writing thoughts – Alexa Preece

Busy, busy, busy…

The writing bug bit again and I’m busier than ever.

Currently working on plotting/planning four different stories to see which one grabs my full attention… They all seem to be vying for dominance at the moment so it’ll be interesting to see which is the victor.

I abandoned the story I was toying with because it wasn’t flowing right – it’s now reinvented itself into one of the above ideas so we’ll see if it works second time around.

I’ve also made a decision about the YA fantasy trilogy I’ve had written for the best part of a decade gathering dust on my laptop: I’m going to self-publish it!

As it’s different to everything I’m working on now, and was written so long ago, I’m doing a vigorous edit and rewrite/polish and then will release it a story at a time this year under a pen-name (GR Taylor for anyone interested.) I’ll list it on the website as and when it’s available, too.

And that’s where life has taken me since I last posted in mid-March! It’s a lot to do and there’s limited time to do it – in non-writing news, I’m starting a degree through my day job in June so not quite sure how everything’s going to fall into place but we’ll see what happens.

Happy writing!

General Writing, Writing: NaNoWriMo

And it’s done!

LWL book 4 is finished!

It was oddly easy to write 50000+ words over the course of NaNoWroMo but the last 24000 seemed to be a bit of a struggle. Nevertheless, they’re written, it’s done, and now it can sit on my laptop for a little while until I’m ready to come back and edit it.

Phew.

I’d hoped I’d finish this series by the end of the year but I didn’t actually think I was going to do it. And since I’ve got no one who understands what a personal achievement it is in my real life away from my computer, I thought I’d write a little post to commemorate the occasion.

I’m happy. I’m a bit proud of myself, to be honest. It’s been a tough year, there’ve been weeks where I’ve just not had the energy or the motivation to write, but somehow, over the course of the last 361 days, I’ve written just under 180,000 words. It’s just shy of the goal I set myself of aiming for 500 words a day so… Yeah. I’m pleased.

I hope all of my fellow writers reading this have had a good year for writing, and that everyone who stumbles across this has had a good year in general.

Here’s looking to 2018, and whatever new adventures it might bring.

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! 😉

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, Uncategorized

So. 2016 word count so far.

The novel is progressing well. Maybe not 50000-words-in-a-month well, but hey ho. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

I’m happy with the development. It doesn’t feel rushed. I’m building up to the big ‘turning point’ moment but it’s not quite there yet.

That’s okay.

So far this year, I’ve written somewhere between 74,198 (the first LWL story) and 175,224 words (LWL1, LWL2 so far & the original third story in a dust-gathering trilogy that spawned the whole thing back in March) this year.

That’s quite a lot.

Maybe not for someone who can write full-time, who doesn’t have a full-time job, family commitments and other silly life factors that get in the way.

For me, though? 175,000+ words over the course of an almost year is good.

There’ll be more before the end of the year, obviously, as there’s still some of November and all of December to go, but even if there wasn’t?

I can live with that.

It’s 175,000+ words more than any of my non-writer friends has written.

It’s 175,000+ words more than any of my colleagues, who think I’m odd for preferring nights in to nights out getting spending my hard earned money on extortionately priced alcohol, have written.

I may not hit my NaNoWriMo target this year, but I’m still happy with what I’ve achieved. My writing may not pay the bills yet (to be fair, I’d kind of have to let someone else read it first for it to do that…) but it’s something I’ve kept doing through thick and thin, something I need to do in order to cope with everything else that’s going on, and I’m happy with that.

I hope my fellow writers out there are happy with their word count achievements, too.