Sunday 15 June 2008

Technical problems

My home hub (BT -arghh!) isn't working properly which means I have to get on line at odd moments when I can. So anyone wanting to catch up on how Novel in a Month is going, please bear with me. Hopefully they will sort it soon.
Meanwhile...hope you are all enjoying some of the treats we discussed on Saturday. Tonight's treat is going to a gig at Ronnie Scotts.
soonest
sara

Thursday 12 June 2008

Too much to do is not a bad thing

7894 words and counting.
There is something about having too much to do. Because I have to force myself to fit my word count into the day, I am just grabbing whatever time I have to get the words down. Usually this seems to be first thing in the morning - it has become a point of honour to get something written before I get out of bed.

I love my job - I have just spent a very happy half hour looking at the clips I want to show in the 'Movie in a Month' class tonight from 'It Happened One Night'. This was probably one of the very first Rom Com movies ever made (1934) and is a classic, so if you've not seen it do - Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable have some great witty dialogue and we just don't get movies like that anymore.

Speaking of wonderful witty writing I see that my friend Kate Harrison has a new book out today - yay for Kate! Go to http://kate-harrison.com/books.asp?id=187. The book is called 'The Secret Shoppers Revenge'.
Can always recommend her books, so any of you wanting to write Chick Lit. go and buy this immediately - she really is a great example of the genre.

Got to go - I still have 500 words to write for 'Novel in a Month' today, plus I need to finish getting handouts ready for tonight's class and start work on the movie treatment I'm being paid to write....eeek!

s
x

Tuesday 10 June 2008

Counting

6,134 words, which means I'm a little bit behind, but not too worried, I'm still at that exploratory stage where things don't quite connect but I have to trust in the process and hope that my subconscious knows what is going on. My hero is not turning out quite as I'd thought he would, he is sadder than I'd expected and really dumb about women, which is quite funny. I do enjoy this part of writing, where you get to play with the the characters like puppets and there is need to worry about whether the things they do make sense or not. I love that freedom from responsibility where all I need to worry about is counting the words each day - the plot can take care of itself.
Back to it - see if I can get the last 500 words done before teaching tonight.

Monday 9 June 2008

Lists

Starting the day and the week with lists. There is something comforting about sitting down and making a list of all the things that need doing. I always add a couple of things that are easy or have already been done, like the laundry I've just put on, or the washing up.
Today's list includes - contacting all the new Novel in a Month writers, reading work private students have sent me, marking, buying a notice board and some bread, rewriting a horror treatment I'm doing with my writing partner (we spent a long car journey teasing out the finer points, I talked and drove, he took notes), teach, drop off car, plan out lessons for the week.
Not all of this will get done today, things get shifted to another day or drop off the list all together.
On top of all this, I need to write my 16oo words as well. This is something I absolutely have to do first. After all, I'm asking all the students to fit writing a novel into their lives - how can I sympathise with their issues if I'm not doing it too?
So, I'm signing off and getting on with 'The Don Juan of Mortlake.' Maybe my main character needs to make a list....

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Getting Started

Decided to bite the bullet and put up a blog spot for the Novel in Month writers. This is going to be a place where you can see how I'm doing as I write alongside you. You can ask me questions, for advice or just have a moan.
Today, I'm planning out the first couple of weeks of the class. I'm trying hard not to think about the book I want to write. It's not a good idea to come in with too much of a preconceived idea, this is very much an organic process, a kind of 'find your voice' exercise. We get so bogged down in being 'good enough' and trying to be the sort of writer we think we ought to be, the real writer in us gets lost. I based the Write a Novel in a Month course on the Nanowrimo that is run by Chris Baty over the internet every November. It seemed to me the ideal way of bypassing all that 'getting it right' stuff and encouraging writers to just get on with it. I'm looking forward to starting the course and writing at breakneck speed for a month with no sense of responsibility.
Eek!