I have come to the conclusion that I do my best work at night. Perhaps not at 2.35am (which is the time now) but certainly my brain starts ticking over a-plenty with ideas at the time when all good little girls and boys should be in bed. The biggest problem is that, due to fibromyalgia, I like to write using a graphics tablet and pen and this requires space. My future husband also requires space in bed and therefore I have to balance the tablet on him while I write. This is trickier than it sounds, especially as he tends to keep moving. Would I be within my rights to kick him out onto the floor?
I have been working on Chapter One of TFRAB today. Looking good for a first draft. And for anyone who thinks I'm a slacker who is only on Chapter One after a long time procrastinating, might I just say that I have already written chapters 4-9. And also :P
Sunday 17 May 2009
Thursday 14 May 2009
Style.
How many new writers constantly castigate themselves for not being like 'so and so'? I do. As a relatively new writer currently in the 'research phase' (i.e. peering nervously through the window of my nearest Waterstones at all of the 'Already Published') I find that I can be quite hard on myself, comparing my own words and ideas with those already out there, and I rarely come well out of it. Why can't I be more like Neil Gaiman? Why can't I be more like Michael Morpurgo, Dick King Smith or Roald Dahl? My voice, my ideas, all quake in the presence of such giants, such heroes of mine. I feel afraid that, in order to succeed, I need to be more like them.
Well, the revelation hit me today. No, I don't need to be more like other established authors. Yes, I need to be thoughtful, organised, patient, talented, reliable and open to criticism. We all do. But I don't need to feel inadequate just because my style of writing is a little different from those I admire. Heck, it's a great thing. My style is my own and, you know what? It's good. I have no reason to feel inadequate, no new writer should. Nobody should try to be like other writers because all that will happen is that the end result becomes a bastardisation of tones; an entity that is nothing in particular.
So ends this very special episode of Blossom.
Well, the revelation hit me today. No, I don't need to be more like other established authors. Yes, I need to be thoughtful, organised, patient, talented, reliable and open to criticism. We all do. But I don't need to feel inadequate just because my style of writing is a little different from those I admire. Heck, it's a great thing. My style is my own and, you know what? It's good. I have no reason to feel inadequate, no new writer should. Nobody should try to be like other writers because all that will happen is that the end result becomes a bastardisation of tones; an entity that is nothing in particular.
So ends this very special episode of Blossom.
Monday 11 May 2009
The Realisation
I have made a decision r.e. which book I will concentrate all of my energies on in this period of unemployment (hoping, of course, that this particular period of unemployment is not too protracted). I will be writing my children's book, henceforth to be referred to as Project Rodent Rebels (I feel I may as well reveal these details, considering I have already got a website registered to that name, where I have posted not-very-good character related articles and cartoon strips for a few years now). This has been based on a number of factors, in no particular order:
1) Enjoyment of writing (lots of fun);
2) Ease of writing (not that I am saying that this is an easy book to write in any way - however, the style of writing flows that little bit more naturally);
3) Length of book (as it's a children's' book I'm looking at no more than 20'000 words);
4) Likelihood of actually finishing book (see points 2 and 3);
5) Familiarity with characters (I know these characters very very well. I can switch into their minds very easily because they have been in the planning for 6 years);
6) Marketability (this is a book that will, God willing, become a series, maybe a children's TV programme, merchandise etc);
7) How much of a first draft I have already written (about 1/3);
8) How much research needs to be done (on the actual story - very little. On the market and agents etc, considerably more, but that's a little different).
I am very excited about having made a firm decision although it has been a little difficult as the two other projects I am working on I am also enthusiastic about. However, it makes more sense to be continuing with my first Rodent Rebels story. I have a feeling that this is the start of something big...
On a side note, having mentioned my website, I just googled the term 'Rodent Rebels' and the large majority of results related to the site or my other website. I also found a link to a fantasy forum and saw that someone had print-screened one of my cartoons and was using it as an avatar. Oooh, fame - how it appeals to me!
Saturday 9 May 2009
The Stationary Fiend - Part one.
Dear reader, I have a problem. Well, to be truthful, I have many problems but time is brief, this blog is subject-specific and you are not my psychiatrist. Let's keep it all about the writing, shall we? Reader, dear friend, I have a stationary problem.
Hoarding has long been a problem in my family - like a recessive gene, the urge to stockpile has ensured every generation of my family has at least one room filled with things that we might one day need. However, just as twins skip a generation so has my own hoarding habit managed to dwarf anything last seen since my grandmother's post-war generation. I have a pen and notebook problem and I have it bad.
It's easy to rationalise, being a writer. If you don't write, you can't tell your story. If you can't tell your story, you cannot satisfy your most instinctive needs. If you cannot satisfy your most instinctive needs, you die. And you cannot write if you don't have paper and a pen.* Perhaps it's a question of, as I once told my a-level Theatre Studies tutor when my school bag vomited ink cartridges all over the classroom floor, "When the apocalypse comes I want to make sure I don't run out." Perhaps it's because of those recurring nightmares where I come up with a Pulitzer Prize winning plot/character/one-liner before realising, horror on horror, that THERE ARE NO SURFACES TO WRITE UPON, NOR IMPLEMENTS WITH WHICH TO WRITE! Or perhaps it's because I am somewhat fastidious and flaky, wanting all of my stories to be written neatly into individual notebooks before losing focus.
Skip back 15 years, to the day I start writing my first book. My mum had taken us to a strange junk shop in a dubious part of Plymouth, where 'things' were recycled and resold as other 'things' - and very cheaply too. Hence I snapped up some strangely shaped and flimsy notebooks with a yellow vinyl cover. I still have these.
Gloss over the various school workbooks which have been accumulated over my years as both student and teacher. I still have these.
Go back to 2003 when my friend, French teacher Flo, showed me a notebook with hand-made pages so delightfully quaint and old-fashioned that I immediately coveted it. In it she wrote poems, short stories, critical essays - all of them quite brilliant, she assured me, but all of them written in a language I don't understand so I had to take her word for it really.
Since that moment I have been eternally searching for the notebook, the one which will inspire me to write that elusive magnum opus, the notebook that will fill that aching gap in my soul. I cannot resist a good notebook. I have big notebooks, little notebooks, embroidered notebooks, rustic notebooks, medieval notebooks, pop-art notebooks, art deco notebooks. Notebooks which have style, notebooks that look well travelled. None of these have been filled. Only one or two has even come close.
I must have close to 100 notebooks. The irony is that I do most of my writing on my laptop or in cheap 99p reporters notebooks picked up from super-markets.
This week I intend to catalogue my notebooks. No, this is not procrastination - this is trying to find the page of my current MS that has gone missing. That's the problem - when you buy a beautiful new notebook you want to write in it, which usually means my stories are scattered like leaves to the wind. Or ramblings to the loose pages.
And pens! Oh, pens. I like to write with a Dr Grip pen. I have 4, plus approximately 20 refills, as they are very hard to get hold of these days. This is my favourite pen to write with - it fits the hand so neatly, writes so easily and smoothly on most paper types. I also have four fountain pens - one in blue, one in black, one in green and one in violet. Not to mention the hundreds of other pens utilized in the research process.
I'm starting to become concerned that I will run out of words before I run out of the means to record them.
*Technology is bunk. It won't last. Turn away from the laptop and be embraced in the bosom of the humble pen and piece of paper!
Hoarding has long been a problem in my family - like a recessive gene, the urge to stockpile has ensured every generation of my family has at least one room filled with things that we might one day need. However, just as twins skip a generation so has my own hoarding habit managed to dwarf anything last seen since my grandmother's post-war generation. I have a pen and notebook problem and I have it bad.
It's easy to rationalise, being a writer. If you don't write, you can't tell your story. If you can't tell your story, you cannot satisfy your most instinctive needs. If you cannot satisfy your most instinctive needs, you die. And you cannot write if you don't have paper and a pen.* Perhaps it's a question of, as I once told my a-level Theatre Studies tutor when my school bag vomited ink cartridges all over the classroom floor, "When the apocalypse comes I want to make sure I don't run out." Perhaps it's because of those recurring nightmares where I come up with a Pulitzer Prize winning plot/character/one-liner before realising, horror on horror, that THERE ARE NO SURFACES TO WRITE UPON, NOR IMPLEMENTS WITH WHICH TO WRITE! Or perhaps it's because I am somewhat fastidious and flaky, wanting all of my stories to be written neatly into individual notebooks before losing focus.
Skip back 15 years, to the day I start writing my first book. My mum had taken us to a strange junk shop in a dubious part of Plymouth, where 'things' were recycled and resold as other 'things' - and very cheaply too. Hence I snapped up some strangely shaped and flimsy notebooks with a yellow vinyl cover. I still have these.
Gloss over the various school workbooks which have been accumulated over my years as both student and teacher. I still have these.
Go back to 2003 when my friend, French teacher Flo, showed me a notebook with hand-made pages so delightfully quaint and old-fashioned that I immediately coveted it. In it she wrote poems, short stories, critical essays - all of them quite brilliant, she assured me, but all of them written in a language I don't understand so I had to take her word for it really.
Since that moment I have been eternally searching for the notebook, the one which will inspire me to write that elusive magnum opus, the notebook that will fill that aching gap in my soul. I cannot resist a good notebook. I have big notebooks, little notebooks, embroidered notebooks, rustic notebooks, medieval notebooks, pop-art notebooks, art deco notebooks. Notebooks which have style, notebooks that look well travelled. None of these have been filled. Only one or two has even come close.
I must have close to 100 notebooks. The irony is that I do most of my writing on my laptop or in cheap 99p reporters notebooks picked up from super-markets.
This week I intend to catalogue my notebooks. No, this is not procrastination - this is trying to find the page of my current MS that has gone missing. That's the problem - when you buy a beautiful new notebook you want to write in it, which usually means my stories are scattered like leaves to the wind. Or ramblings to the loose pages.
And pens! Oh, pens. I like to write with a Dr Grip pen. I have 4, plus approximately 20 refills, as they are very hard to get hold of these days. This is my favourite pen to write with - it fits the hand so neatly, writes so easily and smoothly on most paper types. I also have four fountain pens - one in blue, one in black, one in green and one in violet. Not to mention the hundreds of other pens utilized in the research process.
I'm starting to become concerned that I will run out of words before I run out of the means to record them.
*Technology is bunk. It won't last. Turn away from the laptop and be embraced in the bosom of the humble pen and piece of paper!
Motivations i.e. the fine art of getting your arse into gear
Well, here's a blog title that will need to be edited should my children's novel series ever receive syndication. Nonetheless, 'Pulling your socks up' lacks the requisite bite.
I've been procrastinating. Yes, we've been here before haven't we. Naughty writer, bad writer, go to your bed! Since I last wrote, I have written not one word beyond such useful bon mot's such as "Must pick up some bread" and "I'll give u a call tmrw," the later of which, I hope you will note from the 'trendy' approach to spelling as capitalised upon by today's 'yoof', took the form of a text message. And yes, I have posted an occasional cry for help on the writers' forum I frequent (more on that in a moment) but the sum total of words faithfully tapped out in the ever-long quest for fame an glory - not-a-one. This has to change.
The reason for this uncharacteristic foray into motivation? Today I went book shopping, working under the principle that if I spend money on a 'hobby' (I blanche at using that word to describe my writing which has been the essence of my soul since I learned my very first cliche) then that MUST mean I'm serious about it (while history will attest that, in fact, I am now just a few steps away from abandoning said 'hobby' completely - or at least putting it on indefinite hiatus until I decide I need to do some more hobby-shopping). But shop I did, purchasing such tomes as 'How not to write a book' and 'The 38 most common fiction writing mistakes'. I have since then been dipping in and out of the latter, written by Jack M. Bickham, and tomorrow I intend to dig out the highlighter and page-markers and label up the most helpful passages. Now I'm not going to reproduce the content of the book here as if I get sued I will almost certainly have to resort to prositution to pay the legal fees, but the first chapter dealt with something that made me immediately stub out my cigarette and stride purposefully towards the laptop: The Procrastinator, i.e. the author who keeps thinking up reasons as to why they cannot write. I could tick many of these examples as being accurate. I could probably suggest a few examples myself, but the thrust of it was that the difference between a writer and a deluded person with dreams is down to procrastination. Deluded people always have excuses for not having written. These reasons will stop their stories from ever being written. Before long, how can they call themselves a writer?
Gulp. The one positive thing about being a writer is that you can refer to yourself as such without having documented evidence of success. Yes, so it's best not to introduce yourself in this way until you have been published because the barely disguised mocking of your contemporaries will forever haunt your nightmares, but at least you can feel it inside. At least it's better than thinking of yourself in the terms of whatever soul-sucking job you're currently forced into. But if I can't think of myself as a writer? Well, then I am nothing.
So I'll start tomorrow. I just hope that it won't always be tomorrow.
I've been procrastinating. Yes, we've been here before haven't we. Naughty writer, bad writer, go to your bed! Since I last wrote, I have written not one word beyond such useful bon mot's such as "Must pick up some bread" and "I'll give u a call tmrw," the later of which, I hope you will note from the 'trendy' approach to spelling as capitalised upon by today's 'yoof', took the form of a text message. And yes, I have posted an occasional cry for help on the writers' forum I frequent (more on that in a moment) but the sum total of words faithfully tapped out in the ever-long quest for fame an glory - not-a-one. This has to change.
The reason for this uncharacteristic foray into motivation? Today I went book shopping, working under the principle that if I spend money on a 'hobby' (I blanche at using that word to describe my writing which has been the essence of my soul since I learned my very first cliche) then that MUST mean I'm serious about it (while history will attest that, in fact, I am now just a few steps away from abandoning said 'hobby' completely - or at least putting it on indefinite hiatus until I decide I need to do some more hobby-shopping). But shop I did, purchasing such tomes as 'How not to write a book' and 'The 38 most common fiction writing mistakes'. I have since then been dipping in and out of the latter, written by Jack M. Bickham, and tomorrow I intend to dig out the highlighter and page-markers and label up the most helpful passages. Now I'm not going to reproduce the content of the book here as if I get sued I will almost certainly have to resort to prositution to pay the legal fees, but the first chapter dealt with something that made me immediately stub out my cigarette and stride purposefully towards the laptop: The Procrastinator, i.e. the author who keeps thinking up reasons as to why they cannot write. I could tick many of these examples as being accurate. I could probably suggest a few examples myself, but the thrust of it was that the difference between a writer and a deluded person with dreams is down to procrastination. Deluded people always have excuses for not having written. These reasons will stop their stories from ever being written. Before long, how can they call themselves a writer?
Gulp. The one positive thing about being a writer is that you can refer to yourself as such without having documented evidence of success. Yes, so it's best not to introduce yourself in this way until you have been published because the barely disguised mocking of your contemporaries will forever haunt your nightmares, but at least you can feel it inside. At least it's better than thinking of yourself in the terms of whatever soul-sucking job you're currently forced into. But if I can't think of myself as a writer? Well, then I am nothing.
So I'll start tomorrow. I just hope that it won't always be tomorrow.
Monday 4 May 2009
That all important first post.
Let's face it, the chances of anyone other than myself ever reading this particular post is slim. Hell, even I might not read it again beyond the half-hour grace period all bloggers have after posting - the part where you proof-read it, click 'Publish Post', then read it again on the actual blog (just to see what it looks like, you understand). And, if I'm honest with myself, I leave half-hearted and quickly abandoned blogs all over the internet, changing my user name often enough to ensure that even I can't remember which ones are mine and which aren't. So there is quite a good possibility that this blog will make it to post 2 and then no more.
Still, I try. At least, I am trying this new concept called 'discipline'. It means that when I sit down of an evening to do some writing I do not leave it until 9pm to open up Word before convincing myself that I've left it too late in the day to do any proper writing anyway, and that I may as well check my emails, visit my forums, update my blogs (or start new ones...)
My issue is procrastination, low confidence, borderline ADHD (or ADD if you're American and feel that the inclusion of the word 'hyperactivity' in the name is overkill) and - see, see! I just did it then. Damn procrastination. Yes, I have a very low attention span and am forever distracted by new projects, new writing ideas, new ways to keep organised. Ah, I do love an organisation project. Nothing clears the brainium so quite like filing ideas neatly, researching concepts, planning new story arcs then abandoning the concept in favour of another great new idea that simply must be written before I forget it.
Oooh, Quincy's on! Is that a zombie?
Now, I have ideas. Ideas are plenty easy for me. Substantial ideas on the other hand - ideas that will sustain interest for an entire novel,or that can be developed into a coherent plot - well, less so. At the moment I have three ideas. I'm not going to tell you too much about them because you might be able to make them into better stories than I can and in that case I may have to kill you. It's bad enough that Neil Gaiman has already creamed off all of the best ideas from my subconscious (even the unformed, theme-based ideas)*. I don't need anyone else beating me to a book.
But I will tell you that I am working on three books:
-A children's book which is very character based and is about the adventures of three very naughty rats.
-A YA book set in Victorian London and centred around the dark world of the Freak Show.
-A novel about a society formed after a natural disaster.
What I really need to do now is go through all of my notes for the above three and decide which I should focus on in the next instance - it's not wise to try to write three books at the same time.
Well, I say now. I mean tomorrow, really.
*I am not suggesting in any way that Neil Gaiman has plagiarized any work or idea from anyone else, and certainly not from myself. Sadly (for me) Neil Gaiman writes stories about the themes I am interested in, in the style I would like to write in with more originality than I have ever managed to pack onto a page. It would be better to say that he writes the stories I want to write.
Still, I try. At least, I am trying this new concept called 'discipline'. It means that when I sit down of an evening to do some writing I do not leave it until 9pm to open up Word before convincing myself that I've left it too late in the day to do any proper writing anyway, and that I may as well check my emails, visit my forums, update my blogs (or start new ones...)
My issue is procrastination, low confidence, borderline ADHD (or ADD if you're American and feel that the inclusion of the word 'hyperactivity' in the name is overkill) and - see, see! I just did it then. Damn procrastination. Yes, I have a very low attention span and am forever distracted by new projects, new writing ideas, new ways to keep organised. Ah, I do love an organisation project. Nothing clears the brainium so quite like filing ideas neatly, researching concepts, planning new story arcs then abandoning the concept in favour of another great new idea that simply must be written before I forget it.
Oooh, Quincy's on! Is that a zombie?
Now, I have ideas. Ideas are plenty easy for me. Substantial ideas on the other hand - ideas that will sustain interest for an entire novel,or that can be developed into a coherent plot - well, less so. At the moment I have three ideas. I'm not going to tell you too much about them because you might be able to make them into better stories than I can and in that case I may have to kill you. It's bad enough that Neil Gaiman has already creamed off all of the best ideas from my subconscious (even the unformed, theme-based ideas)*. I don't need anyone else beating me to a book.
But I will tell you that I am working on three books:
-A children's book which is very character based and is about the adventures of three very naughty rats.
-A YA book set in Victorian London and centred around the dark world of the Freak Show.
-A novel about a society formed after a natural disaster.
What I really need to do now is go through all of my notes for the above three and decide which I should focus on in the next instance - it's not wise to try to write three books at the same time.
Well, I say now. I mean tomorrow, really.
*I am not suggesting in any way that Neil Gaiman has plagiarized any work or idea from anyone else, and certainly not from myself. Sadly (for me) Neil Gaiman writes stories about the themes I am interested in, in the style I would like to write in with more originality than I have ever managed to pack onto a page. It would be better to say that he writes the stories I want to write.
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