Feed on
Posts
Comments

First Day of Spring…

Aug 31st, 2009 by

The lambs have been out for a while, as have the calves, so why does it not feel like Spring today?  It is raining and getting colder and darker by the minute…  Life I suppose.

Billy is a little trouper – he is off at school now, and this morning was the first morning he didn’t claim to be sick – maybe he is starting to enjoy it.  Well at least admitting to me that he is, he has been telling me it is horrible, that he gets picked on, that the day is long… He will think of every excuse under the sun to stay at home with Mum.

And me?  Well, strangely enough, I am coping, although I do miss him.  And there aren’t 6 hours in a day… whoever had the strange idea that I would have all this free time to write?  I sit down at the computer and suddenly feel guilty, so I have to stop… I don’t know, life can be interesting sometimes.

Up to Chapter 13 in editing my story… EDITING!  Although the story is getting interesting.  Funny how to you put it to one side for a while and then discover it is actually OK!  Although I am not happy with one scene in Chapter 13.  My friend JC has had a look at it, and told me there is nothing wrong with it, other than being wordy… but it isn’t quite connecting.  However contemplating it last night,  I have come up with a solution, at this stage anyway.  Things can change!

I also have another story idea just bursting out of me, which is kind of hard to ignore, and I had to buy a notebook so that I could get notes down before it drove me crazy.  Can’t divulge information yet, but it should be a goodie!

Tags: , , ,

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

And August is almost over

Aug 16th, 2009 by

I think a recurring theme this year is “Where is the time going?”.  It is half way through August and I haven’t posted anything here, but I do have a legitimate excuse, well I am saying it is. 

Billy is off to school in a matter of Days… (8 sleeps apparently) and he was looking forward to it, but now I am not so sure.  I think he will settle in fine once he realises that it is all about, and that he can’t tell the teacher off like he does me, but I think Mrs Henderson will let him know who is boss quickly enough!

Writing has been slow, I have been trying to edit, with a goal of finishing off the editing by the end of September, so it is a case of actually cracking into it.  It is quite hard to edit, for me personally, I don’t want to get rid of anything that I have written, but sometimes you have to find another way to express that.  With many thanks to Cassie and Gareth, fellow writers, they keep me honest and know where I need to make some serious considerations.  I really appreciate that because sometimes it is hard to word something, and sometimes someone else has the right words, or a new way of putting it.

I am also considering short stories, only as a way of getting noticed, but I am just not that good at them!  I did a variation on Little Red Riding Hood the other day, which was interesting, but again I seemed to miss the point.  Why can’t I get these stories?  What is it about short stories that I just keep overlooking?  I know it is the simplicity that is the key, keeping as close to the plot as you can, but I am unfamiliar and unsure about plotting such a short piece of literature.  My time will come I guess, and writing shorts will only improve my skills.

Posted in My week in review, My Writings | No Comments »

Editing – will it ever end?

Jul 29th, 2009 by

Once more I am back in edit mode, and having finished editing The Journey Home, I have now started on The Quest, the second in my Chrystias trilogy.  My only problem is I am feeling decidedly overwhelmed by the whole thing and wondering if I will ever get my writing to a standard that will be worth printing.

How did I come to such a thought?  I have a group of friends, some are just readers, but two are writers.  They provide me with the details I need, the specific comments, they look at my work with a critical eye and tell me where I went wrong, point out any misjudgements in errors, character flaws etc that is required to hone my skill. 

One chapter in The Journey Home was severely picked on, and justifiably so.  It is a scene where the giant comes across the group of nomads and he joins them.  However he has history with the villian of the piece.  Now who, in their right mind, would hear this piece of information and say, sure, come and join us.  Well, the leader did, because he felt a connection with the giant, but this doesn’t seem like a valid enough reason to have him join in.  Herein lies my dilemma, would any man just go with their gut instinct and accept the word of someone they barely know?  Especially one who is escaping from the Warlock himself? 

There are also comments about my leader, Tycelon.  He doesn’t really appear to have the characteristics needed to be a leader, yet he is.  A couple of times I have been pulled up and told that he is acting wussy, yet he is a leader that needs the great outdoor spaces and when he finds himself confined or in tight places, he likes to get out in the open, to clear his head.  How do you portray this without making it seem like he is running from his problems?

These are the things that made me question my own writing abilities last night and wonder if I would ever get the story into a solid cohesive read and publishable material.  Will it ever happen?  I hope so, one day it will, but in the meantime, I have to keep reading it and thinking, does this sound OK?  Does this character sound realistic?  Are they genuine.  Oh I HATE EDITING!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted in My Writings | No Comments »

Where is the year going?

Jul 20th, 2009 by

It is nearly the end of July, so it would appear that it is 3 weeks since I last wrote a blog here, which is pretty bad!

The writing is finished, I finally managed to finish Of Kings Queens and Noblemen about the 10th July, so that felt good.  76k long too, which is pretty impressive considering the ending needs lots of work and I missed out some in the middle because the story wasn’t progressing fast enough for my liking – will have to see what happens.

Back to editing Chrystias and working very hard on Chapter 5 which needs some work, apparently.  But I do agree with those in my writing group who have responded.  It needs some work to make Tycelon stronger and to get rid of some anomalies that were hanging around.  Still, I am liking the changes I am making.  Only have part of chapter 16 to go and I can post the last part of book 1 our to my Writing Group – yes!  Then it is into editing the second book – which I am looking forward to.

Next month is editing month at KiwiWriters – that means I might get out Of Kings Queens and Noblemen and edit that, but more keen to get the Chrystias finished so I can start getting that submitted to agents / publishers. 

Next month Billy is off to school – wow, time flies!  He is getting ready for it too, he knows its coming and getting excited.  I am excited too because I can’t wait to have some time to myself to start being more productive in my writing, and also more productive around the house.  I clean something and ten minutes later it looks worse than before I started…  Typical really.

I have joined e-fiction book club, where a group of us review books that are available on the internet to read.  It is an interesting experience, but it means I have lots of reading material at the moment.  Cassie also sent through her Lifeline Novels for critiquing, and that is a good read.  I hope she finds a publisher for it.

I have also just finished reading and reviewing Lee Pletzer’s novel – the Last Church.  That was a very good story, for a horror i enjoyed it, it wasn’t gory, it wasn’t spine chillingly frightening, it was a possibility that may happen in the future, a good NZ yarn!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted in My week in review, My Writings | No Comments »

4th week of SoCNoC

Jun 29th, 2009 by

Well, I have finished the challenge, but I haven’t quite finished off the story.  Hopefully a week’s worth of writing should just about see it completed, then I just need to put it away for a month in order to come back with a clear head.  When I think back on it now, I know it needs more work, but that is what editing is for.  If I start doing that now, I will only damage the integrity of the story!

The story has taken a while to develop, and I am slowly starting to make it come together.  I am in the final stages of the story, where everything happens to finish off loose ends etc.  This is the part of the story where Fabyan gives up his throne in order to find his love and see whether she loves him in return.  I know that they will live happily ever after, or as close to it as realistically possible, and I do have a plan to get them there.  There has been a slight variation to the original story, but the mother is only adding to it, rather than taking away.  However I will be pleased to get this one over and done with and back into Editing the Chrystias!

It has been cold here, way too cold for this chicken – fire has been going as much as possible lately, which has been okay, but hasn’t really warmed me up.  Maybe there is something wrong with me!

Went out for Kerry’s work do on Saturday night, it was a great night out, I had a ball and I think Kerry did too, he was certainly making the most of it!  It was a good laugh and enjoyed by all concerned!  Certainly some laughs!  However, it was also sad to see friends who are having personal problems, people that I care about, but they are starting to have anomosity towards one another.  There was also the stirring that occurs at these events, but if you ignore that and just enjoy the evening, it was all good!

Tags: , ,

Posted in My week in review, My Writings | No Comments »

3rd week of SoCNoC

Jun 18th, 2009 by

Where does the time go?  It doesn’t feel like the third week of June, but sure enough, it is. 

How am I going on the story, good and bad.  I have had some good days and some bad days, all depending on where I am in the story. 

Lets start with the good – I managed to get 6k done in one day, which was really quite exciting and unexpected.  It is hard enough getting the time to do 2k, let alone 6k, but then it was a Tuesday, so it started off with 3/4 hour while Billy was at Playcentre, then a good run at it after Billy went to bed.  It helped that I had a good plan going at the time too.  I am ahead by 824 words as of today, and once I have finished writing today, I will be well and truly ahead.  I am generally around 10th in the list of people.  One has already finished, and I am really pleased for her.  With 31k clocked up, I can see that winners certificate too!

The bad – well I have come apart at the seams with some of my plot choices.  Fabyan was rebelling at one stage and I thought I had a Mills and Boon romance on my hands.  I was a bit worried there for a while, but things are ticking along again.  I had to leave one scene unfinished because I felt really bogged down by it.  I did that earlier and the next thing I know Fabyan is being plucked from the sea… so he had obvious shipwrecked.  I went back and wrote the previous scene to bring them up to that point, and it worked extremely well.  This other scene though just isn’t coming together.  The next scene was a considerable leap into the future.  I might even have to cut it out, but they have to take their time travelling across the country, they can’t just leave one country and find themselves right where they need to be the next day, the travelling time has to be believable.

Anyway, the progress of the story is good, although I haven’t reached the 50% mark of my story yet, I have reached 62% in SoCNoC, so provided I can still clock up 2k a night between now and the end of the month, I should be able to finish with plenty of words spare.

Overall, the story is coming together, although I admit I have departed from the plot a little, but it was necessary to fit in the extra things that pop up.  I have even added in an extra plot where Fabyan’s parents were an arranged marriage and theirs was not a success – I have decided to have him have a moment with his mother asking her why it didn’t work.  She is a cold woman who didn’t care for or love her husband, so while he is happy to play around, he isn’t that impressed with the idea of settling down because of the way a woman can change once she marries because she is forced to… Actually there is another plot idea, how the mother changed…  Let me go and get that jotted down before I forget!

Tags: , , , ,

Posted in My Writings | 1 Comment »

2nd week – SoCNoC – Progress so far…

Jun 9th, 2009 by

Boy time is flying out the window, tomorrow is Kerry’s birthday and I am trying to do most of my writing during the day because he is home this week.  I am only slightly on the back foot, which isn’t too bad considering I didn’t get much writing done over the weekend.

Of King’s Queens and Noblemen is really coming along, already into the 7th Chapter, 17k words in, admittedly only 12k since SoCNoC began, it is seriously going to need some editing as I am not happy with it, but I don’t want to do the edit thing until after I have finished writing it.  The editing is the biggest part of the writing, but getting down on paper is the most important at this stage.

Writing is becoming more and more important to me, and this novel has been hard because it is the first time I am making myself sit down and type something from scratch, the Chrystias was something started and school and developed, this one a plan pinned to my wall, each night I try and knock 2000 words off so that I can reach beyond the 50k limit for the month.  I am in the top 10 for words so far, but that will change as the late starters get their typing up to speed.

So this story is so far panning out, it is following my idea’s and plot lines, but something seems to be lacking.  I think that my characters, although they seem real, are still quite flat, but hopefully the editing phase will really draw them out and make them seem real.  If I find they are lacking plot, or conflict, I have a list of 20 conflicts that I have sitting nearby so I can throw something at them.

Two and a half weeks to go, so I am happy with progress on my writing to date.  Fingers crossed I can stay motivated!

Tags: , , , ,

Posted in My Writings | No Comments »

SoCNoC is upon us!

Jun 3rd, 2009 by

Up and down the country and around the world, keyboards are clicking with anxious writers getting their precious words down in writing before they become a jumbled mess inside their heads.  At this time, I am sitting at my keyboard, my fingers poised, waiting for inspiration to strike, and I am still waiting.

I decided to start a new novel, just because I needed to, called Of Kings Queens and Noblemen, about a playboy King who finds true love, the only problem is, I just can’t seem to get into it.  Last night I sat up and wrote out some of the plot summaries I had made in the hopes that I might be able to flesh these out into scenes, but I just seem to be lacking the inspiration I need.  Why is it so darned hard!  I have the plot already lined up, the story is ready to tell, just why can’t I translate it from my brain, to my fingers, along the keyboard and up onto the screen.  It isn’t like I don’t have any idea of what I want to write.

Sometimes writing is like that, you have a burning idea, it grows on you, formulates into a plot, grows, mutates, grows some more, mutates some more and then you have the startings of a good novel, but when it comes to getting it down, the scenes just want to be small.  I am trying at the moment to put lots of dialogue and description into the scenes, because I know that eventually it will click and I will be off and writing.

At present I am working on two pieces, a short story, the Secret of Froba, which I will be renaming, but can’t remember to what… and Of Kings Queens and Noblemen.  The short story is supposed to be about 6000 words long, but I have a feeling it is going to be longer.  That is what the other name is – A study in … something – its gone again.  See inspiration comes and goes at whim!

Kerry is away at present, so I am using this as an opportunity to get typing and really knock back some words.  50,000 in a month calculates out to approximately 1,700 words a day, and I have not reached that targe in three days.  I am currently about 500 words short, but I am slowly gaining and if I can get a clear run at it, and get my mind around the story, I might be able to get stuck in, but that will probably occur tomorrow night and Kerry is home on Friday… You just can’t win!  Still I am writing, and that is my passion, and I have to have something more than the Chrystias story to keep me going!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted in My Writings | No Comments »

SoCNoC is nearly here!

May 28th, 2009 by

May is nearly over and June is just about upon us, the first official month of Winter, but we have already had the frosts and the cold.

June is also SoCNoC month, write 50k words in a month!  I did it last year and won, and I am going to do it again this year.  I only need an hour a day to get through it, provided I have the plot right on my story, but then if I don’t, well, it will just have to plod along on another tangent.  I am ready for it though, I have a playboy prince and a prim and proper serving girl and willowy wenches ready to throw themselves at the king, so I think I have a winning formula.

Editing, well, yes, that is still going!  When will it ever stop!  Hopefully on Sunday, because I need to have it finished by then so I can concentrate on the story.  After June, I hope to start on the next book and get that edited too, which I am looking forward to, but a break from Tycelon and Delonia would be nice.  It will help too with them percolating away, simmering tensions, I can work out some of the weaker plot points and sharpen them up or get rid of them entirely.  I want to develop Tycelon’s abandonment issues a little further too, because he needs to deal with them.  I have 5 chapters to go in the editing stakes, so that isn’t too bad, 1 is half edited, so it just needs to be finished off.

Roll on June!

Tags: , , , ,

Posted in My Writings | No Comments »

Where does the time go?

May 18th, 2009 by

I have just noticed that the last few post heads have been questions.  Maybe I have lots of questions that need answering at the moment? 

14 days to go until SoCNoC, that means 14 days to finish editing the next 8 chapters of my story so that it is out of the way and I have a clear conscience for SoCNoC.    I am looking forward to concentrating on something else, but also nervous, because this is the first time I am starting something from scratch for quite some time.  Sure, I did Chrystias years ago, and it was seriously altered, but I had a basis and a plan with that.  I have a plan for Kings Queens and Noblemen, and I hope that I can stick to it, but I just don’t know if I have the fire and passion like I did for Chrystias.  Can only but type it and see.

I am taking part in a couple of challenges prior to SoCNoC over on KiwiWriter, and I have learnt about my characters already, which is something.  I enjoy being able to know my characters prior to writing them, just so that I know all of their faults and can write them into the story, because a character is not a fullbodied person without faults!

Back to the grindstone I suppose, I want to aim for 5 chapters this we

Tags: , , , , ,

Posted in My Writings | No Comments »

Older Posts »