Trains, Writing and Blog Awards

I had a lovely evening speaking about historical fiction and research at a writing group on Wednesday evening, a little further south from where I live. Since the train was the most sensible way to travel in a late November evening, I made the most of the forty minute journey down and took out pen and paper. I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy writing on trains, or in my favourite cafe. And this was no exception. By the time the train drew in, I’d written around 600 words of my WIP (I checked the word count when transferring it to the computer yesterday). So as well as enjoying time with old friends and new, while talking about a favourite subject, it was very productive evening all round. I read on the way home!
 

I’m delighted to accept the cute Liebster Award from a supportive and friendly online writing colleague, Angela Barton, for blogs with fewer than 200 followers. I also received one from another lovely online friend, Melanie Robertson-King for my Romancing History blog. Liebster is German for dearest and I love the way we encourage and support each other in this competitive world of writing. I do enjoy reading other writers’ blogs as much as possible. So in the spirit of the award, this is what I and my recipients must do:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger

2. Choose your 5 bloggers to receive the award and tell them by leaving a comment on their blog

3. Copy and paste the award on your blog

4. Hope those five people send it to their chosen bloggers!

It’s now my pleasure to pass the Liebster Award on to the following five bloggers:

Gwen Kirkwood: a genuinely lovely person and writer of great fiction with a farming background

Debbie White: a brave writer who is positively moving on after personal trauma

Jean Bull: a new blogger who has published a great sounding book with a lovely cover

Anita Chapman: another fairly new blogger whose posts are so interesting

Freda Lightfoot: prolific novelist of some great titles and more recent blogger

Happy writing and blogging,
Rosemary

Targets, Goals and Motivation

So that's us into week four of NaNoWriMo and it's been an interesting experiment. Since November has been a busy month in general, I never really thought I'd make the target 50,000 words. But I'm still following my own target of writing another bit of the novel every single morning before getting distracted with online activity, or going out, and I really feel the benefit of getting back into that kind of routine. Still not sure if I'm concentrating on the right novel but I might as well try and finish it - even if it's by the end of the year rather than the end of November!

My thoughts always turn to writing goals towards the end of a year as I love a new start in January. I don't always write them down, but usually have some big goal in mind, in addition to writing and redrafting the shorter pieces. Getting at least one novel published has come to fruition and another goal to see my first tween novel published is coming true in March. This coming year, I'd love to have my mainstream novel accepted by a UK publisher and I'm redrafting it to send out before this year ends.

But we all need motivation to keep going. All my blogging friends and writing colleagues help to keep me writing (thank you!) as we're encouraged by successes, sympathetic in rejections, and empathetic about the struggle it sometimes is to remain optimistic. So to motivate us all for the coming year, here are two blogs to sign up to for challenges in 2012, although some may already have found their way to them. Both are the brainchild of Sally Quilford and can be used as a double motivation if you're so inclined.

The first is the Pocketeers blog - for all writers interested in writing a pocket novel of the type published by My Weekly and People's Friend, which both require 50,000 words.

The second is Sally's '100,000 words in 100 days' challenge - completely feasible at a mere 1,000 words of writing a day, of any kind. So we could try a pocket novel AND part of a novel, or some short stories all in the time scale. It's all the motivation I need to keep on with the good writing habits, and it certainly helps knowing other writers are taking up the same challenge.

Onwards and upwards!
Rosemary

Friday Friend Post

I'm delighted to be featured as the Friday Friend on the lovely Heroines with Hearts blog today, courtesy of Paula Martin, where I'm talking about romancing history.

Would love you to pop by and say hello!

Rosemary

Change of Scene

I'd like to say I got time off for good writing behaviour on Saturday, but I'm just over 14,000 words into my NaNo novel. But that's fine, as it's moved my previously languishing book on to a total of 35,500 words and I'm writing a little every single day. I still want to finish redrafting my other book and get it away while continuing with this one.

Anyway, on Saturday morning, husband and I returned to one of my favourite historical buildings, Pollok House near Glasgow and I guess it could be classed as research. I mentioned it ages ago on my Romancing History blog, but on that day we'd only enjoyed the gardens and surrounding Park. This time we explored the house itself, as well as having coffee down in the original kitchens, now a cafe and restaurant. The original Georgian house was built in the 1750s, although other parts were added over the years. I'd been through the house with our writing group over a year ago but this time we wandered round ourselves so I could absorb the atmosphere.

For a gracious country house, it has an air of homeliness about it, although visitors are not allowed into all areas. It's also a popular venue for weddings and one of the guides kindly advised us to visit the long, open library first before the current wedding started there! I almost lost husband to the fantastic grand piano on the way through to another room, while I would happily have sat in the beautiful little Morning Room. The famous paintings adorning many of the walls added to the pleasure of wandering around.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the visit is the friendliness of the discreet guides who are always happy to answer any questions with their inimitable Glasgow humour. We were invited to come back at the end of November, beginning of December when the whole house is decorated in all its Christmas finery. Try and keep me away! And best of all, it's exactly the kind of research useful for my NaNo novel, so what more excuse do I need for another visit.

Rosemary

Viking Gold

Just posted a little bit about the launch of V. Campbell's debut YA novel, Viking Gold, on my Flights of Imagination blog.

Rosemary

An Interlude

On Tuesday, we enjoyed our writing group's annual awards meeting and evening dinner. It's a lovely tradition - a later afternoon meeting where we read a short piece to a particular theme, either original or written by someone else. Then our annual cups and prizes are awarded for the winners of that year's in-house competitions (I was third in the children's story). After a short break, we enjoy much chat over dinner.

This was our second year at a local equestrian centre in the nearby countryside so our theme for reading was 'the countryside'. I was impressed that so many members had written an original piece for the day - and every one of them was excellent. I took the easy way out (NaNo was my excuse!) and read a short amusing extract from 'Jude the Obscure' about an escaping pig and country girl Arabella's enticement of Jude. Made me want to read the novel again as it's some years since I studied it.

This evening, I'm off to the debut book launch of one of my daughter's friends. Should be fun. Once I've read it, I shall profile 'Viking Gold' on one of my blogs eventually. So, on with some more writing before the evening gallavanting again!

Rosemary

Getting Creative

So, this is us into the second week of NaNoWriMo today. Has it been worth it so far? Definitely. First of all, the reason for me signing up still holds true: I've replaced my world-class procrastination with good writing habits. I've managed to write some of my new novel every single day and even if I haven't exactly kept to the suggested word count, I'm now 8,530 words further on. I begin each morning straight after checking emails and don't look at forums, blogs, twitter or Facebook until I've produced some more words.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I find it difficult to continue for hours at a time, so I often go back in the afternoon and do a little more, if I'm in. But here's a strange thing, the whole exercise is making me more creative in general. In addition to NaNo, I'm also still doing final edits on the tween novel and preparing a talk for a writing group in a couple of weeks. Then I suddenly had an urge to get on with redrafting the mainstream novel that is actually finished. But I've always felt it needed a rewrite of the first couple of chapters which were too long. After putting off the major restructuring I knew I wanted to do, I began it yesterday and got right into it!

Maybe I should be putting all that creative energy into the new novel, but here's the reasoning behind my way of working. The tween novel is being published in March which is why it's going through edits just now, and I enjoy those since I'm learning and improving all the time with a professional editor. The current new novel will need redrafting and editing after NaNo before I can even think of submitting it. But the completed mainstream novel has already been through the NWS (with a good report) and was already at one agent. I've never been happy with the first two chapters and now I know why - already I can see a huge improvement in the pace of the novel after changing it and I'll enjoy editing the remainder of it in light of my own further experience (she hopes). Then I'll start submitting it again, while I work on the new novel. Are you still with me!

Hopefully, I can keep all this up over the rest of the month! Meanwhile, if anyone needs an incentive to get a novel finished, you might be interested in the call for submissions from Carina Press. Good luck to all fellow NaNo writers!

Rsoemary

Third Day of NaNoWriMo

Well, already I've achieved what I set out to do - getting into the good habit of writing some of my novel each day. It definitely works best for me if I get started as soon as I've had my shower. I take my breakfast through to the computer and eat it while having a quick look at emails (because I can't wait to see who has contacted me) but don't read the forums and blogs until after writing. I'd discovered this before, of course, but had got into bad habits!

As a complete panster, I just start writing and hope my subconscious thoughts about the novel come together in some way to produce enough words to move it on. I almost came to a halt this morning but ended up with another 1,150 words. Hopefully, I'll do some more before the day is out or else I won't make the target (I've written 3728 words so far), although I'm not so worried about the word count as long as I get most of the way through the novel. And it all depends what else I have on each day, or how long I'm out - today is one of the few days I'm staying in. Might even get that huge pile of ironing done at some point.

I'm curious - do any of you manage to write for more than an hour or two at a time on the one piece? I don't seem to be able to sustain any more than that before needing to do something else and I suspect that's why I find novel length more taxing than short pieces.

Onwards and upwards!
Rosemary

Mad November Begins!

So that's NaNoWriMo underway! Whether or not I make the 50,000 words doesn't really matter in the larger scheme of things, but it will get me back into the good habit of focusing on one particular novel until it is finished - and that's the sense of achievement I'm aiming for.

Meanwhile, I have an excerpt from Dangerous Deceit on Lindsay's Romantics blog today, where she is celebrating the mischief of Bonfire week: http://lindsaysromantics.blogspot.com/

And now I must try and finish the edits on my Tween novel, then there's the writing group... why did I sign up for NaNo again?

Rosemary