A Quick Note

I have had an amazing day in a workshop with fantasy writer Fiona McIntosh. It was a great oppertunity to learn from an experienced and well published author.

I learnt a lot and it has given me some good grounding and great tips for my current work. I am a little nervous about whether I can come up with three books. But I'm currently meeting my daily word goal and the story is moving along well so I may just do it.

She also had some great advice around getting published and how important it is to keep the audience in mind while writing.

I have come away refreshed and revitalised.

And a new idea is teasing me, and this one I'm sure I can write over three books.

Happy Scribbling.

Coming Unstuck

This week hasn’t quite gone to plan. I continued to struggle with getting words onto paper (or screen). I have still been making lists but it didn’t seem to be helping. I was ruminating ideas but not putting them down.

By the time I reached my writers group on Thursday night I hadn’t written anything and the pages I had tried to rework were disjointed and the scene started in third person, shifted to first person and then back to third, but another character’s point of view.

This is why I think writers groups are so important. We were a little light on the ground as half our number are attending a creative writing course, but the opportunity to share my work and talk about it was very helpful.  It is also helpful to listen to other writers, hear how they write, talk about what issues or problems or challenges they face.

I left the group feeling enthusiastic and recharged. And I have been writing. I am also more settled on the voice. I know what I am comfortable with and so that seems to work best. There are some plot points that need some work but I am happy at the moment to continue writing and let it work itself out.

I may have already mentioned that when I start writing I don’t write to a plan. I usually have a character or a scene in mind and the story builds from there. The overall plot is coming together with my fantasy draft as it moves along. But there are times when I write something and then wonder how it will resolve itself or end or connect to another scene or character. I have found in the past that the characters can determine things for themselves. That is work out how the story should go.

So now that I am writing , I am going to just write and see what happens.

Happy Scribbling.

From Stuck to Unstuck

I have had a very poor week. I’m stuck. I have found it very difficult to get out of bed of a morning and cringe at the idea of facing the computer. I’m not even sure how it started, but it has lasted all week. I haven’t known where to turn to next and I haven’t written a word, well a creative word, at all.

Today I finally turned to a great book to find some solace and see if I could find something to help. The reference is Chapter after Chapter by Heather Sellers. And she is fantastic. But one of the key points in the chapter I turned to today was that what works for others may not work for you. It is important to find your own strategies for coming unstuck.

Sellers gives a range of options and within those there is room for personalising each strategy. One of the options she suggested struck a chord with me – make a list. I love lists. I find lists calming and helpful.

So where I couldn’t sit at the computer and work through ideas I have been standing at the kitchen door writing out lists of questions. In a way I was writing lists of ideas but I find them more useful when formed as questions.

These questions will then sit in my head, moving around and slowly working their way out to a solution. It all helps in moving from stuck to unstuck. Tomorrow morning when I sit down I will be able to think about one of the ideas that I questioned tonight.  And then I’m sure a scene or idea will start to form itself and the words will flow. And the day after and the day after that.

I’m quite excited now about sitting down in my study tomorrow morning. Now all I need to do is make a note so that the next time I get stuck it doesn’t take me as long to work out how to get unstuck.

Reading, Writing and Dreaming

I have missed reading so much. But one of the things about reading that I forgot was that it can take you away into a whole new world that washes away any care for the real one. Not that I have stopped operating altogether. I am still managing to get up every day and write, and feed the kids and send them to school. But every chance I get I am picking up the book and disappearing into someone else’s world for a time.

Here is the current state of my bedside table, or at least how it looked yesterday morning. The pile of books I have purchased or borrowed over the last few months but too busy editing to read.

And then there is my current library book.

I am attending a workshop at the end of the month and wanted to read something of the author that I will be working with. Then a supposed friend, who came around last night arrived with three more books (they aren’t included in the photo). I have actually started a second pile. And I’m living in fear of passing a bookshop in case I feel the pull of another novel.

This reading is also feeding my creativity. It is certainly helping with some small problems I am having with my fantasy novel. The story is there but I am unsure about the best way to tell it. I am very comfortable with the first person, but not really sure if this is the best way to tell this story.

Part of the joy of a first draft is that I can do what I want with it. So as well as playing with different ideas, some scenes are in first person, some in third person, some in present tense and some in past tense. As I go I think it will work itself out what is best for the story and I can adjust the rest in the next draft.

And my vivid dreams are back. I had the rare opportunity to sleep in this morning, partly why this blog post is late, and I woke feeling both excited and scared. It was unlike anything I had dreamt before and very dark. The images have haunted me all day, and I have struggled to remember small parts that are no longer clear, such as conversations and instructions being screamed over the crash of waves. But some details that seemed small and insignificant at the time are more prominent now as I try to relive it.

A small white house in the distance sparked something later this afternoon. I have dreamt of it before. And in a very different story, with very different characters but it was the same house in the same place, with the same setting.

So as unsettling as the dream was, the house is calling for me to write it. It may be the place that needs to be written.

I wish I had whole days to write and read uninterrupted...but for the moment I am going to have to continue working out how to fit everything together. I think my best option is to try to go to sleep tonight thinking about my little house and see what happens next...

Happy Scribbling

Pictures of Inspiration

One of the blogs I follow recently suggested that pictures can be used for inspiration. That they spark an idea when you’re struggling. This post even suggested different places to find pictures and what you can access and use them for.

Now when I read the post I was having some trouble coming up with what I might write about this weekend. I have dived headlong into my fantasy draft and everything I do seems to revolve around something for that at the moment. But even though I am writing consistently every day and it’s moving along, I have moments where I think I am not going to be able to write all the words required to make it what I want it to be.

I have all the big scenes in my head and working towards paper; it's the bits in between that worry me.

I was taking some time to look over some of the completely unrelated to writing blogs and websites that I very occasionally visit when I came across an amazing photo. Before I could think about what I was doing, I had a scene forming in my mind and half a page typed out.

It is important to note that I wasn’t out looking for inspiration at the time, I just got lucky. I think we should try to experience a wide range of things because you never know where inspiration or ideas might strike from. And, of course, it depends on what you are doing or thinking about at the time.

It could inspire a scene, a story, a poem, a blog post, a painting or an article. Keep the mind open and enjoy. My scene came from three little spotty blue eggs in a glass bowl. I once wrote a short story inspired by one line in a country and western style song, and I don’t even like country music.

Happy Scribbling.

Group Discussions

I have become one of those people. You know the ones that seem to think anything is possible. Like the ex-smoker in a group that says you just need to stop.

I have been lucky enough to be asked to join a new writers group. I didn’t realise how much I missed talking with other writers and hearing what they are doing and writing. We are all unpublished and there is a mix of genres being written and of course different ways of going about that.

One member of the group, at our last meeting, read a first draft piece to introduce one of her main characters to get an idea from the group as to how it was working. It was great to talk it through, everyone had good ideas on ways to tidy it up and we talked about how she would use it, or whether it was a good exercise for her to develop more background on the character but that the actual piece itself may not end up in the final version.

I think with a first draft it is important to get the story down on paper and then rework. So this is where I turned into “one of those people”.

I asked how much of her story she had written down, and then suggested that if she gets the story down, she could work on the order, detail and so on later. She said she has the order and the plot quite well planned as it has spent several years moving around her head and taking over her thinking. But she has written very little of the story down.

‘But you want to write it.’

‘Yes, but I don’t have time.’

‘Just an hour a day?’

Here she scoffed and it was driving home that I realised we can’t put our own ideals and goals onto others.

She wants to write her story but she needs to work out herself the best way to do that. I should have suggested 10 minutes a day. Everyone can find 10 minutes and then build on that. An hour really does sound daunting when we have so much else happening in our lives.

I have recently decided that writing is what I really want to do above all else. I still need to spend time with my family, go to work and the gym, and do some housework. But if I want to be a writer then I need to fit writing in too. I get up early to get that writing time every day.  And sometimes if I’m really lucky I can get some more time of an evening or weekend.

But just like kicking the smoking habit, just because I can do it doesn’t mean everyone else can too or in the same way. We each need to work out what is best for us, and the best way to get that. And tt is worth noting that another member of the group also gets up at 5am to spend a quiet, uninterrupted hour writing. At least I know I am not alone.

Happy Scribbling

Whoahoo...

Finally it is done. Finished. And complete.

I'm not sure that it is really any good. But it's done.

I finished entering the last of the corrections this morning. Only a couple of days behind schedule, which is not too bad given the number of years it has been a work in progress.

Next step is to try and get it published...a very scary thought.

And it also means I can start reading other people's books again. I am keen to dive into the pile of novels beside the bed.

And start drafting and creating again by getting back into my fantasy draft.

Just as soon as I stop jumping about.