godsend when it comes to NaNoWriMo and keeping track of the time during sprints.

Good luck, everyone, and remember to try and enjoy the experience – there’s no point doing it if you don’t!

Well, back to the writing I go… I don’t think these 200+ words count! 😉

General Writing, Recommendations

Tools of the Trade…

I’m back to writing by hand to get myself out of a little writing slump. 

It’s not that I’m no longer enjoying the story, have lost my way with it or don’t want to write it, it’s just that getting the things in my head down on paper using a pen and notepad seems easier than sitting at the laptop typing away.

I’ve been thinking about the LWL series as it stands – 2 complete novels down and one that’s 3/4 of the way through. I saw a blog post on a news site a few days ago that quite honestly echoes the first scene in LWL1 and I think that’s given me a bit of a jolt, which is translating to being nervous about finishing.

I’ve heard life can mimic art but it’s the first time it’s happened to me with something I’ve written – something only a few agencies and publishers and critique partners have read – and I don’t like the feeling. I kind of feel threatened, pressured, like I need to hurry up and find a way to get these stories out into the big wide world before they’ve all been done by someone else.

(The publishers sent nice rejection emails, by the way; the agent hasn’t replied at all so guessing that’s a no.)

Deep breaths, I suppose, and onwards and upwards as the saying goes.

In other, less depressing thoughts, I’m reading The Hygge Holiday by Rosie Blake and absolutely loving it. Sweet and funny – I’m in love with the parrot – I’m 60% of the way through according to my Kindle and I don’t want it to end!

General Writing

Taking inspiration where you find it

I’m away from home for a long weekend so brought not one but three notepads with me. I’m glad I did as the words are flowing (as is the gin!) when we’re not out adventuring and I’m now on notepad number 2.

The featured image on this post is a little bit of inspiration for a chapter in LWL3 I’m currently writing. It’s not where we are now but where we were a few weeks ago on our summer holiday.

It got me thinking about the old “write what you know” advice that always gets bandied about when you write. It’s good advice, and advice I’m certainly taking to heart at the moment, but it’s not advice any writer can strictly stick to. 

The joy of writing is partly about being able to imagine situations outside of the boundaries of the ordinary lives lived by those who write and those who read. Readers don’t want to pick up a book and always find it full of the usual 9-to-5 experiences they themselves have every day, and writers don’t always want to write about the ordinary and mundane. Both want adventures and escapism, interesting tales and stories that grip you and won’t let go so you have to keep the pages turning to find out what happens next.

You can’t always write about you know – I’m sure crime writers who build their stories around murders don’t experience it themselves to really get a feel for the antagonist’s motivations! – but sometimes it can be fun to use experiences you’ve had and build on them in ways you only can in fiction.

Books, General Writing, Recommendations

August already?

I don’t know how that happened, to be honest, and I don’t know how my plan to keep writing on this blog on a regular basis fell so far by the wayside!

Hello, to anyone out there!

We’re officially over halfway through the year now so it’s time to have a little look back on all the writing and reading goals I’d set myself at the beginning of the year.

Reading wise, I’m on target to hit the 30 books I set myself on my Goodreads challenge – I’m two books ahead, in fact, which is a bit of a surprise. (Nearly three, as I’m midway through reading Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones – it’s very good, especially if you grew up with Labyrinth as your go-to film of choice for those rainy weekends as a kid like me!)

I recently finished reading Big Sexy Love by Kirsty Greenwood, which I utterly adored and would recommend to anyone and everyone. You can read my review of it on GoodReads here if you so wish to do so. It’s my favourite book of the year so far, and I think will still have a place in my all time top ten by the end of it, too. Other books I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed are the last two books (for now) in Ilona Andrew’s Hidden Legacy series, which

Other books I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed are the last two books (for now) in Ilona Andrew’s Hidden Legacy series, which is right up there in terms of favourite urban fantasy universes.

Writing wise, I’m around 1/3 of the way through book three of my contemporary romance/romantic comedy series. I say romance, but really the relationships that really matter in each of the stories is that of the female characters. It’s a series about friendship, and how having good friends can get you through life’s little obstacles that come at you unexpectedly where love/work/families are concerned. I’m enjoying it, more so now I’ve tweaked a few things so writing it is more of a dream than a struggle. (That said, I’m still looking forward to writing book four most of all – the characters in that one are already vying for attention in my head!)

And the above brings me to the question I really want to ask other writers out there. I’ve got two of the four books done and dusted but for some reason, I’m really reluctant to start sending them off to publishers until the whole series is done. The story doesn’t feel finished yet even though each book can be read quite happily as a standalone, I think because in my mind I know there’s more to come.

Writers, how do you know when you’re ready to send your book baby into the world of agents and publishers? And is it still the goal to get a publishing deal the traditional way or is indie publishing the way forward?

Feel free to get in touch and let me know your thoughts – I’d love to speak to you! x

General Writing

Words, words, words

If you want to be a writer, it’s important to write.

It might seem blatantly obvious but a lot of wannabe writers seem to think they can make it as a novelist without committing the time and effort into doing the main element of writing: getting the words down on paper, or on screen.

Yes, there needs to something said about rewriting and editing and getting a finished product you’re happy to share with the world at large but you can’t rewrite something that isn’t written in the first place. You can’t edit a blank page.

A lot of wannabe writers, myself included, struggle to find time to write among the day to day duties we have no choice but to take part in. Working at a day job is necessary for anyone who needs to financially support themselves or their families, which can leave you stressed and tired and the last thing you want to do at the end of the day is sit down and force yourself to write.

But if you don’t, you’re never going to get those words written.

Now, writing should be fun. I’m a big believer in that. So when I say ‘force’, I don’t mean make yourself sit down and try to put pen to paper if you really, really don’t feel happy doing so. But if you want to, you’re just feeling a bit tired and it’d be easier to play around on the Internet or watch TV, why not try to push yourself just a little so you can get something written?

Any progress on a novel is good progress, and a step towards completing that all important first draft.

Finding the motivation, the willpower, to sit down and write can be a struggle at times but keep reminding yourself that your novel isn’t going to write itself.

Set yourself small goals. Achievable goals. I’ve mentioned on here before that I’ve set myself a goal of 500-1000 words per day. On a working day, it’s more like 500. On a weekend, 1000 is within reach. Some days I won’t hit 500, other days I’ll hit more so my average daily word count for this year so far is 531 words.

It might not seem like a lot at first glance but over the course of the year, that’s 193,815 words all trying to tell the stories that currently exist in my head and that’s far better than 0.