Weather: Breezy and summery
Listening to: Led Zeppelin box set
Perhaps I should rename this blog "the fearless writer" because it seems to me that to rack up massive word counts you need to be utterly certain that what you write is okay. There is no time to second guess, you must just keep going. I'm certainly not feeling fearless this week, as I have hit 50000 words and have an awful sinking feeling I've completely screwed up the chunk I've just written. I think I wrote it as "beginning" when it should have been "middle". Hmmm. They have different functions, you see. Now I'm not sure what goes in the middle.... sigh.
In good news, those little Fantastica books I wrote have attracted a very nice deal in France. I wrote them frantically, so it can't be all bad.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The fourth one
Weather: breezy summery evening
Listening to: my husband read to my kids
One of the promises I always make myself is that if I write something frantically, I will edit it at leisure. So when the edit of the historical novel I wrote earlier in the year (frantically) was returned to me for my consideration this week. Well, you can imagine how I felt.
I have managed to make it to the 50 000 word / one third mark of my current book; a natural place to put it aside for a short while and look at this edit. At the moment I am working from 5am to 7am; during my baby daughter's daytime nap; then again at night (my World of Warcraft habit has been temporarily shelved... and just when I'd got a horse!). It seems to be getting done, but it's hardly leisurely. It feels a bit, well, frantic.
Meanwhile, the research book I borrowed, from which I intended to draw masses of interesting details for my current novel, is now overdue. The best I can hope for is to photocopy a few chapters before it goes back, and have a chance to read them at a later date... perhaps during the frantic edit.
Listening to: my husband read to my kids
One of the promises I always make myself is that if I write something frantically, I will edit it at leisure. So when the edit of the historical novel I wrote earlier in the year (frantically) was returned to me for my consideration this week. Well, you can imagine how I felt.
I have managed to make it to the 50 000 word / one third mark of my current book; a natural place to put it aside for a short while and look at this edit. At the moment I am working from 5am to 7am; during my baby daughter's daytime nap; then again at night (my World of Warcraft habit has been temporarily shelved... and just when I'd got a horse!). It seems to be getting done, but it's hardly leisurely. It feels a bit, well, frantic.
Meanwhile, the research book I borrowed, from which I intended to draw masses of interesting details for my current novel, is now overdue. The best I can hope for is to photocopy a few chapters before it goes back, and have a chance to read them at a later date... perhaps during the frantic edit.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
The third one
Weather: rain clearing
Listening to: Jayne Hockley and Taryn Fiebig "Thyme and Roses"
Today I write from the Slough of Despond. The pressure to keep writing is immense, and yet I have a list of other things to do which is a mile long. Including editing another book. I must finish part two of this book THIS WEEK if I'm to have any hope of meeting its Jan 31 deadline. This morning I have been trying to write a fairly straightforward scene, and it feels like the words are brussels sprouts that I am pushing about on a plate. God, look at that sentence! Is it any wonder I am in despair. If my 5 year old hadn't woken me at 1am with a nightmare, then climbed into bed and chatted to me, then refused to get back into his own bed, screaming and therefore waking the baby... well, perhaps I would have been in a better frame of mind to make good sentences. My heart is spiky, as though little darts of adrenalin are constantly assailing it. This can't be healthy, right?
Listening to: Jayne Hockley and Taryn Fiebig "Thyme and Roses"
Today I write from the Slough of Despond. The pressure to keep writing is immense, and yet I have a list of other things to do which is a mile long. Including editing another book. I must finish part two of this book THIS WEEK if I'm to have any hope of meeting its Jan 31 deadline. This morning I have been trying to write a fairly straightforward scene, and it feels like the words are brussels sprouts that I am pushing about on a plate. God, look at that sentence! Is it any wonder I am in despair. If my 5 year old hadn't woken me at 1am with a nightmare, then climbed into bed and chatted to me, then refused to get back into his own bed, screaming and therefore waking the baby... well, perhaps I would have been in a better frame of mind to make good sentences. My heart is spiky, as though little darts of adrenalin are constantly assailing it. This can't be healthy, right?
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The second one
Weather: beautiful rainy day
Listening to: Brian McBride "When Detail Lost its Freedom"
The Frantic Writer has about 130 000 words to write by January 31st. So I get up very early--usually between 4 and 5 am--to write. This means I am always tired (especially if I stay up too late the night before playing World of Warcraft... ahem...) but the deadline looms. This morning, however, my 14 month old daughter decided that she would like to be awake from 4.30am too. Fearing that she would wake her 5 year old brother, I brought her in here to my office. Now I am writing, frantically as always, while she trashes my office. There are coloured plastic paperclips strewn everywhere, file cards upended, books pulled out of shelves etc. And yet, I have managed to write 1000 words so I mustn't complain. But it is certainly very different from the old, pre-children, days when I might write... if in the mood... uninterrupted for hours at a time.
Listening to: Brian McBride "When Detail Lost its Freedom"
The Frantic Writer has about 130 000 words to write by January 31st. So I get up very early--usually between 4 and 5 am--to write. This means I am always tired (especially if I stay up too late the night before playing World of Warcraft... ahem...) but the deadline looms. This morning, however, my 14 month old daughter decided that she would like to be awake from 4.30am too. Fearing that she would wake her 5 year old brother, I brought her in here to my office. Now I am writing, frantically as always, while she trashes my office. There are coloured plastic paperclips strewn everywhere, file cards upended, books pulled out of shelves etc. And yet, I have managed to write 1000 words so I mustn't complain. But it is certainly very different from the old, pre-children, days when I might write... if in the mood... uninterrupted for hours at a time.
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