~ 50ks In 30 Days ~

2011-10-22T15:44:00.001+11:00

Such fabulous success stories coming out of RWAus 2011 "50K in 30 Days"

during June (winter in the southern hemisphere).

We'll be back again in 2012.

Maybe you'll be here with us?

Hope so.

Day 29 - Almost over now

2011-06-29T20:51:00.000+10:00

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm. - Victor Hugo

We're almost finished, and I couldn't have wished for a month filled with more enthusiasm from all you wonderful writers who have participated. Tomorrow I will start updating your word counters on this blog for the last time this challenge, and hopefully we can all have a couple of days off before we need to get into the editing sprints that are already on everybody's minds.

A few people have said they would like to continue the sprints on some sort of regular basis. If you'd be keen to be in on that action, leave a message below and we'll see what can be set up!

Meet up again in November, anyone? ^_^

Day 28 - Why are we doing this again?

2011-06-28T17:21:00.000+10:00

No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt. - Max Beerbohm

There are only a couple of nights left to go, and you might be saying to yourself something like the following: "I'm finished my goal! That's June done!" or "I'm never going to make it. I'll just stop here and call it over." or "Wimbeldon!! Wimbeldonnnnn!!!"

That last one might be just me.

I'd like to encourage you to just put in a little bit more. If you want to and if you can - you know yourself best. But if you can, write something. Even if you scale down to 100 words a night for the last three nights. Even if you just bash out a couple of risque limericks and add them to your word count. Even if you write a short story about your characters 10 years after the end of your novel.

Because the more you do now, the less you have to do later. Your 30 days isn't quite up yet. (Which is probably a relief to those of you like me who were counting on a sprint on the final day to boost your word count ^_^) Make every second of this month count.

And if you do write a limerick, please feel free to post it in the comments below.

Day 26 - LAST Sunday Check-In!

2011-06-26T10:09:00.000+10:00

Oh wow, this month has just flown by! Some of us have already blown our goals out of the water. Others of us, myself included, realised a while back we weren't going to reach our goals and have lowered our sights.

No matter which boat you're in, don't stop yet! You still have a few more days before the challenge ends, and the more you do this month, the less you have to do next month. The more words you write in this challenge, the more you know about your capabilities and your limits. If anything, work as hard as you can for the last few days. After all, you can see the end from here. The time is coming when you can lie back, relax and watch all the TV shows you missed over June.

But that time is not yet. Make every single day count. Go write!

Day 24 - A really long quote

2011-06-24T20:07:00.000+10:00

"If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world." - Ray Bradbury

Day 23 - Doing Something New

2011-06-23T20:08:00.000+10:00

You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.- Christopher Columbus

Your challenge for tonight is do something you know you're not good at. If you avoid dialogue because it always comes out stilted, tonight your characters are going to have a long conversation. If you have problems with action, someone's just thrown a fight. Personally, I suck at description. So there's a grand panorama out there just waiting for me to tell people what it looks like.

Let's go get away from the shore.

Day 22 - If music be the food of love...

2011-06-22T20:23:00.001+10:00

When I'm really inspiration-light, there are a couple of songs I know I can always listen to and they are going to push me on to be better, to do more with my time and my life. The Climb by Miley Cyrus is one of them, and I don't care how uncool that makes me ^_^

When I'm feeling really, truly sorry for myself, and that writing is too hard and I should just put if off until I have time (when my son's grown up, left home, we've paid off the house, I've retired) I know it's starting to get serious and I pull out the big guns - rap and hip hop.
(I'm going to put links to the songs below, but I feel I should note that while none of the quotes below contain swear words, I can't say the same for the rest of the tracks)

This isn't an attack or a lack of compassion
But you gotta get yourself back in the action
Tap into your passion and follow it up
Either that or let the madness swallow you up
How full is your cup, half-full or half-empty
You're the envy of plenty, tread gently
Apathy is deadly and if you've got seeds of doubt
With means to sprout, you need to weed them out

(Butterfingers - Get Up Outta The Dirt)

I don't normally like the genre, but they get where I'm coming from. They talk about how hard it is to break in to an industry, how difficult it can be to push yourself to be all you can be - even when you've already got the bling and the fans. It's inspiring to hear of these men who have been dealt a really raw hand by life who manage to succeed through sheer hard work, skill and determination.

The moment you own it you better never let it go, oh
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
'cos this opportunity comes once in a lifetime

I was playin' in the beginnin', the mood all changed
I've been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage
But I kept rhymin' and stepped writin' the next cipher
Best believe somebody's payin' the pied piper

(Eminem - Lose Yourself)

And moving away from rap, one of my favourite songs to belt out in the car -

What about you? What song do you play to keep you moving when you're starting to feel a little hopeless?

Day 17 - Guest Post by Leah Ashton

2011-06-17T19:44:00.000+10:00

Leah Ashton won Mills & Boon's 'New Voices' competition in 2010 and her book 'Secrets & Speed Dating' debuts in October 2011. During 50/30 she'll be busy writing the second book in her contract.

The Procrastinator’s Guide to 50ks in 30 Days

I am a terrible procrastinator. The worst, quite possibly. But I have written a 50K book in 30 days – and that book will be my debut novel for Harlequin Mills & Boon in September. And if I – a writer who will find absolutely anything to do, other than actually write – can do that, than other procrastinators can too. I promise!

I’ve attempted 50k30days before, and failed dismally. It even took me four years to finish my first manuscript! So what changed this time? How was I magically cured of this dreadful procrastination curse?

Well, sadly – I’m still a procrastinator. Procrastination, I’m pretty sure, is here to stay. But now I have tools to deal with it. I cannot promise that what worked for me will work for you, and I can promise that nothing I’m about to say is particularly ground breaking. But it worked for me, so well that the word count I’m capable of achieving when I follow these steps still shocks me.

So here it its…

Leah Ashton’s Anti-Procrastination Toolkit

1. Erase the guilt
So you’re a procrastinator. Everyone around you is more productive and diligent than you (or so it seems!). Cue hours of self-flagellation. Or – acknowledge that you are what you are, and find techniques that allow
you to up your word count regardless. Feeling guilty won’t put words onto paper – so what’s the point?

2. Give yourself a real deadline
I would love to be one of those people who can’t bear a day without writing, but…well… I’m not. So, I need a deadline to get my butt in the seat. And it needs to be a real one, not just “I will write 10K by the end of
the month”, it needs to be a deadline with consequences if I fail. Prior to publication, my deadlines were planned around writing competitions. So if I didn’t hit my deadline, I couldn’t enter.
So, give yourself a deadline, with a real consequence. Find a writing competition with an entry date in early July. Sign up for a pitch at the conference. Anything – but make sure there is a consequence other than, “oh well.”

3. Have a plan (or even a plot)
I used to think I was a seat-of-my-pantser, resulting in the euphoric dashing off of an effortless chapter one, and chapter two and… then……nothing. I know this will be controversial with confirmed pantsers, but I strongly recommend at least a sketch of your plot. Just a vague plan of where you’re going and the main turning points along the journey. Why?
Well, nothing triggers a serious procrastination session for me than a blank page and absolutely no idea where I’m going. Reduce the risk of finding yourself with terrifying nothingness ahead of you and plan. Your plan is your safety net – and besides, you can always ignore it!

4. Remove yourself from temptation
What do you do when you procrastinate? Do you read? Watch TV? Surf the Internet? Whatever it is, get yourself away from it. Be dramatic if you have to – go write at a café, have someone physically remove your TV from your house, give your modem to your husband and tell him he is not under any circumstances to give it back. You get the idea?
Obviously this is for confirmed procrastinators like me – if will power is enough for you, then that is awesome, but if not, do whatever you have to do. The Internet is my vice, and I’ve been known to lock my Internet dongle in my car, or alternatively I use a really nifty program called Freedom (www.macfreedom.com - available for Mac and PC), which cost $10 and will block the Internet for up to 8 hours – and the only way to get it back is to re-boot your computer. If it’s just some sites that suck the time out of your day, look into browser add-ons like Google Chrome’s StayFocusd or Firefox’s LeechBlock. Both will either block a site totally, or give you a maximum time limit per day.

5. Write with your friends
The discovery of sprints (where you write for 30 minutes or an hour with a friend, and then report back with your word count) was a breakthrough for me. I am a slow writer, so I never had super impressive word counts, but knowing I had to report in with my word count was super motivating.
Make sure you check into the Sprint Sessions in the RWA Chatroom throughout 50Ks in 30 Days, or follow along on Twitter. And if you can’t write with your friends? Well…

6. Sit down, and start typing
It’s hardly surprising, but the reality is if you sit down every day, without any distractions, and simply write a word, followed by another word, and then another – your word count will go up. Sometimes the idea of writing X number of words can be so overwhelming that starting seems impossible. But when you do start, and regardless if the words flow or are squeezed out painfully – as long as you’ll keep writing, you’ll hit your
word count. And once you start doing it day after day – well, before you know it – you would have written a book. Or 50Ks in 30 days!

There you have it – my procrastinator’s guide to 50Ks in 30 days. Please let me know if you reach into my toolkit – I’d love to know if it helps you, too. And as I’m also looking for new weapons to slay the procrastination beast – what tips have I missed that help you?

Day 16 - Working out of the mid-month slump

2011-06-16T20:12:00.000+10:00

Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world,

until the world will be sorry that you retire. - Samuel Johnson

You've been pushing yourself hard for over two weeks now. Even if you feel you could have done more, you have made the time to write more than you usually would - and that can be really, really tiring.

I've seen it a lot during NaNo - it's happened to me during NaNo - the mid-month slump. There's such a long way to go, you're never going to get there and you're tired.

The best advice I can give you is this: don't stop writing. Don't take a few days off. It's like sitting down after a day of cleaning when you've still got more to go. It's doubly hard to get back up again and keep going.

Picture the goal. Take a couple of hours to have a bath, watch a movie, maybe even see some of those people you live with whose names you're starting to have trouble remembering. But then get some words on the page - even if it's only a couple of hundred, or a hundred, or twenty-five.

It's only two weeks to go! You can do it!

Day 15 - Halfway Point!

2011-06-15T20:30:00.000+10:00

If you're going through hell - keep going.

- Winston Churchill

Day 14 - Our own expectations

2011-06-14T19:51:00.000+10:00

Be not afraid of going slowly, be only afraid of standing still.

- Chinese Proverb

It's so easy to look at the past and say "I could have done better. I SHOULD have done better. I should have written more, or made more time for editing." After all, it's going to take forever to get where we want to go if we don't make optimal use of our time, right?

Regret and perfectionism can be a bigger drain on our productivity than pretty much anything else. Personally, I struggle to retain a sense of proportion - I've written x many words, which is x more words than I would have written otherwise. Still, it's not what I expected from myself.

Writing is like life. It's messy, imperfect, full of unfulfilled potential (everyone has that one scene that was just so perfect in their head) and layered with excitement, regret, drudgery and bursts of inspiration. It may not go the way we want all the time, but if you do the best you can during the good times, the bad times can only ever drag you down so far.

Best of luck for the coming week!

Day 10 - Guest Post by Emily May!

2011-06-10T17:09:00.000+10:00

Today's Guest Post is by romance author Emily May, or perhaps romantic fantasy author Emily Gee. Whatever the name, Emily has seen some brilliant success, with her Regency novel "The Unmasking of a Lady" making the finals in several competions including the National Readers' Choice Awards and the RWA's Romance Book of the Year Awards 2011.

I'm a slow writer. My happy word count per day is about 1000 words--usually written laboriously over many, many hours. But 1000 words a day is a little too slow when I have deadlines to meet!

Last year I started doing two things that helped me to increase my word count and achieve my writing goals a little more easily. Both are quite simple. They may work for you ... or they may not.

First, I wrote the following sentence on a piece of paper and put it on my keyboard each night, so that I saw it first thing in the morning.

"Take a few minutes at the beginning of each day to set goals."

Each morning I sat down and read that sentence and thought about my goal--"Today I am going to write 1500 words"--and set it firmly in my mind.

(I know, 500 extra words per day doesn't sound like a lot--but it adds up! A 90 000 word first draft takes 60 days, instead of 90--that's a whole month less!)

Second, because 1500 words is a daunting amount for me and can easily drag out over eight or more hours, I wrote down my goal in little chunks, like this, on a scrap of paper:

1500 words

100 600 1100
200 700 1200
300 800 1300
400 900 1400
500 1000 1500

And then I started writing, not focussing on the end goal, but on the mini goals instead. 1500 words was impossibly far away, but 100 words was easy, and then 200, and 300. And with each mini goal I crossed off, I got a nice little boost. I could SEE that I was blasting through my mini goals, which made me feel more positive about my writing, and that in turn made the words come more easily.

Incredibly, there were days when I reached 1500 words by lunchtime! (A miracle for me.) So then I'd write out more increments of 100 and keep working. Several times I passed 2000 before my brain shut down, and once I even passed 2500!

So there they are, my two little strategies for upping my word count. I hope they work for you too!

Day 9 - The Writing Habit

2011-06-09T19:59:00.000+10:00

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle

I try and write every day. Sometimes I only do 100 words, sometimes I do a couple of thousand. More often than I would like, I don't write anything at all. And sometimes, as an unpublished author, it's difficult for me sometimes to truly believe it when I tell people I am "a writer".

After all, what is a writer without a published book?

That's where trying to write everyday comes in. Writers write. After all, lots of people have published books who I would not necessarily consider as writers. (Did you know Sharon Osbourne wrote a novel??) Publication is a goal, but it's not what defines us.

We're writers, after all. What defines us is what we do repeatedly. We write.

Get going people!

Day 8 - Questions and Cute Kitty Pictures

2011-06-08T20:00:00.000+10:00

Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer--and if so, why?

- Bennett Cerf

Day 7 - Here's to the Editors

2011-06-07T20:42:00.000+10:00

I always wondered why it took so long, reportedly, to write a book. After all, if you can type really fast, you should be able to finish a book every fortnight or so, right?

HA!

To those who are about to edit, we salute you! Just remember the words of Mark Twain:

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Day 6 - Counting Every Word

2011-06-06T19:26:00.000+10:00

When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: "House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day." "Got call this morning to say I'd got Nobel Prize for literature. Wrote less than 300 words (285) probably unusable, so lousy day." - Neil Gaiman

Congratulations to everyone who has updated me on their progress over the last week! Between everyone who's reported so far, we have written 375,299 in the last 5 days!

Anyone who undertakes a grand enterprise of any description is in it for the long haul. And it's really bloody difficult to look at the crap you've produced on a Wednesday night at 10.30pm (after the kids have been acting like homocidal screeching monkeys and everyone in the world suddenly seems to discover your workplace existed on the same day creating an avalanche of paperwork) and not think "Oh God. Is that really what I write like?"

In his pep talk for NaNoWriMo in 2009, Neil Gaiman pretty much said it best:

The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm---or even arguing with me---she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh, you're at that part of the book, are you?"
I was shocked. "You mean I've done this before?"
"You don't remember?"
"Not really."
"Oh yes," she said. "You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients."
I didn't even get to feel unique in my despair.
So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.
One word after another.

I have this pep talk stuck to my wall at home, and it always reminds me that it never gets easier. You just get better at dealing with it. If you want to read the whole thing, you can find it here.

Have a good week everyone!

Day 5 - Check-In Day the First!

2011-06-05T13:45:00.002+10:00

That's right, it's Sunday already and time for you to let me know how you're going!

I hope you've all had productive weekends - or at least, like me, semi productive. ^_^

At the moment I'm behind in my goal - my daily wordcounts just haven't been up to scratch. But that's okay, we've got a long way to go and I'm sure I'll catch up!

The sprints on Twitter (#50K30Days and #50Kin30Days) and on the RWA chat rooms have been doing really well. They are wonderful for fast wordcount boosts and meeting new people.

Diane put up a wonderful resource on the Google Group to keep an ongoing track of your writing statistics over the month - you can download it here. Check out the other great resources on the site while you're there - I think I've downloaded about 10 different tools now.

I look forward to hearing from you all! To report your word count to date, just send me an email or put it in the comments below.

P.S - There was a Day 4 in between 3 and 5?!? Drat.

Day 3 - Guest Post by Nikki Logan!

2011-06-03T19:20:00.000+10:00

Nikki Logan sold her 2008 50K/30Day story just five months after she wrote it. She’s just finished her tenth book for Harlequin Mills & Boon, proving that the lessons learned in 50/30 come in really handy in the high-pace world of commercial fiction. She’s also a participant in the 2011 50/30 because she thinks writing is so much more fun as a team-sport.

Three years ago this week I was a couple of thou into my second attempt at category novel aimed at Mills & Boon. I’d written one earlier targeted at Blaze but the feedback I was getting was that my sex was fine but I wasn’t sexy enough ‘in premise’ to write for that high octane line. Wrong voice.

I wasn’t (and still am not) a fan of the serious Alpha required for Sexy, and so I set about writing something more suited to the young urban ‘younger-sister-of-Presents’ line, Sexy Sensation.

The book I wrote was set on the rooftops of Sydney and pitted a landscape designer heroine with a cocky television producer she had been in love with at sixteen. I had a fantastic time writing that during June 2008, notably because it showed me that Sexy Sensation wasn’t my line either. I finished the book, had a few days spare to edit it. And then I didn’t look at it again.

Fast forward a few months to November 2008 and I was contacted by the Senior Editor for M&B London who wanted to talk about revisions to my Blaze which had won an opening chapter comp she judged. There was a lot wrong with it but more right with it. She was interested.

I was beside myself.

But then came the dreaded question… while I went off to explore the diversity of story types offered by the Sweet line at her suggestion, she wanted to know ‘do you have anything else I can look at?’

Are you mad? No. That was my first category. Oh, wait… yes, there’s that 50/30 book in my drawer.

And so I gave my Sydney book one more excited, panicked day of editing and emailed it off on a total of four days editing: raw and awful and imperfect. And then I kicked myself for my naïveté.

But it was the right decision, because Kim called me less than a week later and said ‘we’re going to work on this book’ and gave me some revisions to look at. And then I got to do all the editing it needed.

In mid-December I got the call and a two-book deal.

Moral of this story is not that you should send a book off raw and awful and imperfect and hope for the best. I just lucked out there. The moral is that you should always, always have ‘something else’ ready to go.

A book in a month is a wonderful way to grow that back-list of ‘something else’. A book you can come back to when you’re having a fresh-eyes break from whatever you’re writing. A book you can come back to between other books. A book you can polish up and get out there into the submission system.

A book that can be your ‘something else’.

I first joined 50/30 because I was a devotee of the stream-of-consciousness, pantsing style of brain-dump writing and I was hoping to mix up with some similar writers. I had no idea how many different types of process there were until that month or how hard and fast some people were going to go.

I have a vague recollection of some writers knocking off obscene totals in 24 hours or a weekend, totals which weren’t healthy or sustainable. I have a clear recollection of others trying to match it and failing horribly and in a few cases crippling their creative selves and blowing their chances of finishing on time. Every single person has their own pace and their own process. Don’t judge yours by someone elses’. So:

First rule of 50/30 fightclub - Do not get caught up in the wordcount arms-race.

It doesn’t matter what someone else is doing, it only matters what YOU are doing. Set your goal and divide it by thirty: that’s your daily target. By all means tweak it upwards on weekends and downwards on busy nights. But just don’t be tempted by breaking any world records. I promise you steady and sustainable will get you there in one piece.

The other temptation (particularly if you share samples of your work to keep you motivated) is to edit and polish as you go. That’s a big fat 50/30 no-no. If you happen to be one of those gifted few for whom the words spill out of your fingertips already literarily perfect then you can ignore this one. But the rest of us really struggle not to edit as you go. But seriously, people, fight it.

Second rule of 50/30 fightclub:Don’t be tempted to edit as you go along.

By all means quickly fix up crappy sentences as you find them but going over and over a passage for perfection is not what June is for. That is what July is for. And August. And the rest of the year if you want. JUNE is for getting that story out of your head and onto the page. Imperfect. Unbalanced. But there.

And lastly, don’t let your words become the enemy. 50/30 is a marathon and it’s a team marathon. It’s not about you beating your wordcount into submission, it’s about you and your muse working together to reach an achieveable goal. The moment you let things turn adversarial you start losing.

Third rule of 50/30 fightclub: Remember that you and your muse are a team.

You need each other. If you look after her she’ll look after you.

So that’s about it. Hopefully you’re going great-guns and sitting up around the 25% of your goal total by the time you read this. If you’re not, don’t worry, just shuffle your diary, make more time to write, and do your best.

The only shame is in quitting without trying.

See you at the finish line!

Nikki

Day 2 - Social Networking for 50Kers

2011-06-02T20:12:00.000+10:00

"Writing is a fairly lonely business unless you invite people in to watch you do it, which is often distracting and then you have to ask them to leave." - Marc Lawrence

One of the great things about a strong writing community like the RWA is that we all get a lot of support and discussion - which can sometimes translate into socialising and distraction. ^_^

Nevertheless, I love my social networks. I didn't have internet access for 14 hours the other day and I almost cried! (not an addict, not an addict) So if you are on Twitter, or you have a blog or a Facebook fan page, put it in the comments below. I promise not to stalk you! ^_^

Day 1 - First Steps!

2011-06-01T19:55:00.000+10:00

Lao Tzu once said "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

We have 30 Days.
We have massive goals.
We have skill and determination.
(We have the number for the local takeaways. ^_^)

We're ready to go.

Bring on the words!

1 Day to Go! My Life and 50K in 30 Days Guidelines.

2011-05-30T16:38:00.000+10:00

While I should have been frantically freezing pre-prepared meals, sharpening my pencils and selecting my playlist for the kick off of 50K in 30 Days, I've instead been arguing with my router (I won that round - yes, I should have access to the internet, thank you very much!) and taking care of a sick toddler.

It's funny - sometime it feels to me like life gets in the way of writing. I keep forgetting it's the experiences in life that make writing possible. So I've not written much over the last week, but if I ever have a character who needs to look after a kid with the worst runny nose in history, I'm going to know exactly how she feels. ^_^

So Wednesday it all starts. Here are a couple of frequently asked questions:

Updating Word Count
Every Sunday, send your word count (or edit count) through to me at my email address and I'll update your word counter here on the blog. I'll do my best to have everyone updated that evening, or at the very latest by Monday evening.

Sprint Sessions
Spring are short (or short-ish) intense writing sessions broken up by periods of chat and various other forms of jovial relaxation. Every evening at 8pm, I will be running at least one sprint session through the RWA chat room - the sprint sessions will be simulcast over the Twitter hashtag #50K30Days.

Guest Blog Posts

Will be definitely happening! The first one is from the fabulous Nikki Logan will be our first ~~sucker~~ volunteer and her post will go up this Friday night.

If you've got any questions that have been niggling away, email me or ask away in the comments!

Welcome New Participants!

2011-05-23T11:13:00.000+10:00

Thanks to the power of mass online communication (ie. email) we have now got close to 75 participants for this year's challenge! That's an amazing number of people, and it means that we're going to have a really brilliant community to cheer each other on. ^_^

If you sent me an email yesterday or this morning, you will have your word count widget on the blog and your invitation to join the Google Group by this evening. If you haven't recieved your invite by Tuesday evening, please email me and let me know because it probably means the internet goblins have hidden your details. Darn those internet goblins.

~~Defeat to the Internet Goblins!~~ 9 Days to Go!

Have you got a plot?

2011-05-18T00:12:00.003+10:00

May is flying past at a rate of knots, and the kick-off to 50K in 30 Days is less than a fortnight away!

I'm always worried that I'll sit down all ready to go on June 1st and find myself staring at a blank page, frantically hoping words will jump onto it. So I've chosen a specific manuscript that I'm going to work on over the month. I'll be writing a Regency romance set near the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and my heroine is a French woman who goes undercover as an English actress to spy on the British war plans.

If you don't already have something you want to work on, here are some excellent resources to help you plan your novel:

Seventh Sanctum have a romance-specific plot generator!

"This story starts in a tourist town in South America. In it, a brave cab driver falls in love with a religious merchant - all thanks to a theft."

The Snowflake method is an interesting take on how to do extremely detailed plotting before you begin writing. You can find it on this site. (Though I note they also try and sell you the software - still, good free information.)

Some writers find it helpful to read through the key aspects of story-telling that Joseph Campbell outlined as the hero's journey.

If you write Regency novels, there is an extremely detailed plot generator here. And I mean REALLY detailed. Right down to what number child they were and character likes and dislikes.

Prefer to get your title first and work out a plot that fits? There is an excellent romance title generator here.

"Fleeting Flames", "A Winter Stranger", "The Nightingale and the Voyagers".

Anyone else have any great resources that help with plotting? And do you know what you're planning to write this June?

Countdown to June!

2011-05-06T22:20:00.000+10:00

It's back again in 2011, the 50K in 30 Days!

The premise is simple, just set yourself a word count goal for the month of June, and then report back with your word count each week. We'll be having writing sprints in the Romance Writers of Australia chat rooms (join now if you're not already a member!) and blog posts from brilliant authors full of all the motivation, advice and the butt-kicking you need to get writing.

To sign up, just comment below with your word count, or send me an e-mail!

NaNoNotNow

2010-11-28T20:14:00.004+11:00

I'll be honest. This NaNowriMo has turned into NaNoNotNow. Yep. I've failed miserably. So miserably I've even stopped counting. So miserably I don't even recall when I last opened the file. So miserably I haven't even visited the official site for weeks, let alone read the forums. I haven't even been doing my usual forms of Nanowrimo procrastination.

This year I won't be racing to the finish line, because it feels as if I've been running in the wrong direction, and I've lost sight of the racetrack completely.

But I have learned a few things from this particular November:

for Nanowrimo to work for me, I need to be working on something new with no fear of how it reads - it's got to be about getting the story down on paper. Fresh.
pantsing can work, plotting can work as long as I'm open to stuff happening all by itself.
this is not the month to edit or rewrite or worry about finished product.
this is not the month to write new scenes and squeeze them all over the place into my manuscript.
this is not the month to totally scrap a secondary plot and try to find a replacement that makes sense and works with the primary plot.
words don't write themselves especially when I'm trying to beat someone else's score in a game on facebook.
you need to stay engaged with your story for the word fairy to sprinkle her fairy dust
backing up is good - thankfully the death of my laptop did not equal loss of scenes or words, but it might have if I'd written anything in the last week.
taking a week's holiday in November is good for wordage. But alas, I went to work every weekday of November this time.

So what will I do different next year?

I will spend the rest of the year doing the editing, rewriting, submitting, clearing the decks so that June (for 50ks) or November (for Nanowrimo) are clear for the unencumbered outpouring of a shitty first draft. I will be happy to know that it will be a shitty first draft that requires a lot of work, both structural and other editing.

So tell me? Has it been NanoWriteOn for you? Or NanoNotNow? What was your 2010 Nano experience?

Diane

NOVEMBER 1ST ~ NaNoWriMo

2010-11-01T00:06:00.000+11:00

November 1st, and so it all begins again. It’s NaNoWriMo time and are we excited? A Little scared? Do you have that nervous energy that bubbles up from deep down threatening to consume you? If you answered to one or all of these question you’re in the right place.

Writing a novel or part of a novel within the month of November along with hundreds, even thousands of other people is an experience well worth sharing. For the RWAus members it is a time for bonding, sharing, encouraging and listening when things aren’t going to plan.

Talking of plans – did you plan, plot and dissect your novel ready to start writing today? Or are you flying by the seat of your pants and waiting to see where your characters or story led you?

Whichever way you go, remember to have fun. Don’t stress, don’t put more pressure on yourself than you need to.

If this is your first NaNo congratulations for joining in and good luck with your first NaNo journey. For those who are repeat NaNoers, welcome back and may November bring you many wonderful words for your novel.

For now:- LET THE FUN BEGIN!!!!

Sandie

50ks in 30 Days FINISHED

2010-07-01T11:47:00.005+10:00

At the beginning of June, we started a journey together. Some had a well thought out plan, while others headed into uncharted waters. Then there were others who travelled this road before, and dived in, boots and all. It doesn’t matter how you started or how you finished up, you started! You pulled up your chair, sat at your computer each day (or most days), and wrote. Some wrote more words in the month than they had ever before, fantastic.

Remember it is not about the number of words you got down on paper, or on your computer, it is about the fact that you tried.

It is so great to see this challenge grow each year, we started back in 2007 with 13 members, now we have 102 members. Not everyone takes up the challenge every year, but you know what, it is not always about the challenge, it is about the support we get from the group. If you’re down, there is a shoulder to cry on, if you get a contract, win a contest, there are cheers and congratulations.

We are a family of writers, aiming for the same thing, to get words on paper. So who reached their goal?

AJ
KARLY
PAM G
SUZANNE B
CAIT (Editing)

CONGRATULATIONS LADIES, WELL DONE!!!!

Okay, our next monthly challenge is November with NaNoWriMo, if you haven’t joined here is the website.

Thanks for a great month everyone.
Sandie

Badge of Honour

2010-06-26T20:43:00.003+10:00

So how are you progressing? Running along at a steady pace? Power-walking or limping towards your next revive and survive break? Or have you already hurtled through the finish line (yay, AJ!)

There are three days left to go until the end of the month and I intend to be sprinting from 8pm every night. I have absolutely no possibility of hitting the 50k marker (but I'm the girl who used to walk the cross country runs, and arrive at the finish line when everyone else had packed up and gone home). Tell me, AJ, did you run those cross countries around the school, or did you dawdle and participate in cow pat fights like me?

I've been sprinting in stops and starts -- but it always helps to have fellow sprinters in the sprint room so that we can cheer each other on. A massive big cheer to everyone who participated in the sprints this time around.

So who will be wearing the badge of honour?

Yes - we have badges! So we can recognise the other crazy 50ks souls when we bump into each other at conference.

I have 25 badges left from the first year so it will be a case of first in, first served ($2 for the badge, $1 more if you need it posted to you). Otherwise we'll arrange for you to pick up at conference.

For the 50ker's who have burst through the 50k goal by midnight 30 June, we have a Winner Certificate. Below is the sample certificate from 2008.

This will be emailed to the 'winners' shortly after the challenge finishes.

Thank you everyone for a fabulous month, and hope to see you in the sprint room over the next couple of days.

Keep on sprinting!

when everything is breaking...

2010-06-12T18:47:00.004+10:00

Since the beginning of June, everything is breaking on me. Today after doing my Telecross calls, I thought I would get a head start on the weekend chores, throw some stuff into the washing machine, and then slip back into my warm bed to catch up on some much-needed sleep. The washing machine would not come on at all. I guess I've been in this house for 4 years, and the machine has been here longer, so it's feasible that it's died. But why couldn't it wait until I'd moved out?

So I went back to bed in a sulk and stayed in bed much longer than I'd originally intended. Cold winter mornings and I do not agree. When I finally got up and had a shower, I threw my clothes into the bathtub and used a broom to agitate them.

Other things that have broken in the last few weeks: my radiator hose, the whole computer system at work yesterday, and I somehow managed to ban myself from the RWA chat room last night.

So what do you do when your manuscript is broken? During the 50ks in 30 days challenge, whatever else you do, don't panic. Don't delete words. Don't go back to fix it. You need to keep moving forward. Even if you're standing on the side of the road in the pouring rain, refilling your radiator - a solution will present itself (it did: a bloke in shining armour fixed it on the spot).

If the scene didn't work the first time you wrote it, don't delete it. Never subtract those precious words. Rewrite it but count those words as additional words. Every word towards the 50k challenge is important, and once its written you do not erase it from your word count. If it needs to be erased later, when June has passed, go right ahead.

Don't beat yourself up if you've turned off the highway and ended up in the middle of nowhere. Lost? Possibly! But there might be a reason that your story has taken a turn up that road and just a few more paragraphs will reveal something you would have missed if you'd stayed on the highway.

But what if your characters are on strike and no longer talking to you? You need to coax them out. Sit down and chat to them. Find out where they think the story should be going. Or pull a negative psychology trick on them, and start writing about the next characters who are waiting in line. Or give your focus to a secondary character and make your primary characters envious. Write a scene from a non-POV character - especially one who has not been revealing much -- and find out what is really going on in their mind.

There are lots of tricks when the writing is broken...but the main one is keep writing. Even if you have to write out a load of rubbish first, eventually the good stuff will come.

May the rest of June be very productive and you all reach your goals. See you in the sprint room (now that I've unbanned myself).

Keep Writing!!

2010-06-09T06:00:00.051+10:00

9 days down - and with them the excitement and enthusiasm that carries you over the wave that is the first week of 50k in 30 days. If you are like me, your word count is shaky, your momentum slowing and the pressure is on.

One third of the way there. How do you keep up the effort of producing such high word counts day in and day out? The next 10 days are the hardest - the fun and excitement has dulled, and the thrill of the end too far away to see.

I thought I'd share some tips for staying motivated to write from successful writers (courtesy of the adventurous writer):

Get your “bum glue” out. “A couple of years ago I met Bryce Courtney (author of The Power of One) at a writing conference. He said that what I needed as a writer was “bum glue”. Meaning, I need to glue my bum to a chair and write. I remember it every time I set myself down to my blog. Bryce! I am using your bum glue!” – Shirley VanScoyk, writer and blogger
Embrace your procrastination. “When I was a freelancer, I used to set aside about 20 minutes for procrastination activities every morning before I started to write. I took care of a lot of administrative and housekeeping tasks that way, while honoring the part of me that took writing so seriously that it was convinced I was the least-qualified person ever to attempt it. Once I paid tribute to the procrastination judge, I was free to sit down and let it flow!” – Claire Bardos, screenplay writer
Don’t be a wannabee. “The best writing advice I ever received (and pass on) is: ‘Writers write; wannabees talk about it.’” – Shelley Lieber, author
Pull up a couch. “My best advice for writing fiction: act like your character’s therapist. When you put your characters in therapy, you discover their hidden fears and secrets, and all the motivation you need for their behavior.” – Kelly Simmons, novelist and former journalist
Set and meet your writing deadlines. “Having a deadline draws you forward, past the demons and doubts and into the land of completion. As Rob Hartzler, a wise artist friend of mine, told me, “It doesn’t exist unless it’s finished.” - Claire Bardos, screenplay writer

I'll finish with my tip - an oldie but a goody "You can't edit a blank page". Forget editing, this is your time to make a dirty draft. Get the words there and you have something you can work with.

Okay, now stop procrastinating, keep your bum in the chair and get writing :o)

Getting in the flow.

2010-06-05T12:28:00.002+10:00

So by now you should have fought your way through the beginning of your story. Those first few words, paragraphs, pages or even chapters have rolled off your fingertips and popped up on the screen in front of you. *phew* Feels good doesn't it? What's that I hear you say? Not so good? Well you're not the only one feeling that way. While I've managed some great numbers this week and I've almost put to bed my second project of the challenge I'm not convinced anything I've written is any good. *sigh* Does it have the punch needed to knock my readers out? Or does its little fingers reach out and grab hold and not let go? I'm tempted, very tempted to go back and edit/polish, but if I'm going to get to that 50k mark by the end of the month I can't afford to go back. There is no reverse gear in my writing this month! No matter how much it nags me I'm doing nothing but moving forward, I'm putting my fingers in my ears and singing lalalalala every single time my internal editor opens her mouth.
It's hard. Very hard because I'm a writer that likes to edit/polish along the way (which pleases my editor very much once the wip hits the submission stage) but it takes time to do that and time this month is a precious thing. It's like gold or diamonds. Water to a thirsty man. Every tick counts and the aim is to make every tock count too. I've decided a reward system doesn't work for me. *sigh* I've never been one to go after a reward, I'm more the type that just likes to get things done, my reward has always been the end product. And now I have the published stories to prove to myself that THE END is indeed a wonderful thing. *grin*
So what do you use to keep you on the straight and narrow this month? I'd love to hear what works for you all, and what doesn't. lol
Rhian
*May the Word Gods shine upon you*

Kick Off!

2010-06-01T00:00:00.001+10:00

The ball is now in your court. Writing or editing, this month is about getting words on paper, there will be days when the last thing you will want to do is sit at your computer or desk and write. We have all been there and likely at some point be there again this month. It is these times that you turn to the group to help give you the motivation to fight through the tough times.

If you do find it hard to face your computer, try writing long hand. If you are hand writing your manuscript, have a change of scenery. Sit in your garden (if you have one), go to your local coffee shop, it really doesn’t matter where you go, just try something different.

I normally freeze half way through a month long challenge, I have about 3 to 4 days when everything goes blank and I get nothing when I’m writing, it’s like my characters decide to play hide-n-seek. It doesn’t matter how much I rand and carry on they just don’t come back until they are ready. Which is why I now also edit during these challenges, because if I ignore them running off to Lord knows where, they tend to return sooner rather than later. My point is change can be a good thing.

If this is your first 50ks in 30 Days, have fun, and enjoy the experience. If you are returning for another go at this craziness, lovely to have you back with us again.

Good luck with your word counts.

Sandie

June is Just Around the Corner

2010-05-03T11:07:00.004+10:00

Can you believe we are gearing up for yet another 50k challenge?
The call went out and the troops are responding. Yes, once again we have some fearless writers ready to put butts in seats and write or type their fingers to the bone. Oh, did I forget to mention that?

For now, you have a month, to plot or finish your current WIP ready to write or edit in June. I am going to work on two novels I started with Paula Roe’s ‘A Novel in 3 Months’ Blog. I am also editing a few finished WIPs.

While I know we are not suppose to edit what we write during the month, I am finding if I do as my wonderful CP, Heather Brown does, and edit the previous day’s work. My finished draft is a lot easier to edit at the end, and seeing, as I hate editing, I am willing to try anything to make it all easier. The big question for me will be ‘Can I write 50ks working this way?’ Only time will tell.

If you have never done a 50k in 30 Days challenge, you are in for a ride. It is important not to over extend yourself. If you do not think you can write the 50ks, aim for something lower, 25 or 30ks the object is to get you writing, find a comfortable writing routine (my sucks at the moment.

I am looking forward to seeing how you all go this year.
Sandie

Lights, Camera... Kiss the Boss ~ A Review

2009-12-28T16:15:00.009+11:00

Fellow RWAus, Bootcamper and 50/30 member Jenn McLeod recently had the pleasure of reading Nikki Logan's debut novel 'Lights, Camera... Kiss the Boss'. Nikki is one of the original 50ks in 30 Days challengers and is testament to the fact that you can have a novel published after under taking one of these challenges.

Here is our Jenn's review:

When talking about her writing, Nikki Logan says, she knows her job is done if her readers ‘catch a waft of rich earth and the spray of wild ocean between the pages’.

Well, she’s done that and more for this reader in her debut novel – Lights, Camera...Kiss the Boss.

Firstly, I love the concept – a landscape designer whose rooftop gardens bring beauty to the ‘natureless urban environments’ of Sydney’s city skyscrapers. Happiest with dirt on her hands, talking to her plants, Ava Lange suddenly finds herself thrust in front of the camera as presenter on a new TV reality show – Urban Nature. And camera-shyness is not her main concern. Her new boss is hotshot TV producer Daniel Arnot, the subject of her youthful infatuation nine years earlier.

Nikki has woven her passion for nature with her understanding of human emotion to give readers a delightfully contemporary story with a rich plot, blooming with colourful characters. The writing is fresh and flows from the start to the very last line. I particularly like how the parallel plot elements of nature, set against the lavish city life, reflects the conflict between down-to-earth Ava and her ambitious boss.

This is not another fall-in-love-with-the-boss story, nothing contrived or trite about it at all. Nikki’s characters are credible with very real issues and obstacles to overcome. She had me riding the romance rollercoaster with the very unassuming Ava Lange as she desperately tries to deal with unrequited love.

By writing about what she knows, Nikki has also given her readers an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at the television industry.

My favourite character: Nikki draws great characters to love and loath. I particularly enjoyed getting to know the unexpected uniqueness of a secondary character – Cadence. Very refreshing and wonderfully portrayed. Exceptional characterisation.

Favouite line: Every great romance has a great line – one that affects you so much you almost gasp (take Jerry McGuire’s, “You complete me” for example). Nikki provided that moment for me in this book with her perfectly poignant question about what makes a heart break. I’m not going to tell you what it is here - you’ll find it towards the end of Chapter Twelve.

Lights, Camera...Kiss the Boss, by Nikki Logan, is due for release in February. Be assured that this is definitely not an I’ve-read-it-all-before book.” I couldn’t put it down. It was lights, camera, action from beginning to end.

I’m told the real beginning for this story was back in June 2008 when members from Romance Writers Australia undertook their first 50ks in 30 Days challenge. It was Nikki’s first go at writing 50,000 words in a month, so it’s kind of fitting that it should be her first published novel, with Harlequin US snapping it up in November of that same year. Lights, Camera...Kiss the Boss hits the book stands in Australia in February 2010.

That’s a wrap on my review. Thank you Nikki Logan. A brilliant debut novel. One of many, I hope.For more about Nikki’s novels, visit her website http://www.nikkilogan.com.au/

Thank you Jenn for an entertaining and informative review, I can't wait for February.

It's A Wrap

2009-12-01T20:09:00.005+11:00

Well NaNo is over for another year. The thing with NaNoWriMo you never know what it is going to throw at you. The secret is to accept what you can do and not stress about what you cannot do.

This year we have four ladies that reached the 50K mark.

CONGRATULATIONS

AMBER ~ 52,907
HELEN ~ 50,246
JENN ~ 51,277
PAM ~ 51,083

To everyone who took part in the challenge to me you are all winners, to sit down and just attempt is a big challenge, to undertake such an endeavour while working and/or raising children is mind boggling to me.

At the end of the day or month, you now have more words than you did at the start of the month, which is an enormous plus for any writer. Keep up with your story, you never know it could be the next Emerald winner.

Oh, as an add incentive, there have been many a novel published that was a NaNoWriMo project. Nikki Logan is one example, and I’m pretty sure Suzanne Brandyn is another. So, finish, edit and submit those NaNo babies.

Now not that I’m going to put any pressure on any of you, but don’t forget JUNE, yes you have seven months until the next challenge ladies. Enjoy your time off.

Thank you everyone for the support you have shown one another. A big thank you to the ladies that helped with posts on the blog over the month. Diane thank you for keeping the girls going with sprints via 'Twitter'.

CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE FOR A GREAT MONTH!!!

Happy writing
Sandie

Finding my Writing Rhythm

2009-11-21T12:34:00.005+11:00

(Cafepress have now added Beach Tote Bags and gym bags to their range.
You can find my products here)

It's Day 21 (gulp) of Nanowrimo, and I'm only just over 21,000 words (double gulp). This is the 7th year that I have participated in Nanowrimo and each year is a different experience. It seems that I'm still finding my writing rhythm.

Some writers write fast.

Some writers write slow.

Some edit as they go.

Some spit out a dirty draft and edit later.

Some take years to write a whole manuscript.

Some never finish their manuscripts.

Some work on several stories at once.

Some can't even begin without a title.

Some are pantsers.

Some are plotters.

In ten years of serious writing, I think I've fitted in all these categories. There seems to be no true formula for me to finish a manuscript, though Nanowrimo puts a bomb under me and helps me to write fast - even more now with the added desktop software of Write or Die. For a couple of Nano attempts, I started with only the briefest idea of what I wanted to write -- a concept, a feeling I wanted to capture -- and still ended the month reaching my 50k goals.

But last year, I outlined every chapter first before I started Nano. It was my best Nano year ever and I finished the month with over 65,000 words. I finished the first draft in February the following year at 136, 000 words (so it needs a lot of cutting).

This year...I feel like I'm trudging up Mt Sinai.

(And there's no camels around to buy to make the journey much easier)

But I'm going to keep trudging. Because I know the view from the top (the point where you can type THE END) is magnificent.

How are you faring on your Nano journey? Have you found your writing rhythm yet?

Editing With A Pack of Pens

2009-11-18T20:18:00.003+11:00

Hi everyone, while you've all been slogging it out pushing the word count boundaries near and far this month I have embarked upon a slightly different NaNo experience. I'm editing, this whole month, editing, editing, editing. I have taken Margie Lawson's "Empowering Characters Emotions" lecture packet and ..... Lightbulb moments galore!
I'm a cliche-aholic... I admit it, but with Margie's 5 step program I'm ridding myself of it. I do love traitor words, things that seem innocent enough but are pulling away from the emotional depth of my story, darn it all to heck!
I have almost coloured an entire scene in yellow! (Not good, so not good).
I'm half way through, I did one round of editing thinking "ha, I'm good"... and then a little birdy who likes to wear bat wings a lot told me that I have to include more visceral responses and deepen my characterisation. That my WIP was really just a skeletal mass, kind of like a runway model, it needed more muscle, more drive, before it was ready for the big time.
Righto, I accepted it, and then said little bentwing bat told me to go look at Margie Lawson's editing courses.
So I will say right now, for the world to hear.... Thank you Bentwing Batperson! You have put me on the path of enlightenment, and whilst there are no happy little monks dancing around me chanting, there are lots of ideas and power words flowing out of these fingertips.
I'm going to share something with you. It's embarrassing so please don't tell the world... oh, well actually I am telling the world aren't I? Yeah righto, well anyway, here's a before and after. Baby steps Bob, baby steps.

From this:

Something about him grated on her and now they would be stuck on the same ship for four weeks at sea. Her knuckles started to whiten as she gripped the wheel tighter.A large thump to the side of the vehicle brought her back to her senses. The body of the car shuddered as one of the back tyres deflated.

To this:

Her hat bumped the roof of the carriage, she should have ditched the feathers they were so last season. Gwen took one hand off the wheel to readjust a pin and heard the collective gasps of both men.

“You wanted to come along,” she shouted over the crunch, crunch, crunch of the car. “Sorry, forgot to change gears, this should give us more speed.”

A large thump to the side of the vehicle stopped her fun. The body of the Imperial shuddered as she slammed both feet on the brake. The stench of burned rubber and dust pervaded the car. Her stomach lurched as the car skidded to a halt on the gravel road.

THE GREAT RACE

2009-11-14T11:21:00.001+11:00

We love our races in Oz and November is significant on the racing calendar with the running of The Melbourne Cup – the race that stops the nation. This November I discovered the race that gets the nation going – the novel writing nation, that is.

Yep! NaNoWriMo – it turns out – has all the thrills and spills of a great race. It can be exhilarating and exhausting, dangerous and disheartening, excruciating and enriching.

Week 1 - starts just like the Melbourne Cup – horses in the starting gate, excitement and anticipation oozing from every pore like cheap cologne. We are the jockeys strategising, our goal in plain and indisputable view. The gates slam open and we’re off and racing, sprinters and pacers soon separating the pack.

At the end of the first straight, we discover this race is not so straightforward after all. It’s now a steeplechase of unexpected hurdles and challenging jumps. As we cross the week one finishing line, we feel slightly overwhelmed but still focussed on one thing – numbers.

Week 2 - is definitely about numbers. It’s like being part of the mad mob in Sydney’s City to Surf fun run.

The elite easily intimidate first-timers (like me) – overawed by our own insignificance in those shiny new Kmart joggers. Also among the mob are:

• the serious competitors with starting line honours,

• the don’t-get-in-my-way-or-I’ll-crush-you runners,

• and the I-really-should’ve-gone-home-last-night party animals.

Speaking of animals, you’ll also find the gorilla suit guy – a little crazy for thinking he can do it, but giving it his best shot and having fun – after all, that is the aim of the race.

Again, week two starts off strong, although it’s not long before the pack thins.
Some give up.
Some fall over when they realise they’re not serious or prepared enough this time around.
Others hang on until Heartbreak Hill – and oh, the pain!

You set a feverish pace, heart pumping, back aching, such pressure! The mob eggs you on, but they are passing you to the left and to the right. You try The Little Caboose method, “I think I can. I think I can...”

Do you quit?
Never!
Simply let the race go on around you, stay focussed and stay on track.

Week 3 - is like the Bathurst Grand Prix at Mount Panorama. The view is good from here, although still not quite all down hill yet. This is where skill is important – knowing when to accelerate and brake. You are desperate to edit through those chicanes and re-write those hairpin bends out of the story.

Should you? The race rules say this is a no-no. But do you really have to follow the rules?

Not always. Look at the iconic Beetle. Volkswagen suddenly stopped and switched the engine from the back to the front. Now it’s better than ever. So yes, go crazy. Break a few rules and get back in the race because the best is yet to come.

Week 4 - is the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race (or in RWAus Nano speak it’s the Plotsville to Happy Ever After Race). You’ve got the wind in your sails (your ballast most likely the result of too much Nano chocolate). But beware the albatross. This last leg can be deceiving. It’s not always smooth sailing and only the prepared will survive.

So grab those reins, hold on tight, have fun, keep those revs up and avoid seasickness by keeping an eye on the November 30 horizon.

Most importanlty, run your own race, your own way and achieving your personal best.

Jenn J McLeod
http://www.jennjmcleod.blogspot.com/

I'm running for the train....

2009-11-11T11:19:00.002+11:00

but I'm behind as usual. Story of my life at the moment. I'm so far behind on most things it's scary. I'm still doing everything but there's so much and not enough time....

What makes me keep going even when it looks like I won't make that train? Could be a number of things but for me it's everything, the destination and the journey have equal appeal. Neither of which I want to let go of even if the train is on of those ones where people hang out the sides and sit on the roof.

That's probably why on day 11 of Nano and at 5,283 words I'm still optimistic I'll make the 50,000. Maybe I'm kidding myself and maybe I'm not but no matter what my word count is at the end of November I'll have more words than I did at the start. I'm determined to get those words because I want the story. I want to see what happens to my characters on this journey we're taking together.

I have a goal and I'm aiming for it. It might be unrealistic at the moment with all that's going on but I'm not backing away from it because that would be giving up. It would also be easy for me to say screw it. I've got so much going on in my life most would say NOT doing it was a good idea but what they don't see is that NaNo is mine! Mine, I tell you! Back away and let me have it. In a way spending the month of November writing 50,000 words is selfish but it's no more selfish than getting that new shirt or book, or going to see the latest movie or... the list is endless.

But the difference between my selfishness and most others is the struggle to get my goal. It's damn hard work, it's frustrating, it's annoying, it's depressing and then it's fun, it's exciting, it's satisfying. It's one great big emotional roller coaster and I love every minute of it.

So when the family complains I'm chained to my chair or they get the bolt cutters to pull me free for one of the many IMPORTANT things I have to do for them I'm not going to rant and rave about no ME time. (Well not much anyway. *grin*) I won't complain because that's life, it's part of the thrill that makes this journey the ride it is. And even though we might not make the whole trip we can be proud of the effort we put in to try. What's that saying?..... Oh yeah.

YOU GOTTA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

What are you waiting for? Get in the race people! You never know who you'll meet on the way or what you'll get at the end of it.

Where have all the Flowers Gone?

2009-11-07T21:35:00.008+11:00

That’s a question many of us may ask during November. I think at times we can let the challenge of getting words on paper run our lives, and from time to time we have to remember that there is an outside world with real people in it. This past week I’ve written more words in one week than I have in a very long time. Now I don’t know if it is because I’ve had six weeks off from writing before hand or if it’s the new genre, whatever the reason I’m enjoying my writing. The fact that my laptop internet is having a major male moment is a big help because I don’t have twitter deck popping up very few seconds.

I’m also taking time away from the computer, going for a walk each day to get the mail, yes it takes me a good fifteen minutes to walk up and back from my mailbox. Friday even in the rain, I went for a walk, took my trusty duck head umbrella my son bought me, it was like water off a ducks back or head in this case.

This year with my writing I have a new rule, if I’m on a roll “Please do not disturb” if not, I’ll be out to chat. It’s working just fine at the moment. Okay we are only one week in, but still, my family understand were I’m coming from and I love them for that, even our friend that are visiting know if my head is down and I’m typing ten to the dozen don’t talk to me. Most of the time because when I am at the computer I’m writing and procrastinating, I have the time to spend with family and friends. I’ve taken time to sit outside and watch the foals play together.

So I’m sitting on the 20K mark with today’s words to go on that, I’m feeling inspired and busting to start each day even if some have been slower starts than others. What about you? How is your month going? Are the words coming freely? More important are you taking the time to smell the flowers? And you know what? There is really only one person you need to please this month with your word count or pages edited and the is YOU!!!

Happy writing.

Sandie

Nano Envy

2009-11-02T18:22:00.002+11:00

Yes, it's true, I'm suffering from NaNo envy!

It's only the first week, and I look at the word counts being tossed around and gasp at some of the numbers. And I'm not even writing new words for this month. I'm editing, but that is really a rather loose term for 'rewriting' my ms.

How do you find the time to get these words out? Have you bolted the door on your internal editor and chained your muse to the desk? And if you can do it for this month, why not all the time?

In between sprints have a think about what you've changed in your life to get through this month. Maybe the pressure of Nano has kicked your procrastination devil right out the window. Are others in the house shouldering some of the load? Wouldn't it be lovely if some of these changes were permanent!

This early on in Nano I thought it might be nice if we all shared some tips on how we're finding the time to write, or what tricks we're using to get the words to flow.

Here are some of mine:
- cook a giant pot of bolognese (or similar), and freeze meal size portions
- set the alarm for 30mins earlier in the morning
- have some nice rewards for yourself on standby
- join in some sprints
- close your eyes while you write - seriously! (I actually do this all the time now as it means I can't edit while I write, and it actually makes me more focussed).

So, what do you do?

And we're off and writing...

2009-11-01T00:01:00.001+11:00

Whether, you're a plotter, or a pantser, or a skirtser (in Nicky's case), it's time to pick up your favourite writing implement and make a start on this year's Nanowrimo.

No more procrastination. The time is now.

A couple of late articles have been added to the online advice for Nanowrimo: The 12 Step Guide for Succeeding at Nanowrimo. And the downloadable Nano for the New and the Insane (put me in the latter category).

I've bought the nifty desktop version of Write or Die and after a couple of test runs last weekend, I'm truly in love. I wrote most of last year's Nanowrimo effort using the online version. In fact most of the 136k was churned out using Write or Die (64k during Nanowrimo itself.)

If you haven't got a title yet, you can try the Random Romance Title Generator.

I'm not fussed. I don't care if I have a title when I start. And as I'm writing number 3 in my Bilby Creek series, I know the town and a lot of the secondary characters well. This year's supporting cast includes:

Chloe, Luke, Kirsty and Dylan will all be back. (If a story is set in Bilby Creek, Kirsty will make sure she's there, so I might as well humour her). And I'm sure Genevieve will also feature (though she doesn't have her own avatar yet).

So I have the characters, the setting, the idea, but I don't yet have a plot. I hope it will evolve in the writing.

Research I did earlier in this year included the following photos:

I'm sure that gives you enough clues of the setting of my story. It will begin with a bunch of committee members dropping dead (no foul play - though that could make it interesting, mostly old age) -- so the committee needs new blood, and my secondary characters step in. And that's all I've got so far. Yes, I'm truly going to pants it this time. It's worked in the past, I hope it works this time.

How about you? Plotting, pantsing or just skirting around the issue?

Go, go everyone. It's November 1st and EVERYTHING is POSSIBLE.

Are We Excited Yet? NaNoWriMo ~ Hell Yeah!!

2009-10-07T11:47:00.006+11:00

A big welcome to all our new members for this year's NaNoWriMo.

Are you excited yet? Yes, it’s coming up to that time of year again. It’s an adrenalin rush. Will I make it? What if I fail? Nah, I won’t fail. You know what it doesn’t matter if you do, as long as you give it your best shot and have fun. Now, to prepare you for the epic month ahead here are some tips. If anyone has anymore please add them in the comments.

1. Have an idea of what you intend to write. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, you still need to have at least some idea about what genre you intent to write. I’m plotting this year, so that will be interesting. I’m writing book 2 of Cassandra’s ‘Scarlett House Series’.

2. Get your writing space sorted. Make sure you have plenty of room to work. Okay, this may be a mammoth job on my part. My office looks like it’s been a playground area for 20 or more kids.

3. Cook ahead. My slow cooker is getting a good workout this month with easy to re-heat meals.

4. Make sure you tell family and friends your writing times. If they ring or call round for a coffee or chat in those times ignore them, you’re not available. It can be done, I’ve done it. Yes, I’ve been told I’m rude, my reply is, “I told you I was busy.” You just have to be serious.

5. Stay off the internet during your writing time. Facebook, Myspace and Twitter will survive without you for a few hours a day.

6. Turn Spell check and the editing tools off during November or at least the WIP you working on the month. If you don’t you’ll spend half your time editing and not writing.

7. If you reach your word count for the day treat yourself to a small reward. Set major milestones and select a reward when each one is met. They don’t have to be big rewards, a coffee and biscuit or chocolates (okay that will not be one of mine) or a long soak in a hot bubble bath. Anything that will give you a boost.

8. Have your house sorted so there is very little housework to do during November. Or better yet get someone else to do the work.

9. If you are a member of a lot of online groups go no mail on the ones that are not needed or at least go digest.

10. Believe in YOURSELF.

That’s it for me. I hope you have a great November. We’ll have blogs posted during the month to help motivate you and your word graphs will be updated each Saturday. More details on that will be posted on the loop. In the mean time happy planning/organising.

Sandie

The End is Here

2009-06-30T07:22:00.005+10:00

What? It's the last day? No way, I swear I had another week here somewhere... Look it might have slipped down the back of the couch, hold on I'll pull it out in a second.
Ahh, no, it is the last day. I came in here with such massive hopes and dreams, and I accomplished a few of them. Some others will still have to be tackled.
I ended up writing 22,000 words on my current project. I also edited 150 pages of another mss that has been re-requested by an agent (crossing fingers), and I wrote a few blog posts along the way. Life was always getting in the way, but I'm much further along in my current WIP than I thought I would be, so hooray for that!
So my family can relax a little now, mummys not going to get upset if she can't reach her word count.
What about you? Did you accomplish what you thought you would? Are you still plugging away? How are you going to celebrate your achievements?
Me? I'm going on a road trip to see hubbys rellies with the kids. Fun. But I will go shopping in Brisbane which is a joy.
I don't get my full body massage until I finish this WIP.
Congrats to all the girls who participated. It's great to share the writing experience with others who understand the need to shut the door and type away.

The End is Near

2009-06-29T12:30:00.003+10:00

June has been a big month for us all and not just because of the 50/30 challenge. Whether you reached your goal or not, remember you have more words on the page or pages/words edited than you might have if you didn’t take the challenge. If you have accomplished that, than you are winners.

Last week had its ups and downs for me. Computer and internet problems saw me doing a lot of writing by hand (which I still have to type into the computer). Family issues saw me diver for cover for a couple of days, but I’ve come to the decision that, there is nothing I can do about this problem at the moment so I’ll think about it later. (Oh, isn’t that very Scarlett O’Hara of me. LOL)

I’ve posted my new round of Fallen Angel Reviews on my review site if you’d like to have a look (okay they are the links to my reviews, minus two because of technical hitches) http://www.sandiehudsonreviews.blogspot.com/ .

My editing is moving along okay, but I’m going to have to go back over it all again. (I HATE EDITING!) Just thought I’d share that with you. July is going to be editing month for me, yep the writing is getting pushed to the back of the computer and all my finished WIPs are getting edited, if it takes me into August and September to do them I will. What is Diane’s saying? “Write, Edit, Submit.” So that is what I’m doing. What about you? Are you going to do the big edit thing in July? How close are you to submitting? Have you submitted and waiting for word back?

On a personal note, thank you all for a great month, as always it is a pleasure writing with you all and don’t forget to gear up ready for NOVEMBER – NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH. I knew you’d like to be reminded about that now.

Happy writing.
Sandie

A marathon sprint to the finish line

2009-06-28T11:35:00.004+10:00

This is the toughest 50ks in 30 days challenge I've done. My brain is in too many places. I just haven't been focused on this story, and I used my broken alphasmart as an excuse for lack of output.

But today I will marathon write. To finish the challenge closer to the 100% mark than the 50% mark which is where I am now. What do I mean by marathon write? I mean sprint, rest, sprint, rest, sprint, rest. Most of the day. There'll be some breaks here and there for food, for reading the newspaper, for fulfilling my blogging obligations, for living up the to the title bestowed upon me by my writers group of 'the world's greatest secretary' (the handmade chocolates they gave me are decadent).

Currently in my story, I have a teen distressed because her ex's new girlfriend is throwing a party the same night as her rave, a fairy godmother who dares not use magic to assist her because she's been snorting the fairy dust that evening (don't drink and fly!) after discovering her time-shifted Prince Charming had escaped and ended up drunk in a strip club. Hang on, I thought this was supposed to be young adult.

So yes, I do need to get back to them. But I still haven't found my groove: I'm pantsing this one, but maybe I should have plotted. And the other seven manuscripts in various states of development are calling me. I so want to edit. And that is something I never expected to say or write. But after a fabulous course on Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues with Margie Lawson, and receiving feedback from the Valerie Parv Award, my mind is itching to edit and rewrite. Cinderella is waiting patiently. Kirsty McInnes is waiting not so patiently.

Yesterday, I won 2nd prize in my writers group Performance Writing competition. It was a radio play that I started to write fourteen years ago, pulled it out of the file (didn't even have an electronic copy), dusted it off it, reshaped it, took it back to the essence of the event, and gave it a resolution. Never throw away your old idea, your old manuscripts, your old characters -- you just never know when you can resurrect them and use it again. The time was right for that one.

Ladies, we have three days left of this challenge. Make the most of them and finish the 50ks in 30 days, knowing you did the best you could. Whether you make your goal, or not, you will be a lot further along then when you started on June 1st

What more insiration than success

2009-06-27T21:00:00.002+10:00

Cross-posted from my own blog. Sorry for the replication - but I think there is nothing more inspriring that seeing one of our own's success.

Fellow 50K participant, Anna Hackett, has her debut Silhouette Nocturne Bites out in a few days time.

I'm very excited read this story and have already pre-ordered my copy.

Description

They call him the Savage Dragon: Rordan Sarkany, knight of the Order of the Dragon, charged with tracking and destroying those who let their dragon blood turn them into beasts. In the wilds of Hungary, Rordan hunts one such creature—along with fellow warrior Kira Bethlen.

Both Rordan and his inner dragon desire Kira...and she can't resist Rordan's dangerous allure. But even if she succumbs to their attraction, can she ever forgive him for slaying her beloved brother?

Buy your copy of July 1 release of Savage Dragon here. Read more about Anna at www.annahackettbooks.com/

Day 26/30

2009-06-26T11:53:00.006+10:00

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.

By Richard Bach, author of Jonathon Livingstone Seagull.

This is what you need to remember right now. Don’t quit!

There are still 4 more days after today to get as many words down as you can. And two of them are the weekend. You can do it. Look at your goal posts. Work out what needs doing and go for it.

In the hope of keeping you motivated, I’ve listed some quotes that I like. Maybe there will be something in there to inspire you…

If you only do what you know you can do – you never do very much.

Try and fail. But don’t fail to try.

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

Always look on the bright side of life.

Don’t wait – the time will never be ‘just right’.

The most painful thing to experience is not defeat but regret.

What is your favourite saying?

To finish, I’d like to leave you with a quote from the movie Galaxy Quest:

Never give up! Never surrender!

The light at the end of the tunnel...

2009-06-24T12:04:00.005+10:00

It appears many of us started the challenge with a bang, but hit a few health or personal hurdles midway through. From the posts below, you can see viruses and injury were rife amongst the participants.

I'm guessing most of us are now back on track, and can see the light at the end of the dark, winding, 30-day-long tunnel. Here's a treat for those of you who can see the light... he's waiting for you at the end!

*Drool*. I digress... How's the brain going? Body doing okay? Characters well formed (like the hottie above)? Storyline makes sense? Or is it a train wreck, and you'll just keep ploughing on to reach the magical word count figure you're targetting? Let us know if your morale is low, high, or somewhere in the middle.

I know my word counts won't be that hot, but my editing is going great guns. I realise I have A LOT of work to do, but it's something I WILL achieve. I'm determined to edit as much as I can over the next six days so I can reach my target, and if my word count improves, that's fabulous. The fact I'm taking the challenge with other like-minded people is enough to give me that extra boost.

So keep plugging away, and keep working towards the light. We'll have a little celebration at the end, and I promise to bring Angel-o (as I've know called him) to help celebrate our achievements.

May your words fly like the wings of an angel, and your characters soar to the heavens (soooo cheesy, but it gives me a laugh!).

Have a great day,
:-) Mon

I've only got a week?

2009-06-23T08:20:00.004+10:00

Right, we've talked about pushing yourself through, we've talked about cheating your way to the end, now let's talk about your writing.
It's not a Hugo Award winner right now is it?
Can I tell you a secret?
Even Hugo award winners first drafts are crap, with the exception of probably a couple of geniuses. Every writer will tell you their first draft is really them sorting out where the story is going, who's in it and what big things happen. It's not until the first or second draft that they start liking what they've written.
So here's the deal. Turn off your inner editor. I know you've got one, sitting on your shoulder every time you write telling you that that word is spelled wrong, you're splicing that comma, who in the world would say that?
It happens to every writer. The successful ones don't listen to it, they just keep the words flowing out, and if they get stuck they put a little asterix or something saying that "XX happens here" and then skip that section and work on the next. If there's a fact you need to look up, don't. Instead just leave yourself a comment (and you can do this in word by going up to Insert on the toolbar, then scroll down to comment, and it will insert a comment right there. You can then say "find out who the heck developed the carbon/lithium battery" and go back to getting your story down.
The crux of the matter is, you need to get down the skeleton of your story, you can add embellishments galore when you edit, but for now, get it down.
TURN OFF your Inner Editor, write like the wind Bullseye!

The Struggle to The End

2009-06-22T15:50:00.005+10:00

Here we are, the final leg of the challenge has begun, I know a lot of us are struggling to reach our goals. If I’ve learnt anything this year during the challenge, that would be, that being an author/writer is bloody hard work. Okay, I knew that before, but this challenge has really tested me this year. I’ve had times during other challenges where life has stepped in and tried to take over my writing time, but this year it stepped in and brought it all to a stop a couple of times. SO we have a chose, we can sit back and think where the hell has the time gone? Or we can think, there is still time to get there. I refuse to give up. We have eight days left and I will do all in my power to push as much writing as I can in those eight days.

If it means writing right up until 11.59pm on June 30 I will! It’s been done before, just ask Diane. If you want inspiration on how to tackle a challenge, look to our own Diane Curran. I remember the first year we did NaNoWriMo together, she wrote long into the night. We had a cheer squad cheering her on with each milestone she made until she reached the 50ks. And you know what? Not once did I hear her say, “I can’t do this.”

I’m not saying you fail if you don’t reach your target, no one fails as far as I’m concerned, but at least give it a go. At least continue to believe in yourself and in what you are capable of doing.

So remember it’s not over until the clock strikes 12am on July 1.

Have a great week and happy writing.
Sandie

Don't leave the week unwritten...

2009-06-21T14:22:00.005+10:00

I've been seeing emails today from 50/30 participants to say they've written zero words this week. Life has got in the way, people have been sick.

These are all valid excuses not to write. If you so choose. Because it is still a choice.

I am challenging each and every one of you NOT to end the week with zero words. Take half an hour, take ten minutes and write.

Add to your word count.

Don't look at that huge word goal that is looming in front of you, and give up now. Just write.
A chapter. A page. A paragraph. A sentence.

Move forward.

You will feel better for it. You will have achieved something for the week. Not your daily goal. Not your weekly goal. But something.

You need to show your life that you are in charge. That you still choose to be a writer. That you still choose to write. No matter what it throws at you.

At a conference a couple of years ago, Anna Jacobs said 'Nobody gives you the time to write. You have to steal it.'

Steal it now.

The week is not yet over. Don't leave the week unwritten... Write!

The Writing Blues

2009-06-20T11:36:00.002+10:00

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...

2009-06-18T21:17:00.011+10:00

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

2009-06-17T13:46:00.002+10:00

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)

2009-06-16T16:28:00.003+10:00

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

2009-06-15T09:15:00.005+10:00

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...

2009-06-14T14:46:00.005+10:00

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.

How to Survive...

2009-06-12T12:37:00.001+10:00

Nearly half way. How are you going? If you're like me your finding the going is starting to get a little tough. Winter is here, the cold has set in, word counts aren't as high as you want, life is getting in the way of your writing and you still have to keep the motivation going for another two weeks.

Well, here is my solution for you...

I'm sure you've probably received this in in your in-box. But did you try it? Well, pick the chocaholic here because I did. And it works (although it makes more than 1 mug - but that keeps hubby happy and lets you disappear with a clear conscience).

So, when you need to warm up, take a quick break, have a treat to reward a word count milestone, or need something just to keep you going - try THE MOST DANGEROUS CAKE around:

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (high).
The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT! (This can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

Inspiration, anyone?

2009-06-10T07:00:00.006+10:00

I'm always interested in finding out where writers get their inspiration from. I know, I'm a stickybeak, but I find the whole idea of inspiration fascinating. Our brains work in mysterious ways, and I REALLY like to know how other people - particularly writers - tick.

My inspiration comes from TV, reading mags, seeing half nekkid celebs, watching the grass grow... and sometimes characters just pop into my head out of nowhere. That was the case with my current WIP - I have absolutely no idea where the characters came from, and why they came to me (as opposed to another writer who could probably tell their story in a much more exciting way). But I'm very glad they popped in and decided to 'get busy' in my head! It's certainly entertaining stuff which keeps me awake at night! Lol.

So, the question I ask is rather predicable: Where do you get your inspiration from? Is there a particular source that provides a never ending supply of ideas, or do you just dream about plots and characters? Are you a people watcher (not in a creepy way, but for 'research' purposes!) or do you read the newspapers for possible scenarios for your characters? And where in the world did your NaNo plot/characters come from?

Do tell!

And my present to you is a little bit of man candy as inspiration *sigh*. Please bring me back as a towel and/or sunscreen, or better yet, a pair of boardshorts *wink*.

:-) Mon

Panic Stations!

2009-06-09T10:36:00.002+10:00

Okay so it's Week 2 and everyone's looking pretty good so far. But what about me? What the heck has happened to my word count? Um, my dog ate my homework? These aliens came down and hit the shut down button causing me to lose thousands of words because they also wiped my saved document? A drunk Nun ran through my house screaming that the end of the world was coming so I knocked my laptop off the bench and all the words I thought I'd written down weren't there when I recovered?
No, the actual reason my word count isn't pushing along is because I've been SLACK! I admit it. I've let life interfere with my writing because I thought I had the long weekend to pick it up again. But guess what? Hubby surprised me with a trip up to Mackay for his BILs 50th. So I had a whole weekend without my laptop or access to pen/paper etc.
My safety net was ripped out from underneath me. Bugger!
So now what? What am I going to do? How can I get the word count going again? I'll never make my target now.
Press panic button now!

No, no, no. Stop right there. What do you mean you can't reach your target? You're electric fingered girl! Wake up and remember your secret super power! Fast fingers flying furiously for futuristic fantasy! (say that with a mouthful of peanut butter!)
Come on, don't give up now. So you haven't hit your target yet. That's okay. For the next three days I want you to take a pen and paper in to the toilet with you. Keep it handy. When you're in there waiting for gravity to take hold, write as many words as you can. They don't even have to be in sequence with where you're up to on your story. Just write.
Then come out, type these words up, and the next time you need to go, do it again. The word count will pull up. And you might even find you'll hit on an amazing sub plot that will make your story zing.

The point is, panicking doesn't help. Accept you've had a bad week and then get back to the job at hand. Remember if you're not enjoying writing you won't stick with it.

Right now off I go to visit a man about a wallaby and maybe just write 250 words or more. Five visits to the throne will pull me up today.

Acceptance

2009-06-08T16:21:00.007+10:00

Here we are heading into the second week, so how are things going. There are some impressive numbers coming through if our word meters are anything to go by. If you’re falling behind on the word count don’t despair, we still have three weeks to go and once you get into the swing of things you’ll be surprised how quickly the words add up.

For me the week started great, I was happy with my word count and the number of pages I was editing each day. The end of the week and it all came to a screaming halt. I went to a horse sale on Friday and I think I picked up a chill in my back, as well as pulling something. So I’m off to the chiropractor tomorrow, after all I can’t spend the rest of the month on back. I know a couple of CC’s heroines would think that a great way to spend a month, but we won’t go there. Sitting is my biggest problem, I’m okay if I lie down or stand up and it’s not very good on the back trying to write in either of those positions for too long. So what am I doing? I’m reading, may as well get all of my reading out of the way, that way I’ll have a clear run for the rest of the month.

So my motto this week is: Take the good with the bad and look for a positive in the bad.

Happy writing
Sandie

Fairy godmothers, evil fairies and the perils of the long weekend

2009-06-07T10:57:00.005+10:00

At day seven of 50ks in 30 days, I've decided I'm definitely insane.

I'm falling behind with my Margie Lawson class "Writing Body Language", I've got my mind on my contest entry for the Stiletto and a little later my entry for the Qld Manuscript Devt program, part of me is also wanting to jump in and make corrections to Making the Cut so I can send it off to my request via Twitter, and I've got this new story to write. And my favourite teen is wanting to read the new story when it's done.

See I need Felicity, the fairy-dust snorting fairy godmother to wave her wand in my direction, and at least get me to focus on one task at a time.

It's a long weekend, and you think that would help! But at the beginning of a long weekend, three days feels like all the time in the world. It's not. Yes, I wrote yesterday - using the usual sprint method - but my word count for the day was just over 1300. Below average for a 50k challenge, and not good for a day off work. And I still haven't got my Margie homework done. You think my partner being away would help. But it means that I've now got control of the remote. Which means channel surfing on pay TV. So yesterday I also watched Strictly Ballroom and the Judy Garland biopic that Judy Davis won several awards for.

So how to handle the rest of the long weekend? To Do Lists. This blog is the first thing on my To Do List. It'll be good to have at least one thing scratched off. I have writing appointments starting at 4pm this afternoon so sprinting will take place on the new story from then. Which means from now till then I need to do my homework, I need to write another synopsis using this Beth Anderson article as a guide, do all my blogging, and make a mad dash to the supermarket for kitty litter (whoops didn't think about that one on Friday night). Mad dash will be first thing, out of the way!

Though my focus on my new wip has wavered, I'm happy that even on the days that I've felt like total crap, I've still managed to write at least 450 words. My advice is to try to write at least 100 words a day. Don't give in to the evil fairy who tries to convince you that you feel awful and don't have to write, or you have no time, and don't have to write. Write something...even just a little...just so you're moving forward and making progress each day.

So, what's on your To Do list?

Motivation 101

2009-06-06T16:21:00.003+10:00

Today I need motivation. But what is motivation – I decided to find out. One definition I found was:-

Motivation: is the internal condition that activates behavior and gives it direction; and energizes and directs goal-oriented behavior.

Okay – so what are my goals? Simple – I’m here to write 50k in 30day.

But why?

Because I have a book to finish and get into my publisher? No – the real reason is because I AM a writer and it’s what I do. Just like all of you taking part in the 50k in 30 days.

So I decided to break down my goals from, longest term goal to shortest term goal.

1. I need to finish my ms.
2. I need to write 35k in the next 24 days
3. I need to write 2500 words today
4. I just need to write the next word.

And do you know what – if I keep writing the next word – then soon it will be 2500 words in a day and 35k in the next 24 and I WILL finish that ms.

So just write the next word – and you will soon meet your goals.

Don't Panic

2009-06-05T13:09:00.012+10:00

Five days down it's time to stop and take stock of your progress. Are you on track? Ahead of schedule? Or falling so far behind you think you might as well give up now?

Don't Panic! With the long weekend looming there is plenty of time for you to climb over, dig under or just muscle past your writers block and get your hands securely on your muse.

At this point it won't take much to whip your word count along. You can do it!

Join in some sprints. Download the report card from the group site. Take the phone off the hook. Put hubby in front of the footy, or get him to take the kids to the park. Invest in Cadbury's and caffeine.

Make some time for YOU. And before you know it, the words will be flowing.

And because I want to help as much as I can, here's a little more inspiration to get those words coming:

Writing away from home.

2009-06-04T09:35:00.003+10:00

Yes, that's me and my CP at Nora's Turn The Page Bookshop. We couldn't resist getting our picture taken with Nora. LOL

Being away from home can put a serious crimp in your writing. Over the last month I've had some up and down times but I can't complain too much, I did finish my next short story and send it to my editor. In fact one weekend I went away to a lovely little town called Seaside with my CP. The weather wasn't the best beach weather but the bar made up for that. So picture this, it's a rainy long weekend and the place is full of holiday-makers so where are they gonna go? To the bar of course. There's me and Devon with out laptops perched on bar top, drinks beside us and our fingers merrily tapping away. In one afternoon I got over 5k written with the bar so packed it was standing room only. I have no idea how we were able to zone out like we did but both of us got more work done in that one day than we did on any other.

Working with my CP's face to face has been fun, I might not have gotta anywhere near the amount of writing done as I do when I'm on my own but it's been good to see how others deal with the isolated writers life. I must admit that I'm more than a little excited to be nearing the end of my trip, Mr. Muse and I are more than ready to get home and start writing. I've spent the first few days of the June editing but that's done now so I'll be getting back to my other wip.

I'm at the Lori Foster Get Together this weekend and I can't see myself fitting in much writing time but I'm prepared to have my word count low this year. I'm aiming to get the first of two 30k novellas finished before June 30, it sits at 5k now. With any luck things will go well and I'll get most of the second one done by the end of the month but as I said I'm not pushing myself. I've learned so much by attending the conferences and spending time with fellow writers that having a less productive time isn't worrying me.

I'm looking forward to getting back in the loop and finishing the challenge from home. This time next week I'll be in my chair, at my desk, tapping that keyboard for all I'm worth.

May the Word Gods smile upon you!

Taking care of yourself during the challenge...

2009-06-03T08:43:00.009+10:00

There's something very exciting about setting goals and challenging yourself to achieve something in such a short time. There's also nothing better than having a group of people to take the challenge with - people who understand and sympathise with you, and who motivate you (not Commando style, don't worry!) when it gets difficult.

But one thing we need to do is take the time to look after ourselves during this challenge. We need to be responsible about our health during the challenge because it can be intense sometimes. Working at a frantic pace for regular periods and having the pressure to gets results can be pretty stressful. Just thinking about it makes my heart rate rise!

We need to remember to take breaks regularly if we've been sitting down for long periods, eat right as it can effect how our brain works, and exercise. I know many of us are time poor, so it needn't be going to the gym or bench pressing enough to make Arnie look like a weakling. Rather, taking a walk to clear a foggy brain, or even a session of high-energy vacuuming can get us out of the chair and off the couch (or wherever it is you sit and write).

I know many of you work (I'm a full time mummy), so it's good to have a distraction to get your mind off the writing. I can imagine you're itching to get writing - the characters won't shut up, and need to have their stories told, but make sure you don't push yourself too hard.

During RWA Bootcamp, Dana gave us great tips and stretches to perform after certain time. Maybe set a clock for every 30 minutes where you stop, do some stretching or get up for a cuppa. Whatever you decide to do, take a break to rest your eyes, wrists, sore bottom etc.

Oh, and a while back I found this great article about exercising at your desk, and blogged about it. It may be of some use to you, but if it isn't, the concept it a nice one!http://moniquewood.blogspot.com/2009/01/drop-dress-at-your-desk-yeah-right.html

Happy writing, everyone,

:-) Mon

Get Your Running Shoes On!

2009-06-02T12:54:00.002+10:00

So how the heck are you going to sustain this writing experience for the entire month? Do you have your good running shoes on for nightly sprints or are you just sticking with your thongs and shuffling along at your own pace?

I find that having someone else to account to for my writing goals helps me focus on actually achieving my daily target. There are times though when I really wish I could stick somebodies whip somewhere the sun doesn't shine. This normally happens when I'm behind in my writing, or when I worry too much over what is happening in my story line.
Chris Baty from NanoWriMo suggests that you shouldn't worry about spelling or whether something sucks right as you're writing it. You can always edit later. But the main thing to do is get the story down on paper/screen as soon as you can.
I tend to try to edit as I go, but last year I put this to the side and just wrote my fingers off. 50,000 words in 9 days. I just sprinted as fast as I could and didn't freak out about whether or not someone was sounding like a cardboard cut out ordering cornflakes in my dialogue. The words got down on screen. On the first edit I took out 15,000 words and wrote 20,000 more. That manuscript has been requested by New York agents and Australian ones. I'm still working on it, but it showed me that I could just write, sprint in fact and have the words flow faster than I could get them down.
Don't worry if you think the story sucks, just get it written. As the adage says "You can't work with a blank page."
See you at the sprinting track!

And So It Begins

2009-06-01T13:17:00.006+10:00

So here we are day one of the 50ks in 30 Days challenge. How are you feeling? Are you excited? Are you scared? The fear of the unknown. Will I reach my goal? Will my characters play nice and spoon feed me the information I need to get the words on paper? I LOVE IT!

Yes, well we all know I’m more than a little crazy. LOL. My day started with a whimper. I woke up sick and I mean really sick, vomiting (I know too much information) the works. My head was pounding, but I’m not sure if it was because I was unwell or because I have two couples fighting over whose story is going to be written first. Lord, save me from them. So I’ve manage to do some bartering, mornings for one evenings for the other and in between editing. Plus novels to read and reviews to write as well as critiques to fit in around it all.

So far this morning I’ve added 1,728 words to ‘Surrender’, I’m going for lunch now (dry biscuits & water sounds inviting doesn’t it? NOT), then I’m editing.

Remember, that no matter how big your goal, you are doing this for you. Not to write more than someone else, but to satisfy you. There is no point setting a target that you know is unreachable, the only thing that will do is bring you down. The purpose of this exercise is to get you to write something, anything each day and go to bed at night happy with what you have achieved.

Each Sunday, we’ll ask you to post your total word count for the challenge to that date. You can post them here on the blog or on the loop, I know some people have trouble accessing the blog to comment from time to time. What ever is easiest for you. Monday mornings you’ll wake to see your word counters updated with your progress.

If you have any questions at any time just ask, someone will have answer, if not we’ll pretend we do. LOL. Don’t forget the sprints each night in the RWA chat rooms. It’s a lot of fun and a great way to boost your word count.

So how was your first day?

Happy writing.
Sandie

Sprinting with Dr Wicked

2009-05-31T11:50:00.005+10:00

Hang on, how did it get to be the day before the 50ks in 30 days challenge starts?

How did it get to be the 31st May?

Where have the last five months of the year gone?

Wow!

So now many of you are gathered around the starting blocks, discussing strategies, plotting or not, stretching those writing muscles, warming up, getting accustomed to the sound of the whip in the chat room (now that sounds kinky!), and learning how sprinting works...

Let me introduce you to Dr Wicked and his writing lab.

I love Dr Wicked. I have been using his website to write since I stumbled across it in the Nanowrimo forums last November and it has helped me write more than 130k. And I will continue to use the website for my first drafts until I can purchase the desktop application which he is developing now (and will hopefully be available before Nanowrimo).

It's simple: you enter your word goal, and your time goal and then you type directly into the word window. It counts the time down as you go, and your word count as it goes up. If you stop typing, the screen will start flashing at you starting at a pinkish hue and gradually turning red. And then it will make a horrible noise (random) until you hit those keys again. It's a form of aversion therapy to stop you from NOT writing. But when you reach your word goal or your time goal, trumpets sound!

I quote from a Dr Wicked interview:
"At the very least, what it can do is grab your inner Critic by the neck, shut him up and hold him at arm's length so that your Creator can get some actual work done."

We know that writing this fast is all about locking the inner critic up, staying a few sentences in front of her so she doesn't even have time to comment.

I am hooked on Dr Wicked. For me there is no turning back. For that half hour, Dr Wicked keeps me focused on the task at hand. The actual writing. No looking at emails, no surfing the net. Just write.

Try it out. See what you think.

It's not for everyone but it's certainly for me.

And lets all have a fantastic writing month!

And don't forget at the end of it all, there is a fabulous certificate of achievement:

See you on the sprinting track...

Sprinting

2009-05-29T13:25:00.019+10:00

Welcome to the first of what will be an ongoing series of posts during the June 50k in 30 days. A group of us will take turn about to keep you motivated to reach your goals throughout the month.

In anticipation of our Monday start I thought I'd get the ball rolling. So onto that motivation....

Feeling motivated yet? Don't worry, if you aren't, I'll leave you with a bit of Hugh, guaranteed to get the creative juices flowing out of anyone.

I'm going to cheat a bit here and copy a post I recently had on my own blog - because from some of the posts that have been floating around I realise some of you are a bit worried how you will meet your goal for the month. And the answer is simple:

Sprinting. Not the kind that involves sweat and pain. The kind that involves you and a bunch of other like-minded writers all writing together at the same time.

When I first heard about sprinting I have to confess I was a little sceptical. How could sprinting be any different from any other time I am writing? How could it possibly help get more words out?

During 2008 NaNoWriMo I joined in, not wanting to disregard it completely. Confession time. I was wrong. I was pushing out numbers in 30 minutes that I had no hope of doing on my own. I am a convert.

So over the past week I have been sprinting. Not as often as I would like, but the few occasions I could spare. And in those few nights of sprinting I managed 30 pages. THIRTY pages. I was stunned when I sat back and counted. Thank you to those wonderful ladies who have been sprinting with me.

Why does it work? Because it's a short burst, separated by chatting with the other sprinters in a chat room. To know others are writing with you, trying their hardest to get as many words out pushes you along. At the end you report back, congratulate or commiserate. Chat about how it is going or ask for help. But above all there is a feeling of companionship, understanding and friendship.

I love Sprinting. I just wish it burnt calories like the other kind.

So join us in the Friday Night Chat Room (found in the RWA chat room - if you don't know how to get there just ask) every night from 7.30pm EST. Or send a post out if you are wanting to sprint at any other time.

Writing In June

2009-04-13T23:45:00.011+10:00

Can you believe that it is coming up to that time of year again? We have only a little over a month and we will be pounding the keyboards of out computers, fighting against time to write 50,000 words in just 30 days.

The challenge starts on the 1st of June and runs through until the 30th June. It is up to you what your write and how many words you commit to, Normally it is 50,000, but if you are more comfortable writing less that is fine by us.

The goal is to have fun, enjoy your writing while challenging yourself to write faster.

Over the next few weeks we'll have privous particapants come and chat. Some how amazing stories as to what they achieve from this challenge last year.

Before we start anything we have a few things that may help you get your home and life in order.

1. If you are not already a member of the RWA NaNo Goggle loop you cane register here:
http://groups.google.com.au/group/rwanano .

2. make sure you have your housework caught up with, you'll need all the time you can spare to write.

3. Let family and friends know you are planning on spending the month working on your novel.

4. Cook a few meals before hand and freeze them, you'll be surprised how handy they become.

5. Work out what you plan to work on, wether it be a new piece of work or finishe off the WIP that has been giving you trouble the last few months.

There are a whole lot more ideas that will help you servive this month long writing fest, but we'll cover those another day. In the mean time mark your calendars, clear your slat and prepare to write. If nothing else you find freinds and a support network that is hard to beat.

Hope to see you at the starting gate.

Sandie

Let's go into Space!

2008-12-04T07:53:00.004+11:00

This is the first chapter from Girl Space Pirate - it'll probably be cut along with the next ten chapters (LOL) but hey it's a start.

The soot and heat of the glassium forge seared my arms as I pulled the metal out onto the bench. Of course I could have used a millicompressor and had it mold the metal straight into the joint, but in all honesty I preferred to do things ‘old fashioned’. I didn’t mind taking my time to make sure the metal rivet wouldn’t slip again. Riald often grumbled about how long I took on each project, but when it came to having a working thorium engine I had proven time and again that I knew what I was doing.

‘In you go.’ I couldn’t keep the smug grin off my face as the rivet fitted perfectly into the engine casing. ‘What’s done is done, let no one come behind and muck it up.’

The invocation of the old stellar engineers blessing instantly brought Riald over to my work bench.

‘You finally finished with this thing yet?’ His looming mass wasn’t intimidating. I was used to Riald’s ways.

‘Just now, want to be the first one to test it?’ I held out the starter key in the palm of my hand to tempt him.

Riald jumped back and raised his hands defensively towards me. ‘You do it.’

I chuckled remembering it had only been the once that Riald had started up an engine I thought I’d fixed. It blew the workshop apart spectacularly. We were lucky the force shield held when it went or none of us would be around today.

I pressed the appropriate code into the data film and the engine roared into life with rotating lights signaling the movement of the thorium atoms throughout the casing. I crossed my arms and leaned against the bench behind me.

‘Think you’re so smart.’ Riald said. His voice betrayed the glee at having a working thorium engine to sell.

‘Yes you know I am.’ I smiled when he gave me a satisfied nod in agreement.

I was always given the jobs that no one else could fix. I suppose Riald was right when he said I was a natural at thorium engines and stellar drives, but the factory bosses didn’t know I was here. Riald had taken me on as an apprentice to help my mother and so anything I repaired he would keep and sell. Of course he gave me a tiny fraction of the profits so that I wouldn’t leave and find another job. It was hardly worth it, I loved what I did and if it wasn’t for the fact that food and shelter were soo hard to come by I might have even done it for free. I wanted to work with as many different engine systems as I could.

One day I would leave and travel to the inner worlds to see the great merchant fleets and perhaps join a crew to travel the space lanes.

Of course it was all pie in the sky thinking I knew that dumbolds from the outer worlds were never allowed the honour of joining merchant ships. In the long history of the planetary systems very few had gone off planet and those that had never came back to talk about it. Even the girls picked for The Farm never came back and all they did was produce oocytes for the fertile labs of the inner worlds. Probably knew better than to come back to this dump of a planet.

The whistle blew signaling the end of the shift. I had to bolt over to the women’s section before any of the subalterns came past to lock up the sheds. Women were not allowed to fraternize with the men in this factory, there were rules about it all. The owners were paranoid that there would be full scale riotous behaviour if men and women mixed at work.

Luckily my short hair and boyish body kept me from being spotted. When I snuck through the barrier separating men and women I had to shove the hat into my pocket and pull out a grey scarf to cover my head instead. Another rule, women couldn’t wear men’s headgear and vice versa. The whole thing stunk but as these people were paying Mum and keeping us alive I never bothered to argue. It was easier to slip through the cracks in the system than to confront the system itself. The insurgent Wing Zee would be proud.

‘Lenni over here.’ My mother waved a scared hand at me through the bustle of closing time.

I slipped quickly past several older women bent over from years of working the factory floor. That was another thing about working there, you ended up aging quickly, most never survived past fifty rotations of Qual. I could see the lines that had formed on Mum’s face as I came closer to her. No one knew how long they would live, but I knew one thing I wasn’t going to spend my life energies here.

‘I fixed another engine today.’ I whispered into Mum’s ear.

She gave me a small nod and held my wrist as we were thrust into the main crush of bodies exiting the factory. Standard procedure was to scan each worker before they left to ensure no one was making money on the side. Riald had a secret way out of the factory so the bosses never cottoned on to why so many engines that had come in for possible recycling were deemed for the slag heap.

People didn’t talk as they left the factory. It was as if they were trying desperately to forget the misery of life inside the dark doors as they pushed those in front of them through the doors to the outside world.

The scenery wasn’t much better outside the factory as it was in. This whole area had been set up by the one conglomerate, the houses were attached to the factory and kept the workers in line and any subversive activity was quickly picked up on, the family would be evicted instantly to the outlands. A new family would take residence almost before the lights could deglow in the boxy compartments.

We lived further out than most. Our fortunes had changed the day Dad and Jessem died. The factory blamed my father for the accident and we were left to pay them damages. It took everything we had and even then we were almost bound to slavery for them until the balance was paid in full.

When you’re just part of the numberless horde you tend to forget that there are things worth living for. Mum had slipped into that state of mind a long time ago but I wouldn’t let them get me. I couldn’t. If I did then they would win and all the effort we had made would be for nothing.

Sometimes I wished that someone like Wing Zee would rise up here and free the people. But that was over a hundred rotations ago, most people wouldn’t even know who Wing was. The Inner Consortium had made sure that most records of the revolution had disappeared along with anyone who was found to have Wing Zee’s life work. The little blue book was still out there, the authorities couldn’t stop it entirely. The disappearances had led those who professed to follow Wing Zee’s way to go underground.

Our apartment was small and boxy like everyone else’s in that part of town. We had three rooms, one where we could eat and talk, another where we could take care of ablutions and so on, and the third where our bedrolls were. The walls were made of thin dura-iron, a polymer hybrid of scrap metal and plastrons. It was durable, hence the name, but because it was so thin you could hear most of what went on in the apartment next door. The dura-iron was a sickly off yellow colour, it reminded me of puke and it was uniform throughout the entire neighbourhood. I guess that’s part of the reason why people were so downtrodden, they lived in a puke coloured habitat which leeched out positivity.

The lights came on automatically as we entered and the viewscreen showed a grassy hillside with small purple flowers dotting the landscape. It was supposed to be how the inner worlds were, the vegetation alive and the sky blue. I couldn’t help but wonder which planet this vid was from, I’d like to take Mum there one day so she could lie down on the grass and feel that breeze flow over her.

Mum didn’t even look at the screen anymore, she trod over to the food preparation bench and opened up two of the silver foiled packages which all our food came in. Part of the Factory’s way of cutting out the middle man, they bought this stuff in bulk and then sold it to us at an exorbitant price. We couldn’t not buy it. There were no grassy hillsides here and in fact I don’t think in all my years I had ever once held a plant that wasn’t hydrosynthically created in a bacterial tank.

‘Food’s ready.’ Mum said.

‘Oh look bean paste and beads again.’ I mumbled.

‘That’s supposed to be rice, close your eyes if it helps.’ Mum handed me a fork and sat on her chair closest to the view screen.

‘Beggars can’t be chosers huh?’ I said.

Mum closed her eyes and chewed her food ignoring my comment.

She hadn’t always been this way. There was a time not too long ago when she was vibrant and full of energy. She believed me when I said I would one day travel through the stars and nebulas. Mum had even encouraged me to study the engine designs Dad had been working on so I could get a head start in life. But that was then. Today as she sat in front of me her skin had a grayish tone, her hair pulled back in a severe bun, and her eyes were hollow.

She hadn’t asked for this life, none of us had. It was what we had to make do with until something better came along. If it ever did. Perhaps I shouldn’t have thought like that but I harboured a fear that my dreams might never come to fruition and that doubt niggled in my stomach each and every day.

The view screen flickered and changed to a night time scene in some vast swampland with tiny firebugs flittering through the reeds. That type of darkness was foreign to us. The fluorescent glow of the factory reflected back from the cloud cover so that the sky was in a constant brown twilight. A brownish stain had settled over everything as if the world was weeping for the destruction the people of our planet had caused.

I poked my fork into the food with half hearted resolve but my fight to swallow was interrupted by the door chime.

‘I’ll get it.’ I bounded over to the entranceway and palmed the door open.

‘Have you heard?’ Gerri almost yelled in my face.

I sighed and shook my head. High drama followed Gerri everywhere she went as if she was a magnet.

‘You and I have made it.’ She twirled around excitedly.

‘What have we done?’ I shut the door and came back into the middle of the room.

There was a look of pure ecstacy on her face as she said, ‘we’ve been drafted, you and me both.’

I almost vomited on the spot. The draft was supposedly a random draw of all eligible females aged seventeen to fulfil their spot in The Farm as egg donors.

‘I know you’re stunned, I was too. I mean me? Going off world.’ She said it with such awe that I didn’t know how to respond.

‘They’ve got you.’ Mum whispered from her chair.

I turned to Mum who looked at me with utter despair. ‘What can I do?’

‘What do you mean, what can you do?’ Gerri was almost laughing. ‘You can celebrate Lenni, finally we get out of this place and after our term is up we can travel anywhere we want, maybe even go to the inner worlds.’

I swallowed the bile that had risen in my throat. ‘I don’t want to go.’

Gerri gave me a look of incredulity. ‘What do you mean? How could you not want to leave this hell hole, come on Lenni it’s all we ever talked about since we were young.’

I clenched my hands in front of my body and turned back to look at Mum. ‘I don’t want to go.’

I thought I saw a tear form in the corner of Mum’s eye but she turned away from me before it fell.

‘Why? What’s here for you? You’ll just end up a slave like the rest. Didn’t that Zee Ying say something like take opportunity when you can?’

‘Wing Zee,’ I corrected her without thinking it was a habit we had fallen into years before. ‘Gerri, I can’t go. I’ve heard what happens up there.’

‘It’s two years in stasis. You don’t even know you’re being harvested and when you wake up you have money and a place to go.’ Her smile had returned. ‘What could go wrong?’

She had uttered those fateful words and I wish I had had the courage then to tell her everything Riald and the others had told me. That you didn’t come back, most didn’t survive the treatment. It was just another way of enslaving the masses here with the thought that their daughters were living a better life somewhere else.

Gerri reached across to me and rubbed my arm. ‘Cheer up Lenni, we’ll go together and travel the space lanes together.’

I gave her a reluctant smile. ‘You’re right, it’ll be fun.’

‘That’s my girl.’ She almost jumped up and down in her excitement. ‘I have to go let the others know, they’ll be coming for us tomorrow evening, pack light.’

With that Gerri fluttered out of my life. The next time I saw her regret would almost overwhelm me.

The door slid shut with a familiar whoosh and an uncomfortable silence ensued. I sat heavily on the floor it felt as if the whole world had just crashed down on top of me. Gerri and I had always talked of getting off world, but not this way. I did not want to be hooked up to some machine in stasis as my body produced eggs for infertile inner world couples like some caged animal.

‘We can run away.’ Mum’s soft voice echoed across the empty room.

I looked up at her as she knelt down to cradle me I her arms. ‘We can’t they’ll find us and then we’ll be sold into slavery.’

‘We already are slaves here Lenni, or just about. We’ll hide on a freighter and go to another world, start again.’

‘They’d jettison us into space if we did that.’

‘There must be some way out of the draft.’ She said.

‘The only way out is to die, once your name is down you have to go.’ The resignation in my voice shocked even me.

Mum was quiet for a moment then said. ‘Why not die then?’

‘What?’

‘If you died they couldn’t take you.’ Her face was calm as she spoke. ‘Riald will know how to do that.’

Mum what are you saying?’

‘They will hunt you down if you don’t die, no matter where you run, they’ll find you. So the answer is to die.’

I had a sick feeling that Mum was right, The Farm would send someone to find me if I did try to run away, but how could she consider my death?

Wednesday's word fest.

2008-12-03T12:35:00.002+11:00

Okay, so I um'd and ah'd about which snippet to give you all a look at but I've finally decided to go with the opening two pages of Dress Up Cowboy. It's not edited so be gentle with it. Enjoy.

CHAPTER ONE

Scott Bennett couldn’t believe he’d let Josh talk him into coming tonight. The place was jam-packed full of people, half of whom wore very little in the way of clothing, the music was attempting to break the sound barrier and the beer he’d been nursing for the last five minutes starting to go warm. What on earth could Josh have used to tempt him into coming?
A couple of dark rose spots danced in front of his eyes. Oh, yeah, he remembered now.
Sex.
Easy sex.
Anonymous sex.
Hot, sweaty, no strings attached sex with a buckle bunny.
Oh, yeah!
He could do with some of that. There was just one problem. None of the buckle bunnies in the Bucking Bronc Bar looked old enough to know what sex was never mind old enough to do it legally. His cocked twitched as the two dark rose spots danced across his line of vision again. She might not look old enough to have sex but the big breasted blond certainly had the equipment for it. Mind you, with the way those mounds bounced they couldn’t be real. There was no give in them. Only one thing turned him off quicker than a girl, and that was a fake one.
Nope, Scott liked his women older and real. No silicon for him. The size didn’t worry him either, just so long as when you squeezed it was all woman. He liked them to be the way nature and genetics intended. He sighed and lifted his beer to his mouth, watched as the dancing dark rose spots got groped by some cowboy with large hands and scarred fingers. No doubt about it, he’d end up with a boner just from watching the boys and bunnies rubbing up against each other all over the room. Not exactly his idea of a good time.
Movement near the bar caught his attention and the mouthful of beer he’d just swallowed came charging back up his throat. Leaning on the bar, in the shortest, tightest denim mini he’d ever seen, was a woman. An honest to God woman. She had to be in her late twenties and her breasts were crushed into one of them singlet top things the waitresses at Hooters wore. He couldn’t quite read the writing on it but from where he sat it looked like the distinct brown owl and orange lettering made famous by the restaurant chain. No bra either. Damn, that was hot.
Her arms and legs were long and tan, smooth skin as far as the eyes could see. Hair the color of caramel swirled around her face and shoulders, feathered layers flying this way and that with every move she made. No other way to describe her other than sex on legs. Scott could easily picture those legs wrapped around his waist while he drove his cock into her wet cunt.
Pain lanced his groin. Damn. He was rock hard and hadn’t even touched her. He’d be lucky if he didn’t blow in his pants just sitting here watching her. The barman passed her a beer and she slapped some money on the bar top. Lifting the beer to her mouth, she turned to scan the room. He couldn’t make out the color of her eyes with the distance between them but he didn’t care, he wanted that steady gaze on him. He waited for her eyes to land on his side of the bar, she scanned quickly, cowboy after cowboy dismissed with just a look.
The closer her gaze got to him the tighter the tension in his body. He felt like his whole life rode on this one look. Josh stepped up to the table just as her eyes landed on it, he didn’t look away from her, and he watched as she sized Josh up and found him lacking. Her gaze lowered to him and he saw the spark of interest, her back stiffened, her shoulders pulled back and her orange splashed breasts pushed forward. He kept his eyes on hers as he raised his beer and toasted her with it. The corners of her eyes tipped up and he darted a look at her mouth.
Those red slicked lips were plump and kissable, and presently stretched in a grin that made him think he just might get lucky after all. But when she slid off the stool and started in his direction he knew he was getting lucky, because if she came over here and said one word to him there was no way he would let her walk out of this bar alone. If he had to, he’d throw her over his shoulder and carry her out of here. She didn’t know it yet but she was his. No if’s, ands or buts, he planned on spending the rest of tonight buried deep inside that tight little body until his dick refused to get hard anymore.
******
So what ya think?
RC

Tuesday's Torture

2008-12-02T11:42:00.004+11:00

Here is part of the opening scene to my NaNo novel. As it turned out the first few days work was probably the better of a bad lot. LOL. But, as you can see it still need work. It’s interesting because now that I have read part of it again I may just do some editing on it while I’m editing a few of the others and start writing it again after Christmas.

Marianne sat quietly in the small parlour watching Shep Freeman from below lowered lashes as she attended to her needlepoint. Her sister Charlotte sat by Shep’s side prattling on about how hungry she was and how hard it was on their beloved mother to have to go without food. Charlotte’s selfish behaviour astonished Marianne at times. Charlotte two years older than Marianne always made sure Marianne knew her place.

‘Charlotte, I’m sure we have more than enough food to last us a good two weeks.’ Marianne felt it her place to inform the couple.

Charlotte looked over her shoulder eyes filled with fury. ‘You have no idea what we do and do not have Marianne. I’m the one who has to manage the household.’

Some household, there is only the three of us, and I do all the cooking. Marianne held her tongue. She would receive a good tongue-lashing from Charlotte as soon as Shep left.

The house they now lived in with its small rooms and heavy curtains resembled nothing of what they had grown up with, oh how she missed the peace of the countryside. The beauty of the rolling hills, the smell of wild flowers and slow flowing streams. She closed her eyes to the pain of the eviction from their childhood home by her sister-in-law after her stepbrother’s death.

‘Miss Marianne, are you feeling alright?’ The deep baritone voice of Shep Freeman washed over her bringing her back to her surroundings.

Shep Freeman, a tall man with dark wavy hair pulled back in a ponytail. His hazel eyes reached down into her soul and smile send a pool of heat to her stomach. Marianne had fallen in love with him the day he arrived on their doorstep carrying Charlotte in his arm after she had taken a fall. His muscular arms had held her sister close to his wide chest. Marianne wished it had been her in his arms. She dreamt of his hard body pressed against hers. The smell of him close to her, a raw male scent. It was a wanton thought, but she could not help herself. He was everything a man should be and more.

‘Yes, I’m fine thank you Mr. Freeman.’

Marianne lowered her eyes back to the needlepoint she was working on. It was no use saying anymore, Shep would hand over part his wage to help them out causing his own family to do without again.

‘Shep and I are going out in the garden for a bit Marianne, be sure to keep an eye on Mother.’
Marianne nodded her head in agreement. Now it would start, Charlotte would take Shep into the garden and work her charm on him. The sad fact was that Charlotte knew how to work her charm on everyone. She often came home with money from one person or another. She never told Marianne how she obtained the money, nor did Marianne really want to know.

She stood and moved to stand by the side of the window. The large garden lay out in front of her, Charlotte stood within the circle of Shep’s strong arms. Her hands farrowed in his hair. Shep smiled down at her sister, and then lowered his lips to hers.

Marianne closed her eyes pretending it was she in Shep’s arms. It was her mouth that he covered and drank from like a man dying of thirst. She groaned deep down in her throat. Her eyes opened in shock, she was behaving no better than a common whore, but that did not stop the tide of excitement to course through her body.

Okay that is my bit done.

Sandie

My NaNo writings....

2008-11-30T16:00:00.002+11:00

Okay, this is scary, but here is an excerpt from my NaNo writings, A Monarch in the Making, in all its unedited glory:

Ash put his head down, his chin nearly resting on his chest. Placing his hands in his pocket he sighed. Looking back up he wondered if the sorrow he felt inside was reflected in his face.

‘I think I might be the biggest idiot around. I’m truly, to the very bottom of my heart, hurt by what you did to me. I never thought, not in a million years that you could do that to me. Not after everything that has happened. Not after the promises you made to my father.’ He looked out the window, trying to keep his temper in check. ‘You put a price on our relationship. Families don’t do that. Not that you can think much of us as a family because you just threw us away, like garbage. You basically said you know what, your happiness is not quite worth this much money. You know, it really does hurt. How can you champion yourself as a ole model when you are willing to discard your family like that. I know we aren’t related by blood, but I valued the famiy that we had become.’

(His stepmother) lifted her hand to her throat, as if to ward off his words. Opening her mouth she didn’t get the chance to speak. ‘I don’t want words, no words. It is too late for that now. No, none at all.’

To force the words home Ash leant down on the table and looked her straight in the eye. Speaking slowly, but with a forcefulness that was not to be mistaken he made his position clear. ‘I don’t want to you to talk to me.’

(stepmother) sat there, her mouth opening and closing, like a goldfish out of water, but with no sound coming out.

‘Honestly, the hardest part for me was the fact you took away time I could have spent with Bree. Ohhh,’ Ash sighed, shook his head. He bent over, his hands supported by his knees as he tried to think of the words that could express the feelings that, up until this moment, he had been too afraid to even think to himself.

Standing up, he took a deep breath and started again. ‘Bree, when I told you that day by the billabong, when you asked me if I was playing you or not, I told you honestly that I wasn’t faking it. I’m not faking my feelings for you. I might have made light of it, turned it into a joke, but I really am having feelings I’ve never felt before and have never –‘ he broke off, taking a deep breath to steady himself, ‘I honestly feel like I startyed to fall in love with you.’ Ash looked at Bree, his eyes baring his soul as she smiled up at him.

‘You ar an amazing girl and I want everyone to know that and I …. I’m glad I didn’t stay in Brisbane so I could be here and have met you.’

Bree held his gaze as she mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to him. Ash shrugged and sat down, still smiling at Bree.

While a mixture of emotions coursed through Bree she realized she had to make a decision. Ash still didn’t know that she was the mysterious girl from the ball, and she knew that it was the magic of that new year’s kiss that had held him back from her. She also knew that, regardless of everything he had just said, that the guilt over his fathers death would prevent him from severing ties with his stepmother and force him to stay on the station. She knew whe sould have to make a very hard decision.

With her heart bursting with love, she realized whe would have to go. She couldn’t be responsible for breaking up the familuy. And she new that the guilt he felt over his fathers deathwould just worsen if he didn’t stay at the farm. But she couldnlt stay behind. Similarly her family duties meant she had to return to Sweden. While she new it would break her heart she made the silent decision to leave.

Nano is nearly over!

2008-11-29T11:38:00.007+11:00

Wow! Look at all those green bars piling up in the word count thingamijig! Go green!

We are awesome.

And we still have approx 36 hours (depending on your time zone) left of Nano to go!

And everyone who participated is awesome, including those who just could not find the time to write because life got in the way, or could not find the words to write, or had a better offer (submissions, anyone? - go Nat!!).

Whatever you end up with at the end of November is okay.

And I want to thank our fellow 50ks bloggers, as you took the pressure off the Topless Tabledancing Tarts. We didn't have to perform so regularly.

So here is the challenge to my fellow bloggers. Post an excerpt from your Nano work on this blog. Good, bad, unedited, ful of Nanoisms. It's your choice. Let's get a taste of what everyone was doing this month.

Here goes (word doc open, searching for something now) - an excerpt from Reality Check:

Dylan placed the drinks on the table and pulled up a chair close to Kirsty. As soon as he’d taken his seat, his mobile started vibrating again. The bitch! It’s as if she knew where he was and who he was with. No-one had warned him that Siobhan was working with the production company and if she was going to keep up this level of harassment then he was tempted to take his project elsewhere. He’d managed to escape her for the last couple of years and it was almost as if it was out of sight, out of mind, but now that she’d spotted him in the meeting today and seized his new business card, she had called him every half hour. He stared at the familiar number flashing up on his screen.

“Sorry, Kirsty, I’ll turn my phone off.”

He hit the end button and turned the mobile off.

Kirsty smiled. “Don’t you need to answer it?”

“It’s nothing vital. I’ll catch up on the messages tomorrow.”

Damn Siobhan! It was over years ago. Why didn’t she get that? Why did she think there’d be another chance for them?

“Are you okay?” Kirsty asked. “You seem a little preoccupied.”

He forced a smile, searching for an excuse. He did not want to bring Siobhan’s name into the conversation, though he was sure that Kirsty would have noticed the tension in the meeting room that morning. He was sure that everyone else in the room had known that he and Siobhan had been a major item for a couple of years. She’d given him his first break, but the relationship had become so controlling that he’d had to break it off, and change his number. There was only one cure to shake the spectre of Siobhan, and that was the delightful young lady who now sat in front of him, waiting for him to speak.

“I’m fine Kirsty. I’m just feeling a little under the gun to come up with the right concept and the right location.”

“I hope that Bilby Creek will be the solution that you need. It’ll be fun to visit again. I haven’t been back there for six months.”

He smiled, a real smile this time. “I’m looking forward to the trip, especially with such a beautiful tour guide. I thought we’d leave early Saturday morning, stay the night and drive back Sunday evening, in time to have you back at work on Monday morning.”

“It’s a shame I have to go back to work on Monday.”

He downed his beer and stared at her. “Don’t you enjoy your job?”

“Being called into the meeting today is the most exciting thing that’s happened in five months on the job. Most of the time it’s just photocopying, typing and filing.”

“I’m happy to have contributed some excitement into your work day.”

Kirsty’s cheeks reddened to a delightful blush.

“So you’re my knight in shining technology come to rescue me from my life of computer files and paperwork?”

He laughed, and reached over to rest his hand on hers. “I’ll see what I can do to rescue you. I might just be in need of a personal assistant for this production. Or even a star for this reality show set in Bilby Creek. The prodigal daughter returns to her home town.”

Kirsty let out a tiny squeal. “Are you serious? You’d put me in the show?”

“If that’s want you want. Of course the network will have to approve it, but I’m sure we can persuade them with a good screen test.”

He swallowed his words. He knew that Kirsty would be magic on the screen, and would probably provide the network with a ratings bonanza, but he was hoping that it wasn’t the only reason she’d agreed to go out with him that evening. Because he liked her. Really really liked her. And he didn’t want to find out that she was just in it for her fifteen minutes of fame like all the other girls had been.

“I’d never thought about doing reality TV before,” Kirsty replied.

“Do give it some thought. It may not be the best thing, especially if you want an acting career. Sure there’s a few reality celebs who have moved past the stigma of their shows, but many of them have just ended up on the C-list, and back at their dull and boring lives within months of their television appearance.”

“I know. I’ve read TV Week. I know how quickly the fame appears and goes away again. I just think it would be an interesting experience.”

“Your whole life would be up there on the screen for everyone to dissect and rake over in internet forums. Your life would no longer be private. Every move you make off camera will be reported back to the press in some form. At least while the show is screening. Are you prepared for that?”

Kirsty shrugged, sweeping her straw around the chunks of ice left in the bottom of the glass. “Not really. But I’ll do whatever it takes. Besides the producers may not want me. I might flunk this screen test.”

“I doubt it. I’ll take a camera down to Bilby Creek with us and you can do a bit of your tour guide on camera. We’ll get enough of an idea whether it’ll work or not from that, and then I can take it back to the production company, as a suggestion.”

He smiled, gazing at her loveliness, her peaches and cream complexion where the blush had now faded, her beautiful brunette waves framing her face. He felt his stomach lurch as he realised it had been a really stupid suggestion. Ratings-wise, an absolute first-rate choice, but for him, he knew that it would make his life very very complex. Because he had a bad reputation for not keeping his private life and professional life separate and already, just by being out with Kirsty tonight, and longing for much, much more, he was swimming back out into the sea, far beyond the safety of the flags.

This is Dylan:

And this is Kirsty:

Okay, who's next?

Time to Edit

2008-11-28T13:09:00.004+11:00

Well, with NaNoWriMo almost at an end there have already been many winners (Congrats to you all), some who are nearly there (good luck and keep at it) and others, like me, who have resigned themsleves to not making it this time but are many words closer to the end.

Oh well, there is always next year.

It is getting closer to the time when all those NaNo words are going to have to be revisited, spell check employed and detective skills used to work out exactly what you meant by the words "Bree felr a trmor of mweces" written at 2am after 8 coffees.

So to ease you on the way I thought I would include something to help you on the editing journey....

Blog by DL Larson at ACME Authors Link http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com/2008/03/writing-bloopers-search-and-destroy-by.html

Once again my office desk is laden with partial manuscripts I have agreed to judge for a romance writers contest. Reading through each is rewarding and I am constantly astounded at the diversity yet similarity of ideas we writers have. Another thing brought to my attention is the common mistakes made. So ... I want to share a few of these problems and in so doing, help others learn how to search their work, and kick those no-good words out of their script in order to create stronger stories.In no particular order:

It was/there was:

Now every writer needs those simple words, yes I have used them. But when they are splattered across the page - that's called lazy writing. Most times it's not necessary to say "it was." And certainly not several on any given page!

Example: It was an unusual sound to be heard this early in the morning.

Reworked: The sound was unusual this early in the morning.

Most times, with a little effort, the sentence becomes stronger and the reader is given a precise and succlulent image rather than the boring it was statement. When searching out "it was" bloopers, don't read the words on your page, simply scan down each paragraph, circling each one you find. Go through a chapter at a time. And then sit back and evaluate what you have discovered. If your pages are splattered with markings, then you've discovered one of your weak traits. And now you know one of many ways to fix the problem. Good luck!

The He/She sentence structure:

Again, many fall into a routine with sentence structure. The above exercise will help with discovering this problem too. Take the time to simply scan your pages, circling the He/She/They sentence beginnings. I was always told if you have more than three or four sentences starting with He/she, then you have too many. Gotta mix it up, folks. The simplest fix is to rearrange your sentence structure, try putting a phrase before the statement. Perhaps linking a few phrases together would work, thereby eliminating another he/she sentence. Be imaginative! The goal is to make it interesting, intriguing. Similar is boring. Big yawn here.

That word!

I'm not going to say too much, only that that is over-used, abused and should be thrown out if at all possible. If you think you don't have that problem, do the circle test and find out. Good luck!

Same word usuage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now we're getting into one of my pet peeves. Thesaurus, people. Buy a good, wordy thesaurus and be creative in describing your characters, your setting, your everything!. Every entry I have judged, some dozen in this packet, this is a VERY big problem. I don't understand this concept. Finding new words should be the fun part of writing, finding another word to describe what needs explaining. This lack of imagination is lazy writing. Oops! Did I really write that? Too late now.

Since we're on pet peeves, here's another one: Beautiful

Okay, I'm judging historical romances, yes, she's beautiful! But the reader needs more than the writer's word. Descriptions move the story, show the reader what the character looks like, more importantly what she's like as a person. Details and more details are what is needed. I would love to read a book where beautiful is not mentioned once, but the sense of beauty is in every word about her/him, the inner beauty, the all important beauty, not the physical attributes only. I bet publishers would enjoy seeing such descriptions as well.

Underlining Thoughts:

I must be old-school, because this is driving me batty!!!! The need to underline simple thoughts is not necessary. I don't know what English instructors are doing these days, but this interruption is really distracting. Since I have not attended an English class in some time, I won't say stop doing that, but I will tell you, I've lost interest at wondering if I'm supposed to enphasize those words in my mind, shout them out or something??? Underlined thoughts pull me out of the story. And folks, if it pulls me out, someone who loves to read, it will undoubtedly pull your reader out too. And that, ain't the idea at all!!!!

Paper Characters:

I'm talking about the minor characters not brought to life. Another big problem in the entries I've judged. Each character, no matter how minor, should be real to the reader. Introducing characters is never easy, but let the reader know the relationship between the main character and the new ones. By doing this, the reader grasps the connection, or lack of connection and develops a clearer picture of the plot unfolding. Physical description is crucial too, but it's the relationship between the characters that will bring them to life.

Withholding important information:

Don't confuse intrigue with insightful information. The reader needs to know why your character doesn't believe in love anymore, or why she can't go back home. A long explanation is not needed, but a hint of past problems, conflict enriches the story. It's not giving anything away, it's pulling the reader into the story. If some explanation is not given in a timely fashion, the reader becomes frustrated and may set the book aside. Not good. This confusion over delving out information when appropriate is another VERY big problem. My suggestion is to read, read, read, how others do it and then follow what you learned from them.

Too Many Questions:

When the main character continually poses questions to no one but themselves, it becomes distracting. Most times, turning questions into statements or thoughts serve the reader better, even if another sentence has to follow to make it clear. Let your reader pose the questions, not you, the writer.

Example: Could one so fair-haired and benign be John's brother?

Reworked: One so fair-haired and benign couldn't be John's brother.

I hope these common bloopers I've mentioned will help you tighten up your manuscript. Mentioning them is meant to help others from making the same mistakes. Finding a publisher is not easy, and they are a tough crowd to please. I know I only mentioned a smattering of solutions to you, but sometimes fixing the problem is the easy part, finding the mistake in the first place is the biggest hurdle.

All sorts of sexy!

2008-11-27T12:50:00.005+11:00

Men in Uniform....

Now ladies we've had a week of men in uniform, and yes some of them are definitely inspiring enough to write whole reams of stories about. But I think there's one type of uniform we're missing and some of the most romantic men don't carry guns or fire hoses. They're honest, dependable, true and chaste, with a simmering sensuality that according to Cleo magazine puts them in at No.3 of sexiest men on earth. Yes we're talking about ...... preachers.

I just want to say when I served as a missionary we had some guys hotter than this one to my left. But I never did see them without their shirts off. Damn but it was all very chaste. And they really are nice guys with hearts of gold.

I've been scouring the internet for pictures of other faith's sexy men of the cloth, um apart from Buddhist monks, there's not that many out there. But I did find this guy and thought oh my he could give me a sermon anyday.... lol

So why not use that pent up sensuality in a story. These are men who have just as many hormones as others but they have a commitment to themselves and a higher power to follow their heart. Wow. And how sexy would it be to see what simmers beneath the surface.
The passion, the forbidden love. Okay going to calm down now.

These pictures are from Men on a Mission calendar and a Catholic Priest calendar celebrating the good looking men of the cloth. Apparently there are no Anglican or Pentacostal versions available. Ah well maybe next time.

Wednesday's Wipeout!

2008-11-26T10:38:00.003+11:00

Okay, so I'm supposed to be full of wisdom and helpful info for the slide down to the finish line. Ah, yeah, well I'm full of stuff but it's not wisdom. Nope, for those keeping up my back is still out, I'm still popping pills and now I've got the migraine to end all migraines and don't you just love those? So I'm giving you this guy to look at, maybe it's my doped up state but I look in those eyes and just float away.
Keep going on your Nano word count even if you don't think you're gonna make it. I am, at 4am this morning I know I got up and write in my trusty little bedside notebook. Whether it's any good is another thing but then that's okay, I can edit it out later. After I pass the finish line.
RC

Tuesday's Tale

2008-11-25T08:37:00.001+11:00

So here we are into our final week of NaNo and not a moment too soon for some of us. This can be the hardest week of the lot, mostly because if you still have ways to go it is so easy to say ‘hang it I’m not doing anymore’. Oh, wait a minute I’ve been saying that for the four weeks. LOL.

Honestly though, this is a hard week. It’s a week where you have to keep pushing yourself or get your friends to help push you just that little bit more. If you are at the point of no return it doesn’t mean you failed. How can you fail something if you have tried your hardest? Let’s face it life gets in the way at times. That can’t be helped. We have kids get sick, we get sick, holidays need to be taken. Lord I’m going to need a holiday after this month. But if you have taken every opportunity you can to write than you are a winner.

Has anyone else struggled with their stories this month? Has anyone just struggled with a story at anytime? Have you ever sat down to write the novel you’ve been wanting to write for months, years even only to find out that it is a heap of CRAP? How do you get past that? How do you learn to love this one story as much as you love the others? I mean your stories are like your children, they are a part of you and you don’t love one child more than another, so shouldn’t your stories be the same?

I’m hoping to reach the 50k mark today and I know there are others in the same boat. To those that have already finished huge congratulation. To those that will be writing right up until the end, just know we will be there to cheer you on no matter what word count you end up with.

Sandie

Monday’s Military Men

2008-11-24T18:23:00.003+11:00

Apologies for the late posting of this entry to the blog. Hubby and I had a little disagreement, and he thought it would be funny to block my internet usage. I couldn’t connect for a while (men!).

Anyway, please enjoy my military meat… err… men for Monday. Maybe you’ll find them a great source of inspiration, like I have!

Found a fabulous website http://baldwriter.blogspot.com/. There was a great article about character diversity which was really relevant to my NaNo story. Maybe it will help you too.

7 Steps Toward Character Diversity

One problem than plagues most writers is creating characters that are too similar -- too much like themselves. If I had it my way, my stories would be full of middle-age fat bald guys. Hey, it might not be interesting be it’d be easy for me to “get into their brains.” Okay – not a good idea. How then shall we create characters? Here are seven ideas you can use to populate your story with diverse characters.

1. Make characters physically different. I took a Disney animation course once where animators discussed how they chose a “cast.” According to them, the ideal cast consists of a diverse group of characters. The starting point is physical characteristics. Select characters where some are tall, some short, some overweight, some skinny, some beautiful, some not so much. On another occasion I sat in on the decision about casting the move “Closure: The Problem with Money.” The director talked about the importance of selecting a supporting cast only after the key players are in place. This is obvious when some characters are supposed to be children of the others – but it is also important for the cast to have a “look” – not that they all had to be similar kind of people – but that the group form an interesting ensemble of people. So it is in any story – select cast members that are physically different from each other – to tell them apart and to bring diversity to the story.

2. Select characters that are emotionally and culturally different. Marge is a whiner. She’s best friends with Kathy who is an optimist. George is a staunch God-fearing Republican whose house backs up to his neighbors Buffy and Hank the nudists who like to take midnight skinny dips. Abu the Hindu gets stuck in the elevator for 11 hours with Donna the voluptuous Pentecostal gospel singer. And they both have to pee. Diverse people make interesting things happen. Of course, sometimes people who are too similar make things happen as well. What about the two feisty red-headed teenagers who both want to be the head cheerleader – they are similar in many ways but you’ve still got to find something that makes them different so they will take a different route to achieving the same goal.

3. Create characters with different sounding names. There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Use them generously when selecting names. Readers or viewers easily get confused when Mary the detective is after Merriam the hitchhiker because she’s suspected of killing Martha the heiress. Carefully select each name to be different from others. Rarely create characters with names that begin with the same letter – unless there is a reason. You might have triplets named Larry, Luke, and Leonard… if you do have such a situation -- you need to give each one of them some unique characteristic that separates them in your story, otherwise your audience will get confused.

4. Give characters different voices. Authors tend to write dialog using their own voice. Don’t do it. It is a sure killer for any story. Listen to other people speak. Choose what makes their choice of words different – don’t depend on different accents -- an Irish brogue versus a southern drawl. Let choice of words, length of phrases, level of formality, intelligence and other aspects of language define your characters. Sit in a public place and listen to people talking. Write down phrases you hear. Develop an ear for each character so you can hear them talk – and then write down what they say.

5. Give characters differing life goals. People react to situations because of their beliefs or life goals. Two people find an envelope on a city street. It contains $500 and no other identification. A person who gambles, cheats on his income tax or who needs to buy cocaine will react differently than a honest-as-the-day-is-long janitor or a Sunday School teacher (we hope.) Specifically pick out, write down, know by heart, the core beliefs of each of your characters. That way when they are put in challenging situations, you will know how they might act. Plus – make sure the reader has an inkling of that character’s belief system so when they do act, it is not “out of character.” If your character does something unexpected – make sure there was some seed planted earlier (and maybe not fully revealed until later) to explain the behavior.

6. Use character tags. We don’t like to pigeon-hole people or make them one-dimensional, but tags do help define a character. Do you want your banquet dinner prepared by the cigar-chewing short order cook with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his sleeves? How about by the fastidious blue-ribbon chef who takes the temperature of every pot at precise thirty minute intervals and insists that the floor is kept squeaky clean? Tags can define quick aspects of a character – but it doesn’t have to limiting them. The fastidious chef may NASCAR fan and the short-order cook might also train seeing-eye dogs because his kid sister is blind. By all means never create a character that is a perfect representation of a tag.

7. Give characters different but specific purposes within the story. Most characters are included in a story for a specific reason. A wise-cracking brother-in-law might give your story some levity. If he does – let him do his wise-cracking job throughout the story – don’t change him (without reason) into a sullen pessimist half-way though – unless that’s necessary for your story. Create specific characters to do certain tasks within your story. Your hero, for example – will have redeeming qualities that make him or her able to face up to some dire circumstance that the story will provide. Your hero may have an ally – someone who is a helper (Sam in Lord of the Rings comes to mind.) He may have a mentor, an opponent, a love interest, and so on – each one with a specific task to do in moving the story forward. Of course there are also shadow or changeling characters who start off as one type of character (an ally) and are later revealed to be something else (they are really a mole for the enemy.)Look back at these items – they have to do with creating an interesting ensemble of diverse characters who will be able to carry your story. Your homework is to make a list of characters in your current or proposed story. For each character write down how they meet each one of these seven criteria. Use this as a start to then flesh out other biographical characteristics of each character – get to know them as unique individuals.

(c) Alan C. Elliott, 2008

Hope you found it useful!

Love, hugs and all that mushy stuff,

:-) Mon

Men in Uniform

2008-11-22T08:36:00.006+11:00

As the theme for this week's blog is Men in Uniform, I thought I would google the phrase.

Any single girls out there in Melbourne or Brisbane reading this? Because this is what I found:

Men in Uniform Speed Dating

Woohoo! Now I've never done the 'speed dating' thing myself. Back in 'my day', it was 'slow dating', you'd usually give the guy at least an hour to impress you, rather than a five minute face to face meeting. I did the classified thing, met lots of guys, went on a heap of blind dates. It was a hell of an eye-opener. A couple of meetings progressed to second dates, and some went no further than that first drink, but nothing eventuated from the two occasions that I took that particular adventure. I found the whole thing very superficial - so I'm not sure how increasing the quantity, while decreasing the quality of time spent with a person would improve your chances of finding Mr Right.

When I look back and analyse my relationships especially the ones that worked for a substantial amount of time, it was always a gradual getting to know the person, a slow burn. The lust at first sights (and none of that happened on a blind date) never worked out beyond the initial attraction.

Anyway, back to Men in Uniform: let me find a few pics:

Here lemondrop has done the work for me: 20 Favorite Movie Veterans How can we go past Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentlemen? But I do apologise in advance for the alien in uniform, you know the one I mean - initials TC, used to be married to NK.

Ooh, nice calendar! Wonder if there's a 2009 edition?

Okay enough of that! Yeah I know there's never enough, but the scary thing for me about men in uniform now is that the ones I meet in real life seem to be getting younger and younger. Maybe it's because I'm adding another year to my age tomorrow - starting to feel old.

I want to tell you about Write or Die! Write or Die is a website that I discovered while procrastinating on the Nanowrimo forums. Great for word sprints, and people like me who can end a paragraph and then check their email instead of writing on. So you set your word target and a timer, and you type into the web site itself. If you stop typing, after a set period of time, it will flash red and start playing unpleasant sounds to you. ( I won't tell you what the unpleasant sounds are - you can discover them for yourself) The sounds stop when you start typing again. I'm going to test it out now and write for 10 minutes so I can get a Write or Die widget for this blog post!

	328

11

lab.drwicked.com

8 days of Nanowrimo left. If you're on track, congratulations! 8 more days of hard work and you will be at 50ks or beyond. If you're behind, don't despair! Just keep moving forward, and find out exactly how much you can write in one month!

Flyboy Friday

2008-11-21T14:43:00.003+11:00

With another hunk week for NaNo thought I couldn't go past the flyboy. Flyboys epitimise the very essence of the alpha male - born leaders they exude confidence, are competitive and are very masculine. I mean, c'mon girls, when looking for an alpha male hero, you can't go past a flyboy....

It's TWILIGHT time!

2008-11-20T08:11:00.002+11:00

Okay just take time out of your busy NaNo schedule to have a look at something for me. Twilight is not just a series of books, they're a phenomenon....say it with me folks, PHENOMENON... (there goes that Muppet song in my head).
So what did Stephenie do that was sooo different. There're dozens of teen angsty vampire books out there which were written long before Twilight came into her head, why these books?
LJ Smith wrote the Night World series in the 90s. They're about a teen girl who finds out she's an old soul - a reincarnated person who's had many lives. She also is the soul mate of a Lord of the Night World. Thierry has been there for her in every life she's led, she is his passion. When she finds out who she is she rejects him and this leads to the rival vampire who is out to kill her to find her. It's an interesting book, yet it hasn't had the world dominance that twilight has.
I think Stephenie did something that was amazing - she tweeked into the facebook/myspace/online community and teen girls had access to her. Wouldn't you like to be able to speak with your favourite author and ask them questions about the story/characters etc? If I ever find Terry Pratchett's phone number look out world! or maybe just change your phone number Terry!
So Stephenie wrote a 130,000 word book about an angsty teen girl who gets shifted to an out of nowhere town where she's sort of an outcast and meets up with a guy who is gorgeous but wants nothing to do with her. Oh that appeals to teens on soo many levels (I was there once.. not in an out of nowhere town but an angsty girl who was in love with a gorgeous guy who didn't know I was alive - someone get me a tissue the memories hurt).

So with your own story do you have characters that have inner conflict? Are you giving them lots of scenes to show how conflicted they are? (although watch the whiny voice thing, that gets annoying.. i'm just saying, not accusing Bella at allll - sorry Di)

And don't worry if you don't, because it's first draft, on the second and third run throughs you'll get into the whole inserting conflict, cutting out whole scenes etc...
Anyway my teen has told me she wants to see Twilight with her friends and not me. Ah well, I'm going to see it before her anyway now, so I'll have one night where I purposely tease her all about it - ahh the joys of being a parent.

Wednesday Warriors

2008-11-19T03:20:00.005+11:00

Warriors bring to mind different things for different people. But for me a warrior is someone who fights for what they believe, puts their life on the line for other or goes out of their way to do something for another. A warrior is often a hero. The best ones do what has to be done without much fanfare and without taking credit. The ones I admire the most are the ones who do everything in the name of their job.
Think about what makes your hero a hero. Is it enough to make your heroine love him? Is it enough to make your readers love him? Do you love him? While you're pondering the virtues of your hero here's some pix for you to look at.

Tuesday's Troy Boys

2008-11-18T12:53:00.026+11:00

We are having another hero week here on the blog. This week it’s Men in Uniforms. Now because I’m writing an historical novel for NaNo I thought I’d go with that theme so to speak hence the heading Tuesday’s Troy Boys. LOL. And who better than to start my pictures off with than three men in dresses.

The other week on the ROMAUS loop we were discussing the Alpha hero and what makes them an Alpha Hero. Let’s face it we all love the Alpha hero in a story, the one that stands out from the rest, the one that gets our hearts racing. We may not always like them to start with but by the end of a good book we are heads over heels just like the heroine.

There is one thing that most authors agree on and that is that the Alpha hero has to have as sense of honour and no matter how arrogant he may be we need to show just a glimpse of the tender side early in the story.

In his time Charlton Heston was one of the most popular actors of the day and not just with the women but also the men. The reason I think he was so well liked was because he gave each of his roles that real male quality.

In 'Ben Hur' he took us on the ride of our life and not just because of the chariot race. Plus I bet he had many a woman's heart racing with his short skirt and muscles.

Now I have to admit that Kirk Douglas is not one of my favourite actors but he like Charlton was big in his day and had women swooning for him especially in this get up.

I often wonder what it is about the hero’s in the movies that draws us to them. Is it the actor playing the part?

Or is the way the writer has written the part? Have you ever read a book and visualised the hero a certain way only to have it made into a movie and have your vision blow to pieces? Or had two different actors play the part and think yeah he looks more like the hero?

Now here's an example Kirk Douglas played the hero in 'Spartacus' yet to me he didn't seem to fit (Okay
so I've already said I wasn't a fan and that could have a lot to do with it) but Goran Visnjic Now he is my idea of Spartacus.

Then we have the actors of today (yes I know Goran is an actor of today as well) that have played the roles of heroes in the times of the Roman empire. Russell Crowe (also not a big fan of Russell's so glad he didn't do Australia with Nicole sorry got of track) he pulled the hero off so well in 'Gladiator'. Plus if you ignored the voice and head the body looked great. LOL. (Sorry again had a bitchy moment).

Now on to the Troy boys. Orlando Bloom well as far as I'm concerned Orlando can be a hero of mine any day. I loved Orland in 'Troy' but I loved him more in the 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.

Now I know some of you think Brad is a bit sissy to be a hero but you have to admit that six pack is well worth looking at. You know I can't help liking Brad as a hero in 'Legends of the Fall' he was great, I loved his role in 'Meet Joe Black' and 'The Devil's Own'. In 'Sleepers' he was fantastic, okay I have to admit I'm a brad fan.

Than we have our own Eric Bana. Who would have thought all those years ago when he was taking off 'Mr Perfect Hair Ray Martin' that Eric Bana would turn the heads of women all over the world as a hero. He plays his roles with such ease, I watched him in 'The Other Boleyn Girl' a couple of months back and thought he was great. Okay, I'm not sure Henry the eighth looked this good but I bet he was up their doing a little dance when Eric was cast to play him.
In 'Troy' he played the role just as well. Hero material all the way.

So what sort of hero do you write? Is he strong, arrogant, self absorbed, does he show any kink in his armour?

Sandie

Serious case of Nano brain

2008-11-15T10:10:00.003+11:00

I'm not referring to the Nano brain created by scientists.

I'm referring to the state of my brain while participating in Nanowrimo.

This week has been particularly laughable. Forgetting lots of stuff, buying the wrong stuff, and becoming extremely sleep-deprived. (Why oh why does my creativity really kick in near midnight?) But I think the highlight of the week was arriving at work to be informed politely by my podpal that my shirt was on inside out. LOL.

Another symptom of Nano brain is wanting to talk about what your characters are up to at any given moment. Now writers understand. Non-writers really do not get that your characters are as real to you as any other human in the room (and sometimes realer). And there's another symptom of Nano brain - making up words. Because at the moment, when you are aiming for 50ks in a month, a near-enough word will hold the place until November passes and you can go back and edit.

So, fellow writers, what symptoms of Nano brain are you displaying?

PS. Today is Day 15 of Nano. We're halfway through the challenge, though you may not be halfway through your wordage. But that's okay. There's still time to catch up. I will be out celebrating tonight with my writers group. We've celebrating our 20th anniversary and the launch of our anthology. Why don't you have a Nano celebration tonight as well?

Saggy Middle

2008-11-14T13:30:00.003+11:00

Firstly, a big congrats to all of you for doing such a great job so far. The word counts are looking really impressive. Even if it isn't going as well as you would want (like me) hang in there because every word written is one more closer to completing your ms.

With the middle of the month (and hopefully the middle of your ms) looming, I thought it might be a good time to raise the issue of the saggy middle.

Following is an extract from an article titled "Avoiding the Saggy Middle" by Cathy Witlox, an editor at Harlequin:

The middle is where it can be hard to keep momentum going. You need to ask yourself these questions:

Are your characters growing, or have they remained the same?
Have you shown why heroine and hero would fall in love?
Have you woven in subplots that you introduced earlier on or have you abandoned some, leaving questions?

You shouldn't work backwards to rectify anything you've missed - make notes on things you have to weave into your story and do it at the end of writing.

Good Dialogue

2008-11-13T09:19:00.002+11:00

I've been scrolling through all my bookmarked pages to find information on dialogue. It's something that's a work in progress for me. I find that at times my dialogue flows and other times it's sooo stilted. So I thought that maybe I'd find some experts to tell us how to do this.

Condensing Back Story

by Elizabeth Rose

Instead of using narration to tell tons of back story, let your characters do it for you through dialogue. It makes it much more interesting, plus it gives the characters a chance to develop.

For example, in her book Eden’s Garden, author Elizabeth Rose combined a bit of narration with the use of dialogue of Eden Ramirez, the heroine, and her dying father to tell of their relationship.

“Papa . . . don’t die,” Eden said in her native tongue.

She took his large hand in hers and rubbed it softly against her cheek. He was so unlike the hardened professor who had come from the States year after year to study the Incan ruins of Machu Pichhu, hoping to find some uncovered truth or hidden treasure of the ancient culture that was destroyed so many years ago.

“I wanted to marry your mother – really,” he whispered through his ragged breathing. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have been the father you needed.”

Even if you didn’t know Eden was half Peruvian and lived far from her American father, you could see the distance of their past in their words. Her words show us she has feelings for him and doesn’t want to lose him. His words show most the back story. We find out he has never married her mother, he’s sorry about, and obviously had feelings for the woman, but something didn’t work out. He knows he hasn’t been a good father or there for his daughter, and we see his guilt as well. So, in just a few sentences, we find out what may have taken a page to tell about the back story.

Dazzling Dialogue Tips
by Alicia Rasley

Keep it short: 3-4 lines between " ", then insert an action, change speakers, switch to a quick thought. This creates more white space, suggests more movement, forces you to be cogent and quick.

Keep it snappy: This is conversation, not a lecture. Go for demand-reply, stimulus-
response... aim for conflict within the conversation. SHOW the conflict by snapping
back and forth. They don't have to be vicious as long as they can interrupt each other.

Keep it active: Watch the static conflict, where they keep arguing about the same thing over and over in the conversation. Pick out the best exchange that shows that conflict, and then at the end of that exchange, start something new, open a new angle on the subject, bring up something they haven't yet considered, have a speaker change tactics.
"You never listen to me!"
She sighed. "Right. Then how come I know exactly what you're going to say next? If I never listen to you?"
"What? What am I going to say next?"
"You're going to say that no one listens to you. You say that every time."
He started to protest, then paused and regarded her balefully. "Okay. So sometimes
you listen to me. You never do anything about it! It's even worse! You listen to me,
hear what I'm saying, know what I mean, and then you do nothing! You don't even
care!"
"Oh, yeah! And no one cares!" She laughed. "And here's my cue, right? I'm supposed to assure you I care, and show you by doing whatever it is you insist that I do. Well, the hell with it. I'm tired of it. I quit. You're right. I don't care. No one cares. No one gives a tinker's damn about you. You've been right all along about that."

Wednesday's Writing Wrap-up!

2008-11-12T12:52:00.003+11:00

Can you see that? Talk about castles in the sky! This is where I've been and why my Wednesday post is late. This is Genting in the Highlands of Malaysia. It's in the clouds, literally. This was taken on the drive up the mountain at about 2pm and yes, it was damn cold! I live in Singapore, I don't like the cold. I coped only because there are lots of indoor things to do. Like shopping! Sitting and having a hot chocolate, going to the indoor theme park, the outdoor theme park or the casino. It was a great get away and I even managed to get some words written.

I have no idea where my word count stands, I do know I'm over the halfway mark but I won't know my exact amount until I finish typing in all the longhand stuff I wrote while away. It was actually kind of nice to get away from the computer and write. At one point I was sitting in Starbucks with their computers not ten feet away and I could have easily gone over and gotten on one but I didn't. I sat with my pen and notepad and wrote. Hubby's laptop wouldn't let me open any of my file on the USB I'd brought with me so I'd started the longhand on the six hour bus ride from Singapore to Genting. It was actually quite liberating not looking at a word count every few seconds. I'm thinking of taking notepad and pen downstairs more often.

So how is everyone doing? Are your stories flowing or are you just hammering out words and hoping for the best? I'm writing out of order. I wrote a scene last night that comes at the end of DUC and one that comes somewhere in the middle of RHI. *sigh* I guess I'll be piecing them together. I'm not sure where these two stories will end up or what their word counts will be but because they cross over I'm classing them as one story for Nano. It's probably cheating but at this point I don't care because the words are coming and they're good.

RC

Tuesday's Tip

2008-11-11T10:26:00.002+11:00

Here we are part way through Week Two, and things begin to get interesting. For me, I normally start to wonder if the story is any good. Okay this year I’ve known from day one it was crap, but never the less I’ve continued to write.

That is the key for this week keep writing, it is so easy to think this is dribble, crap and why bother. The answer is, because it is the First Draft; call it ‘The Ugly Duckling’ effect. From this first ugly draft will bloom a beautiful story that everyone is going to want to read. (That’s what I’m telling myself. LOL.) Just keep telling yourself the Swan will be born. After November you’ll put this aside for a few months and go back with fresh eyes and craft your story into the Swan story.

Here is the tip for day 11 from ‘No Plot? No Problem! Novel-Writing Kit.

Day 11:

Bathe Your Imagination.

Among the weird places where writers find inspiration, the shower is one of the more common. “Your body is totally relaxed and your mind is totally relaxed,” says Ray Bradbury of his trips to the steamy plot chamber, “then the little explosions, the little revelations come.’

Spend some time today investigating those places and situations that allow your mind plenty of room to wander -- a walk, a bike ride, standing in line at the bank – and soak in the literary results.

I’ve started to put each days quote up on my normal blog here if you want to read them.

Happy writing.
Sandie

The crazy lady has returned...

2008-11-10T11:50:00.002+11:00

It sounds like there has been a lot going on since I've been away!

I really hate missing out on all the action. I'm an action kinda gal... well, not really. My fingers get all the action! Hang on, that doesn't sound good. I mean, I get ACTION, I just... oh, forget it! :-)

Anyway, what I want to say is that you are all powering along, and I'm very proud of you. It's great to see you are all reaching your targets.

I am going to spend the next week working hard to catchup and build my word count up to a respectable level. I will focus on my writing, and forget that there aren't many weeks left until CHRISTMAS. Heavens! I have to start shopping soon. Don't tell me there may be Christmas sales during November? Why did they make NaNoWriMo in November?!

By the way, had the pleasure of meeting Anita Mack whilst in QLD. We are living weird parallel lives! Hi EJ!

Don't have much to share NaNo wise. Pretty useless post, but I am the Monday person!

Off I go to work my ms into shape!!

When the world interferes with your work

2008-11-09T08:36:00.002+11:00

November is always a busy time for me, writing-wise, which is why I always think long and hard about whether I should be doing NaNo.

This yeqar is no different. No sooner had I got stuck into things than other work came in.

Galleys for my upcoming book. Paid freelancing work. A pitch offer from a book packager. A revision request from an agent.
Suddenly, writing time was filled with all sorts of things and not my book. Agh!

But it doesn't matter. NaNo is all about the writing despite what's going on and thanks to the unexpected blessing/curse of no internet for four days, I manged to at least get over the 10k mark. Still way short of my goal, but hey, what can you do?

Whether you create your own distractions and procrastinations or whether they come at you from the outside, it's how you deal with them that matters. it's up to you to make time around life. There will never be the perfect novel-writing time.

So instead of fretting, I'll get my work out of the way and write when I can. After all, who can complain about living the life they chose? I wouldn't trade it for anything.

What's your biggest time killer? What good habits can you train yourself into during NaNo to minimise wasted time that could be used for writing? Do you want to? Or are you a happy little procrastinator and will gladly take teh lower word count?

Wordle and the Art of Procrastination

2008-11-07T23:05:00.008+11:00

We're seven days into Nanowrimo, and how is everyone feeling?

Is the writing flowing? Or is it coming in stops and starts? Or not at all?

For me, the last week was a writing rollercoaster. The first couple of days flowed, until I hit the first sex scene and then it felt as if I was forcing every word. Still I got through it and know that I will go back and rewrite it sometime after Nano ends. The one thing that I am very happy with is that I have not taken a day off from the writing. There have been days where I didn't make the required Nano average, but that was okay - I was still writing.

Last year on the 8th November, I was sitting on 1067 words in total! And I still managed the 50ks in the month. So don't despair if you've fallen behind, there is still time to catch up.

This year, I am at 15,016 words, mainly due to a huge series of word sprints yesterday. Also the second and totally unexpected sex scene just poured out last night. Perhaps it was the fact that it was unexpected that the writing of it was so much easier. (Or perhaps it was just RC's influence - after posting her little excerpt in email, I think my character Kirsty thought I'll have what she's having!")

So I think I'm finally mastering the art of writing every day. But I am also an absolute Master (no gender bias here) of the Art of Procrastination. Yes I can surf and stumble through the internet with the best of them. But now I have discovered Wordle, and already I'm a wordle addict.

You go to the Wordle site and paste in a piece of text and it will create a 'word cloud' or a text cloud for you based on how many times you use each word. If you don't like the colours or form it is given you, you can choose those or just click on the 'randomize' button until you like the design.

So far I have wordled the opening board room scene, the restaurant scene, the first sex scene, a phone call between Dylan and Kirsty and last night's sex scene. And just for good measure, between word sprints, I wordled my short stories Beyond Happily Ever After and Are you a Real Person?

On Saturday 22nd November, I have my Writers Group Christmas party. I'm going to print out all the worldles for Reality Check, put them in a display folder and then hand them around, saying "This is what I've written so far."

So here are my wordles of the sex scenes:

It's actually interesting to look at these and see the emphasis of words you've used in a scene. And also looking at the pattern of words can set off a whole different set of associations. From the words I've used, you can probably see that this was rather conventional and took place in the bed room.

Last night's scene which poured out as quickly and passionately as the act itself took place in the garage!!

Here's a link to one of these on Wordle itself:

Or click on my username disyc, it will take you to my gallery of all of my Wordle images.

I think we should have a Wordle competition! Who can come up with the best Wordle of an excerpt of their Nanowrimo? No idea how we would judge it, but it could be a lot of fun!

How Not To Write A Novel

2008-11-07T15:06:00.002+11:00

Well we are at the end of week 1. Is everyone on track? Are the words coming thick and fast, or are they being pulled kicking and screaming? Are you on track? Or are your target and actual word counts now poles apart?

I am the latter. My first week goal was to reach 5 figures ... and instead I have just scraped in 4 :o( However amongst this disappointment I have managed to see some positives:

I have learnt a trick to overcome my internal editor;
I am getting into a routine that lets me find a few minutes each day to write; and
I have overcome the anxiety of 'failing' to reach the magic 50k, instead I am going to use this as a starting block and if I don't make the goal will just extend the goalpost for myself.

But to try and make those of you who have also struggled to reach your goal feel better, or those who could just use a giggle, I thought I would fill you in on some of the tragedies of my first week.....

I started slowly (only a few hundred the first day), but then discovered the best way for me to write quickly was to do it with my eyes closed. So day 2 meant that I steamed ahead and broke the 1000 word mark. I kept on going but, in a horror moment, my computer crashed.... and it had been over 200 words since my last save. Too late to want to deal with it I left it until the morning. Fingers crossed for autorecover.

The next morning booted up and autorecover did its thing (only missing about 50 words, no biggy). Leaving the computer in a hurry to deal with the toileting needs of my 2yr old, I came back to find my wonderful 4yr old had decided to 'help' my writing along. And it was gone!!! In only the way that Murphy could manage, he had somehow discovered the save button and saved his helpful deletion of my writing. Now, thinking I had been clever I had emailed my document to hotmail just before this. Feeling quite pleased with myself I opened hotmail - and no document (and it is still out there in cyberspace somewhere).

Now, it has since been pointed out to me that what I should have done was gone to my sent folder and retrieved it from there, but in my state of panic and fury that wee bit of common sense just didn't filter through (point to note, there is a copy there but too late now).

So Tuesday saw me starting again. I have rewritten my first few pages and am at 1365. Been a hard week to fit in writing (actually really bad month for writing, major stuff happening here with renos and every free moment is spent painting not writing). But tonight I am going to go hard and hope to make up some of my lost time.

So just remember, it doesn't matter what happens, just keep going. You will get there in the end. As I read on a blog today by Christina Philips (quoting Galaxy Quest):

Never Give Up!! Never Surrender!!

Anita

Keeping Your Creativity Flowing

2008-11-06T11:52:00.002+11:00

Okay so it's day 6, by now you're happily typing along on your story, which by the way you know is certain to be a best seller... Things are looking up baby UP! and suddenly the phone rings, the kids scream in the kitchen that the sinks overflowing, the next door neighbour reports your dog running down the street, telemarketers call, the Avon Lady shows up with her latest catalogue, and many many more things happen in your day to try to stop you keep on keeping on with your story. (by the way that's not my child, just a stock photo, but you get my point)
After dealing with the disasters that only you could solve you sit back down at your computer, everythings quiet on the Western Front and then.... nothing blank nada zilch. You have a quick read over what you were typing before said disasterous interruptus occurred and go to type but nothing comes out.
Where's it gone? The creative flow? What happened? Can you commit murder on those who interrupted you without being sentenced? Using NaNoWriMo as a psychological excuse 'sorry Your Honour but they stopped my creative flow' is not really that good an excuse.
Okay so we know these things happen, how are we going to get back into the groove?
I find watching a good movie which is in the same genre as I'm writing helps me. Or reading a good book. (I know at this time it feels like you can't take time out to read because you have all these words to write, but trust me, if you take a little time now it'll mean you don't spend forever typing the same boring thing day in day out).
Try some brainstorming exercises - take 15 minutes and write anything you like. Can be the first thing in your head or something you saw in the paper. Whatever it is just write write write. Don't stop it can be pure gibberish words if you like. Just don't stop until the buzzer goes off and says your 15 minutes are up. If you do this a couple of times you'll find that somewhere in your writing is a germ of an idea you can implant into your story to kick start your writing again.
Another great thing to do is take time out to play. And I do mean play. Get some paint and paper and do finger painting. Run around in the back yard under the hose. Sing a very bad song at the top of your voice (or should that be sing a song very badly at the top of your voice?).
Let your steam out and then go sit down.
Interruptions happen. We know they do.
Accept it and move on. Quick brianstorms work. Running around the backyard playing works. Giggling, laughing, crying over a soppy movie. They all work. We feel refreshed and can start back on our story. Get your frustrations out before you hit the keyboard and your characters will thank you.!

Wednesdays Words of Wisdom

2008-11-05T02:36:00.003+11:00

Wooooeeeeeee.....
Look at me go!!!!!
Yep, I'm flying along. By the end of day 4 I'm past the 10k mark and if it keeps going the way it is I'll be making the 50k easy. I know technically Nano is supposed to be one novel but I'm pretty sure my story only has about 30k but I'm cool with that because I had planned to write on two stories during Nano and one of those is going to be over 50k. But that was then and this is now.

Yep, you guessed it, I've been led astray. *gasp* What me? Led astray? Never! LOL
Okay, so all joking aside, Nano should be about the commitment to write the first draft without stopping, that's why we're aiming for 50k, not because it's a nice number and someone thought it would be good to torture us with. You see, a lot of writers get caught in the edit/polish stage well before you should be doing it. I've heard editors comment about receiving first three chapters that are near perfect but when they ask for a full it's a huge let down. Yes, you need to get you audience (in this case the editor but eventually your reader) by the throat and have them turning pages but if you have the big bang and no pretty lights after it your audience is going to be let down and won't be picking up another one of your stories.

Don't get me wrong, I've been known to go back over and back over and back over the same scene. Getting caught in the edit/polish till the damn thing is perfect but then I move on and when I go back to the beginning I realise I've edited and polished the poor thing to death. It's so technically correct that there's no emotion, no voice. I killed it. It's more than tempting to go back and edit, I fight it every time I open up the file to start writing, but I've got a system, one that works for me. I'm allowed to read the last scene before I start writing the next, but only when I've stopped for a time and lost the flow. Sometimes my little fingers hover over the backspace key and they itch to fix just that little bit there but I bite my tongue and move on. Sometimes I bleed and sometimes I give in and fix just that one word there but usually I can keep going and move the story forward.

The biggest thing to do is aim for a consistent level of writing, whether that's one hour, two hours or all day, try and stick with the same amount of time. Try to keep the momentum going every day and slowly that word count will creep up. Don't worry about making the story linear either. This is the first draft, so if you write the end scene then the first meeting scene who cares, you fix that in the second draft. That's when you get to do the little edit/polish thingy to your hearts content. Well, not quite but you get the picture. That's why I'm now writing two stories that run parallel, they'll both top out at about 30k and it's possible I could sell them as a set. Wouldn't that be nice? I'll continue to write the two because I've discovered that writing one scene in one story triggers the next scene in the other. It's kind of like watching a movie, we watch this couple do this and then we go and see that couple do that. It works and my word count is growing so I'm not going to fight it even though I really want to just write one.

So what are my words of wisdom today? Write what you feel. If you're not feeling it no one else will either. I'd go back to the passion for the story thing I'm always carrying on about but, well I'm always carrying on about it. LOL Put you fingers to the keys and feel the story. Write whatever comes to mind, even if it's utter crap and doesn't make it out of the first draft it doesn't matter. Just get the words flowing. The more you write about your characters and story the more you learn about them, the closer you get to them, so it's not a waste to write four chapters of backstory only to have them never appear in the finished ms. They're essential to learning and feeling your story.

And remember, this is about you and your goal, not me and mine, or Joe Blogs and his. It's your story, your goal, your dream. Chase it!

RC