NaNo Diaries: Day Ten

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6:02am
Word Count: 2443 (Total over 20k)

Treats: An hour of reading this afternoon
Exercise: Fence building at sparrows *art
Word of the Day: LASSITUDE noun
1. weariness of body or mind from strain, oppressive climate, etc.; lack of energy; listlessness; languor.
2. a condition of indolent indifference: the pleasant lassitude of the warm summer afternoon.

I got told off this morning for setting my clock a little fast (only ten minutes) but it confused poor Simon! I like to set clocks a little fast. Somehow it convinces me that I have more time. More fool me. The big dogs (gigantic in fact) have been getting out the last couple of days. We don't mind them being out, but the Italians are scared stiff of them. Bertie and Freya are two of the softest canines I've had the pleasure of knowing but still, when in Rome. So we were out mending fences at 6.45 this morning, slipping in the early morning dew.  

The bowl above is my random prompt generator. Scientific isn't it? At the end of my writing day (usually after this is posted) I ask Simon to select one bit of scrunched up paper. On the paper is a number from 1- 30 and on Scrivener I have thirty writing prompts. So for example yesterday was no 27. So that is the prompt I wrote to this morning. Simples. A bit like me really. 

Ciao for Now.

NaNo Diaries: Day Seven

Sunset At Saline This Evening

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6.24
Word Count: 1000 (Total 14097) 
Treats: I'm just sipping on a spritzy G&T 
Exercise: In the garden, all day
Word of the Day: MAUKA  Adverb. 1. Hawaii. toward the mountains; inland.





Just come in from a day in the garden. First job was to erect some pea netting. Always involves a of blue air. Don't know why it's so difficult, just is. Not helped by Naughty Nell and chooks digging up the peas I had sown! Grrr.
Then we had to prune the Goji berry bushes. Another hateful job. They are full of spikes and my arms look like a pin cushion. Wouldn't mind if I liked the fruit but I don't. The Italians love them and they are quite expensive to buy - no wonder, they are letal!  And then of course there was the obligatory bonfire.
Finally we weeded a fairly large herb patch into which I'd thrown some wild flower seeds into at the beginning of the year. Shan't do that again.

We've just some in and as you can see the sun has begun to set. I'm too tired for a second NaNo session today, but I'm ahead of the game, so I don't feel so bad. I really enjoyed my morning prompt though and being in the garden has freed my mind and I have lots of juicy ideas. Just need to remember them!

Ciao for Now

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover?

Producing a book is not just about writing a story, as many of you know. That is only a small part of the many processes that take place, albeit a very important one. When you choose to self publish your book, you can add many more 'things to do' to what seems a never ending list. Designing a book cover is one of them. Even if you employ someone with the skills to do this you will still have to think about what you want the cover to convey to a potential reader. 


For me, covers are very important. I will choose a book purely by what I see on the front, without reading the blurb. (I used to read the last line *Shock!Horror!* until my husband convinced me it wasn't a good thing to do). 
For The Duke's Shadow, I did pay someone to produce the end result, because I felt overwhelmed with getting my debut novel out. I spend a long time looking for images and settings which I thought would a) say something about the overall theme of the novel, and b) entice the reader to look inside. And as you can see, it was well worth the money.




I'm planning to release 'The Good[Expat}Life on Wattpad as a serial, as I want to gather some feedback before I publish it in October. I still need a cover and this time I've created a simple cover myself in Publisher using a pencil caricature of Penny and George (the two main characters) played about with colours and fonts and this is the result.

It sounds easy, but actually it has taken me probably two maybe three days in total to get to this stage. But I've enjoyed using a different creative process and, for me anyway, it does what it says on the tin. The jury is out and I still believe that you have to have a good story, however slick the cover may be. What do you think?

Until Later, 

The Good (Expat) Life

The Good {expat}Life is one of the projects I'm working on at the moment. It's a humorous contemporary story about Penny and George who have to make a choice between their life in England and their retirement plan in Italy when their business falls flat on its face. They can't afford to keep both and they bravely decide on new beginnings, helped by best friends Daphne and Roger. 

To say that the story is loosely based on the truth is a bit of an understatement, Penny and George live out some of the experiences and situations we may have endured since moving to Italy almost seven years ago. And I can say that I do identify with Penny, though I don't think I'm quite as tough on Simon. He, of course may beg to differ. All the characters are based on a mish-mash of people, a trait here, a habit there and a splash of physical features and abracadabra! So to all the friends (and others) that I have met here, I can put hand on heart and say I defy them to identify with one of the characters. What they may see is a hint of others they know, but one rule of writing is never to use a real person. So apologies, but if you want to audition for a role in the TV sitcom, happy for you to apply.  

Most people, those who don't live abroad, have a very rose tinted vision of people like us who have moved away from our natural home. Mainly they think that we have a swimming pool - ha! First we couldn't afford the maintenance, never mind the installation. And our land slopes downwards, a little tricky unless we were going to install a water ride. And, apparently, we sit on our terraces, sipping Prosecco until the sun goes down after a day at the beach basking in the sun. Well, the odd day may be spent like that, but more often than not we're growing and picking vegetables (cheaper), strimming (initially with two old hand scythes that were left here along with a number of other hand-made tools) the two acres of field-like land that is loosely called our 'garden' and feeding an array of abandoned animali that we've adopted. 
But like Penny and George, we wouldn't swap it for the world.

More about P & G later...

NaNoWriMo 2013 Beckons

Yes, I know it's been an awfully long time since I posted but there are two things that have prompted my need to blog.

Firstly NaNoWriMo 2013 kicks off in a little more than a day and I've signed up. Last year, my darling Simon was ill and I had to give up on November 5th. But all is well now and after a stressful start to 2013 I finally feel as though I have my writing MoJo back.

Secondly, the return of my MoJo has resulted in a complete critique of my 2011 NaNo novel, The Duke's Shadow, which I am now preparing for self publication. More on that in a later post...

So I'm hoping that I can encourage you to stay with me and hopefully, I'll be able to attract more of you to help me shout about my publications.