Aspiring Author & Life Juggler
You carried me without complaint,
Through mud and miles you’ve been a saint.
Your heaving ribs I now will rest,
My wound is deep, no longer the best
Partner to you, my trusted steed,
Colleague, transport, friend indeed.
(Photo credit – Telegraph today showing new statue in Romsey’s Memorial Park)
Beautiful .. and rather poignant 💫
I still remember it so clearly; the heady joy of discovering I was pregnant; the overwhelm of a love that was almost painful the first time I held my baby. It seemed unfathomable back then to think of a time I’d be without my children. First steps, first words. Sticky toddler kisses, teenage uncertainty as they tried to navigate their way in the world and then, later, it was me who was uncertain and afraid as I took my second child to university. The heartbreak as I drove away in a car that was too empty. Too quiet. Back to a house that looked exactly the same but felt somehow different.
I felt somehow different.
A mother bird with an almost empty nest.
It was difficult initially to sift through my feelings. What was real and what was imagined. What thoughts were coming from ego, of which there were many:…
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I’m reflecting on this time last year. I’d just joined an online writers group and they were all chatting away about something I thought was one of their Nana’s poetry classes, true story 😂
I tentatively made some enquiries and it turned out that the National Novel Writing Month (of November) was started in the US by some buddies who wanted to encourage those thinking about writing a novel to simply sit down and thrash out a first draft. No editing, no worrying about the plot, just get it down. In 50,000 words. In one month. Simples.
While there are sceptics who suggest you might be better to type slower and more methodically, reducing the need to eliminate rushed writing from your manuscript at a later date, many do still join the thousands each year because they know that writing communities help each other. This is like one mother fudge writing retreat in which we can all, and will be, posting wordcounts and encouraging each other through the tough days. 1,666 words a day sounds do-able, until you get left behind because life happened to get in the way.
Last year, around this time, I looked in awe at the writers who had planned and plotted and knew what scenes they would write on which days whereas I simply dived in at the deep end and started spewing words out.
The result became the basis for my present WIP, of which I am proud, and this year I wish to progress the wordcount during the weeks of NaNo (unofficially as you have to be working on a brand new project to register with the site).
There are many guides to help approach what we all admit is quite an extreme form of creative writing, and I have a copy of this book on my kindle by Megg Geri.
Megg’s site is really worth a visit if you’ve not been over yet. Full of fun tips and a book club and all sorts of editing and writerly offerings 🌸
This time around I know what NaNo means and what it stands for. Yet have I done any planning? A little…. and even some of those post-its have fluttered to the floor and mingled in with the to-be-but-never-will-be ironing pile 🙄
I’m going to have to be much more self-disciplined about blogging and insta and FB if I’m to give time to this. I did read some more of Megg’s tips in the bath last night, so I’m on the right lines!
I’ve warned Man of the Woods that I shall need to be left in peace for periods of the day. He pointed out he walks the little dog twice a day even now for at least an hour and what was I spending that time doing if not writing? He has a point… I am so disorganised.
My basic efforts daily will include:-
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Who else is preparing, mentally and any other way?
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“While I appreciate your efforts darling, when I said ‘masked crusader’ I was thinking more along the lines of ….. Zorro?”
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Thank you to the lovely Linda G Hill for the chance to be part of #1linerWednesday
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On waking, the moaning which had kept her awake in to the early hours, had ceased.
In its place were noises of an average morning in the neighbourhood – dogs barking, mopeds sputtering up one way-streets against the arrows, a distant knocking of nails into wood on an unrestricted building site and the faint swish of traffic on the main road a few miles away.
She could smell the air was different. Seagulls cawed and screeched their agreement as they waited on surprisingly supportive upright yellow legs for fishermen to arrange their nets for the day.
Smaller birds sprinkled palm trees with a chattering which became louder when she focused on it.
Then it started. The pitiful moan, almost inaudible if you’d not heard it before.
But Lara had shuddered for hours under only a sheet in the heat while desiring the coziness of a duvet.
The distinct slap of human hand sliced the air and even the birds became momentarily silenced. A woman’s gasp cut short and Lara’s heart lurched in her chest.
She held her breath and waited. Something horrible was happening. Nearby.
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Morning my lovelies!! Now, why, when I am presented with these beautiful sites on the first morning of my mini break in Spain, do I come up with a piece of flash fiction evidently going into the dark depths once again 😂. oooh, I just love subjects like that.
However, what I am really here to do is progress my manuscript. I feel prepared;
My laptop was on charge all night.
I have my critique report through which I am working.
I made notes last week for new chapters so I have bare bones to work from that the Reader who produced the critique hasn’t even seen
I want to be true to YOU and show you I can progress this thing.
Happy typing and creative writing all of you fiction writing buddies 🖌
Let’s make a pact here and now – to encourage each other between now and Monday lunchtime when I have to leave, to have increased our wordcount 🥂
Your wordcount or your life? I jest. Obviously.
My wordcount now is: 25,207
Tell me in comments what your present wordcount is and where you’d like it to go in four days?
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I challenge you to a wordcount update;
Mike2all a blogger who is reinventing his brilliant fiction born some years ago, now with the hindsight of more life lived, more miles cycled and mental health studied .. I love this man’s writing 👏🏼
JonBeckett a travelling family man and a writer with a passion for fiction. Great tone in his posts, I know I’m going to enjoy what he creates.
Joseph Beech a blogger with an intriguing mind, creating fiction from a science-based world where he works but is often found to be thinking outside the box 📦
ALittleBookProblem a book reviewer who is also writing fiction 🖌
The breath of a thousand histories whisper on the surface, while sleek silver bodies sing their moment in time against the flow.
A rippling mirror gifts me the sky, roots reach down the banks into liquid life and I dream of you…
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Oh God 🤡 and good morning to you too! … Man of The Woods’ attempt to scare me on waking in a beautiful Shropshire setting, almost on the border to Wales.
I adore apple maps… I adore apples too and don’t eat enough of them.
This one MoW picked for me last night as we dutifully took a drive around the farm to check on all the baby crops’ progress. He likes (and needs) to check whether the early shoots of rapeseed oil plants have been ravaged by slugs or flea beetle.
Messing about in the stream at the camp site was fun and I took my present read, Katerina Diamond’s The Secret. This is one gritty read, plenty of blood and guts with occasional graphic descriptions of abuse by the bad guys.
You know how I love a dark read and this delivers!
If you’re more of a Rosemary & Thyme viewer, you may enjoy it less than if you prefer an episode of Luther. However the writing is worthy of mention because the plot unfolding keeps you on the edge of your seat, a who-can-you-trust type of thread.
Katerina weaves two stories into the pages, two years apart, and naturally towards the end, she brings them together with plenty of OMG, really? moments.
Detective Imogen Grey is the main character in all three of Katerina’s books in this series and the third, The Angel, I have ready to go. The first, The Teacher, I have yet to read but they do stand alone so it’s not the end of the world to read them out of order.
I took this from the passenger seat and being away with both your adult children and their respective other halves is a real treat. The fact they are happy to spend precious time off work with us means the world.
Shropshire is not an area I’ve been to much and we shall definitely be going back, when the farming calendar allows MoW another break.
While this is all very nice, I’ve work to do.
En route to the camp site, I made lots of notes about moving chapters about within my WIP, in response to the brilliant feedback I received a week ago. I’m going to start with one of my favourite chapters, which I hope includes a great hook, lots of questions for the reader but contains the emotion needed to captivate their attention. We meet Antonio in this chapter, rather than Martha. Her first chapter was sweet, with a little mystery.
It was Rosemary & Thyme.
I want Luther 🎯
Sex is a big big seller. We know that, don’t we? I look at this photo below and imagine myself as Grace Kelly in a fifties scenario, glamorous, confident and oozing sex-appeal (when really I look more like Worzel Gummidge on a good day, often interrogate my newfound self-esteem as if it went awol while on parade, and usually stink of horse wee (that’s the downside of running my business – an equine rug laundry service).
However … a girl can dream. I was researching the submission guidelines for Harlequin Mills & Boon last Friday and found, within their bossom as it were, a sister publisher who is on the lookout for erotic novellas.
Rather than haughtily scroll on past, I decided to read more about what they were looking for to satisfy their readers (my self esteem crawled onto my shoulder and also took a good look and together we worried about my father-in-law walking in at any moment and the list of requirements would somehow jump out and slap itself against his face:
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If my followers on WordPress are still with me, all 3 of you, may I ask you a question? You may not search out erotic titles over your classics but I bet there’s a teeny tiny part of you that begrudgingly, occasionally wafts your eyes across a so-called piece of cheeky prose? No?
Oh, well do you watch gritty dramas and maintain a blank face while secretly loving every minute of it?
I’m thinking along the lines of BODYGUARD running on BBC1 starring Keeley Hawes as The Home Secretary (when is the final part? I daren’t miss it 😍).
That was written by an author, screenwriter, call them what you will, long before it hit our screens and are we saying we would not read it in print form, even if we have our tongues hanging out at the screen action? (Oh, maybe that’s just me then 🙈)
What gave me the feeling that I might be able to create some fiction which this publisher might consider? I have absolutely no idea, but the idea grew and grew. I could see the characters and where they were when they met. They were doing ordinary things at the time.
My USP?
A ‘normal’ size, ‘average’ size girl … has a role as a dancer in a gentleman’s club (not every man prefers a size 8-10).
There’s a lot more to this character besides her dancing 😈 btw.
So… I started writing it Saturday.
.. and just kept going …
Today I typed the words THE END, which one day I’d like to type when I finish draft 1 of THE KEY TO VERONA but we all know I get stuck on that.
This thing just flowed … my fingers couldn’t get words typed fast enough. What does this say about me? 😬 (take more water with it?).
It says that in just a few hours, I can produce nearly 15,000 words on a project I’m enjoying 💫
Okay, the publisher might spit their coffee across the table when they receive my submission soon (I wish to sit on it for a few days and caress it into the perfect shape for them), throw it out with the trash and say ‘garbage! Go away and write about the red arrows and the angles their smoke trails make in the sky for Maths Monthly.’
It was fun though (Man of the Woods is avoiding me today … he’s rather tired 😂🙈)
