Category: Writing

Novel Writing Winter (NWW) 2013 — Week 4: breathe, relax…

writing overdose
square eyes and insomnia
fresh air required

Writer's Insanity#1

For the last week, I’ve experienced the worst insomnia in my life. It’s not that I’m actively mulling over my novel-in-progress when I should be sleeping, any more than I’m thinking about paying the bills, or what various members of my family are up to, or how pissed off I am with the Prime Minister. Rather, it’s a background buzz in my subconscious — the brain’s equivalent of white noise. If I could amplify this noise, it would probably contain much to discourage.

  • You’re too old for this.
  • You messed up at school, so what makes you think you can write the type of literary novel students study at University?
  • Why put yourself through this?
  • Take it easy — read someone else’s novel, watch tv, chinwag with your friends over coffee.

Four weeks into NWW, my word count has reached 5,000, which, at first glance, might not seem very much. In the past,  I would have slammed out about 90,000 words in 3 months, after which I’d have spent between 1-3 years pruning and revising until complete boredom set in, consuming all my original love for the story. Some of this fiddling with my writing was a necessary part of the learning experience, but the rest of it was to do with lack of confidence in my product.

With my current novel, I’ve taken a completely different approach, contemplating and crafting every sentence as I go, which means my novel will take about 10 months to write and 2 months to revise/edit. A novel in a year.

This morning, after returning from a bracing winter walk, I did a read through of my opening 24 pages and discovered not a single word I wanted to change. This is what I call progress. So it’s onward with Novel Writing Winter (NWW) 2013, and no more sleepless nights

Next on the agenda — to email one of my friends, who’s a genius scientist. In the name of research, I need to pick his brain about genetics, environmental pollution, and plagues.

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To find out more about Novel Writing Winter (NWW) 2013, visit https://sarahpotterwrites.wordpress.com/novel-writing-winter-nww-2013/

Novel Writing Winter (NWW) 2013: using research as a trigger

At the beginning of this week, on Day 14 of Novel Writing Winter, I came up against the sort of blank wall that threatened to put an end  to my project. Why on earth was my writing proving such a chore, when once it overflowed with joy, energy, and boundless new  ideas? Rather than submit to despair, I came up with some possible culprits.

  • rejection fatigue
  • the harping inner editor
  • higher goals
  • declining youth
  • cynicism about the marketplace
  • economic pressure to succeed
  • the strictures of routine
  • shrinking time syndrome
  • insomnia
  • grey skies
  • the library

Yes, you read it right — the library. More specifically, the public library, rather than one attached to a university or school. Twenty years ago, when I started out learning my craft, libraries were filled with books and not computers. And they were staffed by real librarians consumed with passion for their work, who were enthusiastic to assist you in your research. If they didn’t have relevant material in their local  branch, they would bend over backwards to source books from across England.

In contrast, the last time I visited my local library (a year ago) and asked them to order a book for me, I might as well have asked them to fetch a lump of rock from Mars. This left me two options — to sit in a noisy library at a computer (and that’s another of my complaints, as libraries used to have “silence please” notices pinned up in them) — or sit in my quiet office at my computer with a cup of tea, which I’d try not to spill over the keyboard.

So how did I tackle this week’s blank wall from my desk? I’m writing an experimental minimalist novel, which doesn’t mean it should contain little of interest. Quite the opposite. It requires me to dip into a huge pool of information my brain can’t contain alone, and then strip down that information to the literary equivalent of a pencil  sketch. But I am not a person who enjoys weeks or months of research before embarking on a novel. I prefer to see what questions it throws up during the writing process, and answer or expand upon them during short research breaks, which, as you’ll already have gathered, used to involve trips to the library!

If a writer is to research on-line at home, it requires both focus and immense self-discipline. It means not allowing social networking, emailing, or irrelevant reading material to lure you from your path. The down side of this is that there’s a danger all your on-line contacts and friends forget about you, or think you’re neglecting them (fellow-bloggers, I haven’t forgotten you and will catch up with you soon).

On Monday and Tuesday, I found out everything I needed to know — and more — about the Renaissance castrati (ouch!), the ecology of oak trees, and how to climb high trees without ropes or safety harnesses. This research gave me such a buzz, it triggered off new ideas and I could see the light shining through that darned wall.

Has anyone else resorted to research this week, and if so, what form has this taken? Did you find out your information on-line, from books (borrowed, purchased, or already on your shelf), journals, magazines, by talking to people, or experiencing something firsthand?

Novel Writing Winter (NWW) 2013 — my first week: battling with self-doubt and procrastination

Now what did I say in a earlier post https://sarahpotterwrites.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/novel-writing-winter-nww-2013-survival-basics/about avoiding showing your work in progress to anyone, especially friends or family, and trusting in your own judgement?

A couple of days ago, while participating in the English custom of afternoon tea with my family, my grown-up son, Joshua, gave me a ticking off. Our conversation went something like this:

S : What if I write my novel and everybody hates it?
J : You’ve only been working on it for a week and you’re already doubting yourself.
S: Could you have a look at what I’ve written so far, to see if it works?
J: You said you weren’t going to show it to anyone until you finished it.
S: But it’s such a strange novel. What if people don’t understand it, or find it boring?
J: You know if I look at it and pass my opinion, you’ll want to know all the whys and wherefores.
S: I don’t want an in-depth critique. I just want to know if you find it in the least interesting.
J: Do you find it interesting?
S: Yes, but I’m feeling overwhelmed by how difficult it is to write.
J: Well then, write a bit each day, even if it’s only a few paragraphs, and see where it leads.

Yesterday, I wrote a few paragraphs, the quality of which pleased me, but then I spoiled everything by checking my word count so far. And what did I say in my earlier post about not obsessing over the word count and just getting the bare bones of the story down? To check a word count on a daily basis can prove as unedifying as weighing yourself too often when you’re on a diet. From now on, it’s once a week only.

Today, I dared compare my novel to those of the award-winning novelist Rose Tremain. Yes, and yet again I’m not following my own advice. The result of this comparison was that I temporarily abandoned my latest ambitious project and spent all morning reworking a few pages of my first rather mediocre novel (written twenty years ago), having decided myself incapable of writing a literary masterpiece like Rose Tremain.

At three o’clock this afternoon, I found myself floundering with the old work and  returned to the novel I’m meant to be working on. Casting my eye over it, I decided it really wasn’t that bad — not as brilliant as Rose Tremain’s novels, but not as bad as some others.

Onward, I say…

P.S. By the way, I’ve started a page listing participants’ links so you can find each other. Please check out the page https://sarahpotterwrites.wordpress.com/nww-participants-links/ and let me know if any information needs updating, including adding any further relevant links.


Novel Writing Winter (NWW) 2013 – be my guest, Catherine Z!

Catherine Zgouras is an English Language Teacher (ELT) who writes books for her profession and is presently trying to enter the world of children’s fiction. We first met through an on-line writing colony — http://www.litopia.com — and now belong to the same closed, invitation-only, writing group on Facebook.

In Catherine’s words, this is what her novel-in-progress is about:

Ilda is a beautiful but very mean witch. She zaps everyone and anyone in sight. Somehow she manages to get stuck up a pole and becomes the star attraction of her town. Everyone refuses to bring her down because of all her past nasty deeds.  Her dog, Rottenbud, goes on an adventure to bring back Priscilla, their long-lost Siamese companion. On their return, they manage to get Ilda down from the pole, but has she changed for the better?

Novel Writing Winter (NWW) 2013: on your marks, get set, go!

NWWbegins
Stepping into the unknown.

My hands are poised over the keyboard, the first sentence already in my head — not a proper sentence, some might say, as it doesn’t contain a verb, and, nightmare upon nightmare, it’s a flashback told in  second-person singular voice using the present tense. But this is the year for throwing the rulebook out of the window into the shrubbery at the bottom of my garden and going speculative.

You, in a glass case?

Possibly, those are the only five words I will disclose to anyone during the writing process — five words that will take at least 50,000 words to answer.

Are there any other NWW participants willing to share their trigger sentence, with the proviso that it need not stay as their opener in subsequent drafts.

Happy writing 🙂

For those who would still like to join in with NWW, you can find further info at https://sarahpotterwrites.wordpress.com/novel-writing-winter-nww-2013/