November and Novels

November is the novel writing month - and whenever it comes around it seems I've always just finished a project (so yay for that!) and start another saying "perhaps this year I'll do that novel writing in a month thing"... and I of course get well carried away into a huge project that will not be finished by next week.

But I guess it's a good thing to get started on new things anyway.

In other news, my fantasy novel got proofread, spell-checked and packaged up to send to a publisher... and yesterday I got my first rejection postcard.  So ok, it would have been amazing to get a publisher on the first try, and I didn't expect it.  But I did hope a bit.

Still half of this game is finding the right person for the story, so away it's gone again, and we'll see how this one goes.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about blogging and decided that one of the problems of having a writing blog is that there just isn't that much to say about writing.  Sure I could repeat what other writers have already said about how to write, or lecture you on the rules of grammar (my proofreaders would probably find that funny, at least!) but when it comes down to it writing is mostly: 1) Thinking about stuff.  2) Typing.

As for talking about what I've written, well I will be doing that when it's ready to see, but until then there doesn't seem much point in building up excitement for something that you can't get yet, else everyone will have probably forgotten about it anyway by the time you can get it.

So instead I'll just put up doodles or something.  Enjoy.

A Wild Book Appears

It is weird seeing your book printed out for the first time.  You know you’ve written a lot of words, but to see the chunk of paper that it takes up really brings it home.

You hold it, hefting its weight and think “finally, it’s done.”

But of course, it’s not done.  It’s nowhere near done.

At this point I’d like to thank to my test readers, who each took away a small tree’s worth of paper and spent their free time reading those words that I’ve written.  Your feedback has been great – and I’ve been happy to hear that you all enjoyed the book despite those spelling and grammatical errors which I managed to read over a hundred times and not spot.

I’ve had the recent task of going through that feedback – correcting those spellings, removing those extra commas… (well some of them – there is an ongoing debate about the use of the Oxford comma!) and in some cases rewriting scenes to add a little more depth or clarity.

Some of it has been fun (some typos created some very unintentionally funny sentences), some has been frustrating (we all have days where we just can’t think of a different way to phrase something), but overall it has been rewarding to see the story having the rough edges knocked off.

Not much more work to do before I try my hand at sending it out to publishers.  It’s hard to know when it’s ready, because as the saying goes “A work of art is never finished, only abandoned.” 

It’s scary, but I guess I’ll just have to send it and see what happens.

A Reminder

It’s halfway through 2013.  It doesn’t feel like it is, since apparently we skipped spring this year while winter hung around, but finally summer has arrived!

With the days long and (sometimes) sunny, and the plants bursting into bloom, now is a great time to remember what your New Year’s resolution was.

How have you been doing on it?  Made progress?

My resolution was:

“Try not to worry so much.”

How am I doing?  Really badly!  And this is why I need the reminder.

The UK is undergoing a massive land grab by developers.  The plan is to build “affordable” homes for first time buyers and boost the economy.  All its doing is forcing people into shoe box houses, while older houses that they could afford but can’t get the deposit for are left empty for years on the market.  It’s not going to fix the economy, but it will destroy the green spaces that wildlife and people rely on for survival.

My hometown is not going to have any green space left around it at all if this goes ahead.

It has been a huge worry, not only for the environment (which would upset me anyway) but also because on a personal level, they want to bulldoze a beautiful bluebell wood that I played in while I was growing up, and means a lot to me.

This all also got me worrying about the future in general.  I never understood why everyone didn’t want to reach the Star Trek ideal of living in a beautiful place where everyone works to better themselves.  Can you imagine it?  Wide open spaces, fresh clean air, abundant wildlife, free education, spaceships. :)  Sounds nice to me.   

On the positive side of things, the community has come together and now are working to try and find a better solution to try and get the houses built on brownfield land and save the greenfield.

So after the tricky month of May, it’s time for a reset.

Six months left to fulfil that resolution. :)  Good luck!

Procrastination and that.

Isn’t it a weird spring?  The snow is blowing past the window, the sky is grey, and the burst of fresh green we are supposed to be witnessing is being held in check by the frozen ground.  Apparently the cause of this is easterly winds.  It’s not actually the coldest March on record; but it’s not far off.

One side effect of this is I am still in winter mode, a time I spend in semi-hibernation.  I hate dark grey days (I don’t actually mind the cold if it’s sunny with it), and it’s amazing how much more I’ll get done on a day when it’s sunny than I do on a rainy day.

This week has been a struggle.  I hit a wall with my novel, and no matter what way I came at it, I was stuck.  I sat at my computer and stared at it.  Nothing happened.  I tried scribbling in my notepad.  I got a very nice doodle of a dragon, but no further on the plot.  I tried just bashing out words in a stream of consciousness, but that just gave me a garbled winding story that didn’t really have a lot to do with the characters or moving the story forward.

Then the answer came in two parts.

Part 1: Asking for help.

This is something I am terrible at.  It was written into one of my school reports once that I would struggle through something on my own rather than ask for help, and unfortunately it’s something I’ve not improved on.  So I can’t exactly say I asked for help; rather it was offered and it turned out that I did need it.  Talking through what I was stuck on made me realise what had been bothering me about the story, and what I needed to change to move forward.

Part 2:  Procrastination. 

Yes, really!  Yesterday I read a very interesting article about how procrastination is not necessarily a bad thing for a creative type person.  (Funnily enough, I read this in a random magazine supplement out of a week old newspaper that I don’t normally read, and was only reading because I was procrastinating.) 

It has always been assumed that if you are procrastinating, you aren’t getting anything done.  However now people are beginning to recognise that if you are procrastinating, you are getting something done; not necessarily the thing you are supposed to be doing, but you are completing something none the less. 

So I looked back at my week and I noticed all of the things that I have done when I should have been getting thousands of words written.  I’ve cleaned the house.  I’ve done my banking.  I finished reading “The Two Towers” and started on “The Return of the King.”  And suddenly I don’t feel bad about it.

This is why: because firstly, I realise that I haven’t “not got anything done” this week.  Secondly as soon as I let go of the “I should be doing this” and just started to enjoy what I was doing, the words came back.  I’ve had to go back and rewrite several pages, but I’m progressing again.

 

I may have been going in circles all week, but the circles were getting bigger and I’ve found myself on the other side of the wall.  Instead of punching through it, I just went around it.  I’m about to start another circle now, since I’ve gone back about twenty pages to slightly change the direction my characters are going in, but I’m ok with that, because this circle is going to be even bigger than the last and at the end of this one the final stages of the tale will be in sight.

But first, I’m off to have some lunch. J  

I know what I’m doing… honest.

I don’t think I have done as much handwriting as I have this week since I was at school!  I’m nicely filling up my notebooks with ideas, plot points, character bios and maps.  (You all knew I wouldn’t resist drawing maps for very long.)  It almost feels like I’m getting organised.  Almost.

If any of you lovely people are on Goodreads, please do leave a review for Eye of the Beholder, or why not recommend it to your friends?

In return, I’ll leave these inspirational pictures of some aircraft, which were taken at the NI International Airshow here:

 All photographs copyright © Sarah Cosgrove and Stephen Cosgrove 2012