By the end of January, I felt a huge affinity with that poor frozen palm weighed down by snow in the garden, as my fingers were often too cold to type and my brain was full of sludge. But I persevered, not wanting to make a fool of myself by abandoning Novel Writing Winter after one month.
Today, with one more week of February to go, I’ve reached the 12,000-word mark. This takes me to the end of Part I of my work in progress, which closes on a cliffhanger. At this point, I can officially announce that I’ve fallen in love with my novel, and there are flowers like this appearing in my garden to reflect my more positive mood.
I’ve decided to write rather a random post this time, so what I’m going to list next, are the basic reference books I’ve used for this project so far.
- Oxford Dictionary of English – Third Edition
- Collins Pocket Reference Thesaurus In A-Z Form
- The Writer’s Digest Character-Naming Sourcebook – by Sherrilyn Kenyon
- Deadly Doses – a writer’s guide to poisons – by Serita Deborah Stevens
And now for something completely different. In the March edition of a respected writing publication (that will remain nameless), I found two errors in one sentence — a wrong word order and a wrong word choice.
(quote) “Your stories come from often quite a deep, buried part of your unconscious.”
Whoops! Spot the mistakes time. One journalist having a bad day, methinks D:
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Sarah Potter Writes 
suppose even journalists suffer from fatigue 😉
Or the proof reader was asleep!
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…and some people write how-to articles or books, when they don’t know “how-to” themselves! In this particular instance, it was quite useful what the journalist had to say, which made the mistakes an unnecessary distraction.
P.S. Now I’ll have to watch myself for mistakes, lest I fall into my own pit!
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Congratulations on reaching such an impressive word count. And falling in love with your novel.
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Thank you, dear Bunny 🙂 And good luck to you with your work(s) in progress, of which, I sense you’re becoming quite fond 🙂
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I am. Though it doesn’t sit well in this pesky new CV form I have discovered.
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What CV form?
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It seems to be the main writing form I am using to communicate at the moment. It starts with my name. Then it has a part called personal profile. Then it has a section called key skills. After that it lists the people who I have worked for in reverse order.
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Yes, my son has something in common with you!
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I have moments where ‘nosedive crawling’ seems completely stuck. Then I sit on the bus into work and an hour later I have lots of pieces that are taking shape.
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That sounds like a most constructive use of what could be empty time. I usually write a short story for some competition or other when I travel to the Isle of Wight to see my daughter. And when I’ve finished the story, I catch up with reading back issues of “Writers’ News”. I’m no good at sitting doing nothing.
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Hello Sarah,
Good news, you’ve won the “BEST MOMENT AWARD” for this post! Congratulations!
Enjoy the rest of the day,
Friend from Moment Matters
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Hello Sarah,
How are you?
Good news, I would like to personally hand you the “BEST MOMENT AWARD” for this post! Congratulations!
Enjoy the rest of the day,
Friend from Moment Matters
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Thank you so much for this award, which I’m delighted to accept. But please bear with me for a short while, re writing my speech and passing on the award to others, as I’m trying to stay focused on writing my novel just now.
Again thanks, and plenty of good wishes 🙂
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