If My Novel was a Picture Book...

...it might look something like this (there's a lot of pics, so I hope you'll stick with me!):

Impractical Purpose = pretty scrapbook pages to flip through at will. 'Nuff said.

Practical Purpose = visual aid for editing/redrafting my novel; perched on a book-stand on my desk.

Credits

Scrapbook = SMASH book
Pros: yummy papers not seen anywhere else; an individual, quirky feel.
Cons: spiral binding too narrow, causing the pages to bulge when layered/matted upon; in my Smash, not many of the original yummy papers remain...oops! This is because my papercrafting technique has improved and expanded, leading me to tear out my early, amateurish layouts...and start again!

Papers, stamps and embellishments = too various and bought-long-ago to mention! My favourite craft shopping sites are the Glitter Pot and Kaisercraft at Merly Impressions, plus specific searches on eBay (time-consuming but worth it for one-of-a-kind finds, particularly with stamps).

Photographs = from Pinterest and the occasional magazine. I don't know the names of the original photographers, but would be glad to credit them.

Illustrations = most are from Inslee Haynes (if my dream came true, she would design my novel's cover!). Others are by Robert Best, Megan Hess, Katie Rodgers, Thomas Saliot, Clifford Faust, and a couple of others whose names I don't know...but would be glad to credit them.

~ ttfn ~

Performance Anxiety

I'm not a sporty or dramatic soul, and so I'd like to think that I wouldn't have to worry about my performance. But I do and I am. Have to worry, that is (don't worry: I am not about to become a sportswoman or an actor. Phew.)

Yesterday, I enjoyed spending another entire-day reading (there's been a few of those recently), and completed The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley. I absolutely loved this book: the overseas settings were so real I could step into them; the characters were so involving that I wanted to be with them; and the storyline was so intriguing and moving that I wanted it to go on and on. 

This book also encompassed themes that I love to think, read and write about: loss and love; painting and painters; women finding and living their independence; the definitions of family, and the grounding family gives you. This book also made me realise that my tastes have matured (five years ago, I wouldn't have enjoyed reading passages about wartime and the various methods of and the people involved in resistance - but I do now), and that this opens up new areas of reading and writing for me. 

This book moved me; and pleased me, for the threads of resolution were woven into the final chapters, yet nothing was tied up too easily or too emphatically - enough was left for me, the Reader, to fill in. This book got me looking on the author's Facebook page for news of her next one; it got me scrolling through her book-signing photos and watching the couple-of-seconds-long video of the book coming off the printer's press...which was so intoxicating. 

But this book also scared me.

Because I'd love to write this well, to produce a manuscript capable of doing all the things this one has done to me to other people.

But what if I'm not that good? What if, after all these years and years of writing on after each hurdle and seeing that my work has indeed evolved, I'm still not that good?

This is not the only book to do this to me. My other favourites - The Forgotten Garden and The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, Lighthouse Bay and Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman, The Unseen and A Half Forgotten Song by Katherine Webb, The Book of Summers by Emylia Hall, and A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly - have also made me feel this way.

I do know that this is performance anxiety. I do know that I'm not the only writer to feel this way. And I do know that this feeling will pass. Promise. In several days, I'll be able to write my Reading Journal entry extolling how fabulous the book is, and it will take its place on my bookshelf next to my other wish-I'd-written-'em favourites.

But till then, for a little while, I feel not-so-good. While it doesn't sound it, this not-so-good is a lot better than incapable, which is what I used to feel some years ago. 

So it's probably good timing that today is Easter Sunday and I am internationally-permitted to consume (and console myself with) chocolate - indeed, it would be internationally-rude not to, wouldn't it?! 

Believe me, I have no performance issues when it comes to chocolate. Except about when to stop eating it...

~ ttfn ~ 

So. My Novel Is Written. NOW What Do I Do?

Rest, ruminate; lament. Tell myself to pull my socks up: if it really is that bad, I can fix it when I return in three months for the Big Edit (which is kind of like a deep clean...)

Read a bit. Craft a bit. Buy a lot – and cringe when the credit card bill comes in. Remind myself that these purchases were essential: rewards for writing a whole novel, and things-that-have-been-on-the-wish-list-so-long-they-have-to-have-a-new-home...

Fuss the cat loads, now that she has started sitting on my lap. Realise that this is not just because she was an un-socialised kitten who has made huge leaps forward in trusting humans, but because there is actually room for her now that I’m not using the laptop every night. Oh.

Craft a bit more now that I have new stash.

Sort through things everywhere (writing room, bedroom, lounge, kitchen), chucking out what I haven’t used in a year. Or two.

Begin relevant research, now that I know what is actually relevant... Get lost in fabulous but irrelevant detail once again, and remind myself that I just chucked loads of that out. Decide not to repeat.

Start to give the Pen Pot a spring clean with a fresh look, then get irritated with technology and give up. Resolve to put ‘patience’ on my Christmas List.

Bake some. Eat much more.

Consult the calendar, certain my self-imposed three months must soon be up.

Scream when I see that only two weeks have passed. Two weeks.

Console myself with a bar of chocolate. And another one. Stop short of being sick. Here, try one of your cupcakes, you say? Oh, go on, then, it would be rude not to...

~ ttfn ~ 

Those Two Little Words...

I'm a little late posting this month, and I apologise. You can blame the need to write those two little words...

'The End.'

Yep, in the last hour, I have completed the last page of the final chapter of Novel Number Two.

Whoop whoop!

And here she is: 

Admittedly, this is only the 1st Whole Draft (I call it this because each chapter has already been edited at least once...or four times!) - and so there is cutting and redrafting and polishing ahead of me... But, for this stage, I. Have. Achieved.

And by my deadline, which I set as part of my New Year-ness. Double whoop whoop!

I will come back and blog again, but I'm understandably rather knackered right now... 

I will be leaving my manuscript (and I feel I can really call it that, now that it's finished! Triple whoop whoop!) alone for 3 months, so that I have 'fresh eyes' as we writers call it, don'cha know, for that big rewrite.

But for now, I do believe I deserve a celebratory Mini Egg or two (bags, of course - how could anyone limit themselves to one measly little egg?!)...

~ ttfn ~

A Little Bit of Magic

(Picture credit unknown - I'm glad to rectify!)

You know that moment when an actor you like leads you into watching something you never thought you would, just because they're in it? And then you discover that you quite like this new thing, after all?

This happened to me, the other evening. Poppy Montgomery has fast become my favourite actress after watching her in the TV show Unforgettable , which has equally become a favourite. (Sadly it's been cancelled in the US, but I've got the first season on DVD and am waiting for the second to be released, plus hoping that Sky will show the final season soon...)

Having first seen Poppy Montgomery in Without a Trace, and now loving her in Unforgettable, I knew she is an actor who brings warmth, wit and a little bit of rebelliousness to her performances - so I decided to give the TV movie, Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story (2011, director Paul A. Kaufman), a chance. And I wasn't disappointed.

Regardless of what anyone might think of Harry Potter and the phenomena that resulted, it started life as a story. A story that an unpublished, unknown writer dreamed up. A story that was imagined, dwelt in and transcribed onto the page. A story that, through the actual writing alone, changed the life of its author.

Storytelling is a magic in itself (though of course I would say that!) : not everyone can do it. But this TV movie did: it captured the wonderment and warmth of creativity, the thrill of spotting story elements on the shelf of everyday life, and the liberty of what you'll do with them.

Storytelling can surprise you, move you and empower you - and I wouldn't be without it.

~ ttfn ~ 

Niggles

To write this post, I'm going to have to share a smidge more of Novel Number Two's plot than I have before. Eek! You see, I've learned not to talk too much about the Work in Progress (WiP) for several reasons: 

1. Even though I'm a born chatterbox, I'm rubbish at speaking about any WiP, making what I know is well-written (not meaning to be being arrogant, here) sound dreadful; 
2. People seem interested, so you talk, draining yourself of detail as you try to do the WiP justice - only to discover your details have actually drained the people, who are now not so interested (!); 
3. Telling too much makes you vulnerable - to people's good and bad reactions, and to yourself, because at some point you'll realise things need to change, and now don't you look daft?; 
4. You could be giving away your idea - ideas aren't copyrighted, so someone could turn that idea into an actual story, submitting it to an actual agent while you're still playing about with punctuation, therefore beating you to your publishing and readership dream; and 
5. It is mine - at least until it's yours (i.e. my book in your hand - always dreaming of being published, me!), which, for now, will be when I'm distanced enough from it to allow you to read it by email. 

Anyhoo. Deep breath. With these points clung closer to my body than armour, what I need to tell you is this:

• My main character gets herself onto an apprenticeship. 
• At the end of each week, the apprentices are rated. 
• And as the writer, it's bloody hard to remember who gets ranked where when (which is just as hard to say, isn't it?!)

Today, I finished the narrative draft of the second chapter-on-the-go (as per my goal this week; with the first chapter-on-the-go finished on Thursday). While the story was done, the niggles [details that I put in square brackets and bold type, to come back to later - these might be the placings on the apprenticeship, for example, or how long it's been since such-and-such happened] remained. Thing was, I wanted to sort them out now so that I'd feel the chapter was completely complete (at least in its First Draft form. Which will get rewritten. I know, I know, we writers are complex beings.)

So, with my pen poised over my notebook page, I skim-read the previous seven or so chapters...and realised how much I'd forgotten. Forgotten! How could I do such a thing when I've got a really good, really detailed memory? But there I was, discovering that I'd forgotten: which chapter came after which (I've named not numbered them, you see); character developments; actual events; and dialogue revelations. Oops!

I'd also forgotten how many words I'd actually got onto the page (even though I counted them all up and bragged about them in my New Year's post!). I'd forgotten quite how much story this amounts to. And it's a lot. It's a big chunk of book. And it makes me proud.

Of course, I'm sure you linear-minded, number-loving types are wondering why I didn't start the book with a spreadsheet set up for such things. But, you see, I'm a writer, and writers aren't linear-minded types; we love everything free and flowing, ebbing backwards and forwards, allowing for change and invention...even if it does mean we forget things.

But now my notebook is updated with who was ranked where when; what my main character did at these particular points; and with a few more niggles I'll need to sort out in the Redraft! I am determined to keep it updated as I write on...wish me luck!

~ ttfn ~

Reflect and Redirect

(Picture found on Pinterest - credit unknown)

Here we are, four days into January, and all that Christmas fuss is out of the way for another year (I know, I know, I'm such a bah humbug - but that's just how I roll) - and while I do hate to follow the crowd (as one of my besties rightly says, 'Be a goat not a sheep' - thanks, Zoe!), it really does feel like the time to reflect and redirect. (Oh, my bah humbug-self does hope you had a good Christmas and New Year, by the way!)

Reflection: 2014 Pats-on-the-Back

• Craft continued - shared over making cards and scrapbook pages, and sewing a footstool, toaster cover and a phone charger bag.
• Cupcake baking begun and, if I do say so myself (!), aced:

• Ebony welcomed home and settled in:

• 44 books read - while writing...
• 70, 295 words of Novel Number Two (that's 70,295 words everybody - whoop, whoop!) - which equates to 15 chapters (and, when added to 2013's chapters, makes 32 completed ones...)

Redirection: 2015 Get-Goings

• Admit I need to rest and relax when I get in from work, BUT don't slump in front of the TV all evening...
• ...so, at 9 p.m., used my second-wind (I'm a definite owl, you see, not a lark) to get an hour or two of writing/planning/crafting done.
• Continue crafting, sewing and baking.
• Finish the two chapters-on-the-go by the end of this week (Sunday 11th). Achieved by Sat 10th!
• Write the (estimated) remaining 5 chapters by the end of February, which will complete the entire first draft.
• Leave Novel Number Two ALONE for 3 months...
• ...and do other things!
• Begin editing NNT after these 3 months, so (hopefully!) from 1st June.
• Research agents to submit to.
• Write covering letter and synopsis.
• Submit by the end of summer/beginning autumn.
• Start the next book...!

I could (probably should!) add in 'Go for a walk every day', 'Lose the million of stones you're overweight by' and 'Actually get your hair trimmed every three months' - but I know I won't do any of these, and pressuring myself will only make me dour and doubtful. Much better, instead, to focus on making the most of what I can do, and leave room for a little spontaneity (which may turn in to walking, dieting or hair consideration...well, I can try for optimism too, right?!)

Whatever reflections and redirections you have, I wish you all the best with them.

~ ttfn ~