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Whipping Your WIPs into Submission, OR ‘Fifty Shades of Completion’

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Over on the Facebook Group for the 100k in 100Days Challenge, we don’t only talk about writing 100K words in 100 days. I know: it’s a shocker. We do mainly talk about writing, so if that doesn’t appeal, don’t join. Because it will bore you to tears, and life’s too short, even on a Grey day.

One of our recent natters intellectual debates was about languishing WIPS (works in  progress, lovies. You’re new here, aren’t you? Welcome :D).
Why do we have them? How many do we have? Will we/should we, ever finish some/most/all of them? After I suggested that performing a personal WIP audit could be useful,  suddenly the thread morphed into a secular online Confessional. Dozens of WIPs were admitted. The sin of Never Finishing any work above ‘short story length’ (a Grey area) was confessed (if this was a Vlog, you’d see me raising my hand here. As it isn’t, use your imagination). Some WIPs supposedly started when their authors were living in trees writing with a scratchy stick, but that was probably an exaggeration. Flamin’ writers.

Many of us felt we had at least a few WIPs worth retrieving from the Grey recesses of our archives – worth reviving or even completely rewriting, because the original idea was sound. How to do this logically, though, and how to balance the demands of ancient WIPs with the urge to start new stuff – that’s tricky. Or is it?As I’m all for giving an approving nod to other writers and their ideas, and this confessional mode is hard to get  out of, I’ll tell you now that if you need help with this, How To Finish What You Start – A Five Step Plan For Writers – may be all you need to tackle this Grey area.

BUT if the Five Step Plan seems too harsh, and not to have that holding-your-hand-and-guiding-you-gently-through-the-thicket-of-thorns-to-the-rainbow-rose-garden approach that you prefer, you might need my Fifty Steps Of Completion plan (except there are only fifteen) to Whip those Whips into Submission, instead. And no, I didn’t call it that to get hits from people seeking certain volumes of erotic fiction, it just came to me (no double entendre intended). If that’s what I was after, I would have mentioned E.L.James and slipped in the word Grey everywhere. (Oh… whoops.) Without Further Ado, I give you…

Whip

Fifteen Shades of Completion: Whipping Your WIPs into Submission.

Get a notepad ready – you’ll need it in a minute. (Yes, and a pen as well. Smarty Pants).

  1. Dig out every notebook and scrap of paper with writing on that you possess (yes, that includes shopping lists. What do they tell you about the person who wrote it, or what they’re about to do? They make great prompts!). Put them in one place: a boxfile if they fit, a bedroom if they don’t (displace the occupant. It’s for the Greater Good). Label your boxfile/bedroom WIPs.
  2. Search tirelessly through documents, blog posts, Sticky Notes, files from MyNovel/Scrivener/NewNovelist etc for writing. Save in one folder: WIPs.
  3. Time to separate your WIPs from your PIPs. PIPs are Ponderings in Progress. Snatches of dialogue, interesting info, undeveloped ideas; any pieces  less than about 5% of the intended finished length,  count as PIPs.
  4. Gather PIPs together in one computer folder and/or notebook, scrapbook, expanding/lever-arch/box file. If there’s a related cutting, join your PIP to it: staple, paper clip, or stick them on the same scrapbook page. Then, when you need a new idea (maybe you ran out of  WIPS; woo-hoo!) – all those brilliant seeds will be just waiting for you to come along and water them.
  5. FILE your PIPs, Make Way For Your WIPs! Label then store your PIPs.
  6. Only true WIPs left – got your notepad? LIST and number each one. No categorising, no comments, no ordering; just list. If it doesn’t  have a title, assign one that clearly identifies it, e.g. 1. Watch The Wall 2. Ghost sport story.
  7. Go down the list. Star WIPs that excite you/give you a warm fuzzy feeling.
  8. Again! This time star WIPs when you think, ‘I know what I’m doing with that.’
  9. Again! This time star WIPs when you think, ‘I could finish that fairly quickly.’
  10. Again! This time, star WIPs when you think, ‘I already have a competition/ submission/other purpose in mind for that one, that has a deadline attached.’ If the deadline is in the near future, give it two stars.
  11. You may feel that there’s one kind of project that you never complete, whether (like me!) it’s longer projects, non-fiction, flash…so brandish that pen again and star projects that fall into your ‘always left to last’ category.
  12. If your list contains items without any stars, take a good long look at them. Are there any that you feel you will never want to work on again? Now’s the time to heartlessly slash through those items.
  13. Hopefully by now you will have a short list of starred items – with any luck some will have more than one star. Your stars should enable you to write out a prioritised WIP list.
  14. What you need now is a PLAN. A rule that works for you, to ensure your WIP list is tackled whilst writing new stuff. Now you could go cold turkey – as recommended by the 5 step Plan – and ban yourself from writing anything new at all. By all means do this is you can, although remember to at least briefly write down any ideas in your PIPs book! But this won’t work for many people, who need to write new material because they have commitments to do so and/or need to write to earn money; or who find just revitalising old material feels stifling, making them lose heart.
  15. So if you can’t go cold turkey, what are your options? Here are some rules I suggested to Gerald Hornsby on the 100K group (he took up my audit suggestion and ended up logging a bewildering amount of languishing WIPs!).
  • ‘for every two new ideas I write up, I must finish 1 WIP’
  • ‘for every 2000 words I write on something brand new, I must write X amount on a WIP’,
  • ‘I will complete a WIP every two months’.

For any of these to work, it’s best to make a spreadsheet or some kind of record, to keep yourself honest, AND on track. Hope that’s cleared up any GREY areas 😉

Go on – DIG OUT THOSE WIPS AND MAKE IT HAPPEN! Good luck 😀

 

In Which I Admit That Alex Gazzola @HealthJourno And @Simon Whaley might have a point :)

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Confession time.

With fiction, I feel I know what I’m doing. Roughly. I have a uni Diploma in creative writing. I’ve had a small amount of fiction success. So hopefully I understand the principles of telling a good yarn, even if, like all writers, it takes me a few rewrites to sieve out the grit and get to the gold. And non fiction shouldn’t be a problem, should it? My OU education tutor, very well-respected and much published, urged me to do a Masters because he felt I wrote well at that level. I happily chunter on in my monthly column about preschool happenings in the village mag, and had a history article accepted by a Huntingdonshire magazine editor (she never ended up publishing it, mind, or commissioning the series she wanted me to do, but that’s another story).

MC900436368

But here’s my CONFESSION: generally, as far as non-fiction goes, I’m a bit scared. I’ve always felt I’m not worthy. Yes, I’ve dabbled in a few careers, but never risen to any professional prominence in them; I have hobbies, but haven’t pursued anything obsessively. I don’t even OWN an anorak. So why would anyone want me to write about education, childcare, inclusive practice, equality and diversity, history, medicines, children’s literature, books, or the genius that is Stargate in all its permutations, when there are hundreds of people out there more qualified than me?

I’ve read advice about writing non-fiction in magazines articles and on the blogs of writers like Simon Whaley and Alex Gazzola. I’ve learnt about finding my niche, expanding my niche, twisting topics in my niche so they fit into other people’s niches and venturing out of my niche. It all made me feel very buoyant. But when I had snuck away  and thought about it for a while, the only thing I felt confident writing was a comment, preferably in size 6 font, on the end of their posts: “I haven’t got a niche. I don’t know quite enough about anything.”

Alex Gazzola @HealthJourno
Alex Gazzola
Simon Whaley @simonwhaley
Simon Whaley

I’n not the only one. I know this because on Alex’s blog, Mistakes Writers Make, he has charts showing  most popular posts this month and most popular posts ever. Guess what? His post on this very subject -‘Mistake No. 12: “I can’t write for Yachting Monthly!”‘ is the top post this month and no.6 in his all time greats. Simon’s posts on this subject, which include Taking small steps and You’re the best person to write this piece because … are on his tutor blog Simon Says because he knows these concerns are shared by a lot of his students. But readers, I listened to their words of wisdom but did not quite believe. Forgive me, father, for…

Then this morning I sat down armed with pen, notebook, this month’s Writer’s News. I intended to read all the market news but in all honesty was only intending to note down fiction markets. Because, remember, I don’t Know Anything.

I started down the first ‘Flashes’ column. Pah! The top item was about Farm and Ranch Living,  a U.S. bimonthly. Yeah, right. What do I know about farming and ranching in the U.S? Then BING!

Yellow light bulb

I don’t know a lot about it, but I know a woman who does. Mary O’Hara.

I know what you’re thinking. The Irish harpist? Really? No, silly. Mary O’Hara the musician, screenwriter and author, who amongst other things wrote My Friend Flicka which was turned into a film and was all about life on a ranch. Not surprising really as she lived on a ranch for 17 years with her second husband. And my fascination with her books made me research her and read her autobiography… hmm. Perhaps I could write an article about her life as a rancher’s wife. Or the way she represented ranching in fiction. Or compare the life of a rancher’s wife in the 1930’s and 40’s to the life of a contemporary rancher’s wife – or indeed lady rancher. Ok. Star that one and write details in the notebook.

Next down, The Aviation Historian. Well I don’t know anything about…
Hold on. I live in East Anglia in the midst of a very hotbed of current and historical RAF activity. I live just over a mile from an RAF base. This means the local papers often feature historical photos and items about RAF history. It was one of these, an item about the extreme bravery of a Lancaster bomber crew member, that sparked my as yet incomplete novel, Forgive and Forget. The first chapter got me a very pleasing mark as my ‘exam piece’ in the first year of my Diploma. And even though that was a few years ago, I did lots of research, all of which I have tucked away. Hmmm…

So sorry, Alex and Simon. I see your point now. I need to think a bit more widely and have more confidence. Perhaps I’ll turn these musings into a filler or a letter, as well! *Whispers* “Ahem… you were right.”

 

 

 

 

NaNoWriMo? Non! NaNoRebelo!

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‘I’m not doing that again!’ I said to myself. And, if you’ll forgive that writing no-no, the adverb, let me tell you I said it to myself FIRMLY.

View details See? That’s how I looked. Determined. But without the ginger hair. Or the earrings. And admittedly I rarely wear that shade of pink, but then with that hair colour, nor should she.
So what was it that I wasn’t going to do again? I bet you’re all on tenterhoo-

What d’you mean, you’ve guessed?

 

Ok, so the post title might be a clue. But it wasn’t NaNoWriMo in its entirety that I was rejecting, just the concept of ever attempting it again before I finished my degree. Toooo stressful.

And guess what? The degree is still unfinished. I’m in my last year (although confusingly, not one of my finals years – there’s a certain degree of flexibility with the OU and I left the course I least fancied until last!). Also the other commitments that stalled NaNo last year are still there.  Naturally then, I won’t be doing Nano this year. Nope. NO WAY.

 Well that’s what I kept on saying… until a few weeks ago, when my writing was going well again after a long break, and I had managed to get ahead of my degree course by starting early and only studying what is necessary to get me through the essays (fear not, I’ll study the missed texts before the final exam. It’s not lazy studying, it’s smart studying!). Plus I knew the first few days fall in half-term – so I’ll be working but not in work, making my time more flexible.

But starting something new? Did I have to? I still had last year’s novel to complete, and I’ve been busy trying my hand at a serial and getting back in the swing of writing short stories. I didn’t want to start something new, or develop other novels I had in the note stage, until I had this one done. I’d promised myself it would be ready to send out by the end of the year, and that wouldn’t happen if I started something new.  But I didn’t want to cheat! What to do?

And then I came across this blog post on NaNoWriMo Rebels by Rachel Naquin…and realised NaNo has a legitimate home for me. I AM an Official NaNo Rebel – and proud of it!

If you’re not sure whether you qualify too, check out Am I a Rebel? You can hang out with other NaNo Rebels and tell them How You Are Rebelling.

And if the idea you can rebel and still be ‘proper’ has inspired you to join in -for the first time, or again – listen to this NaNoWriMo Pep Talk by Kristina Horner on YouTube. It made me giggle 🙂

 

 

SUNDAY SITE SWEEP: Five Fab Sites for Beating Writer’s Block

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This week, sites to generate ideas and spark creative thinking. Are you champing at the bit, ready to start a new project, but can’t fix on a starting point? Or perhaps you’ve come to a sticky patch in something you already have on the go? Whichever it is, hopefully one of these sites will provide the inspiration you need….and an ancient post of mine, A Walk Round The (Writer’s) Block, might prove useful too.

Plinky Prompts

Plinky: ‘because sometimes you need a push’. Plinky prompts can be sent to you via email, Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr and there is a new one every day. They used to do specific creative writing prompts but as far as I can tell these are a thing of the past (they used to include prompts such as ‘write the dialogue between a cop and the mother of a lost child’).  Also, overall the prompts seem to require less soul searching than they used to – describing the worst day in your life is very powerful, but describing your three most hated Facebook statuses, perhaps less so. Despite that, they are still very useful and it amazes me that so many writers are still ignorant of Plinky; there will be something to get you thinking at least a few days a week. You get a recap of the week’s prompts every week by email, and on the website you can access hundreds of old prompts – and perhaps even better, look at other people’s answers. Inspiration gold!

The Scriptorium

This site has a whole host of useful features including some excellent printable worksheets. The whole site is well worth any time you have spare for browsing, but for the purposes of inspiration these pages are the ones to focus on:

http://www.thescriptorium.net/features/prompts/

Free-writing exercises and scenes to write up

http://www.thescriptorium.net/toolbox/story-starters/

First lines and paragraphs to get your story brain working.

http://www.thescriptorium.net/young-writers/yw-creativity/

These exercises are in the young writers’ section, but are useful for writers of any age!

Errant Dreams

Scroll down the page until you see category listings. Category 1 is Images – visual prompts; anything from ‘a car with a web of cracks on a side window’ to ‘a star was tattooed on his brow’. Other categories are phrases, concepts and techniques.

PostSecret

‘PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.’ I think this mission statement – or perhaps it’s more of a raison d’etre – tells you why it is a great place for story and character ideas.

The Seventh Sanctum

This novel site has a random story generator and, in the left hand side bar, a whole host of genres – click on one and you will find lots of info on the chosen genre and links to story generators for that genre. Very…novel!

And as a bonus – I’m not an ipad user, but the apps below were mentioned in Webbo’s Web Watch in the September issue of Writing Magazine. Thanks, Webbo 🙂 I’ve added the links so you can investigate for yourself.

Flash Fiction Prompter

iDeas for Writing

Inspiro

 

Spring Cleaning – thanks Adrian Magson and The New Writer!

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It all started with Simon Whaley talking about my piles.
Ok, that’s not strictly true. I commented on Twitter that my dismantled study was in piles in my bedroom (building work loometh), and that amongst said piles I had to find a stack of not-so-sticky-any-more sticky notes: a scene-by-scene novel plan. I won’t tell you what Simon said about my piles, gentle reader, because your delicate ears don’t need to hear it. But by the time I’d retrieved those sticky notes I had decided enough was enough. I couldn’t cope a moment longer without a desk – I can write anywhere, but need one organised location for all my writerly bits. And I couldn’t cope a moment longer with my bedroom resembling the aftermath of a riot in WHSmith. either.

Currently the only place for my large desk is in the corner of the riot-stricken bedroom. Cue large scale furniture moving and reorganisation. But it so happened that in this very week I had been rereading Adrian Magson’s Write On!, and had got to the section about Spring Cleaning, AND had found the The New Writer’s spring issue that I had somehow failed to read, featuring Nicola Daly’s article about…Spring Cleaning.

The Culprits

Both writers were urging me to go through my old work and spring clean my attitude to my writing too, as well as giving me a timely reminder that sometimes, as much as we love books, it’s time to let some go *sniff*.  I took their advice and a week later I am just about sorted. There is still paperwork to go through, but the desk is reassembled and reorganised and around 100 books have been decluttered, with those that remain (don’t be fooled, there are still hundreds!) reorganised on bookshelves that now have new homes. Despite my doubts, it seems my bedroom can be both haven and workplace.

But what was most useful was the looking back through old notebooks.
Adrian Magson says doing this can ‘make you realise that what you wrote in the past actually wasn’t all that bad’. But if like me, you have the memory of an inebriated goldfish, you can leave out the ‘wasn’t all that bad’; it can make you ‘realise what you wrote, full stop.

How can I have forgotten the beginnings and rough synopsis for a story I originally intended for the National Trust/Mills & Boon competition? (Looks like a good candidate for a My Weekly Easy Read submission). Or that when I started writing a pocket novel at Sally Quilford‘s Pocket Novel workshop last year, I based it around Cornwall and smuggling because I’d been researching those topics for the YA novel I had fully planned out? I had started far more, and got further along with far more, than I remembered. Great news.

Hopefully my new ‘writing home’ will produce good results. In the meantime, no hate mail please just because I forgot to take the ‘review copy’ sticker off Adrian’s book. I buy lots of books but occasionally am spared the expense of doing so by the perks of my husband’s job, and luckily he manages to bring home some Accent Press review copies (unfortunately someone beat him to Sue Moorcroft’s Love Writing, so that is on the Christmas list…and if I found out who it was… my vengeance shall be mighty!

 

SUNDAY SITE SWEEP: Five Fab Sites for Historical Fiction Writers

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Welcome to the first Sunday Site Sweep. Every Sunday I’l pick a (hopefully!) useful topic and take you on a quick tour of a few sites that are worth checking out. Today, I’ve  picked some sites that might prove useful if you’re a writer of historical fiction. (Before the heckling starts, this doesn’t claim to be a Top Five, just an Interesting Five!)

Enjoy 🙂

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Explore-online/Pocket-histories

Among other things, this page is the hub for articles on ‘what was life like in…’ that are a useful starting point for research. The topics have a downloadable PDF and a general wander round the site is well worth it too!

http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk/

To paraphrase what they say about themselves: The History Girls are best-selling, award-winning writers of historical fiction, writing for younger readers through to adults, spanning periods from the Stone Age to World War II and locations from Trondheim to Troy. “We’ll share our thoughts on writing, research, reviews, and all aspects of our work. We love what we do and we want to talk about it. We hope you’ll want to join in!”

http://suewilkes.blogspot.co.uk/

I follow Sue on Twitter @SueWilkesauthor and she always has an ear to the ground for interesting historical snippets. She is an author and creative writing tutor who specialises in family history, social history and literary biography. On her blog she gives a taste of what she is working on or on other history topics that have caught her attention. Well worth a visit for ideas and info.

http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/life-in-middle-ages.htm

This site has info on the middle ages in general, and links on the page above take you to accounts of daily life for people at a range of different social levels.

http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/ushistory/13colonieslife.htm

Ignore the poor images for the links, and the fact the site is for children; there is some good information here on the day to lay life of early colonialists in America.