NaNo Diaries: Day Twelve

Starlights daughter, Tigsy having a nap

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6.35am
Word Count: 2649 (Total - 23,796)
Treats: Watching The Lost Kingdom on TV
Other Activity: Sweeping up leaves - a sign it's Autumn
Word of the Day: MAGNANIMOUS - adjective 1. proceeding from or revealing generosity or nobility of mind, character, etc.: a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness. 2. high-minded; noble: a just and magnanimous ruler.






It's unseasonably warm here in Italy for this time of year. Everyone is raving about the beautiful warm days but... it always comes with a price I think. I'd much prefer it to be bright but seasonally cold. Call me a spoilsport but I love the different seasons, each for a different reason and for Autumn its about hibernation. Getting out all my woollies, lighting the fire and closing the shutters ready for Winter. Lovely. But all this warmth is bringing different problems. Red mite. No it's not some weird version of flu but a tiny little devil that attacks our poor chickens. The little critters should be banished now if there were lower temperatures. But no.Instead they're basking in the sun. We've found several in the hen house over the past few weeks and they can kill. So we're disinfecting the coop every couple of days, and dusting the house and chucks. Nearly got them all but they're a pest.
And one of the cats hasn't been seen since Monday. Starlight is a semi feral cat who gets fed with our brood. Not sure where she is or where to look. Fingers crossed she's being fed somewhere else for a while.

An I've got a writing buddy, which I'm very excited about. I've  just finished the Writember workshop with Faye Kirwin, which has helped enormously with my motivation. I thoroughly recommend it if you find you are struggling. To others I might seem as though I have all the time in the world (which I don't, just more than some) but even so habit and structure is so important. Since leaving the world of  'real work' (I have a different take on that now, maybe for another post) this is the first time it's hit home. So I have a target, I've identified my best times to write and I've made a commitment. Now with my buddy, I'm accountable to someone in making sure I get it done!

NaNo Diaries: Day Nine

My favourite writing tool, the humble fountain pen

Morning Pages Wake Up Call: 6.30 (though first up at 5.21)
Word Count: 2700 (total, a little shy of 18K!)
Treats: Certainly not after an indulgent Sunday.
Exercise: Playing frisbee with Naughty Nell
Word of the Day: FRANGIBLE adjective 1. easily broken; breakable: Most frangible toys are not suitable for young children.




As you can tell, I had a day off yesterday - though I did write 1200 words for NaNo. Sunday here in our household is generally a slow day. A dedicated PJ day. Having said that, last Sunday we were picking olives but that's a one off. Simon and I sit down after breakfast and complete a jumbo general crossword. We do a daily simple crossword every day and I also try to complete a Solitaire and have a bash at a Soduku or Killer Kakuro puzzle. Mind games we call them and as I saw my mum slowly disappear to Alzheimer's it's something I take very seriously, as well as seeing it as a bit of fun and distraction.

I've been playing about with my method for completing my NaNo target (or any other writing target for that matter). I do love, absolutely love to write longhand. With a fountain pen. The photo above was my latest treat. It's an 'old but unused' Schaeffer and I love it. I think better when I write longhand, but last week I was writing three A4 sheets by hand, then typing them up and adding to them in a second session. Not very good use of time. So this morning, I spent 10 minutes writing longhand to get the ideas flowing and then two sessions (a session for me is 25 minutes) Scrivenering... result 2700 words plus the 400 or so that I'd scribbled. 

No doubt I'll change it again before the end of the month is out.

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,

NaNo Diaries: Day Two

Morning Pages Wake Up Call:  6.16am (another lie in!)
Word Count: 2379 (these are very rough words
Chocolate: Two Squares 
Wine: Not yet, a little early




I woke with a dead leg this morning. And no, it wasn't Simon! 

We share our bed with our numerous animals: springer pup - Nell, two gigantic Italian sheepdogs - Freya and Bertie and visits from three kitties depending on their mood - Simba, Nala (names from the Lion King) and Cappuccino (because he resembles a frothy coffee!). So more often than not I'm fighting for space as well as the duvet cover.

We can't blame anyone else, entirely our indulgent selves, and as we've now made our bed we have to lie in it, as the proverb goes...

So what is my project for NaNo? Well, this is my fifth year and therefore I have five very dusty works in progress. I really should do them justice and either bin them or knock 'em into shape. So I've forbidden myself from writing another long project. 

Inspired by Ray Bradbury and his short story challenge I'm doing a random daily writing prompt every day with a target of 1700 words.  And they're all fantasy based. 

Tomorrow I'll share what prompted today's story...

SHORT OR LONG STORIES

Or maybe somewhere in the middle?
Like many writers, especially amateur ones like me, I've been honing my authoring skills by writing short stories. I chose to do this for many reasons:

• On the face it of it short stories seemed to be an 'easier' option. In reality this is so not true!
• I wanted to develop my characterisation and dialogue skills and I think short stories allow you to do this
• There are many different markets to target including competitions, anthologies not to mention the on-line opportunities. However, recently I get the feeling that this market, particularly for womag writing, is reducing
• I had the vague notion that if I could write a short story, I could apply those skills to writing a chapter of a larger piece of work. To date, the jury is still out on that one

I find writing short stories quite hard. By short story I mean up to 3000 words, which seems to be the average figure given though there are some guidelines which specify longer. For me a short story should be one that can be enjoyed in one sitting, whilst waiting for an appointment or a fairly short train/bus journey. 

I find it hard because I either overwrite, which means that by the time the word count is reached I've only just got into the tale, or I underwrite. The second is much easier to manage because it can usually be formed into a  piece of flash, with more opportunities to place.

Having said that I've actually had quite a good week in terms of short story success, not only did I discover one of my short stores had been shortlisted but I had an email from the Creative Cafe Project to say they would be publishing my submission 'no edits required' and a rather nice 'no' from an editor but inviting me to submit other pieces of work for her to see.

So I'm in a bit of a dilemma in terms of my planning, which I so wish I could just be cool about. Should I continue to struggle with developing complete short stories or spend more effort in letting the stories develop into longer pieces and be happy with the bits of flash in between? 

Decisions, Decisions....

EDITORIAL CALENDARS

Make Them Work for Fiction
I've been thinking a lot about the writing year ahead (note the emphasis on thinking). Editorial Calendars are used a lot by magazines and the media to plan the articles they plan to publish. Having some sort of overall picture helps to ensure that articles are relevant and timely. And, if you are a writer like me who needs some sort of inspiration to write fiction, especially short stories, I kind of thought that maybe it could work for providing some sort of 'short story' calendar. There are lots of anniversaries that happen throughout the year, ranging from the first man on the moon, through several wars and even the odd famous birthday here and there. And then of course there are the planned events of the year, William and Kate for one, the World Cup Rugby and the regulars including Valentines, Easter... the list goes on. 
There is a great site for Anniversary planning(and plenty of others) , if that's your kind of thing called Ideas4Writers  where they list the events in plenty of time to develop a project. This kind of planning worked well for my non-fiction projects, so I thought I might give it a try for some short story pieces. I've already drafted an Easter story, in the form of a muse over at Writers Abroad, so that's a beginning, the key thing then is to find a market, but I should think the regulars would welcome themed stories as long as they are submitted in plenty of time. So if your'e stuck, why not get your calendar out and start jotting down a few ideas. Every little helps...
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...