Writing – Page 2 – My Little Notepad

Blessings

Last year was a bit of a rough ‘un. For a multitude of reasons; I’m not going to go through them now otherwise I’ll have to retreat to the sofa in pyjamas and eat Ben and Jerry’s out of the tub (ooh, actually…)

This year I was determined to leave all that behind. So to keep that resolution going, here’s a quick list of ten blessings: things I’m actually really happy about in my life right now.

My kids – they’re happy, healthy, developing bang on target and make me laugh and melt as much as they drive me up the wall. There’s no middle ground – they move me, daily, one way or another. Frankly, it’s exhausting 😉
My husband – he’s soft as muck, funny (though don’t tell him I said that), talented (his design business is going fantastically well after only a year) and he would do pretty much anything to look after us all. He’s not perfect but he does a pretty good impression of it.
My home – I’m quite keen on the idea of moving house when we’re able to afford it but until then we’re warm and secure and in a nice home.
Daniel’s school – we had the extremely privileged dilemma when Daniel started school of having two brilliant schools to choose between. Isn’t that a nice decision to have to make? And the one we chose I just love. The teachers are supportive and have brought Daniel on leaps and bounds and he’s a bright, confident little boy. They really invest in the children, and I don’t just mean financially.
Music – I just LOVE music. I recently made a playlist on my phone which gets me in a good mood and it works every single time.

Half way there…

My phone – I won an iPhone 4 in a twitter competition not long after they came out and it’s been fabulous. I sometimes toy with the idea of going back to a ‘normal’ phone and I would really miss it. And despite being nearly two years old and used heavily every day it’s as good as a brand new one bar a slightly sticky button. How many gadgets can say that, eh?
Twitter – I’m not on very much at the minute but I pop in and there’s always a friend to say hello. A couple of my very best friends are people I met on twitter. Nettie, you know I’m looking at you.
Books – we’re about to have a cull of our books and looking through the shelves I realise how many books I have that I love, but also how many brilliant books are still out there, waiting for me! Recent books that I’ve loved are The Cleaning Bible (by Kim & Aggie, y’know, off the telly), A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell.

Two left. Hmm, this is getting tricky now…

Another soppy one – my parents and in-laws. They’re just amazing and supportive and mad as hatters.
My health – this is a tricky one as I’ve been feeling pretty low lately, and I’m overweight and unfit. But I have no major diseases, the conditions I have are managed easily with tablets and I’m not housebound or dependant. Way more important to remember those things than the negative things.

Phew! Made it to ten. Actually, it was easier than I thought.

I’m going to finish with this infographic I found on Pinterest:

Worth remembering! (from http://alexandrasheppard.com/2010/03/31/why-we-are-rather-lucky/)

Source: google.co.uk via Rebecca on Pinterest

April

April 1st!

This year is really flying over. It doesn’t seem two minutes since I did a blog post saying March would be here soon.

Or maybe it’s because my blog posts have fallen by the wayside. The tiredness I’ve been struggling with for a few months has been identified as an iron deficiency and between that and trying to get on top of stuff at home the blog has taken a back seat.

But I’ve missed it! So I’m leaping into April to take up last year’s A-Z blog challenge, in which I’ll attempt to post something every day of April (except Sundays…er, after today) which is tenuously related to a letter of the alphabet.

And in honour of April and the unseasonably warm weather we’ve had for the last week, here’s a picture of Daniel and Emily enjoying the sunshine!

And here is the list of blogs participating in the A-Z Challenge:

Hope for Willow Burn

As most of my friends online know, my grandpa has been very ill for about a month. He’s currently being cared for by Willow Burn hospice in Co Durham and they have been absolutely wonderful.

My mum always says that dying is inevitable, but important; one of the most important things you will ever do. Willow Burn, and hospices like it across the country, provide care and compassion and dignity at the time when you need it most, but they get almost no state funding; as their website says, they survive on the goodwill of the community and fundraising. Doesn’t this seem wrong? That hospices, which look after you at the most critical time of your life, need to rely on fundraising to survive?

Of course, it’s not just Willow Burn. My husband in a previous life was a professional fundraiser for a wonderful hospice in Stockton, and his friend is still doing the same job at a hospice in Sunderland. So why am I shouting for Willow Burn in particular, other than my own personal link?

Because they desperately need it, basically. They deliver the most amazing care in an old, under-resourced building, and have only four beds when they could easily fill twice as many. If you follow me on twitter or Facebook, you might have seen me ask for fundraising ideas a couple of days ago. I want to show my appreciation of their dedication as well as donate to them some much-needed funds. So many people had some amazing ideas, and my favourite was an anthology of short stories, with all the proceeds going to Willow Burn.

And so to the point. I would be hugely, amazingly grateful for short stories. I have some very talented friends, both published and unpublished, and I think if you would help me we could make a fabulous anthology that would raise a little bit of money for a fabulous place. I want to focus on hope, and have stories that are hopeful, humourous, uplifting… you get the idea. If you can help, or if you don’t fancy writing a story but can help by spreading the word, please, please do. I’ll do all the formatting and Andrew will do me a cover so all you have to do is send me a story you’re happy with. If I get inundated (yes please!) I might need some help to narrow it down but that’s an appeal for another day.

Keep an eye here as I’ll be doing a couple more blog posts on the hospice itself. And thank you – in advance – for your help and support!

Updated to add: If anyone has a story to submit, send it to this email. Thanks again!

FINISHED

This morning I finished my first ever draft of a novel. A WHOLE novel. What I wrote. Me.

Ahem.

I know that for real, proper authors this isn’t a big deal – and maybe it shouldn’t be such a big deal? But it really is. Not only am I a bit of a procrastinator, and have all the usual writerly hangups about fear of failure, etc etc, but I have genuinely struggled over the last year or so with life in general and self-doubt and all the rest of it. Anyway, no more, I have achieved my next writing goal and finished an entire novel, and I’m blooming proud of myself.

I’m not sure of the exact word count because a) it needs quite a lot of rewriting and knocking into shape and what have you. It is the epitome of Anne Lamott’s “s****y first draft” but it’s definitely got a decent novel in there. And b) because the last leg was all done longhand in my cheapy, scruffy, beloved reporter’s notebook, so I’m about to start typing it up ready to print out. And from there, I’ll leave it for a few days before attacking it with a pencil and red biro. In the meantime, donning a Real Writer’s mantle, I have a competition entry to write, a new ebook to plan (my first is HERE in case I haven’t mentioned it before…) and my nearly-finished historical to get to the finishing line. And, by the way, this is HUGELY more likely having finished one first draft. So it’s more than likely that in a couple of months I will have TWO finished first drafts of novels and in six months I will hopefully have both rewritten, polished, and out on submission. Which will probably mean many, many anguished blog posts and practising gracious responses to rejection.

So, because I know EVERYONE is agog to know the details of my masterpiece, here you go…

It’s a YA thriller, aimed at the younger end of the age range (around 11-16), and the working title (thanks to the very brilliant MarshallBuckley) is SKIVE. The pitch, developed a little from the one I gave my twitter pals this morning (and, btw, trying to get across the point of book on twitter in as few tweets as possible is brilliant practice for pitching), is…

Nicky skives off the school trip to Newcastle & ends up on a quest for a mysterious artefact, involving supernatural villains & a ghost who can’t quite get over his death.

I have practiced my award acceptance speech and put the champagne in the fridge. All of which are, as well as this blog post, quite obviously new avoidance tactics for starting the revision…

Write A Great Synopsis

2012 is the year I finally finish off my two ongoing WIPS, then begin the ordeal of putting together a submission package and sending it all off. With that in mind, it’s perfect timing that I’m helping Nicola Morgan with the blog tour for her new book, Write A Great Synopsis: An Expert Guide. This short ebook has got some brilliant ideas in for turning said ordeal into something manageable and even exciting. No, really!

Without further ado, let me hand over to the Crabbit One…

Hello, Becca, and thanks for hosting me on the Write a Great Synopsis (WAGS) blog tour. Not that, *cough*, you had much choice…

I thought a sensible thing to do for my lovely blog hosts who want an actual post would be to give each one a different extract from the book. (There will be links to the whole blog tour on my blog sidebar.) So, what will I offer to your readers? Well, in WAGS I have a whole chapter devoted to answering actual questions from writers. I thought I’d give you three of them here.

What if your novel is exceptionally long?

It doesn’t mean that the synopsis should be or even needs to be. If you’ve written Anna Karenina, leave out the farming stuff and that should help a lot. A book that is very long is usually so because there are many obstacles or incidents to get through, in which case not all need be mentioned individually: “Seraphina spends fifteen years on the ranch, working her way through a series of increasingly unsuitable men” is a perfectly adequate way to convey a whole section of your saga. If your book is long because of rich description or characterisation, or farming, that is stuff which doesn’t appear in a synopsis anyway.

Do I really have to include the ending?

Another blog-reader, Laura Mary, wondered whether this is necessary if the ending gives away a vital twist, the knowledge of which will spoil the enjoyment for the reader. Yes, almost everyone agrees that endings must be given in synopses for agents and editors. Yes, it may remove some of their anticipation while reading the book, but they are professionals and they will survive the pain. Besides, if you write your synopsis well enough, they will still get that “Ahhh, clever ending!” feeling when reading the synopsis itself.

What’s more important: content or style?

Neal wondered whether it’s a “judgement call between content and style.” He says, “I’m struggling to work out the balance between making a synopsis a proof of the structure as a viable vehicle for a compelling story, and it giving an idea of style and tone, which seems to me needs a slightly more expansive approach.”

I don’t think the two ever have to be mutually exclusive. I certainly don’t think style and tone require a more expansive approach: they can be conveyed with no extra words, just well chosen words. I do understand the question, though, and can see why writers might ask it. I just believe that a writer who is even asking the question most likely has enough skill to tread the balance and satisfy the needs for both content and style. However, you cannot hope to achieve a piece of flash fiction; a synopsis is a functional exercise, little more.

(Extract ends)

Hope that was useful!

Write a Great Synopsis covers everything about synopsis-writing, clearly and reassuringly. At the end of it I believe you truly will say to yourself, “Don’t panic – it’s only a synopsis!” That is my aim.

All commenters below (by Feb 15^th) will be entered into the Big WAGS Competition, with chances to win a critique of your synopsis by the Crabbit Old Bat herself! One comment per person on each blog – though you can add to your chances by commenting on the other posts on the tour. Details of all stops on the tour will appear on my blog (Help! I Need a Publisher!) as they go out.

Thank you for listening and I do hope I can help you write a great synopsis! For details about the book, including buying options, go here. The link direct to Amazon UK is here.

Thanks again for letting me visit!

Pleasure! Now, off to write…