NaNoWriMo: The Way Forward

By Jennifer Young

Mary blogged last week on the subject of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo (hope it’s going well, Mary!) and I make no apologies for doing the same thing. I don’t imagine I’m the only person for whom the whole get-on-with-it ethos of 50,000 words in a month has taken on a life of its own.

I went at my novel knowing that I couldn't possibly manage 1,667 words each and every day and that my only hope was to get it done as soon as possible, preferably without neglecting everyone around me too much. And I’m pleased to say that I did – and that I even managed to feed and clothe my family and discharge my paid writing commitments at the same time, though perhaps some of the other household chores got a little neglected.

And once I’d typed those magic words The End and downed a celebratory glass of red, what next? Revision. Redrafting. Editing. Because when I read back over the first draft I was struck by the inevitable horrors. You know the sort. There’s the vegan tucking in to an omelette; the woman who starts the book without a husband and yet by the end has been married for twenty years to a man we never see; the character who (if you pay attention to the timescale) manages to be in two places at the same time. Worst of all, one of the major characters is so completely underdeveloped I can barely see him in my own mind – so heaven help my readers.

Hero just a cardboard cut-out? Oh dear!
Photo: Gage Skidmore (from Wikimedia Commons)

None of this would have happened if I wasn't driven by NaNo. I would have planned my timescale more carefully. I’d have plotted my characters in more detail. And I’d probably never have got beyond 30,000 words before grinding to a halt and moaning about how hard it is to write a novel. Of course this is the beauty of the whole project – as long as you can abandon the mind-set that drives you to get it right first time it helps you over the walls of must-go-back-and-fix or don’t-know-what-comes-next.

As it happens, I like editing. I like redrafting. It’s easier to breathe life into a cardboard cut-out when I know what situations he’s in. It’s easier, too, to see the flaws in the novel when it’s actually written than when it’s in the planning stage, though planning remains essential (and indeed, I wrote to a plan).

I have written a novel in a month. It’s 75,000 words long. It’s pretty terrible, if I’m honest – but at least I know why. And I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to picking up the red pen.

Indiscriminate reading and indiscriminate writing by Mary Smith

Last month the DH and I went to the beautiful island of Arran, often described as Scotland in miniature, for a holiday. I took along a pile of research material for the WIP (or maybe I should call it the ‘work nearly in progress’) and did not look at it once. Instead, as the weather was good – not only not raining but actually sunny and warm – we did a lot of walking and climbing.
On the summit of Goatfell I discovered the DH has no head for heights. It’s nice, isn’t it, when after twenty plus years of marriage you can still find new things about your partner? Even though, it turned out, we both forgot our wedding anniversary which was during our holiday. However, we enjoyed many delicious dinners out over the course of our holiday, so I guess we did celebrate it, even if unknowingly. I also enjoyed having plenty of time to read.

I read voraciously and, having abandoned the worthy research books I’d brought, I read indiscriminately, and it was lovely. I simply left my critical faculties on one side and didn’t think about structure, plotlines, what worked and what didn’t, or assess whether characters were sufficiently developed. I knew I was not going to discuss what I was reading with anyone – I just read.  I devoured J K Rowling’s A Casual Vacancy (39p on my Kindle!), New England Rocks by Christina Courtenay, Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro, The Mistress’s Revenge by Tamar Cohen (rather unpleasant central characters reminded me of Gone Girl), an Isla Dewar, title now forgotten found on the rented accommodation shelves, a M&B medical romance, both title and author’s name now forgotten also on the shelf and I started and abandoned a misery memoir in favour of Anne Tyler’s Back When We Were Grownups.

From indiscriminate reading to indiscriminate writing – it’s NaNoWriMo time. In case there is anyone out there who doesn’t know about NaNoWriMo it means National Novel Writing Month and the idea is that during November you sign up to write a 50,000 word novel – 1,667 words a day. You sit down, you write. You don’t edit, you don’t worry about plotlines going round in circles, or characters refusing to do anything, never mind not doing what you want them to do.

I have tried it in the past. In fact, I blogged about it a couple of years ago when I was feeling confident I was going to achieve the target, but I failed. I think it was the second or third time I had tried and given up and I felt so depressed by my failure last time I vowed never to put myself through such self-inflicted pain again. Last year I deleted all NaNoWriMo emails. This year I ignored them until the day before it was due to start someone emailed to say she would read my novel No More Mulberries, but not until December as she was doing NaNoWriMo. I wished her luck, explaining why I was never going to do it again. She suggested I give it another go and we could be NaNoWriMo writing buddies. Guess what, I signed up again!

I decided, though, to use the writing time for something which isn’t really a novel. For a long time I have been saying I want to write a blog about the situation with my father who has dementia and what that entails for me and my sister, especially as his wife has been in denial about his condition and hinders the care process every step of the way. I thought it would be a good chance to write up the material, the anecdotes, the arguments, the heart-breaking moments and the amusing episodes (quite often those two go together).

Past the half way mark and I have managed to keep the word count on target. If I can keep going I will have 50,000 words of a rough – very rough – draft of something which I hope I can edit, polish up a bit and post bit by bit as a blog. As my father lives totally in the moment, forgetting everything from who he saw to what he ate, within a couple of minutes I’m giving it the title of My Dad’s a Goldfish. I’ll let you when if it goes live.

Is anyone else taking part in NaNoWriMo this year? How is going for you?

It just makes you think by Jenny Harper

I've just sent another book to my agent, Vivien Green. She loves it! Whoopee! Won't it be great if an editor feels the same way?

However, with my story coming out in the Truly, Madly, Deeply anthology in February, I've decided I really must have something up for my adoring fans to find when they go to Amazon to see what else I've written. So I'm editing a couple of novels – maybe even four – so that I can publish them myself. This is hugely energising and exciting, especially as I've also spent some time designing the covers.

I love graphic design. I did a lot of it in my job, so I'm not afraid of it. But what I found interesting by undertaking this process was that suddenly I 'saw' my books in a different way. Instead of being slightly dead things lurking in my computer, they have begun to spring to life. And I've seen them differently in other ways too – for example, as I searched for appropriate images for the covers, I realised that two out of four novels needed to be renamed, and the focus of one was completely wrong.

(This last is a bummer, because I'm having to rewrite large parts of it!)

I'm sorry I can't reveal the covers yet - they are still in visual form and I will need to purchase the images before I can use them. However, here's a couple of examples of how things have changed, and why.

The Suspicious Wife is about a wind farm engineer whose marriage is under threat. Meantime, she is coping with a difficult situation at work, and she meets a gardener who hates wind farms as much as she loves them. When it came to writing a strapline for the cover, I realised that the title didn't describe the main conflict. Now it will read:

Face the Wind and Fly She builds wind farms, he detests them. Can they ever find love?

The next book is about three friends who live in Edinburgh. The original title  – The Glass Ornament – came from a quote: 'Friendship is like a glass ornament - once it has been broken, it can never be put together in quite the same way.' I loved it, and my then agent Dot Lumley loved it too. But when I started looking for an image, it seemed to be too cold and inanimate. I came across a terrific image of a pair of man's shoes next to a woman's legs – quite sexy but leaving a lot to the imagination. Who is the man? Whose legs are they? And a new title came to me: Between Friends. 

Between Friends They thought he belonged safely in the past, but his return threatens the marriages, careers and lives of three friends.

I have finally seen the value of the 'elevator pitch'. It focuses the mind as well as sells the book! Maybe in future I'll design my own cover before I even start writing – it might save a lot of time in the long run ...

And now I can't wait to share my covers – and my books – with you all. Watch this space.

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO FOR YOUR HERO, LADIES?

Now, now...calm down. This isn't what you think! I'm not talking sex on the first date/in the first week/after three months when he's proved he's keen here. So bear with....:) If, like me, you're only 5' 2" in your stockinged feet I think it helps to know what it would be like for your romantic hero to be tall. Okay, so that might be a stereotype with a tall hero, but you don't read about heroines lusting after 5' 4" heroes who wear socks with their Jesus sandals, do you? Nothing wrong with either there, I hasten to add, because I'm sure your 5' 4" sock-wearing hero could be a very, very nice man. But most romantic heroes are tall, and I think it is especially important to have an idea of this, at least, if your 6' 4" hero doesn't have a point of view in your novel. Does he have to bend his knees to an uncomfortable position to see in your heroine's bathroom mirror? Does he have to be Houdini to get under her shower head? Does he have to stoop to get under doorways in your fictional house/gym/mansion/yacht? Could he see over the fence into next door's garden while standing at the kitchen sink, and if so what he could see that the heroine can't? And then there's the issue of shoes - what is it like to wear size thirteens? Do they fit on a stair tread the way your heroine's would, or would placing them make him walk downstairs in an ungainly manner? Hmmm...but knowing all this can bring authenticity to your writing. Liam Neeson (of Schindler's List fame)is 6' 4". David Hasselhoff, who got many a heart fluttering on Baywatch, is 6' 5". A quick trawl of 'tall actors' on Google and you'll find many that are 6' 8" and counting. Blimey.....what a crick in their necks they would get kissing shorter actresses - or actors....whatever floats their boats.

So, a little role play can be brought into force. A stool-step helps here. I have one my late father-in-law made for my children to access the top bunk easily. It is fourteen inches high - perfect for my needs. I wanted to know what it was like bending down to kiss the top of someone's head - a fave romantic action, that! Does the hair smell of shampoo, or traffic smells, or day's old cooking? All of those things, if you want to know, and it also tickles your lips like crazy - well, it did mine. Does a very tall man reach straight out for a door handle, or does he have to hold his arm down? Ditto shaking hands. And have you ever tried doing up shirt buttons the man's way? Not easy...I was all fumble-fingered.

I know someone who had a peripheral, male, character in a wheelchair, so she hired one for a day and got her husband to push her everywhere to see how it felt. She hated it because it made her feel invisible - people spoke to her husband and ignored her so she had to change the character in her story from being gentle and at one with his lot, to someone who was actually quite angry inside and it changed the story for the better. Which brings me neatly to my hero in GRAND DESIGNS, out now on Amazon Kindle.....for this one I actually went to the south of France, and I arranged a real, live, meeting with a baronet....shame he was already married!

A RUMINATION ON SERIES by Gill Stewart

A snapshot of the family bookshelf showing  our penchant for series – Rankin, Pullman and Rowling among others.

I often think there is nothing as wonderful as a good book.  But, actually, I realise there is something even more wonderful – a series of good books! 

A (good) series provides the joy of getting to know the characters, of reaching the satisfying end of a story with the bonus knowing that the same characters will appear again, in a story just as good.  You will learn a little more about them, minor characters may take centre stage, old friends reappear 2 or 3 books down the line. 

I have to admit that not only do I enjoy reading series, but that I have also started writing one.  And that’s just as much fun as the reading – the chance to develop character, relationships and setting in so much greater depth, over a longer time period.

After I started writing this blog post, it occurred to me to wonder what exactly it is that defines a series?  I consulted the web and consensus seems to be:

• -          a group of books where reading in order is essential or at least preferable; and/or
• -          a group of books sharing a common setting, story arc and characters

Series are different to novel sequences, which are set in the same imaginary universe but they have a free-standing storyline and can be read independently of each other. 

Series can be divided into a number of categories.  Some have one central character and one continuing mission (Harry Potter), others a central character solving a string of unrelated mysteries (Ian Rankin’s Rebus series).  Another type of series is centred around a particular location (e.g. Rebecca Shaw’s Village) or a family or group of friends (Nora Roberts – too many to mention!).

 

Series are particular common in children’s fiction and genre fiction, particularly crime and fantasy.  The title may indicate that the book is part of the series, e.g. ‘Harry Potter and…’ or may give no particular suggestion that this is part of a series.  In the latter case publishers now-a-days usually add a by-line e.g. ‘a Gil Cunnigham mystery’.  In earlier days publishers didn’t do this, and often didn’t even indicate what other books existed in the series.  I remember endless frustration as a child because I had no way of knowing how many Chalet School books there were and what order they came in.  It was only with the creation of the organisation Friends of the Chalet School in the 1990s that I finally got a definitive answer to that question.  Oh the joy!

Which brings me to another interesting aspect of series – many of them have spawned clubs, newsletters and web-sites for fans who want to share their fascination with others and extend their stay in this make-believe world just a little longer.  It is also common for series to be made into films or tv series, recent bloc-buster successes including Twilight and Game of Thrones.  The US/Scottish timeslip series Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon, is currently being filmed for television. 

What is it that makes a series more than the sum of the parts?  I think it is that opportunity to engage more fully with the imaginary characters and their setting.  It really makes that fictional world seem real.  Do you read series?  Why?  And if not, why not?

Back to School

by Jennifer Young

I

Back to School! Image courtesy of russavia
(via Wikimedia Commons)

once listened to an interview with the soprano Lesley Garrett on the BBC’s Test Match Special (a peculiar circumstance in itself: who would have thought the divine Lesley was a total devotee of cricket?). She chatted away to the presenter, Jonathan Agnew, so comfortably that it was like listening to two old friends in the pub. But the thing that intrigued me most was that Lesley, star of stage and doyenne of the recording studio, has weekly singing lessons.

Does she need them? Does she really? With a voice like that? Well, maybe she does – but I know for certain that I, with a (very) modest publishing history behind me, have very much still to learn. It was with that in mind that I signed up for a creative writing course. The course is run by Edinburgh University and led by the inspirational Mary Gladstone and it benefits me not because of what I learn – though I do learn, or am reminded of, a lot – but because it stimulates me.

I’m a strange kind of writer. Maybe I’m a lazy one, who knows? Ideas float past and if I’m lucky I grab one and fix it on the page with a pin like the worst kind of indiscriminate Victorian butterfly collector. What I need is discipline and, though quietly spoken, Mary provides just that. Each week she sets us a task and each week I, the arch procrastinator, produce a piece of up to 500 words on the set topic without a murmur (though I confess to having scribbled a poem in the first part of the class once, in time to produce it for assessment after the break). For someone like me that has to be good.

You never know where your homework might end up....

A strange thing has happened since I began the class, though. My creativity seems to have increased. I have ideas. (You have to have an idea if you have to write a piece.) But I have more than one each week, or one leads to another, or a character exercise bursts into a fully-formed villain creeping around my head looking for a plot in which to immerse himself. When I’m writing – more particularly when someone is leading me - I don’t run out of things to say. I have a notebook where I jot down my ideas and now I’ve shaken the dust off it I can’t stop writing down thoughts. Most of them won’t turn into anything – for one thing I don’t have time and for another most of them aren’t designed to sell: they’re just exercises.

Some years ago I was a member of an earlier class of Mary’s. I was unpublished then. But it was a piece she set – 500 words on the theme ‘dreaming’ that became my first published story in the People’s Friend. A character she inspired me to create became my second story and another exercise (an object must change between the beginning and the end) became my third. And so on. I can’t remember the details but I think I credit those classes in some way with everything I’ve had published since.

So even if I’m not quite sure why Lesley Garret takes lessons, I know why I do. And now I’d best be off and do my homework….

Dorothy Lumley remembered by Jenny Harper

Dot Lumley (left), with Gill Stewart
at the RNA Conference in Penrith.

Dorothy Lumley, agent at Dorian Literary Agency in Torquay, sadly passed away a few days ago.

Dot will be remembered by many writers across a number of genres, in particular for her incisive insights and her willingness to spend time helping aspiring writers to pinpoint weaknesses and rectify them. She once told me she hated a novel I had written, and why. She suggested I leave it, but first go through the exercise of doing a chapter-by-chapter analysis of what I had written so that I could see the flaws in the structure.

I took her up on the challenge, wrestled with it, replanned and reshaped, and decided to rewrite as well. The result? She wrote to me, 'I've now finished reading your book and I have one word for it: Fab-u-lous!'

Sadly, though, the book was not snapped up, and a couple of years later Dot and I parted company by mutual consent. I promised I'd buy her a drink when that book was published and I'm really sad that this will never now happen. I learnt a great deal about writing, thanks to her patience and willingness to coach, and I owe her a great debt.

When this blog started, Gwen Kirkwood, Gill Stewart and I were all represented by Dot, while Linda Mitchelmore shared the same writing group with her, in Devon. I'm sure they all have memories to treasure.