NaNo Diaries: Day Thirteen

Evil Eye Tree in Turkey said to ward off harm

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6.17am
Word Count: 2454 (Total - 26,250)
Treats: Simon making risotto for lunch, Chestnut and Mushroom
Other Activity: Not a lot, feeling a tad under the weather.
Word of the Day: SAPORIFIC adjective 1. producing or imparting flavour or taste.




Friday the thirteenth. Good job I'm not superstitious and that tree looks scary! My maternal grandmother, Hettie was terribly superstitious. She would allow us to open umbrellas in the house, nor walk on cracks in pavements and even prevented my mother from getting married in May (Marry in May, rue the day). As my parents celebrated fifty years of marriage, maybe she was right. We have lots of black cats here in out feral cat community and the Italians are very wary of them, instead of bringing luck they signify evil. 

Anyway, despite a bit of a stop start to my writing session this morning - where poor Simon got a bit of a roasting for asking me where the sellotape was - I managed to pen a good word count. The trouble is when your concentration is pierced by the slightest thing when your're in mid flow, you can never recover that moment. Still I went on to write and enjoyed the session so maybe not so bad after all. My poor husband will be so glad when November is over... He's a star.

Ciao for Now

NaNo Diaries: Day Eleven

In Memory of Harry John Lamb 

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6.31am
Word Count: 1706 (Total - 21,147)
Treats: An Apple Strudel with a cappuccino
Exercise: Dog walking - it's enough to just watch Naughty Nell!
Word of the Day: LOGOPHILE noun 1. a lover of words. (very appropriate)








I always think of my grandfather, or Pops as he was fondly know, on this day. He fought in the First World War and was awarded for bravery. He was only nineteen at the time so goodness knows what he felt at the time. The strange thing is he never spoke about it to my Dad and he only found out he had a bravery award when his brother died in my Dad's eightieth year. How difficult it must be for all those serving in the armed services in years gone by as well in our time. How brave they are and how lucky we are to have them protecting us and our families.

I've discovered I am a creature of habit. Aren't we all? Just a little bit?  I'm on day 52 of my morning pages and still find plenty to write about and into the eleventh day of NaNo and haven't (yet) fallen off the track. I've been trying to write my target first thing in the morning. Before anything else gets in the way. I've been scribbling ideas for ten minutes (using the random prompt selected by Simon the night before) and then had two 25 minute sessions where I've written on average around 2500 words. The emphasis is on words and not a polished story by any means. But today I couldn't do that and so started my writing at half past three this afternoon. It was a bit of slog, despite feeling energised by a walk with the dogs, and a dip in my word count too. Never mind, life is like that, veering off here and there. Writing is also about flexibility!

Ciao for Now

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 Six

My Writing Desk... in the Dining Room

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6.32 
Word Count:2106 (Total 13097) 
Treats: Stopped for cappuccino and croissant while out shopping.
Exercise: Another walk in the woods 
Word of the Day: CREPUSCULAR (adjective) 1. of, relating to, or resembling twilight; dim; indistinct. 2. Zoology. appearing or active in the twilight, as certain bats and insects.

The lie in was not planned this morning but Naughty Nell woke us as 4.20am grumbling and growling. The two other dogs did not join in - if they had we'd have been deafened - but she did not stop despite our sleepy reassurances. In the end I switched on a torch and shone it at the place she was looking at. My Ugg boots. One of them had fallen over and I guess she saw something in their shadow, who knows?

I've written two different stories today. The second was prompted by a Monday Muse posted on my on-line writers group at Writers Abroad. It had created the nuggets of a character in my head who just would not go away so I had to let her have her day. And so she has and a very enjoyable encounter it was too. Love it when I go off the prescribed track, must be the rebel in me!

Ciao for Now

NaNo Diaries: Day Four

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6.02 but groggy - shouldn't have had that extra glass of wine
Word Count: 2039 - a bit of a struggle today
Chocolate: Nope, but a home-made pizza, yum
Wine: Just had to mop up 5 litres after the glass dama broke... payback




Meet Naughty Nell, our one year old Spring Spaniel. She provides a lot of inspiration for me, look at the size of that log! Things might be tough but it doesn't mean you don't do them. And that's how it's felt with my writing today. Tough. 

I took an 'Artist's Date' today, part of therapy recommended in Julia Cameron's The Artists Way. I don't have many dates, I'm a bit of a home girl but today we went to the beach with Naughty Nell. As you can see it was a glorious day, around 18 degrees and a very calm sea. And when we got back I picked up my day four NaNo story and wrote another thousand words even though I really felt like having an afternoon nap, especially after that pizza! I'm glad I persevered though, I have a wonderful sense of achievement and writing those numbers on my word count is so very satisfying.

Ciao for Now

NaNo Diaries: Day Three

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 5.15am (I'm not joking, dog being sick)
Word Count: 2003 (the three are very important)
Chocolate: Nada, but I did bake some carrot and raisin muffins
Wine: A Rum and Black (that's Cassis) when I've finished this post





In preparation for NaNo, I've been gathering prompts from a number of sources to use during the course of the month. I've selected thirty of them and created a Scrivener scene for each one of them, which show up nicely in the cork-board view. 

However, I wanted to select them randomly (as I'd be tempted to choose the ones that interest me most at that moment in time and might not like the end ones)  so I've written the numbers from 1-30 on pieces of paper, screwed them up and put them in a bowl. Simon chooses one each night before I go to bed so I can read the prompt and go to bed and maturate the seedlings for my writing. That's the theory anyway.

They're a mixture of images, scenes, dialogue, characters just to provide a little variety. I've recently become a Pinterest fan and have started some of my own boards which you can find here. A great way to collect and gather information and suits my preference for 'visuals'. 

The wellies above featured in my writing session on Day Two. They weren't actually blue. Nor were they spotty, nor filled with plants (but a great idea!). They weren't even in the original prompt. But red wellies did pop into my head some time during the night before as being important to my character. Each to their own. 

Ciao for now,

World Building Fun

One of my challenges this year is to write something out of my traditional 'comfort zone'. Not that I can ever claim to be comfortable with my writing, it bleeds me dry most days. Anyway, encouraged by a fellow Writers Abroad member Nicola (published as Nina Croft and a star at the paranormal romance genre) I decided to try out writing in the fantasy genre.

This genre is quite like any other because you can make a lot of it up. I have 'written' three novels, all historical and in varying states of completion. The research for this kind of thing take some time and whilst you can play around the edges, you really do need to create the world that was. This week I've been creating a whole new world all of my own! I've found it immensely satisfying, I suppose largely because it has allowed the child in me to surface once again. Always one for making up tales, mostly ones that got me into trouble one way or another, I've forgotten how good it was to really let your imagination loose, without constraints or experiences. Whilst I suppose much of the world I have built must relate back to something that I know - that old nugget that nothing is original comes to mind - a lot of it is made up. I'll give you some examples:

My world is Tasosia and it's a world of dryads, fauns, trolls (oh yes) and talking animals. My main character has been called Xanthe, but I'm thinking of calling her Ayla, which means moonlight. This change of heart came about because my world has three moons about which I plan to write a short novella, this first one is called Wolf Moon. Tasosia has to have its villains and these link to the three moon phases, each dominated by an evil warrior Empress (I can't think of the female version of a war lord - war lady sounds silly...). Ayla is the last of her species with special powers but she has been trapped on Earth since she was little and knows nothing of her life on Tasosia until regression therapy takes her there...

Does it sound daft? Probably. Do I care? Not at all, I'm having such great fun. Will it be a good read? I hope so and if not I've learnt, yet again, a whole deal more about the craft of writing.
So my plans for the weekend? I'm off to visit Tasosia to have a chat with Ayla and find out what is going to happen to her... Until Later,

WRITING STRATEGY

Keep the Home Fires Burning
At the beginning of the week made some plans about some works in progress which I have had in my 'action' pile for some time. I was horrified to see that I'd actually left one out of the game. Was that deliberate I ask myself? The project is a fusion of fiction and fact about how I (and my Man Friday) ended up living here in Italy and for that reason it is quite special. We wrote it together and much of it has been based on real life experiences with characters who could be based loosely on ourselves but with some differences. At the moment it really reads like an account and much as we've tried to distance ourselves from the reality it's a difficult balance to make. However, I have written a couple of additional 'short stories' based on the characters and some of it more fiction than fact. So this piece of work, with a working title of 'La Dolce Vita' (not very inspiring I know, but bear with me) is going to be reviewed as a series of short stories and each one revisited in that vain. So that's my major projects dealt with. In terms of new stuff I've now written my 'Writing Strategy' which includes the following:

• To write and edit at least 2 new short stories per month (probably based on the Monday Muses I submit to Writers Abroad)
• Submit at least 4 short stories per month to competitions or appropriate markets. If I don't get them out there how can they be considered for publication? In 2010 I made 33 submissions, had 5 short-listed and 3 published, so need to up the anti a little.
• Write a fantasy based story for young adults - this is the 'out of the comfort zone' project which will hopefully test my writing skills on a number of levels, the genre, the readership and therefore the storytelling. There are a couple of members at Writers Abroad who I'm counting on to see me through this!

So, my fire has been laid, all I need to do now is keep it alight and fuelled and hopefully my writing muscle will  be kept warm enough to deliver! 
One must dare to dream...