Baby Steps

I've been (yet again) reviewing my list of 'things to do'. And I've come to the conclusion that I've set myself up to fail. I don't know whether it's a hang up from previous employment where it was so target orientated there wasn't time to breathe, or, if it's because subconsciously I want to say 'Look How Busy I am!' and collapse in a heap. What I do know is that I've become so pole axed by the list of actions I'm actually not doing a lot at all. Zilch in fact. Browsing the internet, downloading programmes which I will probably never use and generally just wasting time. So how, I asked myself this morning, is that going to help me get any writing done? Well it isn't.
The trouble is like many 'amateur' writers I look at the authors I admire and read about their non-stop writing habits and how they churn out hundreds of best sellers every year, month, week. Well, that's what it says in my head. I don't think it's actually true. 
It's not about motivation either, because I'm naturally partial to writing, I do write everyday, but I don't particularly do anything constructive with my writing. Well, that's not true either, I do submit to competitions and markets, but I'm easily defeated by a rejection. So I thought I need to re-look at what I want to get done versus everything needs to be done and take little baby steps towards achieving them. 
So my revised approach for the next month is to:

• Continue with daily journal - including my Monday Muses - as this gives me ideas for stories, characters and helps me 'write things out'.
• Revisit The Good Life  stories and submit a couple to Writers Abroad for critique 
• Edit  synopsis and first three chapters of The Promise for submission to an agent
• Re-start my work on Morning Gift at 1000 words per week
• Continue to meet the challenge of four short story submissions per month  
• Blog weekly on her and Joe Bloggs  - signing up to do a daily blog is not one of my priority writing tasks 

I feel better already!

Later...

March Martian BlogFest

I'm feeling pretty smug. Despite quite a disrupted month, what with a cold and a visit to the UK, I've managed five submissions this month.

1. 'Seven Rivers' a short story about a little boy and his passion for Indians to My Weekly
2. 'Hungry for Love' a very short flash (150 words) about love at first sight to the Binnacle Prize
3. 'Behind Closed Doors' a solemn piece about abuse to Flash 500 
4. 'Size Zero'  a tongue in cheek flash piece about our obsession with weight to Glass Woman Prize
5. 'No Going Back'  a short story about absent mothers to the Bristol Prize

The common denominator to all these stories are that they have all been critiques by my pals over at Writers Abroad, so with their input I have increased my chances far more than if I'd just ploughed ahead without feedback. So, having fulfilled (and exceeded by one) my commitment to Write1Sub1 I'm now a March Martian!  Feels pretty good, but should I look a pukey shade of green?

Later...

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - FOREIGN FLAVOURS

Well, it's that time again, doesn't seem like five minutes since the last Anthology! 
Writers Abroad, my online writing community,  is a group of talented and supportive writers. We are all ex pat in one sense or another and crave for the company of other like minded writers looking to develop our 'voice' in  a variety of ways. Because of where we live, the traditional writing groups are not available, so we set up a virtual one! We are eighteen months young and I for one have learnt so much in such a short time about a subject I adore. And I'm still learning and probably always will! We have members from all around the world, but we are small in number and that's for a good reason. We are a very active group, have regular weekly prompts, monthly challenges and much, much more... and of course we publish an annual anthology. Well. last year was the first time and we liked it so much, we're doing it again! We've just had an article about our experiences published in the April edition of Writers News, so we're getting our name about too!


Anyway onto the Anthology - details can be found on the site, but in a nutshell:
Theme - Food, drink and cooking around the World
Genre - Short Fiction (including flash) up to 1700 words and non-fiction up to 1000 words
Deadline - 9th September 2011 (plenty of time)
Submissions - Ex pat writers and those who have been at some time or another
Fee/Prize - no fee and no prize but proceeds from publication will be donated to The Book Bus
Oh, and forgot to mention, Rhodesian born writer and author of the No 1 Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith, will be writing our foreword!


Visit the site for more details and I'll keep you posted here as well...


Until Later.

Writing Awards

As part of an incentive to increase my submissions of short stories and therefore increase my chances of publication, I signed up to a blog called Write1Sub1 which I blogged about a few weeks ago. 


Well, in February I met the challenge and having subbed four stories I received a February Fahrenheit Award! The award is named after a book written by the revered Mr Bradbury on whose approach this idea of writing and submitting stories is based on. As part of this all award winners were asked to visit a least two other writers who had made it, and congratulate them on their success. 
Imagine my surprise when yesterday I discover I've been presented with another award 'a lovely blogger' award from one of the writers I congratulated. So that's two awards in as many weeks, which although is not quite reaching the dizzy heights of publication, it is some sort of progress after all. All I have to do now is nominate fifteen blogs to receive the award and share the love. Someone said that these awards were just like a glorified chain mail letter - I always delete those - but it sure feels good! So thanks to Deborah Walker.


And, if that isn't enough to keep my inspiration flowing and motivation firing, a story of mine was long-listed in the Brighton Cow Flash Fiction competition. Apparently they'd had a huge number of submissions and increased the winners and prizes in response. 
Now the standard has been set, can I continue to meet it? I have so far submitted one short story to My Weekly, have two short stories almost ready for submission and a piece of  very short flash fiction simmering away... lets see what turns up next week.
Until Later 

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW?

It's been a funny kind of week. A bit start and stoppy, you know the kind I mean? But nevertheless, I've been writing - of a sorts!


I have almost completed two short stories, one for submission to a competition with a theme very close to my heart 'A Foreigner in Italy'.
It's being run by a couple who own the The Watermill at Posara in Tuscancy. They host writing and painting workshops and have created the Posara Prize. 
I started thinking about this submission what seems like a lifetime ago - very unusual for me. And, here we are two days (and counting) from the deadline date of the 28th February and I've filled pages and pages with... words. I've chosen to submit fiction as opposed to non-fiction and I've been writing it in the first person, to try and create a personal kind of view. I've also set it in winter (doesn't everybody think 'sun' when they read Italy) and here in the hidden depths of Le Marche. Maybe I should have chosen Venice and the Carnevale! 


I thought I would be able to write reams and reams but actually it's been the hardest piece of writing I've done in a long time, and most days its hard! It reminded me of the Writers Abroad Anthology last year, where we as ex-pat writers chose the theme of ex-pat life to create short stories from. We all found it incredibly hard to fictionalise it, despite all our experiences of writing fiction. How strange. Maybe it just feels a little too close to home despite the advice to 'write what you know'. 
The second piece, is a lighter piece which started as a Monday Muse (another Writers Abroad thing) and is targeted at My Weekly with a family kind of theme (involving chocolate)..
In my other writing 'moments' I've been pontificating on 'The Promise' and have started to review the outline and overall plot. I've already decided to change the title (more later) but I've got no further than creating a 15 word summary of the book - the first step of the Snowflake method.


Talking off the white stuff, snow is forecast for the weekend and it's so cold here in my office, that I can't feel the tips of my fingers. So I can see myself wrapping up like an Eskimo and locking myself in until the I've ticked all the boxes... I think I'm almost there.


Until Later...

JOURNAL WRITING

Along with working on some of the more technical aspects of writing, like plot, I've made a return to some things I'd let drop.
I've always written a diary, since a young teenager when my main aim was to talk to my secret little book like a best friend. I would spill my heart out, confess my worries and angst and generally treat it like a confessional. Those recordings, unfortunately have all been lost (I think I remember having a ritual bonfire). 
I picked up journal writing again some years later, when I discovered my mum had always kept a diary. I remember seeing her scribbling away but like many things she did, I didn't take much notice then. As she now has dementia and barely recognizes me, her observations back then are probably all the more poignant. I still keep what I call a 'life diary', where every week I record what's been going on, a little like a blog I suppose. I also have a travel diary, much less used these days, for trips away and mementos of happy times spent exploring new places.


Six, or maybe seven years ago, when I finally gave myself the permission to write as I'd always wanted I started a morning journal. This journal recorded dreams, first thoughts, ideas about stories or characters. Little things that filled my mind at the start of the day. For some reason for the past few months, maybe longer, I've let it slip and only came back to it when reminded of morning journals while browsing the web. Well, where else would I come across it! 


For the past week I've picked up my journal, uncapped my fountain pen and sat writing before I've even thought past finishing my early morning brew. And it feels good to be back not only because when I do sit down to write I've cleared out all the clutter, but whilst this tidy up is going on, I make progress on some of the projects I've been working on. This week I've tinkered with seven different short stories of varying lengths and written a new piece of flash fiction. Plus I've begun editing 'The Promise', my second wartime novel.
Three of these pieces are about to be submitted for competitions which is a great way to end the week.


Despite inky fingers, I shall fiercely protect my morning muse as part of daily routine, come what may...

WRITING DECISIONS

Plotting, Submitting and Hibernation
It's not been a bad week. I'm working on several short stories at the moment and sometimes it's hard not to let them blend into one huge story. So every now and then I just put them all to one side and do something different. 


Having skimmed through the email plotting course I talked about last Monday here are three things that I've been playing about with.

• Start with a character. Without a character (at least one) there is no plot! I've made this my starting or returning point for all my stories this week. 
• I've thrown out the stuff written about 'basic plot outlines' - I read somewhere this week that these aren't plots, they are a series of conflicts which help to create and develop the plot. I was beginning to get a bit hung up about that which means no writing. How sad is that. Instead I shall think about the problems my character could have and what they might do to solve them.
• I've also ditched the 3 Act Structure,  again I became caught up in the technicalities. So for a simple soul like me, it's will be Beginning, Middle and End but after I have some idea of my character and their conflicts.  

I've taken this approach with the stories I've worked on this week and I have made great inroads. That's not to say the course I've been reading through is rubbish. I've just made some decisions about how it best works for me and I will continue with lessons 4-7 next week.

I now have three short stories which are coming together plus I've reviewed another short piece of fiction for submission today (part of my Write 1 Sub 1). And I've finally decided to put my first draft novel (All Will Be Well) into hibernation. It's not working and again, I'm tying myself up in knots with it. I just need to forget about it and learn from the process. Maybe in years to come I'll pick it up again, but now just isn't right.

Until Later...