Oh! I surprised myself

Please disregard that last post. Not the bit where I said Good Luck to Nanoists as that still holds, but the bit where I said I couldn't write 50k words in November. 

Turns out I just did.

Am smug. Sorry.

Still not finished yet though......

Good Luck, you nutters!

 I usually write a post about the lunacy that is NaNoWriMo. It has become a small annual event for me, even though I do not partake. Writing a Novel in a Month is just not a viable reality for me. And normally I spout about that, at about this point in the year.

This year though, things are a little different. Because this year I can't sit here typing that I wouldn't be able to get 50k words down in a month. And how do I know this? See this smug look here? Here on my smug face? That's there because in June, I did indeed write over 50k words in a single month. I have a badge from 750words.com to verify it, so do not roll your pretty eyes in disbelief at me.

Having an outline made the difference for me, along with a word-count goal. I said 10k a week, with the aim to have that done Monday-Friday which gave me the weekend to make up any shortfall or carry on, if I needed and wanted to. Normally this made it 2k words a day, but it was fluid, which helped. Fluid is good, I have found. Fluid equals less stress. And setting a timer for two batches of 45 minutes was key too. (45 minutes feels less draconian than an hour, to my deluded mind.) No checking t'internet in the timed slot made things way more focused and productive. Who'd have thought?!
 As things took off, I wrote more than the quota, which put me over the 50k mark in the month. 
Ta-dah!

So why am I not doing it again in November with all the NaNoists of the planet? Because November is not the month for me. Aside from it not even being a 31 day month, there are too many things going on. What I am trying to write will be more that 50k, so it'll pull closer and closer to Christmas, and if November is bad, then December is a nightmare for writing. And I'll want to get this sucker finished. In fact I started my current project at the beginning of this month, with the aim of finishing at the end of November.  So I'm having two months to do it, I guess. 

Maybe this just means I cannot play with the other kids. Really I think it just means it isn't my timing.  But what I can definitely say for NaNoWriMo this year is: 

Good Luck and Go to it, I know you can do it. (You Nutters...) 

So late it doesn't deserve a fanfare - My Autumn TBR pile

Yes it is late. I know, I know. But there was school start and an important exam for one of them, which is now done, hurrah. So here's the pile, which seems fairly hefty, particularly as I also have three left over on the e-reader from last season.

The pile looks like this:

 The books are:

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson

Rush Too Far by Abbi Glines

Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater

Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

The California Club by Belinda Jones

Runaway by Marie-Louise Jensen

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

From Notting Hill with Love… Actually by Ali McNamara

Paper aeroplanes by Dawn O’Porter

Wonder by R.J Palacio

The twins by Saskia Sarginson

 Enemies at Home by Lindsey Davies

 The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

 As usual it is a mix of Teen and Women's fiction, with a dash of Historical Crime. Sinner is the one I am most looking forward to (This, thanks to Lovely CP is a signed copy, with a limited edition artwork in it too. Boasting? Moi? Sorry, not sorry. I'd frame it and put it in my fantasy writing room.)

 There are precious few male-authored books in there. Sorry about that male population. Nothing personal. Just the luck of the draw this time around.

So I'll update you at the end of November, if all goes well. If I haven't bitten off far more than I can chew this season.

What are you reading this autumn?

FREEBIE!!!!

Just to let you know, that for today and tomorrow (September 11th & 12th), Sunlounger 2 is free. Like, no pennies. At all. Nada. Zilch.

Here.

 Did I mention the free bit? 44 stories. On your e-reader for absolutely nuffink.

tis truly a gift!!

The Summer '14 Gut Reactions

The end of summer has crept up on me. I suppose that until the spawn are back in their respective institutions (next week) I don't really recognise that summer has finished. In this case it means that I haven't started compiling the Autumn TBR pile, so that’s gonna be late. 

But I have been writing. I finished a 90k+ vomit-draft on something Women's fiction, which is safely mulling in a drawer right now, in the hope that when I reread it, it might feel like it could be something. And I've started plotting the next one – for once I have a title, so it isn’t referred to by the MC’s name or as “XX-thing” based on the job they do. That feels like an advancement to me. I've also been drafting some short stories too. So I haven't been shirking as such, I just haven't got much to show at this point.

 But I can do the gut reactions, although that comes with a caveat too, as I haven't got to the three e-books, as there is only so long that my eyes can cope with reading on my phone, and I am very low on the pecking order in this house when it comes to use of the ipad. Curling up on the sofa with a laptop doesn’t quite work for me, and I can't sleep if my eyes are buzzing from staring at a screen. (Yeah, yeah, excuses, excuses- but the e-books will just have to roll over to Autumn instead.)

The pile looked like this:

Star of the Season goes to The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder. I loved this book. I was introduced to the awful term "SnuffLit" during the summer, in relation to the popularity of books like The Fault in Our Stars and Before I Die (aka Now is good). I can't tell you how much I dislike associating that term with YA, as it sounds so repulsive. I loved both of those two books, in spite of their teens dying themes as they were handled in a way that felt both true and respectful. And I loved this book too, in the same way that I adored The Sky is Everywhere, which I gushed about here, because though they deal with death, they celebrate life, love and teen feelings and relationships, which are just my cup of tea. Though based on self-pity the tone is gorgeous and is now on my list of "Writing tones I wish were mine." Everyone has that list, right or is it just me?


Notable mentions;

The Travelling Tea Shop - if you like cakes, travel and romance (Seriously, what is not to like in that combo?), this is a lovely  read. Belinda's eye for detail is meticulous and you really feel you are in the setting.

Two boys kissing - If you have followed this blog at all, then you'll know that I adore David Levithan. ADORE. But it took me a while to get into this. And in the end I didn't love it. But that is OK too. It is, however a special book, as a record of how attitudes to homosexuality has changed over a window of time and as an ode to those that went before.

Elizabeth Wein wrote Code Name Verity, which was one of the first book crushes I had on this site and which I still recommend to people with a passion. Rosie Under Fire is the follow up and is as well-researched and well written as the first, although it doesn’t have the same plot device that made its predecessor so special. That said, it is a very powerful, thought-provoking read, desperately hard at times, due to the setting and the experiences of the MC. If anyone knows any teens who are studying history, and specifically World War Two, and particularly girls, these are so worth reading. That's another thing that I love about them: that they tell stories about the war that aren’t the norm. They’re about what the girls were doing for the war effort when the men went off to war, the horrors that they also came to face and the impact that it had on them.

Getting the girl - Again I have huge respect for the Markus Zusak, having read The Book Thief, but this book didn’t do very much for me. Beautiful words though. Sentences that you wish you'd written.

Sunlounger 2 – Nooooo, I am not going to review this one, because, I’m in it. BUT I will give it a mention for best value of the season.


The other things;
 One of these books I had a feeling I might have read before but had forgotten. I didn't like the MC. Perhaps I had cast it from my mind rather than just forgetting it. She was awkward and went out of her way to be unlikable, and so, guess what- I didn’t like her, or warm to her story. Maybe that was the point, and I reacted exactly the way the author wanted me to, but by the time the MC changed and the happy ending came, she'd lost me and I didn’t really care.

One of these books lead me to read the following parts of the trilogy, because of the cliff-hanger end and because I was being a sheep. I was so disappointed with the conclusion. I like a happy ending, I have never hidden that, and like Hunger Games, I didn’t get what I wanted here. Sometimes a "realistic" ending isn't what I paid my money for. I should just lay off these books. When will I ever learn..?

 In one of these books I found the language impressively menacing, but almost too obscure in places, so I wasn't quite sure what was being said, or what was going on or whether I am just too thick to keep up. I guess I don't like books that make me feel stupid.

 And so I am off to build me a new pile of books with likable MC’s who have happy endings, that don’t make me feel dim. With that criteria in mind, feel free to send recommendations.

99p Treat!

If anyone is interested, the Sunlounger 2 has been selected for the Amazon Summer sale and can be bought for the princely sum of just 99p here.

Combine that with Sunlounger 1, and that's 88 stories for less than £3. Yes, really, 88!

 That's Summer pool reading sorted right there!

Amazon Shenanigans

There's stuff going on over at Amazon at the moment. This  post is not about that. 

Last year I got tickled by a raft of reviews written on Amazon about the revolutionary biros for women. I posted about it here, and if you want a laugh, the reviews are worth reading and adding too. Go on, write one, it's liberating to blatantly fib now and again. And it counts as creative writing.

Well, it seems that Amazon are embracing it now, posting some of the other reviews they have had regarding some of the other items they sell, here.

( Yes I know it is a tenuous link to reading and writing, but I've flagged that that might happen, up there to the right in the profile. You were warned.)