Nano Day 6

Grinding to a halt... and here's why. In a nutshell, This isn't writing: this is typing.

There is a difference. At least, to me there is. In YA novels, every word counts. The moment you waffle, you lose the reader. You have a bit more leeway in adult fiction because adult readers have more patience and are more likely to stick along for the ride. But there has to be a promise to the reader, a hint that there is an end game, that we're on a journey. You can do it with a question or a hint, but there has to be something.

Here's the opening line from The Shining:

On the second day of December, in a year when a Georgia peanut farmer was doing business in the White House, one of Colorado's great resort hotels burned to the ground.  

It sets a moment in time, a voice and lets us know where the book is going - a disaster, a great resort hotel is destroyed. The book is going to tell you why.

With my Nano project, I've got a good opening and three strong scenes, but I don't have an endgame in sight. There's no promise to the reader, no hint at the big picture. There's nothing wrong with the actual writing, but that feeling of not knowing where I'm going is very likely going to transfer to the reader, and frustration is the last emotion you want any reader to experience.

It's like I've set sail on a big wide ocean without a compass and a broken rudder. And there's a hole in the bottom of the boat. And a big bastard of a shark following me.

I think it's important to know what kind of writer you are, so in that respect, six short days of Nano has helped me out. I'm a plotter. I like to plan. So that's what I'm going to do.

That doesn't mean I'm giving up. It means I'm going to sit down and work out what I can do with this novel, what the goal is. If I can, I'll keep going. If not, I'll plan something else and see if I can catch up.

There's still 24 days left, so plenty of time. :)

Nano Day 3

I've just passed the 5,000 word mark! Yesterday was a bit difficult because I got in late, had to build a fireplace to give the room a bit of atmosphere for the first of our Christmas Movie nights, and then watched Elf, so the only writing I got done was what I managed to cram into my lunch hour, which meant today I was playing catch up.

Didn't get the opportunity to do any lunchtime writing today, but I go to watch the kids diving on a Thursday so I took my laptop along and knocked out 1,000 words there. Came home and managed another 1,000 (the last 500 words flew out.)

So, over the first three days, I've got an average of 1,800 per day. No idea where this novel is going but really want to keep pushing and see what happens. And to be quite honest, if it wasn't for the need to keep up with NaNoWriMo, I certainly wouldn't have done that last 1,000 words. In fact, today would probably have ended up as a non-writing day.

Nano Day 1

Finding time to write is the key, and it really isn't that hard. By some smashing stroke of luck, my dog woke me up at 5:00am this morning, quickly followed by the cat. Unable to get back to sleep I started thinking of my Nano project and the scenes began to flow.

At 7, it was time to give up on any further chance of sleep and get out of bed. Quick packed lunch for my youngest, a bacon and egg sarnie for me, check Facebook (quickly, because I really wanted to write a few notes) and then managed about fifteen minutes writing. Doesn't sound like a lot but it was enough to get about 150 words down.

It's a start.

I work during the week, so I couldn't do anything more until my lunch break. I nuked leftover pasta in a the staff room microwave, found an empty class and began tapping away. I knocked out around 1000 very messy words.

This evening, I managed a bit more time behind the keyboard. This was easy enough - really just time I usually spend scrolling through Facebook and watching videos of cats falling off tables and such. Went over the stuff I'd written earlier and watched a documentary on Victorian bakers, wrote a little more, watched a bit of an old movie, the news and QI. Then an early night and a few pages of current book (Midnight by Dean Koontz).

Total words today - 2168. Not bad considering I haven't really felt like I've had to tie myself to the laptop.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo - or, National Novel Writing Month is described as "A fun, seat of your pants approach to creative writing."

The idea is to knock out a novel as fast as possible to avoid getting bogged down in planning and plotting.

I've tried this technique a few times but never registered for Nano. Thought I'd give it a go this year as I'm just about to start writing what I hope is an adult thriller.

All I have at the moment is a title: Daniel's Daughter, and a one line synopsis. Nothing else.Going to start writing tomorrow. Let's see how far I get.I'll blog updates along the way.

Teenage Cancer Trust

Had a great night on Saturday night at the O2 Academy in Newcastle. 18 different acts performed on two stages - the main O2 stage and the upstairs acoustic room None of the acts took a fee to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Most of the photos I took came out a bit poor so I knocked a few video clips together to give a hint of the general atmos. Fantastic. Can't wait till next year.
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The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood

I'll make this short because I didn't get very far with this at all. The reason is simple - reading it was just too much hard work. I'm sure there are people out there who love quirky writing peppered with forgotten vocabulary to really add authenticity to the voice of a historical narrator, but I found it tough going. I tried to soldier on, and then hit the phonetic Yorkshire dialect - there was a little touch of this early on, but when the MC went up north it was used continually and the book died right there.

The problem I have with written dialects is that the written word is unfamiliar, so you have to slow down your reading in order to sound out the phonemes to decipher the word. As a reader, this shifts my focus from the story to the written word and the illusion of believable fiction is broken. So there's no point reading any further.

The Fire Child by S.K. Tremayne

I loved The Ice Twins so as soon as I saw the author name, S.K. Tremayne, I had to get this.

In short, it looks like Rachel has landed herself a perfect family life, rising up from the underclass of London to the stunning grounds of Carnhallow House in Cornwall. She has a husband rich enough to keep and maintain the house, and she has fallen in love with Jamie, the perfect stepson. But Jamie is still grieving the loss of his mother, and Rachel's arrival at the house seems to have a significant effect on that grief. Jamie becomes convinced that his real mother is alive, is in the house... and that Rachel will be dead by Christmas.

Creepy and atmospheric with hints of the paranormal, The Fire Child is a brilliant psychological thriller. The setting is rich and convincing without being overly descriptive - there are lots of snippets of the horrors of mining, slipped in seamlessly into the story so that it never feels like clunky info dumps. All very nice and skillful, but for me, what S.K, Tremayne does particularly well is play the characters off against each, chipping away at their flaws and secrets, toying with the reader as who to trust. My only negative comment is that I would have liked a few more David chapters.

Overall, superb. Definitely an author I'll be following.