-
So November is gone – Is NaNoWriMo worthwhile?
My hope that trumpeting of committing myself to NaNoWriMo this year would force me to show the dedication required to put down 50,000 words in a month proved to be in vain. It’s a punishing schedule and one thing I have learnt is that it probably isn’t for me at this time in my life.…
-
Another rejection
Can’t believe it’s so long since I posted anything – where did that time go? I’ve been editing my novel, not as much as I should have been but it’s been perched on my shoulder pecking away at my conscience all the time. Oh, and I went on holiday. Part of my paper draft is…
-
A time to write
I haven’t posted anything for a week or so and I’d like to say it’s because I’ve had my head down redrafting my novel. But it isn’t. In fact, I don’t know where the time has gone. I was reading a post from an author a few days ago where she thought her idea of…
-
Back on track
A few posts ago I wrote of the impending disaster of arriving at my penultimate chapter with 40,000 words short on my target. Since then I’ve been back at the drawing board thinking, revisiting my plan and occasionally weeping. I also discovered that my chronology was all wrong, with weekends where there should be weekdays…
-
Researching for a novel
I’ve just signed up for a session at Stratford Literary Festival, intriguingly entitled ‘The Gory Details: Researching for Crime Writing‘. I’ll be doing a reading and signing there of A Shadowed Livery the previous day so thought it would be good fun to look in on this one. Writing any kind of novel probably requires…
-
Roadworks ahead
Several months ago I was extremely proud of myself. I’d finished my plan for another crime novel, with every strand of the story worked out and every scene, plot point and character woven into a whole. True, as the actual writing developed, things moved about, small holes appeared in the fabric, but nothing too serious. I…
-
Sticky end
I’m musing over a villain I want to dispose of and can’t decide between a number of options. This bad guy isn’t the main one in the novel, though he’s caused quite a bit of trouble for our hero, a police inspector, let’s call him Henry,including kidnapping him and attempting to kill him.The options are:…
-
Hitting the ceiling
I set myself a target last week of getting over the 40,000 word threshold by today. I hadn’t really far to go but was seeing it as a barrier though, strangely, didn’t actually notice the moment I passed it. This may have been because I’d set another wordcount target, just for the day, and was…
-
Death in the stars
Funny where the inspiration comes from. I downloaded an astronomy app this weekend, Night Sky Pro, and began thinking of where I might put a telescope if I bought one, again. Then I remembered that when I had one some years ago, it was usually too cold on clear nights to go out to use…
-
Burning enthusiasm
Having spent the last hour or so stoking a bonfire, getting rid of old files, with Paloma Faith on the iPod, I drifted into that sublime state of contentment where the world doesn’t get any better. My thoughts wandered firstly to all the work which had created this mass of paper; all the people I’d…
