Slow down March

 After a frantic February, March has been the opposite so far. But of course that kind of activity with  four pieces published doesn't last. But it isn't all about acceptances. My output is still the same. Somehow I am keeping to my goal, though I do admit it seems to get harder each month. 

Since I began using my planner at the start of the year, I have realised two things (a) I put pressure on myself (b) using the book motivates me. There are lots in the planner that I don't use. There are places to enter rewards for getting things done. I don't use these. Rewards are for the tough stuff in my life, and when that happened recently, it had nothing to do with writing! I have always mentally set up rewards for things I know are going to be difficult to get through, anyway. Colour coding different areas of my life seemed like fun in the beginning, but I soon got bored with it. However, there are pages at the end of each month with questions about how the month has gone. I do find those useful. The planner also helps me keep on track of goals set and nudges me into keeping things going.

Finding outlets for work can be time consuming. In my last post I mentioned two sources for finding publications accepting work, and for up and coming competitions. Another source I have found useful is Twitter. At least two publications I have submitted to this month have come from Twitter. The thing is, so many publications close down, other submissions windows aren't open. Often I find their 'wants' obscure, or the genre doesn't fit mine. By the time I have eliminated all the publications that I don't 'fit' (and that can also include age, culture and sexual orientation) all those magazines I'd highlighted are whittled down to just two or three at best. Which is why I find Twitter so good. Often I find magazines I have not seen on any list. You really have to do your work.

My current work in progress is going slowly. With this one there is a certain amount of planning,  but each scene needs thought. My way of working this one is to visualise each scene in my head first. Notes are then made before writing. Because I don't want revels to come too quickly, I need to work out when and how things are revealed. I am sure lots of writers know when they start a piece what length it is going to be. Me? No! I start writing with enthusiasm and see how much it has in it and whether it is just a short story or maybe, my favourite, a novella. In the past, I have changed a poem to a flash or short story and vice versa. A work will often shout out at you about what it wants to be. If unsure, just experiment with other forms.

At present I am laid low with a rotten cold. Reluctantly, I have had to cancel a couple of things, but I am able to write. My imagination is still functioning and I've banged out a few poems, and last night when I was in bed I played out the next scene of my WIP. Not the entire scene because I fell asleep, but enough to get me started. I always say that I know when I'm on the mend because I start to get bored and want to get out and about and do things. I'm not there yet, but at least I can write.

I have heard back from my beta reader. She is half way through the first read of my novella (she says the first read is always for the enjoyment). Her second read through will bring up points she doesn't understand, or don't work for her, as well any grammar and punctuation errors. She has only made one comment so far about one thing that 'sticks out'. Is that good or bad? I will have to wait and see.

One last thing I would mention is that the more submissions you have out there, the less likely you are to ponder over what you have sent. It stops that waiting around for replies with a sinking feeling! Just get on and submit, and if a 'no' comes, look at it again, make any changes that might improve the work and re-submit elsewhere. Good luck. Keep writing.

Finding resources and writing horror

A comfort break from the webinar

Good morning (well, it is while I'm writing this). Here we are in the second week of January and I am getting to grips with my writing goals. Having the 'Legend Planner' is helping me stick to my monthly goals. I have submitted to three publications already (two short stories and two poems), and I have a fourth lined up, but I have to wait for the submission window to open later in the week.

I completed my piece of short fiction before the end of last year, and it is now sitting before I attempt a first edit. Written in small sections and not in order, I might have to tweak how this run. I've not been back to the other piece of fiction I was writing yet as I'd forgotten how long it takes to find a relevant piece and a relevant publication to submit too! I have, however, edited a couple of stories.

When working on my writing I tend to start in the morning and finish at lunchtime or before, depending on what I am doing. My brain works better that way.

How many of you have heard of Reedsy? I came across them last year when I was taking a course on how to self-publish. I subscribed to the email posts, but recently I have been looking at all the things they do, and in today's email I see they have a name generator, book title generator and a plot generator. Now that sounds fun. There is much more, like weekly prompts and a short story contest, and Apps for writing. I think I need to take a closer look at some of these. I note there is a formatting App, but having scanned through quickly, I haven't yet seen the advantage of this. KDP have their own formatting template which I was happy with. Maybe if you publish elsewhere it might me useful. But if you use this App, or others and can shed light on it/them do leave a comment.

Likewise, if you use other resources that you would recommend, please feel free to comment on those too. I am sure there are loads of things out there I don't know about.

On Saturday I took part in a three hour webinar on How to Write Horror, through Writers Online. I signed up out of curiosity and to expand my horizons. I found it very interesting, especially the sub categories. Horror isn't something I have ever considered writing. I have visions of those awful films I won't watch like Saw. I'm not into gore. However, I have written around the edges with ghost and gothic. These seem to be sub genres of horror. The webinar looked at forming characters and we used images of people to answer questionnaires about the protagonist and antagonist. There was an exercise on atmosphere and another picture prompt for an item before trying to write a scene. People shared. I didn't because a) I know so little about horror (and the monster picture prompts did nothing for me!) and b) it took me too long to form any scenes. Others obviously watch and read horror, so I was the oddball. Fair enough, I'm happy with that!

I found it enlightening, and it did help me establish what I would feel comfortable writing, which was a bit more than I expected. My out and out horror writing is slasher and extreme horror, so no gore from me. But if you want frightening, I might just be able to do that.

So, that my friends, is my round-up of the week. Do leave any comments about anything I have said and we will catch up again soon.

A writer's resource - check it out

Christmas is almost here!

While I was busy drafting a short story yesterday I went searching for a word to describe something (one of those moments when the brain freezes!) and came across a website that so fascinated me that for a while I was distracted from my writing. Click here and see for yourself. This is a great little resource for writers and soon I was clicking into pages and sub-pages on all sorts of subjects - stuff I had written about (a good way of checking that I'd got things right, or near-as). Every subject you can think of seems to be mentioned from forensics (ah, yes I was on that page!) to plot writing, word building and vocabulary along with medical research, aliens and weapons. I could spend a week on here non stop and not have read everything. There are links to other sites for more information on a subject, tips on writing - I have hardly broken the surface.

This has to be the find of the year! So I thought I'd follow the site and seem to have ended up with a 'page' on Tumblr. I'm not even sure what I'm doing with it! I know nothing about Tumblr. Could be a good time to explore it as I'm technically not writing at the moment (ha!).

Anyway, I though I'd pass on this wonderful website and hope you find something there that might help you in your writing. Happy reading!

Poetry & Diaries

Booking a poetry workshop so close after the Winchester Writers' Festival was probably a mistake, yet things come when they come. The 'Dear Diary' workshop (poetry & diaries) was originally due to be held at The Billingsgate Institute with a chance to look at the collection there. I was quite excited by this - the idea of looking at the diaries of ordinary people not normally available (well, you can actually go and look at them). However, due to the Institute being told they had to make money, the hire fee became too steep for The Poetry School to afford, so we met at the School's usual venue in Lambeth Walk.

We were asked to take along a published diary, and me being short of time ended up with the 'Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole' (which I didn't end up using but am having a good laugh reading it!). One the table was a collection of diaries in book form belonging to Julia Bird from The Poetry School (I never knew there were so many of them). Laura, who is working on the Diary Project at the Billingsgate Institute, brought along books from there carefully wrapped in tissue paper and boxes or in cellophane sleeves. We were allowed to handle these wonderful works of art. Wafting through the room was that wonderful smell of old books.

The earliest diary was from the 1700's written by a preacher visiting churches around the country, and one of the most weird was by a man who drew his face every day and made notes around it on the weather or about what he was doing. There was also a group of photos of items collected and kept in an attic room - everything from flattened Kodak film boxes to toothbrushes and brown medicine bottles. Everything was recorded in tiny writing.

These diaries gave an idea of the life these people led - from school children who kept dairies from aged eight to single women in wartime. Some were very funny, others stark. I have to say that I was far more fascinated by the books than the act of writing poetry from them. The first exercise was writing from the point of view of a teenager and I just couldn't get into that. We also tried an exercise using some part of a diary entry and putting ourselves into it. I couldn't get into that one either because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing. I began looking at Virginia Woolf's diary for ideas but I really can't relate to her as a person and I remember giving up on her book 'To The Lighthouse' very early on - too much waffle for me. So by the end of the morning session I'd written nothing and spent the time reading extracts from some of the diaries.

Doodling instead of writing!

I do think that I really wasn't in the right frame of mind for this workshop (the writing aspect) but thankfully after lunch I finally managed to write one piece which I shared before I again drifted off and ended up doodling on my notebook! The subject matter was fascinating and that's what drew me and if I'm honest I'd really rather have spent the day looking at the diaries in more detail and discussing them. I can see they might be very useful as a resource for poetry but I would need more time to read and get a feel for them for that to work for me.

There is one diary I think I will have to read by Joan Wyndham ('Love Letters') described on Wikipedia as 'a latterday Pepys in camiknickers.' Her writing is funny. One entry (from 1939) describes how when her mother and Sid (not quite sure who he is) go to church, she gets drunk for the very first time on rum. She says that..... 'it was a very nice experience indeed. I no longer cared a damn what happened to anybody.