NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month - Sounded like a great idea so I thought I’d give it a go.  So I did and it was both harder and easier than I expected.

For those who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is a challenge with a goal to write a 50,000 word novel but you can’t start until November 1^st and you must finish by November 30^th.  It’s all about raising money to help young writers and encourage creativity around the world.

But it does mean writing an average of 1667 words a day, which doesn’t sound much until you have to do it for 30 days on the trot. 

The thing was, I had a fairly clear idea of what the story I wanted to write was, so I did spend a little time in October plot lining.  Not sure if this is in the rules of challenge, but it’s what I did.  So I buckled down and did everything I could to write every day, and it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. 

There were several points when I really didn’t think I was going to make it.

There was a week when I struggled because I had to get another manuscript edited - loving that job.  There were days in the day job where I was just so pushed I could barely think - enjoying that job, but not expecting an extension on the contract so can’t get too worked up about it.   There were two notable days when I really struggled, one day, the 12^th, I only managed 179 words (was during the convergence of editing and hefty workload). 

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that my most productive days were weekends, 12,674 on Sunday 3^rd,  the second most productive was Saturday 30^th with 7552, because I was so desperate that I just had to carry on, after all the efforts, I was determined, there was no way that I wasn’t going to do it.

The interruptions during the month included, two nights of writers clubs, a night out watching Ed Byrne (brilliant night by the way), and a weekend away - well it was my birthday on the 29^th.  Other interruptions include a day when my eyes hurt so much from staring at computer screens all day at work that I couldn’t do it in the evening, when I had to write in an actual pad with an actual pen, ink and all.   I wrote 20 pages and got my daughter to type them up while I was busy creating more - love my daughter, she hates what I write but she’ll help out anyway.    And, in the spirit of total honesty, there was the night that, for absolutely no reason I can given, other than it was there, that I drank two whole bottles of wine (hubby did have a ‘few’ with me that night too).  Next day wasn’t good, aside from having protesting belly all day (headache taken care of by tablets), I just couldn’t face the computer again, but forced myself to, did manage 936 words, but felt sorry for myself all the same, and since that was actually my birthday - don’t ask because I can’t explain why I’d drunk so much the night BEFORE my birthday.

I lay down that night, when it got to the point I couldn’t do anything else, and was absolutely convinced that I’d never finish the book.  So I got up at seven the following morning and wrote and wrote and wrote. 

Still I did it.  I completed a novel in 30 days, I wrote 71,391 words.  And I feel good.  I am also aware that I really need to do some thorough read through and edits.  I logged all of this through the NaNoWriMo site and took part as much as I could.

But here’s the thing.  I wasn’t sure that I could do it, could I really write a whole novel in a single month?  Well here’s the answer - Yes!

Woo Hoo!!

Counting the Words - Again

On the subject of counting words, the last one was about the words I edited in a limited time.  Which got to thinking about the amount I can write in a limited time.  There is a reason for this, the fast approaching NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month.  Only heard about it last year, and it was half way through November when I did.  Thought it was a great idea and decided I’d do it this year.

I want to do it.

I plan to do it.

I can do it.

Right!

Right?

Write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days?  Well I know I have written 10,000 in two days, and to write the 50,000 words of NaNoWriMo means doing an average of 1,600 a day.  So it should be a synch, right?

Wrong.

Like most writers I haven’t given up the day job, so that’s 45 hours a week I can’t write.  Actually, we have a major deadline in work for December 2^nd so it might well end up being more than fifty hours a week to ensure that everything gets done to deadline.  To be fair the 45 hours does include travel time.  Then there’s the fact that I’ve got two editing jobs booked on for November, so that could be anything from 80 hours to 200, depending on how bad/good the writers are, and since they are both new clients, I have no idea.  I also have a Scriptslam to attend in support of a friend, two writers group meetings, an engagement party to go to and a weekend away as a birthday treat (mine)/university visit (planning way ahead daughter)/ Christmas shopping (everyone else) trip.  Added to all that, I’ve promised myself I’ll update my Facebook page weekly and write a monthly blog.

Can I do it?

I’m more realistic than Bob the Builder, so I’m not going to say the obvious.

Am I going to try to do it?

Yes!

Anyone else remembering Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back?

Counting the Words

A little over a week ago, I was asked to complete an editing assignment of full edit on a 160,000 manuscript.  This would be the single biggest project I have taken on to date and I knew the story was based in Africa, a continent I don’t know much about, so depending on the facts stated in the book, it might take a fair bit of research.  So, scary prospect.

Made scarier by the fact that it was wanted in a two week turn around.  So not only the biggest project I’ve been assigned, also the fasted turn around.  Since the author is paying for a two week turn around, that means I have a maximum of 13 days to do the work and get it back to editing company so they can approve what I’ve written before sending it out to the author, and the writing of a critique document will always take a full ‘day’.  So have to calculate as 12 days to edit 160,000, or 13,000 words a day  – Eek!

That said, here’s what happened.  

Wednesday - Manuscript received, I got through maybe 8,000 words, 
Thursday - I went to my writers circle Prose Group, so nothing achieved.  
Friday - crappy day in the office, struggled to get 12,000 words done.  
Saturday - my husband was on Day shift (12 hours) and my daughter is a teenager so doesn’t surface until the afternoon and then she’s perfectly capable of looking after herself, so she did.  That meant that I could shut myself away in the study and just get on with the edit – 60,000 words , woo hoo!  
Sunday - was a repeat of Saturday, but managed to get through over 70,000 words.  All of which left only 6,000 words for 
Monday - did the last 6,000 words  
Tuesday - other stuff on the go
Wednesday - notice only one week after receiving the full manuscript - I did the majority of the critique document,
Thursday - polished the critique document and sent to the boss

Phew!

All done and dusted in time to go away from a long weekend to see our son in university on the other side of the country.  Nice to be able to go knowing that I won’t feel torn between family and work.

Editing Outs the Blogging

Haven’t blogged for a while, which is rather remiss of me, but there is a reason, frankly I’ve been too busy working.

As well as working the usual 9 - 5, or in my case 07:30 to 15:30, I’ve been very fortunate in securing a second job.  The job is as a freelance editor, mainly working for Jefferson Franklin Editing, but also a couple of independent pieces.  Admittedly I took a second job to pay my son’s rent through university, but for what is possibly the first time ever, I have a job that I love so much is doesn’t feel like work.  Even when I am slogging through the worst prose ever, I’d still rather be doing that than working in a office - even though I’m still working in a office and on a laptop, but I’m sure you know what I mean. 

I will admit that I suddenly feel a lot less aggrieved by the pile of rejection slips I have in my own filing cabinet.  If editors have seen my work in the appalling light that that I’ve viewed some of my authors work, then I’m not surprised I have a pile of rejections.  I have to say though, that some of the work I’ve gone through has been utterly brilliant.  As well as full edits, JFE also offer free sample edits, and I’ve done a few of those too, three of the ones I edited were so fresh and original that I really hope the full manuscripts come in.

Most of what I’ve edited have been children’s or crime fiction, one even a children’s crime novel - that was fun.  As I specialise in writing crime, this has been a somewhat eye opening experience.  Given the wide variety of crime possibilities out there, maybe my sticking to the police procedural and private eye formula is a risk at the formulaic?  Maybe, but I love it, besides all my best characters have arisen from stories where they weren’t even meant to be the main focus.  Still, more on that next time, and I promise to write sooner.

Working Out The Pain

I may not have blogged for a while, but I’ve been writing frantically.   In the last three weeks I’ve produced about six short stories ranging from 1200 to 3000 words, I’ve entered two competition and received a valuable critique from a professional writer/editor who was more than fair in what he said and pointed out that the competition was for crime which usually means whodunit, whereas my story was more of a thriller.  So complete rethink required.  I’ve selected a locked room mystery instead.  Still needs some polishing, but I have until the 14^th for that.

Also I’ve been out and about a bit.  Last weekend, my husband and I had four days up in the Yorkshire Dales, 41 caches and a lot of walking.  On the last full day we were there, we did a 4.5 mile walk around Janet’s Fosse and Malham Cove.  Truly spectacular landscape.  Well worth the visit.  Breath-taking.

No really, certainly took my breath away, but then I probably need to get a lot fitter (probably – ha! – who am I kidding, I definitely need to get a lot fitter).

Anyway, I walked up to Janet’s Fosse, put a 2p in the Fairy Tree, walked up the slope, along to the top of Malham Cove (where Harry and Hermione camped in the last Harry Potter film), the down the hundreds of stone steps to the foot of the Cove.  I’ve had a bad knee for a decade now.  The doctors keep telling me that there’s nothing wrong with it, but for nothing wrong, it can be damn painful, to the point that I use a walking stick to support my weight (yes I admit it – I need to lose weight).  So most of the weekend I’ve been hobbling and leaning on the stick.  The evening before this one, I wasn’t even sure I was going to walk it anyway because of the pain.  But I did.  I took each step one at a time, keeping my bad knee straight on each step down and both feet touched each step.  By the time I was at the bottom of the Cove, I had had enough, I was in pain.  There was however, the distance to cover from the bottom of the Cove to the car park – a least a kilometre.  Thankfully it was all relatively flat and on goo paths.  So I walked it.

This is where it gets weird.

About halfway back to the car, I realised that I wasn’t leaning on the walking stick any more.  Then I realised I wasn’t in pain anymore either.

Later, though my muscles were tight, I had after all just been on an unusually long walk, I wasn’t in pain.  Any pain.  At all.  What’s more, it’s now Friday, and I haven’t had a single twinge all week.  I can walk up stairs without hauling myself up on the banister, I can sit in a chair without leaning on the arms, I can lower myself into the car without falling those last few inches.  It’s great!

I’m so happy and slightly worried.  As good as it is to be pain free again, I’d really like to know why, because if I can walk the pain away, there’s a distinct possibility that one day, I’ll walk it back and that I don’t want.

Anyway this blog is supposed to be about writing, and I did manage to write a short story while I was away, another crime fiction piece, so good weekend all round.

Keeping to the Point

Last time I blogged it was about knowing what the point of what you are writing is. Well since then I have had to restrict my own activities to strictly those where I know the point comes with a deadline.

Because the  day job has been so utterly nutterly busy I've had limited down time and weekend commitments I couldn't drop. So when it comes to writing I've been focusing on the got to get done things.  Unfortunately this has coincided with a period of "couldn't figure out the plot if it jumped up and bit me".

So the weekend just gone I kept my promise to my daughter and took her to see the new Star Trek movie - completely brilliant movie by the way and well worth seeing in 3D. So ended up spending all Sunday at my desk.  There's a competition ends tomorrow that I want to enter and I thought I'd try something new. 1500 - 1700 crime fiction.  

For a start I couldn't concentrate.  Ended up making an analysis of my Amazon sales instead, useful but could have waited. Anyway, I made four different starts to short stories and done of them worked. Then, flash of inspiration figured out the story I wanted to write and did so.

Once I got to this point, which was about six in the afternoon things went much easier.  Still had to work at it, but by eight I had a complete story. 1835 words in need of editing, but I had done what I set out to do.  

So I gave it to my hubby for editing.  When he had done I asked what he thought and got an unenthusiastic "It's okay".

OK, isn't good enough for a competition so that's out the window.  However, he did suggest that I put forward another one I wrote a while back.  All I've got to do now, is check whether or not I've actually submitted it anywhere before.

So that's the point I'm at. That's going to be the point tonight.

What's The Point?

                Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be as depressing as the title suggests, I promise.

                This week I’ve been doing a lot of writing.  Mostly in work, not because I’ve been skiving, far from it.  We’ve had three reports to go to different senior management groups and they all had to be done by Friday.

                The difficulty with the reports was not so much the content, as knowing what the point was.  That sounds a bit odd, the point was, they were going to senior management and so had to be done, but when I was uncertain of why they were going to managers, it was extremely difficult to know how to pitch the paper.  I had to do the drafts, so I did, but it wasn’t easy, then I passed them over to the man to present them and they all got totally re-written.

                I’ve had similar feeling with some of the fiction I’ve been writing too.  I’ve got story ideas, but I’m not sure where they are going, I’m not sure what the point to what I’m writing is.  It makes it very difficult.  I remember undertaking a writing course where it suggest that every story has a plot and a theme.  Plots I don’t have a problem with, themes are much more difficult.  Took me a couple of years to realised that the theme of “Foreshadows” was identity even though it had been in there from the start.  Now I’ve come up with a follow up idea for “Foreshadows”, I know what I want to do with the plot, I’m pretty sure I know what I want to do with the characters, but I have no idea what the theme is.  Still I am only at the conceptual stages with this follow up, not even figured out a working title yet, so there is plenty to time.

                Also on Saturday last, we were supposed to be going to a CITO event, that is Cache In, Trash Out event.  A CITO is where a group of geocachers get together at an agreed location to pick up ‘trash’, kind of self explanatory really.  On Friday, I got on the website to check the details, but found that the event had actually been cancelled due to unexpected and unavoidable work pressures on the organiser.  So what would have been the point in travelling all the way to Cardiff for an event that wasn’t going to happen?

                The theme to this blog has been keeping to the point, the point of this blog was that in writing, fiction or non-fiction, you need to know where you are going, because if you don’t have a destination in mind, you may never get there.

Clash Resolved

You may remember at the beginning of the year I put out a list of resolutions, one of which was to blog at least once a week, well I messed up.  I didn’t blog last week.  The reason was one of my other resolutions, to enter at least one competition per month. 

Week before last I got a notice of an anthology being put together for Science Fiction writing.  Okay so an anthology isn’t exactly a competition, but you are in competition with every other writer who puts in for it.    And the subject really interested me.  It was about how science will change the human body, and I instantly knew what I wanted to write about. 

The idea was so clear in my head that I just had to get it down on paper, well okay, various bits on the computer, because I did type this one straight in.   So last weekend instead of blogging I basically sat down a wrote a whole 5000 word story in a single day.  To be honest I think I wrote about 6500 words, because there was one big section that I wrote and then just cut the whole scene out, covering it with a few lines in flashback instead.  When I was done I was still at 5700 words, so Sunday was spent trying to rewrite to get down to the 5000 words.  But I did it.  Took a lot of head scratching, but eventually I got the count down. 

Jon read it for me, pointed out a couple of mistakes and hated one idea, but it is science fiction after all and I needed that particular idea to ensure the final section worked the way I wanted it to, so I left it in hoping that the editors of the anthology aren’t so against the idea as my husband was. 

I also sent off another competition entry to Writing Magazine last week, so I worked on that a bit too.  Both stories have now been put forward so fingers crossed I hear good news from at least one of them. 

Also put a piece for work through to the prose group for criticism, things with this particular story is that it has a sub title, which I didn’t supply to the group, and there are two words in the prose which appear to be spelt wrong, but if you know the subtitle, you know those words are spelt the way they are.  Wonder if any one picks up on it.  I’ll let you know.

Easter Rushes

This was the Easter bank holiday weekend and I went with the family up to Lincoln for four nights.  It was the most relaxing weekend I’ve had in ages, but almost totally unproductive. 

            I say almost, because while I didn’t get the blog done, or any writing done, I did get about a third of my book “Foreshadows” read for errors.  I’m re-doing this because one Amazon I had a review I had said there were typo’s on every other page.  At least with e-books you get to double check and sort these out, so that is my aim.  I still have another third to go.   Now I have been away from the book so long I find that the reviewer was right and I am horrified that I let the book fly so riddled with mistakes.  Mind, that said I have had four number four-star reviews and one five-star review, which is pretty good really.

            Knowing this I feel I need to get my next book professionally proofread. To this end I found an advert in “Writing Magazine” offering a sample edit of a chapter.  So on Sunday morning, 11:24, I emailed off chapter one of my next book, “Solutions”.

            To my utter amazement, I had a response at 16:09 asking me, of all things, if I am Welsh or live in Wales.  Since the answer is that I do live in Wales, I responded with that confirmation and expressed surprise that they’d asked and done so, not only so quickly, but on a Sunday.  I hadn’t been expecting a response until the middle of next week at the earliest.  Turns out that there is a reason the question was asked, the company, Jefferson-Franklin, is based in Merthyr Tydfil, and are currently offering a discount to Welsh writers.  By sheer and freaky coincidence, the book I’ve sent to them is also based in Merthyr.

            Well I have to say, I can’t believe the service I’ve had. 

            The sample I sent was 3124 words long, but I got the full edit and critique document in my email at 23:09 that evening.  Good turn around and really good result.  I have to say I am taking some of the comments with a touch of salt as these are businessmen touting for work, so I doubt the response was ever going to be overly negative.  Still I was impressed at some of the oddities they picked up, certainly things I would never have spotted, some edits I wouldn’t have known to make.  So I will be sending the full manuscript to them, just have to decide if I’ll go for just proofreading or full edit.  Of course, I also have to find the money and that’s always easier said than done.

            Anyway, I should be off now.  Thanks for reading.

Badly Dressed Criticism

If people don’t like being criticised, why do they circulate their work for criticism?

When I’ve written something I always give it to my husband to read.  I do this partly because he’s closest to me, but mostly because I trust his opinion, because he’ll never shy away from telling me something is bad.  He does this with clothes too by the way.  There have been times when I’ve put on something I think look goods, but he’ll soon tell me if it doesn’t because he doesn’t want others to think badly of me, and he does the same with my writing.

            I appreciate a tough review,  I want my reviewers to be nitpicking, because I know if I put something out to a wider audience, there will be people out there ready to tear it to shreds.  Much better that it gets torn apart where I still have the opportunity to re-write than after it’s in print.

This doesn’t mean I don’t get upset about bad comments, sometimes I do, but as long as I know that it is aimed at improving my work, I’ll take it on the chin.  Of course I don’t always agree with criticisms either, sometimes the commenter has missed the point, sometimes they haven’t seen the fuller picture and sometimes they are just plain wrong.  But I always listen because a lot of the time, they are right and they do have a point.

            So I do the same with I critique other people’s work.  I will pick up on little details that don’t fit.  I will say if the dialog is out of place with the setting and what/when the people are.  I do this because it has helped me when it has been done to me.  For example, I have a story called Unclear Triangle, when I wrote it I thought I was just writing everyday English speech.  But my husband was quick to point out that actually there were a lot of Americanisms in there, so I built that into the storyline and it gave me an unexpected extra background story and more colour to my characters.

            Unclear Triangle was started about fifteen years ago and in the second chapter I talk about wanting high speed camera film, this week I put it up for criticism with the local writers circle and it was pointed out that with modern digital cameras, hardly anyone uses film any more.  So either I have to explain why high speed film is being used by that character, or I have to take that idea out to fit with the modern era.

            I also reviewed three other stories at the circle, and clearly my comments were taken as being me ripping into people.

            All in all, I was rather disappointed at this week’s weak criticism, it was less helpful than I was hoping for.  I didn’t go to be patted on the back.  I don’t need everyone to say they ‘liked it’, if everyone likes it, I won’t have done my job right.  I want to be better than that.  People shouldn’t like everything, not everything is likeable to everyone.  Universally liked means universally bland.  When it comes to writing, it should move you, you should feel something.  Love it or hate it, have a reaction. 

So, I wondered, I went to a writers circle to make me a better writer, why do other people go?

One In A Million

Someone said “you’re first million words don’t count”.  I say someone because I’ve Google-ed this and I’ve found several different people to whom this quote or mis-quote is attributed, though Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury, but I like the idea that it was Stephen King.

            Anyway, I was interested enough to wonder how much I’ve written, so last night I fired up Excel and Word, and went through all my files, counting words and adding it all up.  It was a surprising and odd experience.  I listed the books and my short stories, took only the count of the final versions even if the original were longer, occasionally much longer.  

            As I was going through I had a few surprises, not least of all was that several pieces I ‘knew’ were not there.  Actually it turned out that on the whole, they were there, they’d just got lost in my random approach to file saving, next job up this weekend is sorting out my filing.  Also, my hubby pointed out that given the amount of work on my hard drive that if I lost this laptop or it got damaged, I’d have lost a hell of a lot of work that I’d never really get back, so after I’d finished the count, I did burn all my files to a CD.

            Back to the surprising.  Because I’d been thinking about this millions words thought, I’d been thinking about it in work Friday, so at lunchtime, I started making a list of the stories I could remember and a estimating how long they were.  I didn’t keep the list, but I know as I was making the new one, I was rather surprised to find just how wrong I was on some of the counts.  There are a couple of cases where I was way out.  One romance I thought was 90,000 words turned out to be 60,647.  Another I’d thought around the same size was 84,086.  But the two that surprised me were one of my early mysteries that got an agent, but no publisher, which I’d thought was about 100,000 words, turned out to be 121,985, and the last is, of all things, the only book I’ve actually self published, Foreshadows (available on Amazon for Kindle), I thought it was around 120,000, it was actually 147,181.

            Anyway, I’ve got the list, I’ve done the maths, and here it is: 1,126,533 over 38 distinct stories.  Since my day job is heavily set on mathematics, did a number of statistics while I was there, I’ve tabulated them below, in case anyone’s interested. 

            Of course this count is only what I’ve got on the laptop.  And only the fiction, it doesn’t include the raft of non-fiction I’ve written, nor my journals, nor my blogs.  Also, I’ve got a couple of boxes worth in the loft that were saved on three and a half inch floppy discs (yes unfortunately, I really am that old), which I’ve never transferred, and never will do now, I mean, who’s got a floppy drive any more?  Mind you, I’m not sure I’ve even got the discs any more.  Truth is anything that old probably isn’t worth having any more, but while they sit where I can’t see them, they are skeletons in the loft that I can’t quite bring myself to cremate. 

            So, hey ho, that’s a million words and more.  Hopefully that means that now I’m be able to ‘write’. There again, give me a pen and paper, or computer, or even my smart phone and I’ll write whether I’m ‘able’ to or not.

Total (as at 15/03/2013)	1,126,553
Average	29,646
Max	147,181
Min	94
Mode	1,700
Median	2,842

Time Races

Well time has certainly been racing for me this week. My new job is a bit of information overload but what's really getting to me is the fact that 2 days a week I'm still doing my old job.  Now I have to be honest - I love my old job that’s why I had to think very hard about even taking the new one.

It was agreed that I would do this split so I have to but what's worrying me is that the language being used suggests that the old bosses are expecting this position to go on indefinitely and there is no evidence of finding a replacement despite the fact that I gave them a CV of an ex-colleague I knew was available. Thing is I ended up spending hours on Sunday working when I wanted to be relaxing. As it was Mothers Day it would have been nice to have spent time with my kids only my son is away at Uni and didn't even bother texting me and my daughter was in Paris with her school on a French language holiday.  So just me, the hangover and a hang over hubby oh and the workload.

Have managed to keep up with the resolution to enter at least one competition a month and actually entered two last night. I also managed to find a piece for a flash fiction competition which I'm considering putting in for.  My hubby read it last night, said it was very dark.  Well the judge said he wanted to avoid formula and read something that moved him, well if this story doesn't move him I don't know what will.

Time to get on with other stuff.

The Ring in a Circle

The last two weeks I’ve struggled to find something to write about, which is why my blogs haven’t been as regular as they could have been. Tonight blogging wasn’t on my to do list, however, I thought I just had to get this done.

About a year ago I went to CrimeFest in Bristol and among others, I met Sally Spedding, and in conversation she suggested that I try my local Writers Circle, she even gave me some contact details, only a problem was, I didn’t get around to using them before my email account threw a fit and deleted everything in my inbox for no good reason and the details were lost.  So on Monday, I was on the internet and for no good reason I looked up Swansea Writers Circle, the link that came up to the council’s website, which linked to Swansea and District Writers Circle and gave me all the details I needed.  The site told me that they met on the first Wednesday of the month, so today I went.

The only other writers circle I’ve ever been to was in Cardiff and probably more than twenty years ago, so I was expecting the same sort of thing, people reading their work and other critiquing it.  But no.

Got there and there was an agenda and a speaker.  I was quite surprised.  The speaker was Melanie Lloyd, a woman who writes about boxing, she had two books out entitled Sweet Fighting Man and Sweet Fighting Man Vol 2.  When I realised she was going to be talking about boxing, I can’t say I was overly enthralled, but she was a really good speaker.  Absolutely enthusiastic about the subject, Melanie was a joy to listen to.  And though she spoke of loads of boxers I’d never heard of, she had interesting stories to tell that I enjoyed listening. Thing was, I’ve been trying to work on a noire flavour book and recently read Choke Hold by Christa Faust, and two of the three lead characters are boxers, so some of the stories Melanie told, seemed very resonant with that book, so obviously Ms Faust and Ms Lloyd have both got a talent for evoking the same imagery, emotions and reactions.

Strangely enough, I entered and won a prize in the raffle, but since I won a bottle of bottle of wine and I’m trying to give up drinking (not exactly working, but I’m trying), I suggested that it be pulled again, and it went to the other first timer there.  Nice that huh?

Anyway, feels good to feel enthusiastic about writing again, so thanks to the Swansea and District Writers Circle for that.

Blues

Well we've had white and red, but last weeks theme was blue.

I was somewhat under the weather, physically exhausted and mentally numb.  The pleasure of being offered a job wore off as quick as I realised what it would do for my finances - that is nothing.  I've been offered a significantly lower salary than the job was advertised at.  If I had another option I'd take it.

That dragged my mood down some and robbed me of concentration.  I didn't get much done in the week and the weekend was lost in catching on some sleep. Oh, and a ton of ironing.  So I've bent my resolutions missed a weeks blogging and haven't read Writing Magazine at all. Mind with doing the ironing I put Lovefilm on and managed to watch the whole of season one of "afterlife", a programme I was aware of being on TV when it was on air but never watched. It was brilliant.  Loved it.  Will watch season two at some point.

I tried to force the writing with a short piece for a competition, but it didn't work.  Will need to apply myself more if I'm going to be able to make the resolution to enter at least one competition a month.

I have however written more of the romance and come up with the follow up to Solutions.  Solutions by the way is a crime novel based in Merthyr Tydfil. It's all arisen out of my annoyance with the dictatorial nonsense from the HR department over this new job. Also on the weekend I took a walk up  a mountain to do some cache maintanace and spotted a great location for the first dead body to be found.  So while it wasn't a very productive week it wasn't the utter washout it felt like.

Oh one thing more.  This blog.  I'm finding this really useful.  It doesn't get read but it's a bit like therapy.  I get to air my views, focus on the positives and practice writing.  Great mix.   So to anyone who does ever bother to read it - thank you.

Love Is All Around

Well it is the week of St Valentine’s Day? 

Hope you had a warm day, in your heart if not in reality.  Don’t know about where you were, but it was freezing here.

Anyway, the theme of my week does seem to have been love.  Not all heats and flowers, of course, but love all the same.   Though in all honesty, there was a bit of the hearts and flowers.  Not only was it the week of St V’s, it was also the week of my husband’s birthday, but it’s only today that his present arrived.  Better late than never.

I’ve loving the way my life is at the moment.  Despite the fact that I’m changing jobs when the month changes I’m still enjoying the work-life balance that I’ve found since I was made redundant last year.  Before work, the nine to five kind not the scribbling kind, used to intrude on my time off.  That happens now if I have a particular deadline is looming, but so far it’s been four evenings in five and a half months.  Other than that, I’ve been getting back to writing which brings me back to my theme.

There is more romance in my writing this week.  One of my resolutions this year to to write another romance, and I’ve been working on that this week.  Got a good few scenes down on paper and thought up a couple more, it’s really going well.

One other item on the theme is that, strange and sad as I can be, I enjoy cross stitch and have been working on a large panel piece.  Truth be told I’ve been working on it for about four years and I’m only about a quarter of the way through it, but mostly because other things have been getting in the way.  But given the work life balance thing, I’ve been giving one hour a day to it and I’m seeing some real progress on it.

It’s a difference I’m comfortable with, it’s the annoying advise that I used to get when I was a kid.  A little and often.  Keeps the mind alive and active.

Well, got scenes to write, so bye for now.

What's in a Title?

Well actually, quite a lot.  In the office, it’s all about status, position and power.  In the literary words it’s the hook to bring a reader in.

And titles in both areas have been absorbing my time this week.

I’m currently working as a temp, my job title ends is “Analyst”, and on Monday I had an interview for another job, a one year fixed term contract, but that’s more security than I have right now.  On Thursday I was offered the job.  I accepted of course.  It’s not a writing job, but the mantra of mortgage two kids comes up, and there are still bills to pay.  And a job is a job, right.  This one is Investment Strategist, good title huh?  Sounds impressive than Analyst too.

On the writing side, I have been making in roads into the romance story I’ve promised myself to complete this year, and I have submitted two more short stories to competitions.  So I’ve kept up with three of my new year’s resolutions, which isn’t bad.  On the way with another one – reading WM every month, but though it arrived last week, I’ve barely read a page because of the distractions else where.

The pain with the submission of the competition is the difficultly I had finding a title for one of the entries.  The remit was a short story which opens with dialogue of no more than one sentence.

So I wrote the story last month, was happy with it, except for the title. Just couldn’t think of one.  At all.

Titles matter.  And not only in the jobs market.  So I’ve spent some hours trying to come up with a title on this latest entry, and all to no avail.  Been through every synonym I could find for dialogue and gunman to see if there was anything jumped out at me, but really struggled to find something that felt right. Today I had to find the right title, and I had to do it quickly as I wanted to get the submission in.  So I ran several options passed my husband, he didn’t like any of them.  Finally I gave a three word title, and the enthusiastic response was “yeah, that’ll do”.  Not the greatest praise ever, but workable.  It was certainly the best title I could come up with and it’s the one I used.  So fingers crossed it hooks the judges in.

See you soon.

Red All Over

Last week was all white, this weeks been more red.

Red to match the colour of my streaming eyes, over wiped nose and the frightening colour at the back of my throat.  After swimming and geocaching last Sunday, the cold that had been niggling but not developing for months, decided to descend with a vengeance.

           

Having been made redundant in July, I’m now a temp and despite the changes in the law, I still think of it as, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid.    Therefore, despite being ill, I worked all day every day this week.  To add to the misery, I couldn’t sleep well because I couldn’t breathe properly.  So I’ve pretty much been exhausted all the time,and by the time I got home from work, I couldn’t see the laptop screen in focus and my concentration was shot.  So there hasn’t been much going on writing wise this week, I’ve barely written a word. 

I even had to renege on my promise to my daughter to take her to see “Les Miserables” at the cinema because, frankly I’ve had no energy to sit through three hours of a film.

Thankfully, I haven’t missed any competition deadlines, so no major losses.

In fact the only thing that hasn't be 'red' is any book, though I did have a £10 voucher from Waterstones, so I did treat myself this week to "Death Comes To Pemberly" by PD James and "Belfast Confidential" from Colin Bateman.  I'm likely to start on the PD James when my head is back in place, but tonight I've got a job interview to prepare for.

Well, that’s it, short and not very sweet, but there it is.  See you next week.

All White

Well this week has been dominated by the colour white.  Mostly from the snow that blanketed us here in Wales.  To be honest I was beginning to think this week’s blog was going to be nothing but a white page too. 

One day was so bad with the snow that I had to work from home, no getting my little car out in that.  But like a lot of conscientious people that actually meant I ended up working more than my allotted hours.  But it was a couple of days later that was the  much more interesting, that day I had to drive to another of the companies offices in one of the Welsh valleys,  it was raining when I left home and then  as I travelled up the valley, gaining altitude, things got worse.  Things were getting a little, well, interesting, then I reached a stretch of road, I can only describe as a roller coaster, big dip, then a climb.  I made it about three quarters of the way up the incline, only to have the police turn me around having closed the higher section of road because it was too dangerous to pass. The return trip was actually harder than the outwards one because by that time the snow storm had returned and I was driving in near blizzard conditions.  I'd been able to drive in the 20s going up coming back it was 10 to 15 mph.

This doesn't sound like much of a blog about writing but it actually is.  I've been reading a lot about show not tell so while I was driving I also took a mental image of how I felt during the drive. What did I feel about being in a car in that weather;  what were my physical reactions to the effort of driving; how did I feel when I saw 4x4s over take me; what did I think when non 4x4s started having trouble in front of me; and why oh why did the guy behind have to drive quite so close to my back bumper?

All valuable knowledge if I ever have to write a scene of someone driving in bad snow.

More generally, I've lost the way with the romance I started this year, but I did write a completely separate scene which looks like it'll turn into chapter one of a book.  Unusually for me, this one, while still a romance has twisted into a bit of a fantasy tale with hidden truths which could go a number of ways so I'll just have to see where what happens.

I worked on the Pride and Prejudice update for that competition I thought I’d missed.  And I hated it - derivative drivel.  I still have two weeks to try again but it's not looking good.

Anyway, a million things to be getting on with, so I have to go.  Thanks for reading.

Technical Trouble

It’s been a very busy week, loads to do and loads done.  I’ve caught up with a lot of typing, a story that I wrote on holiday in August 2012.  Well the start of a story anyway, I’ve still some research to do before I can finish it.

            This week I’ve read a whole book, which doesn’t sound like much, but for the last few months I’ve not been about to settle on anything, I’ve about four books on the go, a Stephen Leather, an Ian Rankin, a Zoe Sharp, and a couple of others that just haven’t caught my imagination enough for me to get into reading them.  I’ve worked on a couple of shorts.  I’ve also been loosing time to geocaching and swimming, both in an effort to be more active and lose weight.  And in an effort to secure a work life, I’ve been applying for jobs.

            It was the applying for a job that gave me a little bit of a panic attack this morning, and the technical trouble. 

            Just before Christmas I brought OfficeSuite Pro for my Android phone.  This means that I can write
and edit while out and about without having to take my laptop.  Now my laptop’s great, but it’s a 17 inch screen with a full numeric keyboard. Great laptop, works well, does everything I need it to do, couldn’t be happier with it.  Until I actually have to pick it up and be mobile with it.  It quickly becomes heavy and awkward.

            When I brought the OfficeSuite, I stumbled over a great little gadget.  I have a Samsung Galaxy and the gadget I brought is a 4 in 1 Connection Kit, so I can connect my phone to a standard UBS or various SD cards.

            This means I can keep all my files on a memory stick and update them anywhere.  Great.  The bits arrived, they were all compatible and they all work together.  Fantastic.  Proud of this, I went home, told my husband who kindly pointed out that I could use Google Drive, then I wouldn’t need the gadgetry.

            There was a little grumbling about telling me sooner and my not mentioning it before.

            I gave the Google drive a go and it’s been great.  I do stuff at home on the laptop then I put it on the drive and can pick it up on my phone to edit at work in my lunch hour.

            Thing is, this use has been limited to open, amend, save, close and pick up somewhere else.

            So last night I completed the job application and saved it to Google Drive so I could pick it up in work and email it to the to the HR department.  It’s an internal vacancy obviously.

            But here’s the thing.  The company I work for is very security conscious and had restricted access to certain sites.  Yeah, you guessed it.  Google mail and therefore Drive, is one of them, except certain unrestricted PCs, but mine isn’t one.

            The application had to be in by noon, so I thought, no problem.  I’ll go to my phone and email from there.  But the weird thing is, I couldn’t find a way, either from OfficeSuite or my email to send a document.  So there I was, deadline looming and no access to the file.

            That’s when I remembered the 4-in-1 was still in bag.  So a bit of rummaging on my pantechnicon of a handbag, and found the converter and a memory stick and was, thankfully, able to transfer to the PC and from there email to HR.

            The second panic attach came when I thought, oh no, it’s the 16^th!  I was sure the competition I want to enter ends on the 15^th.  Oh bottoms (well okay that wasn’t quite the thought, but I can’t put what I really thought) I’ve missed it.

            But I had to be sure.

            Again because of the restrictions on what sites can be entered, I didn’t try to go through the works internet, and instead connected via my phone.  The competition does end on the 15^th, thankfully the 15^th February, so I have a couple more weeks to get things done.  Phew!

New Year New Resolve

And I'm not talking about the hang over cure, which I could probably do with getting some in just in case.

Like a lot of people at this time of year I have made a number of resolutions. I'm not going to go on about weight loss, though yes that's one, but I am going to tell you about my writing resolutions.  I made six:

1. Enter at least one writing competition a month
2. Get a second book on-line
3. Read each Writing Magazine (hereafter referred to as WM) issue fully
4. Complete one romance novel this year (separate from and in addition to all other work)
5. Write / update my blog at least weekly.

Okay, before you start screaming, I know that's only five and I said there were six, but I'll tell you about 6 later.

So far resolution 1 is achieved for this month.  I submitted an entry to a WM for a competition where the opening line was given.  I'm nearly there with a submission I have to make by post and I've found a couple more competitions I want to work on.

Have come across another competition for female authors which is a bit sexist, but since it's in my favour I'm considering entering all the same.  I'm not sure if I should go for the "noir moderne" I've done, or a fluffier, more romantic, feminine piece.  Not going to enter two pieces as the fee is quite high. Need to think about that one.

I've nearly finished this months WM. I'm making reasonable progress on the romance and this update gets my blog done for the week.  All good news so far.
Resolution 2 may be the hardest one to keep.  I really want to do this but negatives from previous experience are leading to self doubt.  If I could afford editorial services I'd go that route and worry less, but on a temping contract that's about to run out I need to be highly cautious when it comes to expenditure right now.  Either that or I need to be a lot less cautious about my writing talent.

Finally to resolution 6. This one was to re-write a series I’ve started about a character called Autumn Raine, a private investigator bumbling around Swansea.  When I made the resolutions, I thought that this would be relatively easy.  But since making that decision so few days ago, I’ve wondered if it even works.  The stories are all written in first person, which is not my usual thing, generally I write third person. But three literary agents have rejected the manuscript saying that it was telling not showing, hence the re-write.  But now I’ve been thinking that I could blog it instead.  Want to look more into the mechanics of that, be certain that I can in fact do the conversion before I try it.  So while, I will re-write it, it may not be the book I originally intended.  Best laid plans and all that.

Well now that I’ve done this, I need to go and get on with work on other resolutions.

Ta-ta for now.

Four Days Three Pens.

            Hope you had a good new year and the only hangovers were good memories.  I didn’t stay up to see the new year in on account my husband was on a day shift on the first so was up at ungodly o’clock (04:30), we did hear the fireworks though, sounded like we’d moved to Gaza there were so many bangs, you’d think we were under attack from mortar fire.

            Well, anyway, one of my Christmas Presents this year was a subscription to Writing Magazine, and February’s issue arrived today, haven’t had time to open it yet, that's next on the agenda after I've published this blog.

            Since last I wrote, I’ve written a second story for a competition where the first line was given.  I enjoyed the story and do like it, but my test audience, yes I do mean the long suffering husband, tells me that the first story is the better one, so that’s the one I’m putting in.  Both shorts were about Mc and Mac.  The competition closes on the 14^th, so I’ll be uploading that over the weekend probably.

            The timetable of competitions has come on well enough, though I’m not sure I’ll keep up with all of them, but I’ll give it a go.  I put it into Excel, rather than Access, in the real world I tend to design databases, so Access is usually my first choice, but this time I just went for the instant results of an Excel.

            Have got up to chapter five of the new romance novel, have in fact, managed to run three pens out in the writing so far.  I don’t know what method other people use for writing, but me, I start with putting it down in long hand, then I edit as I type up the first time, then I read and edit and edit and read and so on until I think the story is ready.  I haven’t found a title for this one yet, still I guess that will come in time, at least I hope so.  Still looking for a title for the last romance I wrote, thinking that MisDial might work, but not sure. 

Will keep blogging, write to you soon.