writing

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: Six Super Sites on Writing Dialogue

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Writing dialogue is a tricky business. We want it to ‘sound genuine’ and not stilted, but we need realism without the everyday ums, ahs and errs. We want it to convey emotion, relay information, show character, move the story on…

Poor old dialogue! We ask a lot of it. And that’s without the scary task of indicating dialects or speech impediments, and ensuring that our characters sound different….aargh! Luckily some writers share their words of wisdom on how we can tackle these problems, so out with the notebook and see whose offerings ‘speak’ to you (all puns intended).

Speaking of Dialogue

A light hearted look at how to make dialogue sound real from Hugo and Nebula award winner Robert J. Sawyer.

A Few Thoughts About Dialogue

Novelist Janet Fitch’s views include the idea that you only need dialogue in your story if it’s showing conflict between characters. It’s a fair bet not everybody will agree with that one, but the post is well worth a read.

Writing Really Good Dialogue

A PDF guide to writing dialogue from NaNoWriMo, complete with exercises to try.

A-Z of Writing – D is for Dialogue

Light-hearted advice from the delightful Sally Quilford, writer of novels, columns and short stories.

Dialogue Techniques and Dialogue Tags

Essential info from the Crabbit Old Bat (her words, not mine!) Nicola Morgan

Dialogue Workshop

This is from author Holly Lisle. Well worth trying this on days when your brain is blank and you want someone to give you a random starting point, too (what do you mean, you don’t get those?).

 

 

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.

 

Sharing The Blogging Love ;) or Things You Never Knew About Me

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Crikey, I think all this writing romance has turned me all lovey-dovey 😉
The truly delightful Catherine Miller, aka Katylittlelady, awarded me a Verstaile Blogger Award a while ago, but there’s been so much going on that I haven’t had time to step forward and accept it. I shall do so now!

Ahem! Unaccustomed as I am to public sp- what d’you mean, I don’t have to make a speech (and who was that at the back saying ‘and please don’t!’ What a nerve…)

Fair enough. The rules of the Versatile Blogger Award says you must:

1. Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post. DONE THAT!
2. Share 7 things about yourself. BELOW.
3. Pass this award along to 15 recently discovered blogs you enjoy reading. I’LL TRY BUT MANY I WOULD PICK HAVE ALREADY BEEN GIVEN IT…
4. Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know about the award. PROMISE TO DO THAT.

So here are 7 little known facts about me – and then I will run through my lovely nominees….

  1. I’ve no idea who one of my great-grandfathers was. His name is missing from my late grandmother’s birth certificate, whilst the man her marriage certificate names as her father has the same surname as her mother’s maiden name…This is either a)fake b)a coincidence, because the surname is very common d)suggests incest as it is the name of a fairly close family member. a) is most likely.
  2. I’ve been to Albania. Back in 1995, when it wasn’t recommended. We booked a day trip there from Corfu through a company that was still running trips (our holiday company wouldn’t – too risky). Having hardly any money after lunch (because the day was meant to be all inclusive and wasn’t), we turned down the unexpected offer of an extra excursion and stayed in the town where we were due to catch the boat back. Very lucky for us – the people who did go on the trip were locked in the coach and the driver refused to drive them back until they had all ‘given him a tip.’ It was a fascinating experience (not least because we saw a whole herd of goats high up in a tree!)
  3. I once dispensed a prescription for Myra Hindley. She collected it in person accompanied by two prison officers, one of whom was handcuffed to her.
  4. I was nearly widowed 7 months after my wedding. My husband became ill shortly after we got married and 7 months later he was in Hammersmith Hospital in London having a rare type of adrenaline-producing tumour called a phaeochromocytoma removed. They’re more commonly diagnosed in post-mortems, so he was very lucky…
  5. When I was really into doing yoga, I could make my feet feel warm and cold at will, almost instantaneously. I can still do it now – sometimes – but it takes a little more effort.
  6. One of my grandfathers was a POW in the Second World War in Japan. I never thought to ask how he was captured; he was in the Navy and spent most of his time on subs. He escaped but broke back into the camp to rescue his friend, and was recaptured and tortured. He survived the war but was never in the best of health afterwards, dying when my Dad was only 16. Can you be immensely proud of someone you’ve never met? Apparently you can – because I’m very proud of the ‘granddad I never knew’.
  7. I don’t know any really famous people. Disappointing, huh. My friend Carole knew Gordon the Gopher. My husband knows the man who fixes Rory McGrath’s computer. I used to chat to the partner of Phil from Time Team on the Time Team forum. That’s as far as it goes (any other examples would be similarly sad). My husband, though, has rather more brushes with fame due to where he works, and properly famous bands come to play at his company’s Christmas parties. McFly, Olly Murs… sigh. He also gets to go abroad, whilst I work 8 minutes walk away!
So now to…DRUM ROLL!…my nominees!
http://jlpwritersquest.blogspot.com/The very useful and friendly blog of the talented writery lady Julie Phillips 🙂
http://herabsentmind.blogspot.com/  I met Bee at Sally Quilford’s Pocket Novel workshop and have since wandered on to her blog where she talks about caring for her mother, and also about yummy food (she’s written a cookery book so she knows what she’s talking about!).
http://mydadsacommunist.blogspot.com/ I was pointed to Daphne’s immensely readable blog a few years ago and try to read it whenever I’ve got a moment. Daphne  runs an acting agency and is involved in role-play sessions to educate health professionals. A fascinating read.
http://the-edge-of-nowhere.blogspot.com/ Very entertaining and often downright hilarious blog of a pig farmer-cum-heritage-centre-overseer on the remote island of Westray.
http://lynnehackles.blogspot.com/ Guaranteed to make you laugh, she is qualified to dispense useful tips on writing successfullyand on winning Deal or No Deal, both of which she has done. Honest.
http://magnumlady.com/ Val’s blog is full of musings on her life in Ireland and her gorgeous photos. There’s a reason she’s won prizes for them – take a look!