Spring 14 Gut Reactions

Well it is another of those seasons where I feel I have raced through plenty of books and couldn’t remember that many of them. Perhaps I shouldn’t race so much. Perhaps I should read slower. But then when I sat down to write this I realised that I have really enjoyed the majority of them.

The pile looked like this:

 The additional books I read were

Moranthology by Caitlin Moran

Crash into you by Katie McGarry

Geekhood- Close Encounters of the Girl Kind by Andy Robb 

The tied Stars of the List were The Guestbook by Holly Martin, for its form (yeees, we know how I feel about form flexing) and It felt like a Kiss by Sarra Manning, because she just does great voice, and Moranthology because Moran can just say things in the most barkingly mad fashion but that makes perfect sense. If I could write in a combination of Moran and Manning, I would die happy.

Notable mentions go to;

How to get a (love) life by Rosie Blake for a great debut with laugh out loud moments.

Beautiful wedding by Jamie McGuire was good to revisit Travis and Abi’s characters. I think they are done now, but I am looking forward to the new series based on Travis’ brother Trent, starting with Beautiful Oblivion due out in July.

This song will save your life by Leila Sales and Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry, are both current YA Contemporary. Sale’s book was interesting as it wasn’t strongly bedded in romance. The focus was staunchly on the MC’s personal development, and was refreshing for it. McGarry’s book though following a more traditional plot line, took a look at the grittier side of teen life, here foster kids and mental health. As seems to be the current trend the main and supporting characters appear across other novels too, which is always a boon if you like them.

Hannah Tinti’s The Good Thief is a proper fairytale. There are orphanages, dwarves, mousetrap factories, assassin giants, body snatchers and lost fortunes, all wrapped up in a web of lies and thievery. What more do you need?  

Carrie Fisher's Surrender the Pink - Man can she turn a phrase...

And the other stuff;

  One of these books did not give me the happy ending that I deserved.

  One of these books I never made it past the fourth chapter as I couldn’t get into the voice.

 One of these books was fine, but not as good at the writer’s other books.

Onwards then, to the Summer TBR pile!!

My Writing Process Blog Hop

The lovely Elizabeth Dunn has tagged me to take part in the My Writing Process Blog Hop.

Liz is an MG/YA writer, journalist ,reader, teacher, lovely critiquer, barking mad Kiwi mum of thousands, and lucky enough to live in Venice. You can find her post here.

And so for the Blog Hop questions;

What am I working on? I've just finished the first draft - what I call my Vomit draft- of a full length ChickLit story. To date, the Women's Fiction I've written has been short stories between 650 words and 7000 words, so I wanted to see if I could actually spin out 100k words. And so I am letting that rest for a week or two before I start to strip it into something resembling a first draft and then we'll see if it has any scope to take further. In the meantime, I'm plotting something else, also Women's Fiction. So the cork-board is out and the index cards are charged and ready. I'm also considering trying this project out using Scrivener. Any tips anyone?

How does my work differ from others in the genre?  Ha! I don't know that it does, on the basis that I haven't read every book in the whole genre. What I have is my own voice and the way I see things. I can only really write the story I have, in the way that I have. I've tried projects before where I was deliberately trying to write the opposite to everything else I'd read and it tied me up in knots.

Why do I write what I do?  This one is difficult for me, as in my head I'm new to Women's Fiction. I started out writing for Children, then onto YA. As a side-line I write grown-up short travel stories which for some reason I didn't link with my bigger dream of writing novels.  Then I won a place in Belinda Jones' Sunlounger Anthology on a whim submission (full story here)

and it was only then that I thought that maybe this was where my writing voice is suited to. I'm still working it out, so we'll wait and see.     As to why I write, the answer is simple; I have all these little voices nattering in my head and I have to get them out. I love the dialogues and then I have to find settings for them. Batty but true.

How does my writing process work?  Yeah, still trying to work that one out too. I wrote a 75k word YA story, then promptly forgot how I did it, which had me floundering for a while. Now I write side notes on what I am doing, so I'll remember another time. Daft, yes, but forgetting is awful.

Currently, having recently acknowledged that I am a Planner not a Pantster, it looks roughly like this;

1)    Have the idea. Write it in notebook. Chat to myself about it in my daily entry in 750words.com. This should go on for some days if the idea is really going to get its claws in.

2)     Keep writing about the idea. This is more of a discussion with myself about how it could work, and brainstorming lots of ideas. I am not allowed to write dialogue at this point (some always slides in, but I tell myself I'm just illustrating a point, Ba-ha-ha!) because I am supposed to be working towards The Plot.

3)    Force myself to do an extra couple of days of The Brainstorming, as it still throws up more stuff and whittles out more.

4)    Get the board and the index cards out and stick a load up there. Then I see that there are loads of gaps, and I need more Chat. I go back to points 2/3. I try to add at least 2 cards a day to the board, until I have about 38ish. (This is all in Blake Snyder's Save the Cat, by the way)

5)    Don the writing boots on, and write every day, following The Path of The Plot. This is currently working at 2k a day. I get time off at the weekend to write other stuff, but only if I have reached my quota of 10k a week. I start using the 750words.com site, so I know I have to pitch up and write the first load of words and once I am in it, the remaining words just get bashed out. If I am faffing, I set the timer for 45 minutes, because it doesn’t sound as long as an hour and I am easily deluded.

That's it. That's My Writing Process. At the moment.

 Oh and I write wearing a pink plastic tiara, but everyone does that, right?

I'm tagging my Lovely Critique Partner Fairview for next week's blog hop post.
She writes US-based YA contemporary romance and award winning short stories. We met some three years ago via Maggie Stiefvater's Critiquing Love Connection, clicked and have have never looked back.

Catch her here  or at www.viewfromfairview.blogspot.com on the next stage of the Blog hop next Monday. 

Partytime!

Today I found myself in the realms of Writerdom, hobnobbing with the proper published, at the combined launch party for Belinda Jones' The Travelling Tea Shop and Sunlounger 2.

We took over Trader Vic's at the Hilton for some hours, and filled it with writers and bloggers of Women's Fiction. And cocktails. And amazing cupcakes.



Now, we saw at the last Sunlounger party that I am clearly not David Bailey's lovechild and my photographic skills are second to all, but here are a couple that give a smidge of the action.

Belinda Jones, Anna-Lou Wetherley, Laurey Buckland

Laurey Buckland, Jess Bickerton, Cress McLaughlin, Holly Martin, Lisa Dickinson

My throat is sore from chatting, there was lots of hugging and squeeing with people who I feel I've met before, but only know from t'internet, and I did plenty of Fangirling. But the thing that I brought home mostly, was how lovely this set of writers are. It doesn't feel like there is competition between them, as of course, they can't write the books fast enough to lay claim the market, and so everyone is supportive. Even of aspiring types like me. And to top it all off , there is this vast network of bloggers out there, who love the industry, support it and just want to see more coming their way.

Totally having the feels about the world of Women's Fiction today. And cocktails. And amazing cupcakes.

Incoming bloghop

I've been tagged for the My Writing Process blog hop and will be posting on Monday 26th May. I get to tag others when I am done, to post on the following Monday (2nd of June). Would any of you like to be tagged?

 Let me know, let me know...

P or P?

 So I haven’t been writing much here. Neglect- that is what it is. I admit that. But I have been writing. Like proper writing. 2k words a day, five days a week writing, which is record-breaking for me.

 I've been in the doldrums for an excruciatingly long time; starting things, then going off them; having ideas, squeeing about them for days, then waking up on the fifth day and not even remembering what it was about.  “Writing 100k words demands a bit more investment and belief than that,” I tell myself and move onto another idea. Nothing gets a chance to blossom, I get frustrated, put pressure on myself, contrive a new idea slightly inspired by whatever I happen to be reading at the time, desperately squee about it, then forget it and the cycle continues.

 So last October I’d had enough. Something needed to be done. I forced myself to pick three ideas and work on them for a week each, and then at the beginning of week four I just had to start writing on one of them. And right up to the Sunday night I thought it was going to be the Uni-based NA story, but when my fingers hit the keys on the Monday morning it was the Chicklit story that came out.  I was mooost surprised, I don't mind telling you. But off I went, and working to a basis of 1k words a day, (or rather 5k a week, however I could get that done.) Which I did, and by Christmas I had the first 50k words of a story. It had been a painfree experience, because I had known the direction of the story in my head. Then I hit the middle and floundered. Christmas became an excuse, but into January, I still hadn't picked it up.

 A rejection came in on my YA story "Strong characters, great voice, crystal clear scenes, weak plot." Ah yes. Plot. That old chestnut. I think in my heart of hearts I knew that there needed to be more plot, but was hoping that the other stuff would cloak it. Seems agents are rather more savvy than that.

  I had to get this plotting malarky sorted. Cue purchase of a couple of books, including Blake Snyder's Save the cat, which was clear, simple and helpful. Go buy it if you don’t’ have it. I finally did what I thought I could do in my head; I got the pin board out, bought the index cards and started working on the plot of the story. The biggest revelation for me was that though I thought I had a story with lots of fun/interesting scenes, when I stuck them up on the board that first time, I saw immediately that there weren’t actually that many, and that there were huge gaps in the board. I had been trying to run across a net, when I needed something more tightly woven.

 I appreciate that there are writers who plan and then there are writers that fly by the seat of their pants. If I have learnt anything then it is that I am no Pantser. (Is it Pantster? Whatever. I am not it.) I don't need to know every detail, but I need to have a clear route.

 Now I know where my story is going, I know what scenes still need writing. I can sit at the computer every day, set a 45 min timer and belt the words out. I've doubled the daily word count without any pain, and I am enjoying it all again. Come the Sunlounger meet-up this month, I'll be able to say that I have finished my first rough draft on a full length Chicklit novel and more to the point I know what I am doing going forward. Hurrah.


What about you? Plotter or Pantster?