The Writing Blues

This week I've been sick. This week - a few of us have been sick or life has just gotten in the way. Our wordcounts may lag, but any words we wrote this week are good words. Don't beat yourself up for what you haven't done - try harder today.

To help you on your way I have two motivational videos to share with you.

The first is for inspiration to keep going even in the face of adversity. To climb that mountain, to swim that ocean, to write that book.

Ahhh yes, we all need a bit of a push sometimes - but it's better if it can come from within.



And this one is well known - Mel Gibson in a Kilt, riding a horse and rousing his countrymen. Well not his countrymen - a bunch of actors really but still a stiring speech.



They may take away our computers, but they can't take away our words. Write well my friends.

Get well soon...

It's hard to keep your word count healthy when the same can't be said for yourself. It appears winter chills and spills have taken their toll on a large number of our 50k participants.

For any of you struggling with ill health it's important to remember to take care of yourself first - and make sure you take your medicine.

I thought I'd help get you on the road to recovery by having Dr Desire dish out some medicine of his own.
Get well soon!

Halfway and failing

Well, my NaNo experience so far has been underwhelming. I've had all sorts of interesting (not) things happen so far which aren't writing related, and my word count isn't going anywhere. It's wallowing in patheticness (is there such a word?!).

I'm very pleased to see most of you are doing really well, pumping out the words and reaching your targets. I wish I was with you, but my words have stalled. I've produced all of... oooh... nothing in about almost a week, and I can't see it changing any time soon.

Anyway, I haven't got much to share today. Nothing poignant, deep, meaningful or useful. No hunky pics to make your mouth water. So, apologies for wasting your time by making you read this blog post about diddly squat! I promise I'll make it up to you next Wednesday.

:-) Mon "I'm sick, so that's my excuse" Wood

Padding Up Your Word Count (a cheaters way to get through 50,000 words)

I'm looking for word counts now ladies and gents! Panic has set in. Here's a few tricks of the trade that Chris Baty has suggested when you're under the weight of a bad word count.

• Get your character to have a stutter, every stutter adds word countage.
• One of your characters develops temporary deafness so your other characters have to repeat everything they say.
• Dream sequences work well for padding up your count.
• Citations - bring in someone else's book/poem/newspaper article that your hero has to read out.
• Make your characters names very very long. Sir Richard of The One Handed Sword Brigade, Knight of the Realm... hey this is getting good.
• De-hyphenate your words. Every hyphened word is two words drawn together. Get rid of your hyphens and you can almost double your word count. Hooray

Oh there are soo many more tricks to use to improve your word count. Or you could actually sit down and write your story instead of looking for a cheaters way out.
Thinking of this I have been doing a little research. Here's someone who you'd never want to cheat on. Just think of him when you're tempted with de-hyphenation or dream sequences.

The Writing Gods

Here we are heading into the third week of the challenge. This can be a great time because you’ve settled into a routine (mostly), the words are flowing (sometimes), and the end is not too far away.

So I have a question.

What do you do when the Writing Gods are fighting against you?

Me, I cook. Alright, normally I don’t, I just rant and rave about the world hating me and maybe I’m not meant to write. But yesterday I cooked. Hubby is even so pleased. Today I’m ready to tackle the world and write again. The problem I had over the weekend is I would have had to work on Hubby’s computer and I hate that, for some reason the words just don’t flow as well. Probably because he is in and out of the office asking, “What are you doing?”, “You going to be much longer?” Men. Today I have free rein.

Plan:
1) Have coffee.
2) Take crappy lappy to computer guy.
3) Write and at this point I don’t care what it is as long as it’s writing.
4) Have more coffee.
5) When I get Lappy back, back up all my damn writing files each night!

So how have you been going? Are the Writing Gods against you as well? Or are you writing up a storm and nothing can stand in your way. I hope it’s the latter for you.

The word totals are looking great and remember no matter how big or small your total, it’s the writing that counts. Have fun. AND BACK UP YOUR FILES NOW!!

Happy Writing.

Sandie

Slacking off...

Looking at my report card, I have been slacking off this week. On the days that I have been writing, I haven't been meeting the bare minimum to make 50ks in a month. And there are other days where I just haven't shown up at all.

Yes, I am distracted. But all in a good writerly way. On Thursday, I sent Cinderella off to another ball, hoping she'll dance away with a prize. Cinders has been very good to me, and she has those magic glass slippers so I have very high hopes for her continuing to charm and dazzle people.



And Prince Henry? I'd love to post the picture I have here of my inspiration for the gorgeous Prince. But you know...copyright issues. I guess I could email the photographer and ask him if it's okay, but then you've got a magazine that's paid for these pics as well. So best not go there. Instead he looks over at me at work with that look in his eyes and I can see why Cinders has fallen for him.

Okay, so I know I've got you curious. You can check him out here.

But he and Cinders are not in this current story, so it is a little distracting, and I can't wait to get back to them when June is over.

After nearly two years of registration, I finally did something with my domain name after cheapskate me found a free web host. So here is my brand new website... Diane Curran...which is still a work in progress.

And I've been playing around with ideas for my WRITE EDIT SUBMIT writing mantra. Stay tuned! I can feel another t-shirt in the making.

Now back to the current work in progress, my fairy godmother story. Olivia the teen has just got high on fairy dust and decided to throw a rave so everyone can try it. I'm sure no good will come of this.