From the Top

Yesterday, friends, I wrote just over one thousand words.

Photo Credit: danorbit. via Compfight cc

Once upon a time, this wouldn’t have made me happy at all. I’d have considered a day in which I ‘only’ wrote about a thousand words to be a failure. But now I know better. Now I know that one thousand words with which I’m pleased, one thousand words which I don’t immediately want to delete, is A Good Thing. It’s progress. It’s possibility.

Best of all, I wrote these one thousand words on a new story, one I’ve never tried to write before. It’s been in my head for just over a year, but I’ve only started really giving it brain-space over the past few weeks, drip-feeding it by reading and thinking and planning and allowing the characters and setting a little bit of space in my imagination. I’m not sure of every detail, and I only have a vague idea of what I want to happen, but I’m hoping that as I go things will become clearer, and as I get to know my characters their actions will drive the plot (because that makes for a better story, I think). The important thing is: I have the conflict. I have the antagonist, and what he wants, and I have the protagonists, and what they want, and these two sets of ‘wants’ are in opposition. I have bullies and family problems and school issues and illness, and I have friendship and loyalty and love. So, essentially, I have everything I need.

It’s like preparing a giant stew: I have all my ingredients on the workbench, gleaming and shining and full of colour and life, and I just have to put them all into the mix at the right time and in the right proportion and – fingers crossed – the finished product will taste wonderful.

That, as they say, is the plan.

This story is different from ‘Emmeline’ insofar as it’s set in our world – i.e. the children are contemporary, and they’ll have all the trappings of modern twelve-year-olds. This doesn’t mean there won’t be a fantastical element to the story – c’mon. This is me we’re talking about here. Of course there will. But I love stories which show that sometimes the scariest aspect of getting through adolescence isn’t the idea that there’s a scary monster in the shadows, but the fact that your parents aren’t speaking, or there are money problems, or someone is unwell, or all of the above. I love stories (The Skull in the Wood is a really good one) which interweave the real with the fantastical, and show that sometimes there’s no difference when it comes to how scary things can get, and in fact the real problems you’re facing can outweigh the fantastical without any effort.

I have a really clear mental image of the setting for this story, too (not least because it’s based on a real place, not too far from me) and I think that helps to get a handle on the story. There’s a certain freedom in writing a story set in a made-up landscape, or one which exists but which you’ve never been to and must, therefore, imagine, but I’m finding I like the idea of writing a tale based loosely on a place I’ve seen and can visualise clearly. It’s not a fancy setting, either; it’s about as far from exotic as can be imagined. But that, strangely, is why I like it so much.

Anyway. This story is a proto-zygote; it barely exists. Hence, this blog post must be brief and rather uninformative. Also, I really want to get back to the work of writing, and so I’m going to sign out now with a fond adieu, in the hope that today will go as well as yesterday and that I’ll have more good news to share as the week goes on. I’m going to slowly edge my way into this tale, knowing that I have written and completed one book of which I’m proud, and there’s nothing stopping me from doing it again.

(Nothing but myself, that is, and my own fear and flailing, so it’s time to stop all that old nonsense, and just get the words on the page. Right? Right).

Photo Credit: Lua Ahmed via Compfight cc

Off I go, then. See you later!

 

Do the Maths*

When you’re at the beginning of a month, the days seem to stretch out before you like a perfect, verdant valley, rich and lush and full of possibility. The unknown landscape beckons, drawing you in. ‘Look! Here’s a little hidden lake. Isn’t it pretty?’ or ‘I bet you didn’t see this fantastic rock formation coming, did you?’ You’re encouraged to skip and dawdle and tiptoe through the tulips, and all that other time-wasting stuff.

Speaking of time – it feels like you have loads of the stuff, that you’re dripping in it and that, when you need it, there’ll be more – as much as you could ever want.

Image: wattpad.com

However, none of this is, in fact, the truth.

I thought, at the beginning of November, that I’d have time to complete NaNoWriMo – all my other commitments taken into consideration. However, yesterday I sat down and did a little scribbled ‘timetable’ for the rest of the month, breaking down the amount of working days I have left and the amount of words I have yet to write.

 

Image: sodahead.com

I realised, in a sort of sudden and painful way, that I don’t have as much time as I thought, and I have a lot more words to do than I realised.

Having said that, I am now up to just over 22,000 words, which is 22,000 more than I had two weeks ago. That’s nothing to sneeze at. However, it also means I have 28,000 more to write before November 30, and I only have twelve days (possibly fewer) during which I am free to write. No matter what way you look at those numbers, they don’t crunch very well.

I really want to finish NaNoWriMo, and to get these 50,000 words written. I like the idea I’m working on very much, though I’ll be the first to admit it needs tightening – edits and rewrites and reshaping all need to be done before I can call it properly finished. I think, though, with a bit of work, this idea could turn into another book which I’ll be able to start querying in the new year. I have discovered a character I love, a little boy who calls himself ‘Thing’ because nobody ever gave him a name, and whose dialogue is effortless to write; he is brave, sparky, independent and dealing with a deep, painful rejection which he hasn’t found himself able to share with anyone just yet. I always knew I’d love Emmeline Widget, the little girl whose life is turned upside down when her parents go missing, and who is determined to find them not because of anything soppy like love or loneliness, but because they belong to her, and nobody else is allowed to take them; Thing, however, was a revelation.

The plot is going in unexpected ways, too. So far, nothing I’d pre-planned has actually ended up happening. I realise it’s early days yet (in terms of the creation of an entire book, if not my NaNoWriMo schedule) but I like this sense of improvisation, and the feeling that the characters are driving the plot. In that sense, doing NaNoWriMo – starting out on a project without any clear ambition to turn it into something, just writing it because you want to – is a brilliantly freeing and creatively fulfilling thing.

Also, several people have let me know that they enjoyed my little excerpt from the book, which I posted last Friday. If you’d like to see a little more – perhaps the chapter where Emmeline and Thing meet for the first time – I’d be happy to post it here. As always, criticism (gently worded!) would be welcome.

Now, it’s back to the coalface for me. Have a great Thursday.

 

*Math, if you’re American, though the word sounds utterly illogical to me.

There Goes the Sun

The heatwave is over.

It Cannot BE!
Image: knowyourglow.com

Yes – it is true. Ireland has returned to its normal grey, slightly damp self. In some ways this is a terrible shame, but in a lot of others, it’s a blessing. It plays with one’s head, you see, to look around one’s country and see it behaving like a Grecian sea resort; it’s discombobulating. It’s made me feel like I’ve been walking around upside-down for the past few weeks. Of course, it was great to have the sun, and I will miss it, but I’m sure it’ll be back. Sometime in the next decade or so, that is.

In other news, work has been progressing nicely on ‘Tider Mark II’, as I’ve taken to calling it. I’m currently at 34,000 words, so more or less halfway through Draft 1. I’ve actually been enjoying the writing of it, this time around; every time I sit down to write, I do so with no real idea where that day’s work is going to take me, and I have to say I’m charmed by the freshness of this approach. I don’t feel like my plotting and planning is stunting the progression of the story. Instead, the characters are driving the action, and I think that’s good. Of course, it’s only a Draft 1 – there is a lot of work to be done, evident even at this early stage, in ‘filling in detail’, particularly at the beginning. I’m confident, though, that this can be done during subsequent drafts. That’s the benefit of having been deeply immersed in this story and this world before, I suppose – I know I can do it, because I’ve done it already, if that makes any sense. Already, I like this version of the story more. It’s free of unnecessary embellishment and all the sub-plots that added nothing but bulk to the book, and it’s far more tightly focused on the important things – i.e. the protagonist, her family, and the danger they’re placed in by the actions of those who are jealous of their power and influence and who want to bring them down at any cost. Plus, there’s more running and chasing and action and time-travel and a whole lot of other excellent and very fun stuff, and that can never be a bad thing.

Also, the other day, I started to form another tiny seedling of an idea. It was a first sentence, actually, that dropped into my mind unbidden, the first sentence of a new story completely unknown to me. It’s the same feeling you get when you read the first sentence of a crisp new book and it draws you in, absorbing you completely, making you desperate to find out more – except it’s even more exciting, because you know this is a book that hasn’t been written yet, and which is dependent on you to bring it to life. It’s been a while since I had a new idea, and it was beginning to worry me a little; I’m glad, then, that this ‘green shoot’ has appeared. My dusty old brain isn’t as dessicated as it might appear.

Image: anitadefonte.wordpress.com

So, I hope I’ll be finished ‘Tider Mark II’ Draft 1 (it’s getting a bit complicated now, apologies for that) in the next few weeks. Then, I can put it to one side and think again about sending ‘Eldritch’ to another swathe of agents, and keep on top of my competition entries. Then, excitingly, it might be time to start another new project altogether – but which one will it be..?

I guess all you can do is stay tuned!

Happy Tuesday, everybody.