And Relax...

As we get older, it appears that time speeds up. I seem to start every Christmas letter (and yes, I do write one of those dreaded things, but it only goes to a few friends that I know want to catch up on the details of our lives) with the words: where has the year gone?

Well today I am saying instead: where has the month gone? Four weeks ago, I posted about taking part in this year's NaNoWriMo. Fifty thousand words to write, thirty days in which to do it - plenty of time!

It's All About Quantity

November is the month when hundreds of thousands of writers from all over the world challenge themselves to write fifty thousand words in just thirty days. It’s sometimes hard to explain to a non-writer why we would want to turn out a large quantity of what is quite often garbage. Because, National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is very definitely about quantity not quality.

Quantity Over Quality?

This Friday will be 10th April and it’s a special date for me for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was the day on which my late parents got married. This year, it will be their 65th anniversary and I will, as always, raise a glass to them, as I’m sure they are celebrating somewhere. It’s also the second publication anniversary for Parcels in the Rain, and I will be trying to think of an appropriate way to celebrate that fact too.

Planning to be a Pantser

I saw a post on Facebook last week about creativity. Like most of the things I read on the social media platforms, it was very transitory - it floated past my eyes along with messages about book launches, pictures of people enjoying their New Year celebrations, and clips of cute cats/dogs/platypuses (well, there was only one platypus, but it was really cute). So I’m ashamed to say that the author’s name didn’t register with me - and nor, for that matter did the words themselves. But the sentiment must have stuck - as I keep coming back to it. It was a pithy comment about writers needing to stop planning and just let go, to give creativity a chance. (If anyone recognises, the quote, do let me know, I'd love to read it properly.)

Looking Back Thankfully

It's hard to believe, but there are only two Mondays left to this year. Next week, I'm going to be looking forward to 2015 and making some New Year's (writing) resolutions. But this week, in the tradition of many media outlets at this time of the year, here's a quick round-up of the past twelve and its achievements - and a few thank yous.

Publishing Lessons Part 2

Back in October, I wrote about the first part of the publishing project for Gorgito’s Ice Rink. At that point, I’d only brought out the ebook. Now, two months on, I have a paperback edition as well. I’ve been reflecting on the second part of this project, and as always, this is written from the point of view of a small business owner—with the adjective attached to ‘business’ rather than ‘owner’—rather than as an author. 

Taking a Rain Check...

Like many bloggers, I obsessively check my statistics. I can tell you how many people have looked at my blog each day, every week, every month, or indeed ever! I know which of my posts are the most popular ones. Interviews are usually high on the list. My interviews with illustrator turned author Curtis Jobling and Bodicia from 'A Woman's Wisdom' have been fighting it out for top spot for months and were way ahead of anything else. Until now.

Blog Tour: My Writing Process

I’ve been following with interest the blog tour about writing process, so was delighted to be asked by Cathie Hartigan if I’d like to follow her in answering four questions. If you missed Cathie’s fascinating answers, you can find them HERE.

 

Here are my answers:

 

What am I working on?

As usual, I have several projects on the go at once. I have a novel I’ve been writing since 2006; I’ve just finished yet another edit and it’s currently being read by members of my local Book Club. Once I have their feedback, I’ll decide on the next step: another rewrite; submit to agents and publishers; or publish it independently via my own imprint, Chudleigh Phoenix Publications. I am also putting together an ebook on Writing as a Business, based on the workshops I present each year at Swanwick, The Writers’ Summer School.

 

But my main project at the moment is to edit and polish the material I drafted during NaNoWriMo last November. The challenge is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, with quantity being more important than quality at that stage. This was my third attempt and my first success. I wrote a series of short stories, and when I reached 50,022 words with a couple of days to spare, I stopped — not quite mid-sentence, but certainly mid-story. I didn’t think about it again until this weekend, when I started editing. I had forgotten the details of what I’d written and was pleased to find a great variety of pieces I can work on for competition entries and submission to magazines. I was also shocked to see how much detail of my own life went into my fiction when I was just writing without thinking too deeply about it. There was one scene over the breakfast table that was eerily familiar. My aim is to find a home for all these stories before it’s time to start NaNo again on 1st November.

 

How does my work differ from others in the genre?

I really struggle with categorising my writing into a genre at all. I don’t write romantic fiction, although I’ve got more than one love story in my novel; I don’t write historical fiction, although two of the novels that are currently yelling for attention in my sub-conscious are set in the past, as is a major strand of my novel. I don’t write sci-fi or fantasy, although I read more of this genre than anything else. I don’t write about crime, although one of the stories I wrote in November... you get the idea. I tend to write ‘nice’ stories where the goody ends up on top and the baddy gets his just desserts, although anyone who has read The Well Brought-Up Woman in Life is Not a Bed of Roses will know it’s not always that simple. I guess it goes back to what I said earlier about writing my own experiences into my fiction. Many writers do that at some point; and since my life is unique to me, that’s how it’s going to differ from others. For example, there will usually be references to pharmaceuticals and/or Russia, two of my main influences.

 

Why do I write what I do?

 

I spent more than twenty years working all over the world, made some wonderful friends and had fascinating experiences. I turned from technical to creative writing in 2006 and originally tried my hand at life writing but quickly found I was much more comfortable writing fiction. Some of my early life-writing pieces finally saw the light of day in Parcels in the Rain but I still mostly write short stories — apart from the novel — and the non-fiction ebooks — and the blog posts. Actually, I guess I just write.

 

How does my writing process go?

I have a reputation for being well-organised. I’m usually the one who knows dates, times, exam rules etc. in my head. I’m the one my MA friends would email if they couldn’t find the handbook. In my former life, I was a project manager. So it won’t surprise anyone to hear I am a compulsive planner.

 

 

I have a set of annual writing objectives which I review and update in August (at Swanwick) and at the end of December. I have a monthly plan showing which project I am concentrating on. Every month I prepare a detailed To Do list and each day starts with Writing-4 hours, Writing-2 hours etc., depending on what other commitments I have. I’ve found from experience that if I plan to write every day and then can’t, I beat myself up about it — and this writing lark is supposed to be fun. So now I plan in advance NOT to write sometimes — and then I don’t feel guilty. I also have a detailed spreadsheet with all my pieces of work catalogued, records of when and where they’ve been submitted — and all the upcoming competitions I want to enter.

I generally write to triggers, either competition themes or self-imposed ones. I will usually plan my stories first, either on a flip-chart with post-its or on the cork board view in Scrivener. If I’m having trouble getting a piece written, I play the numbers game: 2000 words needed, that’s 10 scenes at 200 words or 4 scenes at 500 words and so on and start with a bullet point for each scene. It's second nature to a former scientist to work like that, but it was a tip I picked up from Richard Beard on an Arvon Course some years ago.

Sometimes I try out the ‘pantster’ route by taking part in Write Invite or exercises at one of my Writing Groups (Chudleigh Writers’ Circle and Exeter Writers), but I’m not too good at that yet. I carry a notebook everywhere but rarely write by hand and tend to spend most days glued to a keyboard and screen.

I can write anywhere, so long as I have my iPod to shut out distractions, so have written on planes and trains, in libraries (not so quiet as one would expect these days), in hotels in remote parts of Russia, and in cafes. At home, I have a wonderful writing room in the garden with walls of melted chocolate and buttercup yellow. In summer, I open the doors, let in the sunshine, the smell of the herbs and the sounds from the farmyard across the stream. A little piece of Heaven in rural Devon.

 

 

So that's my writing process. I'm handing the baton on to friend and Swanwick buddy Madalyn Morgan. She's up to her eyes in finishing her second novel at present; you can read about Madalyn's writing process on Monday 17th February by going HERE.

Banishing the Demon: Reflections on NaNoWriMo

As someone with a science education, working for thirty plus years in a highly technical industry, nano has always had a specific meaning: Used primarily in the metric system, it is the prefix denoting a billionth, a factor of ten to the minus nine or 0.000000001. In recent years, we’ve heard a lot about nanoscience and nanotechnology, the study and application of extremely small things.

 

 

But for the past few years, it has had a very different meaning to me and many other writers — and this time it’s big, very big — and it’s written differently. NaNo is short for NaNoWriMo, which itself is short for National Novel Writing Month. In 1999, founder Chris Baty and 21 other writers set themselves a challenge: to write 50,000 words during the month of November. Six of them completed the challenge. Over the years, the number of participants has grown and this year 320,671 took part. I was one of them - and for the first time in three attempts, I completed the challenge.

 

“I kill people for a living” is the way author Chris Nickson describes his crime-writing; descriptions based on other genres might be “I am a serial matchmaker”, “I put people in dangerous situations and then watch them struggle to get free,” or “I invent new worlds and new species”. Writers are a real mixed bunch, but we have one thing in common: we are all insecure about our work. I suspect there isn’t a writer now or in the past who hasn’t thought at some point this is rubbish; no-one’s going to read it.

 

When I first started to write fiction, a good friend told me it would ruin the pleasure of reading for me. She told me about the little demon who would sit on my shoulder, critiquing everything I read, examining the structure, the use of language, the characterisation, rather than letting me just concentrate on the story. She was right; members of the my book group often tell me I read differently from the rest of them.

 

But my friend didn’t warn me that the little demon would be even more vocal when I am writing than when I am reading. Sometimes it's difficult to concentrate for the voice of derision shouting in my ear. But not in November! During NaNo, I sent that demon on holiday and just wrote; it was an exercise in creativity, in pure quantity not quality. And it was such good fun. I’d given myself permission to write complete rubbish; I didn’t need to edit it in any way (that will come later).

 

I didn’t want to start a new novel; I’m still working on the one which began life as 6,000 words written during my first NaNo attempt in 2006. So I decided to use my word quota to write short stories, to build up my work-in-progress file for 2014 competitions, submissions and anthologies.  I aimed for 25 at 2,000 words each. The scientist in me knew I needed a structure to work with, so in the weeks leading up to 1st November, while colleagues were thinking up plot structures and jotting down notes on characters (planning is allowed, pre-writing isn’t), I made up three bags full of slips of paper: characters, locations and behaviours. Each time I finished a story, I pulled another slip from each bag, spent a few hours thinking about the ideas, and then went for it.

 

Over the course of the month, I wrote about a prudent teacher on a village green; a relentless student in a doctor’s surgery; a lustful chimney sweep on a bus; a hopeful shop assistant at an archaeological dig — and many more. I wrote twenty-three stories, well twenty two and a half, really. On 28th November, I hit 50,022 words — and stopped. Not actually mid-sentence, but certainly mid-story. This last one is a bit different; it’s a murder mystery in the style of Midsomer and it’s certainly way too long for a short story. Perhaps I did start a second novel after all. Maybe I’ll finish it in the New Year — or maybe I’ll hold it over until next November and write the rest of it then.

 

 

It’s now more than two weeks since NaNo finished and I’ve had time to reflect on what I got out of it. There’s the obvious sense of satisfaction of completing the task; I’m sure my Facebook and Twitter friends will excuse me displaying the ‘winner’ logo for just a little while longer. There’s a good stock of story drafts waiting for me to edit and polish in January. There’s the sense of camaraderie from knowing that so many other writers are doing the same thing at the same time all around the world. There’s the fun in watching the graph on the NaNo site grow each time the word count is updated  On the downside, there’s the stiff neck and sore back from sitting at the laptop so long every day (but they went after a couple of hot baths).

 

Most of all, there is the joy of just writing, without judgement, without criticism, without any sense of guilt at not producing perfect prose first time around. And that’s one benefit that I’m hoping to keep hold of until the same time next year. 

Another Change of Direction

I've been trying out a few different approaches to this blog over recent months. Firstly, I finished my year-long series on Writing as a Small Business. This was partly because I ran out of topics; there are only so many things that can be dealt with by a non-accountant, non-lawyer - and it gets boring to continually read (or write) "if in doubt, consult a professional". Also, I wanted to pull all the articles together into a 'how-to' book; and that's my December project (October being sort out the novel in time for a competition deadline and November being NaNoWriMo). And I wanted to widen my topics so I could talk not just to other writers, but to non-writing readers too.

 

Next, I started posting snippets of new prose at the end of each Monday's blog.  I know there's a huge debate on whether writers should give away their work for free or not (and I'm not going to go there today), but I also know free samples are a tried and tested method of marketing in other industries, so I thought I'd give it a go. However, that didn't work too well, as each post ended up way too long. So, I moved my new prose to a Thursday, keeping the Monday slot for factual posts.

 

 

And then I ran out of things to talk about. You might say I was stumped for ideas!  Actually, that's not quite true; as anyone who knows me will confirm, I can always find something to talk about. But something interesting that other people might want to read - well, that's a different matter.

 

So I did what I always do when I'm uncertain of the way forward: I wrote myself a plan!  I plan to post a different type of blog each Monday of the month, which meant sorting out four different types (and an extra one for the occasional month with five Mondays).

 

And here's the new schedule:

• First Monday: The best ...
• Second Monday: An interview with...
• Third Monday: My thoughts on...
• Fourth Monday: How to...
• Fifth Monday: My top ten..

I hope you're all impressed at the thought that's gone into this plan. I'm particularly excited about the interviews I've got lined up between now and the end of the year. I've tried to come up with some interesting questions and will be introducing a range of people from different walks of life, not just writers (although they will feature quite heavily of course).

 

***

 

But today's the first Monday in the month (OK, in most parts of the world, it's actually Tuesday, but somewhere, on a remote island just this side of the international date-line, it's possibly still Monday) so, here are my nominations for three of the best bloggers for writers.  

 

I always read Molly Greene. Molly describes herself as a author, blogger, blogging specialist and coach. She blogs weekly with an emphasis on advice to indie authors. If you hate new twitter followers who send automatic DMs urging you to like their FB page/subscribe to their website/buy their book, then you might enjoy 10 Tweets You Should never Send and, like me, consider sending the link to anyone who commits any of the 'sins' listed. Alternatively, if you read her article on 101 Fabulous Blog Topic Ideas, you will recognise just where my shiny new plan came from.

 

Anyone who reads my snippets of new prose will recognise the name Morgen Bailey. Morgen's writerly activities are so widespread, they run into six lines of menu, including online writing groups, critiquing, book reviews and competition lists! I regularly use her daily writing triggers for my warm-up exercises and find them particularly good for flash fiction.

 

My third blogger is author Matt Haig, who posts periodically on a variety of topics addressed both to writers and readers. Recent non-writerly posts have included a moving piece on depression, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Weaker and the self-explanatory The World (A Rant). But my main reason for putting Matt on this list is recent his post on 30 Things to Tell a Book Snob. I particularly like numbers 3, 17 and 19. I'm sure you all know people who would benefit from reading that post. I know I do!

 

So who would you nominate as 'best blogger for writers'?

Challenging Ourselves

What is it with writers and challenges? So many of us attempt different ones each year - and although I don't have any data on the drop-out rate, if my own experience is anything to go by, I suspect it's quite high.

Every November, hundreds of thousands of us take part in NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The emphasis is on quantity, rather than quality - editing and polishing comes later - and in 2012, a combined total of more than 3 billion words was registered on the site. Many people then go on to complete and publish the novels they started this way. I have taken part twice so far: the first time, back in 2006, I managed around 6,000 words before real life got in the way.  Last year, I had another go and reached almost 20,000 words.

For the past two years, writer and columnist Sally Quilford has run the 100K challenge: write one thousand words per day for 100 days from 1st January. Her Facebook group contains 350+ members and there is a handy spreadsheet to allow you to monitor your progress (and compare it with other participants). I had a go both times: last year I lost count around 15,000; this year I more than doubled that, but still didn't manage to finish.

The prolific writer Morgen Bailey posts daily short story exercises on one of her websites and the piece of new prose I'm posting today grew out of one of those exercises. I've recently downloaded Morgen's handy ebook The 365-Day Writer's Block Workbook   and will be dipping in to that whenever I am finding it difficult to get started.

Reading a recent posting by my Swanwick buddy, Vikki Thompson, I was introduced to yet another challenge: Chrys Fey's 30 Day Writing Challenge contains a whole month of prompts to get our creative juices flowing.

I'd love to think that composers have the same sort of traditions: write a piece in C minor, starting with three quavers on G and a minim on E.

Or maybe somewhere, there's an painter working to the following prompt: using only shades of brown, cream and grey, illustrate the phrase 'is that a smile?'.

Maybe it's because writing is such a solitary exercise and we like to think of lots of other people attempting the same task as us, at the same time. Maybe it's nothing to do with being a writer; maybe it's just that all humans, whatever their occupation,  need a goal to strive towards.

Whatever the reason, we keep challenging ourselves and, even when we fail, the word-count keeps going up.  So, this November, I will be having another go at NaNoWriMo and in January, I'll be aiming for 100K again. And in the meantime, there's this idea I've had for a writing challenge...

 

***

As I mentioned above, this piece grew out of a prompt from Morgen Bailey. Random: Fill in a word association word web, starting with the word ‘free’ then pick 5 of the words you created and write a piece including those words. This is the result:

 

Free

Lynard Skynard was playing on the radio; Freebird, my favourite track of that year. I was playing along, practising my air guitar, when I looked up and saw him stroll into the café. His dark curly hair fell across his eyes; eyes so deep, they seemed almost black. His sun-darkened skin was the result of an outdoor job rather than lying around on the beach, I guessed. His blindingly white vest and frayed cut-off jeans framed him perfectly. I wanted him; I didn’t care whether he was alone or not; I was free to be wrong if I wanted to be — and this type of wrong felt so right. I didn’t consider his viewpoint; I forgot he had free will. I just wanted him and that was all there was to it.

Just then, Josie came out of the loo and stopped dead, staring at him too.

“Yes please,” she said - or words to that effect.

“What do you think this is - a free market?” I asked. “I saw him first, so back off.” Well, that was it — there was a real free-for-all.  She tried to push past me, I grabbed her arm. She took a swing at me, I pulled her hair. It took Big Dave and two of his mates to separate us. 

By the time we’d calmed down and stopped glowering at each other, we realised he’d gone! I never did see him again — but I think of him every time I hear that song.

 

***

 

Question: What challenges do you set yourself - and why?