Tag Archives: NaNoWriMo

Back into the fray . . .

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Here we are reader, almost half way through January 2015 and I have to say my life has been hectic since I finished NaNoWriMo in November. Most of December was taken up with preparing for an audit for our business. With new laws and expectations, I ended up needing to rewrite our entire business policies and procedures as well as implementing a lot of new strategies. The audit was the week before Christmas and we passed with flying colours. So then it was time to get ready for Christmas. Shopping, cooking, present wrapping and cleaning.

We made it through the week between Christmas and New year with little to do and prepared to enjoy the break. I started back into my daily work schedule, decided to paint the interior of our house, started painting, it was all looking good.

Before

Before

After

After

And then the MOTT had a heart attack.

After the angiogram

After the angiogram

As you can imagine, this has taken it’s toll on Miss Muse, she took off and hid in the archive box and wouldn’t come out. So I spent a good majority of the last 2 weeks at hospitals, doctors offices and trying not to freak out. MOTT is fine, out of hospital and preparing to annoy me for the next 8 weeks until he is cleared to resume driving a commercial vehicle.

But, I am taking the opportunity to write while he is running the phones and chasing loads. I need to write a minimum of 30K in the remainder of January, so I can get my ms to Felicity Pulman for her perusal. After being fortunate enough to win a mentorship with the awesome author of “A Ring Through Time”, “The Shalott” Trilogy not to mention the “Janna Mysteries” and her latest release “I, Morgana”, I certainly did not want to blow the opportunity. So from now on reader, I will be writing like a wild thing.

If all goes well, I’ll share a snippet with you soon. So enough about me, what have you been up to? Have you ever read any of Felicity’s books? What did you think? I loved the “Shalott” series, and have “I, Morgana” on the top of the pile beside my bed.

NaNoWriMo – the good, the bad and the totally ugly

01 Monday Dec 2014

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Reader, NaNoWriMo has been a really hard slog for me this year.

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After returning from our wonderful trip to the UK, a month away from the pressures of my day job, where my focus was almost totally on my writing, I came back to a back log of work plus a few horrid surprises.

I won’t belabour the pity party I indulged in, suffice to say I got stuck in and caught up during October and did a fair amount of research and preparation to begin the umpteenth rewrite of my first YA novel, “Castle Quest” book 1. I was hanging to start, could not wait for the freedom of November. I had managed to get myself sorted to be able to nano without too much in the way of distractions.

Or so I thought.

Our business has an accreditation that requires an audit every 2 years, but it isn’t due until February, so it wasn’t likely to interfere with nano. Right? Wrong. The auditor paid us a nice little introductory visit to say hi and have a quick look at where we are at. And proceeded to tear my little complacent world down around my ears. Suddenly I had a work load that I couldn’t jump over and the audit was booked for the 18th of December not in February as I’d expected. So instead of having a month cleared for writing, I now had a six week to write policies and procedures and implement a million additional processes to our accreditation model. To say I wasn’t happy was a bit of an understatement.

Stubborn thing that I am, I thought I could still write. After all, I write early in the morning, so I’d write creatively in the early morning, and write business policies after that.

Now this is where things started going awry. I have a bit of trouble jumping from one to the other. So when I had time to write, I found myself thinking about the “verification of on board air scales for individual axle groupings”. When I was supposed to be writing the procedure for fault reporting and subsequent closing out of the fault, I was imagining walking along the Scottish coast, high on the sloping cliff tops, with the water oozing from the earth with each step.

Overload

It has been an enlightening time. I’ve learned a great deal about myself. One of these is that I can write rather good business documents, the second and most important is that I struggle to stay in the “stream of consciousness” that I need to be in to write. When I am constantly pulled out of my story I find it really hard to remember what was happening prior to the interruption. That’s ok, I can reread the previous scene and get back up to speed. Well most of the time I can. But as I became more stressed I found it progressively harder to find my characters motivation for their actions. So I’d read back over something and feel as if it was written in a foreign language and that it had little to nothing to do with me.

It is a hard thing to explain, but to lose that fragile gossamer thread can be soul destroying for me. I need to keep momentum up when I write a first draft, that’s why I nano. Not for a 50K word count, but for the motivation and momentum. To keep myself  heading down the same path as my characters and to keep everyone heading in the same direction. That’s why, when I am pulled away and distracted, I come back wondering who is who and why they are doing what they are doing.

And so NaNoWriMo is finished. It’s the first day of December, I have made the 50K, some of which needs a major fix up, but I made it. The story is not done, the first draft isn’t even finished, but thank heavens Nano is.

Winner

So did you attempt NaNoWriMo? Do you like or loathe the 50K in  30 days concept? Did you win? Is it worth it? I know for me, the time set to get the first draft done is as important as a motivator as it is a generator of the actual words, but when life has it’s way, NaNoWriMo, can be totally ugly. Will I do it again? Yep, I think I probably will.

Better late than never, I hope . . .

17 Monday Feb 2014

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Dear reader, I can only apologise for my long absence. I have no excuse except perhaps rebelliousness.

I have been busy, trying to continue to write, edit, keep our business going and assist in a major back yard blitz.

Back yard and chickens

Pre Backyard Blitz

2013-06-04 11.03.20

Until Dave came home with a mini excavator

2013-06-05 13.26.58

And it started to look a bit messy

Then came the dingo, that was a bit wild, with the thing almost tipping over, that may have been the operator though :)

Then came the dingo, that was a bit wild, with the thing almost tipping over, that may have been the operator though 🙂

Then we had rain . . .

Then we had rain . . .

retaining wall under construction

retaining wall under construction

Now let's have a go with the bobcat

Now let’s have a go with the bobcat

back filling, more wild moments

back filling, more wild moments

now for the topsoil

now for the topsoil

and turf- Sir Walter soft leaf buffalo- lovely

and turf- Sir Walter soft leaf buffalo- lovely

Beautiful new back yard

Beautiful new back yard

As you can see, it’s been pretty busy and I admit that visiting here and keeping in touch have been pushed so far to the back of the stove that it was in danger of falling off.But to bring you up to speed, I was so sick during NaNoWriMo and I kept writing to make sure I made my 50K. And I suffered for it. I should have given up and gone to bed, instead I persisted and burned out in a big way. December was full of trying to finish, restart, restructure and sort out the mess I’d made of the story. I’d done so much research for it and planned everything out meticulously only to have it come to a lot of incomprehensible waffle. Now I don’t even want to look at it all. It’s dreadful and garbage. But perhaps one day it will come to light and I’ll see if it’s redeemable. Just not yet.

On a good note, I received wonderful feedback for Something on the Water from Charlotte Ledger of Harper Impulse (remember I won a manuscript development in August with RWA’s Clayton’s Conference?), and have been slogging away at rewriting SITW for about the gazillionth time. At times I’ve felt like tossing the whole thing, thinking if it takes me this many goes to get the darn thing right I should just toss it. But then I realised it’s all good practice, and who knows, it may even finish up publishable. Wouldn’t that be nice?

And so that’s me, for the last two and a half months, I’ve been hiding, editing, trying my hand a little poetry and renovating our back yard.

I apologise for my slack friendship, and hope you’ll forgive me and we can remain friends.

Enough about me, what have you been up to? How was your Christmas and holiday season? Did you work through most of it like I did or were you laying back enjoying the sun, or the snow? I’d love to hear so please, share.

Life v’s NaNoWriMo

25 Monday Nov 2013

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Oh deary me reader, what a crazy few weeks it’s been.

SONY DSC

Illness, birthday’s, stormy weather and NaNoWriMo

November isn’t over, but it has certainly been all over me. I’ve been to a writing course in Sydney, decided to go to the UK for a writing retreat and then got sick. All the while with NaNoWriMo playing in the back ground and my story so not working out.

Two days ago I decided my NaNo project simply was a disaster. I think being sick and having a passive goal for my main character made for a bit fat 40,000 words of boring.

Boring, boring, boring. And I figured if I was bored with it, what would you think? The same I’d imagine. My MC, Crystal is her name, was doing nothing but moping around. Let’s face it, everyone likes to mope for a bit. But 40K of moping is simply too much for any muse to put up with. I didn’t know what was wrong with her. Crystal spent all day moaning and having long passages of internal dialogue. Yep, enough to make you long to watch paint dry. I won’t say grass grow, because it’s growing quite quickly around here after all the rain we’ve had. Sorry, off topic there. Lola in the Grass

And being the dedicated little Facebook dudette that I am, I made an announcement. I gave up and with both hands held high, surrendered.

Then I thought “But hey, Crystal needs a goal” I suddenly realised. Yes, it was sudden, I’ve been sick, OK? I realised she was doing nothing but waiting. Waiting is boring enough without having to write about it. So, I came up with a new idea. I gave Crystal something she wanted. Instead of letting her cool her heals waiting for time to pass, I decided she might just having something to offer the world instead of simply waiting for things to be handed to her on a silver salver.

Beautiful. I’m happy, and even better, Crystal’s happy. Poor darling, she was as bored as the rest of us.

So now, here I am, putting 40,000 words aside and starting again. I am vain enough to be willing to keep the first 40K until after NaNoWriMo is finished. I’m starting again, but adding to my word count. There are several bits that I will be able to reuse and refine. So it’s not a total waste. The good thing about writing is you can start again. They are only words, they can be deleted.

2013-11-25 13.31.47

As an aside, my morning has been a tad chaotic. If you and I aren’t Facebook friends, (well you can look me up) but you may not know that I have, so far today:

  • Waved goodbye to my husband for a few weeks
  • Discovered my darling cat Mr Ferrol Flynn was sick
  • Had my hammock chair break and the timber spreader bar come down and whack my in the nose, resulting in a bleeding and very sore nose, scratched new glasses and worst of all, spilt coffee
  • Been to the vet with poor Flynn, who is ok, apparently must have had a bit of a fight with a feral cat and been bitten, so had an infection
  • Slipped in the bathroom when the phone rang and I got out of the shower to answer it
  • Burned the roof of my mouth on over-nuked left overs

2013-11-25 07.28.37 2013-11-25 07.28.56 2013-11-25 09.11.36

It’s been a long day, and I still managed to re-jig my plot, scribble a mind map and create parallel narrative arc’s for both new and improved plots in my story.

So, how about you, how’s your Monday going so far? Mine’s been good and bad, but in the spirit of getting with my American friends, I’ll take the Thanksgiving option and be thankful for the good that has come from the day.

30,000 words and I’m not ok

18 Monday Nov 2013

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Good morning reader.

Well here we are, day 18 of NaNoWriMo and I’m exhausted. I’ve been sick for a week and a half and have tried to battle on. Screen Shot 2013-11-18 at 8.32.32 AMThe whole of November has just been hard going so far, and it’s not looking like getting any easier.

I came out of the gates with a bang and was pretty consistently writing 2,500 words or more per day. Except when I was in Sydney for the writing course with Kate Forsyth. I told you about that last week, you can check it out here.

Then I started getting sick, but I persevered and was totting up that word count nicely. The only thing was, I wasn’t getting better. I was progressively feeling worse. I blithely ignored all the advice from family and friends and wrote on. Brave thing that I am. Uh, nope. Stupid, more likely.

After almost a week of sticking my head over a bowl of steaming Vicks Vapour Rub in hot water between word wars, and getting no where. Of sucking on Strepsils and taking decongestant medicine, and plotting my next scene while feeling like each breath was being drawn through wet hessian. On Friday I gave up and I went to the doctor. Of course it wasn’t lungs full of phlegm that was the problem but a strep infection in my lower trachea. No wonder all that head steaming and decongestant did nothing. So, I am on antibiotics.

All this is not the worst of it. The absolute worst is that my story has reflected my decline in health. Slowly creeping down into a miserable place. Not where I wanted it to go at all. So probably the 10,000 words I struggled to force onto the page in the last week were all for naught! I know! It makes me crazy. I could have just rested and recovered and been no worse off. I guess I have no choice but to go back to where it started to go off kilter and rewrite. I may as well just do it now and get it over with.

Have you ever read a book where it seems to change tone mid novel? I know I have, I remember reading a book where the main character started to feel annoying. I later read that the author started to hate her and it reflected in the story.

So, for me, it’s back to the drawing board. I hope your day is sunny and bright. It’s cold a raining here. But that is quite good writing weather.

Rainy day

Might just turn on the heater. It’s hard to write with cold fingers.

A new book, and more editing

28 Monday Oct 2013

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Reader, it’s only days until November and that means 30 days of intense writing and not much else.

NaNoWriMo

Except I’ve enrolled in a two day writing course with Kate Forsyth. Yay, I am so excited. To add to the already hectic schedule that’s scribbled on my calendar I am still trying to get the editing finished on Something In The Water.

As I draw closer to the time to send SITW out to some publishing houses, I get ever more nervous of doing it. I wonder if I will ever feel that it’s ready to go. Each time I read through it I find I am still changing things. Restructuring sentences and deleting extra full stops. Instead of feeling as if I’m getting closer, it’s making me more nervous about it ever being good enough to send to an editor. I could pay to have it edited but I really don’t have the money, so instead I’ll go over and over and over it.

books

The feed back from Charlotte Ledger has been helpful, and as I apply her recommendations it only serves to make me feel that I’m not up to par. On the other hand, I think I should just send it out and see what happens.

Finding where to send it is a whole other ball game. I’m simply not sure where it sits in the market. I didn’t write it with any particular imprint in mind. If I’m honest I didn’t even know what an imprint was when I wrote the first draft for last year’s NaNoWriMo.

As I approach the pointy end of writing, the bit where I have to do the hard slog and not just spew out convoluted prose, I can see that my dream to be a writer is a dream worth the blood, sweat and tears. And yes reader, there has been all three. While day dreaming about my story I’ve managed to cut myself instead of the carrot I was chopping. I’ve trudged up steep hills to visualise a scene for my story. I’m cried because I can’t get a scene right and feel like giving up. Or cried because my hobby is now a job and therefore it required that I actually work and not faff about.

So, is it worth it? I think so. Whether I ever get to sign a contract to have one of my stories published or not, I know that I will continue to write. Because I actually enjoy it. Well maybe not the editing, but the making stuff up, absolutely.

Do you write? Do you feel like it’s all too hard sometimes? Or is it just me and my wimpy tendencies? (note- you can lie here)

writers blockBy the time we chat again reader I’ll be firmly bogged down in NaNoWriMo and just back from a weekend of writing in Sydney, so keep an eye open for a crazy dribbling post from me. Have a good week, I’ll be getting my house in order before the madness begins.

38 days, and counting down

23 Monday Sep 2013

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Hello reader, here in sunny Australia it is the 23rd of September. This means that there are only 38 days before NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, or November in the non literary world.

NaNoWriMo

That’s 38 days of reading, researching, plotting, planning, thinking and even dreaming.

Yes, I do dream about my characters. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a scene having played out in a dream. Then the difficult bit is to get it recorded before I lose it.

This year I am planning on something a little different to the style I’ve written before. While still a romance, still a bit of a mystery, those being my favourites, Raven’s Ridge will be a mix if historical and contemporary, mystery and romance. And I can’t wait.

Serendipity seems to play a part in my my writing. A while back, ages really, I found a rhyme about crows, I just liked it so I saved it and forgot about it.

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I love the last line in particular and it became the premise for Raven’s Ridge.

In June I wrote a romantic romp that took my characters to a farm out near Dunedoo in central New South Wales. I fell in love the house I’d imagined and my sister, who read each chapter as I wrote it, did too. We both knew another story with the house as the setting had to be written.

Usually when I’m writing, I start with an idea, then build from there. Add characters, add in a mystery a romance and off it goes.

This time, I started with a house. I want to include our colonial history as I love reading and researching the early European settlement of Australia. So what better than to have a Colonial mystery unravelled in a contemporary setting. Perfect.

Homestead

So for the next few weeks I’ll be scribbling, drawing and reading. I have a pile of books and diaries and letters from the early part of the nineteenth century and have about six weeks to soak up the language, attitudes and history of 1820 Colonial New South Wales. Six week to shape my character’s attitudes, beliefs, likes and hates. Six weeks to learn about organic farming and agriculture. Six weeks to prepare for NaNoWriMo.

books

So reader, do you like a mystery? Does history fascinate you? I love both and am really looking forward to delving into the secret past of Raven’s Ridge and the Craven family’s hidden troubles. Does it sound like something you’d like to read? I hope so.

Something in the water

05 Monday Nov 2012

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Well reader, we are only five days into NaNoWriMo and already I’ve changed the name of my WIP.

A facebook and writing friend posted this link

It got me so inspired in my writing that I decided to rename my work in progress to “Something in the Water”

Have a look and I hope you enjoy it 🙂 I’ll get back to my writing now. See you next week.

Doing the muse justice

29 Monday Oct 2012

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Reader, sometimes, well most of the time really, I don’t feel like I can do justice to my story ideas. I think of a great idea, it’s usually just a snippet, and then my mind takes hold and adds bits, moulds and hammers away at the raw material until I become afraid to actually attempt the writing.

Once I begin to actually write, if I don’t allow my analytical mind too much air time, it’s not such a problem. For me the space and time between an idea and getting it onto paper is the danger zone. I become afraid of the idea, of getting it right. Can I do the story justice, will I bring it to life or inadvertently suffocate it in my attempt to breath life into it?

Is it really supposed to be this darn hard?

When I tell someone or write down a brief snapshot of what a story is about, I get so excited, so keen to jump behind the keyboard and get going. If I’m not able to get stuck straight in, for various good reasons, that’s when the doubt creatures start to infiltrate. Worming their nasty little way in, seizing my thoughts,  planting seeds of doubts and making accusations.

“You can’t do this!” “You will never bring this idea to life.” “You should give up this writing and stick to being bad at bookkeeping.” “A writer you are not! ”

OK, we all know these creatures of confidence destruction. Everyone has doubts, whether they are writers or not. Do we listen and give up, ignore and blunder on, or determine to beat them at their own game.

I think I may go with the last 🙂

Yesterday I attended the National Novel Writing Month Kick Off Party at King Edward Park Newcastle. This has got me fired up and ready for NaNoWriMo kick off on November One. I met some awesome local writers and here are a couple of pics from the day.

King Edward Park Newcastle, on a bit of a lean 🙂 I took the photos on my iPhone.

Jo and Brooke, our Newcastle Municipal Liaison Dudes, and Jim in the centre, it was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Writing, the agony and ecstasy

08 Monday Oct 2012

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Reader, it’s a funny thing, last week I had myself tied in knots about my writing.

I had lost my way and didn’t even know where I’d gone wrong. After talking to Dave (Man Of The Trucks), who I must say has not read the full first draft, who gave me a good telling off for not sticking to my original idea. I began to see a glimmer of what had happened. Still I was not quite convinced. Next I spoke to my very good friend and one of my Alpha Readers, and she said the same, only maybe more nicely phrased.

She reminded me that my story was not a romance, but an historical novel with a romantic sub plot. Again, seeking reassurance, we writer’s are a fragile lot, I spoke to another good friend and alpha reader. Guess what reader, she said the same thing. These good friends and butt kickers have reminded me of what I love about my story. Yes there is a romantic element, but the real story is about Maddy and her moving to New South Wales in 1831. Her struggles to make a place for herself, both in the new and unknown country and a new and emerging society.

I’m excited again reader, I’m ready to dive in, get the edit/rewrite done and out of the way for NaNoWriMo.

Here comes Saturday and I have a full day ahead, I have no other commitments, I can sit under the tree, coffee at my side, chickens clucking, dogs snoring, cat tying me up in his elastic lead.

Wait, all is not as blissful as it seems reader, Friday night throws a nasty stink bomb. I found some amazing excerpts about the Wyndham family. This is brilliant, Maddy’s real life neighbours have left a wonderful trail of crumbs to follow. A window into their life and therefore, Maddy’s part imaginary, part real world.

I read a sentence that caused me to wonder if I’d misunderstood where the Wyndham family were living in 1831/32. As Maddy visits there regularly and Daniel lives with them, I had to get it right. Saturday morning rolls around, cue coffee and laptop, dogs, cats and chickens. I’ll just check the dates, better to sort it now than have to back track and fix up crucial scenes.

Oh reader, what a dilemma!

I couldn’t find the reference, in my endless scrolling through web pages and my history, I accidentally clicked on the “clear history” tab. Gone, all the sites I’d read through the night before. Agony.

So I began a 5 hour hunt for the missing article. Did I find it? NOPE!

In despair I gave up, disheartened and wondering what I was doing trying to write an historical novel. I was not up to the task if I couldn’t even remember to bookmark important documents.

I shuffled inside, shoulders slumped, I chucked the fourteenth coffee (slight exaggeration) down the sink as I passed and wandered into the office and looked around. There, on the printer, what is that? OH MY GOODNESS!!!

Reader, I had actually printed the article. There it was, sitting patiently waiting for me to discover it. Relief and chagrin fought within me! Laugh out Loud, I was saved.

I read through it to find that I was correct in the first place, the Wyndham’s were living at Dalwood for the period I’d chosen to set “On the River Bank”.

Long story short reader, I hadn’t needed the information after all. I had nothing to change in my story, so I’d wasted almost 6 hours of precious editing time.