#AmWriting

I know. This is supposed to a be a ‘daily blog’, but it has been anything but, even from the beginning. I should really re-title my posts.

So what have I been doing?

Well, for one thing I have been undertaking an on-line course for writers, ‘The Story Cartel course’. This invaluable course talks you through how to build a platform, engage with your readers and share your story. It takes you through simple practical steps whilst enabling you to interact with both the founder himself (Joe Bunting) and other course members – budding writers from all over the world with varying levels of writing and publishing experience (from never having shared a story with anyone, to experiences in both the self-publishing and traditional publishing worlds).

The course can be found here:

http://course.storycartel.com/

Of course I can’t even BEGIN to ‘engage with my readers’ if I don;t have anything for them to read, and this is my current agony. What WILL they want to read? I have such a great idea for a story (well, I think it’s great) but I have started it three different ways so far and I STILL can’t decide the best way to approach it. My characters have changed from teenagers to adults and back again, and one of them has changed genders twice! Part of me thinks I should maybe just move on to the next chapter, KEEP WRITING and somehow it will sort itself out.

Hopefully.

Anyone else want free e-books?

Cover via Amazon

I recently joined a group called Story Cartel. It was set up by Jeff Goins and Joe Bunting as a way of ensuring reviews for new e-books.

The idea is that they send you notice of new e-books, and you can download them for free. In return, all they ask is that you write a review on Amazon.

Seems like a good deal to me – who doesn’t want free books? And they say one of the best ways to improve your writing is to read. Plus I’m hoping that one day I can put out an e-book and get reviews in the same way. Its all win, win win!

While I was downloading today’s free book, Roxy by PJ Reece, I checked out the authors blog and saw that he has another book out about writing stories – Story Structure to Die For. I had a look on Amazon uk and it was £1.50 (!!!) so I thought what the hell, lets see what he has to say. I really like his ideas about heroes and tragedies, and how to draw your readers in. I’m going to try his ideas with the re-write of my nano book.

Incidentally, just in case you didn’t know (because I didn’t until fairly recently), you don’t actually need a Kindle to read free books – you can download an e-book reader on your laptop or your phone, and voila!

Ok, that’s enough plugging stuff today I think. I’ll post another story next, I promise!

NaNoWriMo, dude!

(I love the way Americans call each other ‘dude’…I’d say it all the time, if it wasn’t for the fact I am British and it would make me look pretentious. And somewhat ridiculous. I might adopt it at work amongst my co-workers, whilst wearing the new reading glasses no-one thinks I should have bought, and see what the reaction is.)

BLEAURGH!!! I’ve left way too long a gap between my last post and this one. Unfortunately no-one is paying me to write yet, so I still have to go to work. I live in hope.

So.

Next month is National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo (the name always makes me think of the Judoon from Dr Who… “RO HO MO HO JO”, or something like that…). Originating in San Francisco in 1999, it now has around 300,000 participants.

National Novel Writing Month Web Badge (Photo credit: ajsundby)

The idea is you write a 50,000 word novel starting on the 1st of November and aim to have it finished by the 30th. That’s 1000-2000 words a day, or 1666 per day according to Chuck Wendig (if you fancy a laugh, enjoy really good writing and don’t mind a bit of swearing, I can recommend this guys website. Here is his take on NaNoWriMo).

You are not supposed to come out with a shiny, well edited perfect piece of writing – the idea is you just WRITE, with a devil-may-care, sod-the-housework (because it’s so often on my mind…ahem….), throw caution to the wind, fly by the seat of your pants approach and just get the thing written.

THEN you can go back in December, once you have caught your breath, had some sleep and repaired all the damage wreaked on your house by your family while your back was turned, and turn the bones of your story into something beautiful. Add flesh, paint it up a bit, bring the wobbly bits into line, and then maybe you will have a knicker-gripping, earth-shattering, mind-changing story worthy of publication. Most publishers apparently look for something of around 300,000-500,000 words, and are not interested in a tiny 50,000 unedited piece that was fueled by caffeine and desperation.

There seem to be lots of pros and cons to this approach. For me, the appeal is having a goal; a finish line; light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m not very disciplined  Or very organised. I almost always forget everyone’s birthdays, for example. I lose things on a regular basis (my purse, my keys, my phone, my children and the dog). I am still working on strategies to help me with these every day occurrences  and enjoy the occasional success (I still have my kids and the dog. In case you were wondering.)

I’d really LOVE to get something published, and I know it takes time. The word on the internet ‘street’ is that it takes 6-10 years for the average writer to get their work published. Which is why, I keep reminding myself, I am starting NOW – so that in 10 years time I don’t look back and wish I had started 10 years ago.

But as my husband reminded me recently, if I don’t actually WRITE anything, I will never get anything published EVER.

So I’m giving the old NaNoWriMo thing a go, and I am using October (or whats left of it) to plan. Wish me luck.

 

Here are some other articles I read on NaNoWriMo, if you need more motivation:

Twelve Reasons to ignore the nay-sayers

Why winning isn’t the main reason

Five Good reasons to do NaNoWriMo

and this one again, just in case you missed the link – this one is my favourite:

25 things you should know about NaNoWriMo