AND ... relax

Teen Daughter had her driving test today.

She was understandably nervous, not least because it's been cancelled twice already, due to bad weather, and she has to keep psyching herself up. Then her instructor decided to give up teaching at the eleventh hour, and passed her over to someone she'd never met before, with a car she's never driven.

It brought back horrible memories of my first test. I say first because it took me, ahem, four go's to pass. I was quite confident the first time, not really knowing what to expect, and thought I'd done well but I failed. They're not allowed to tell you why, at least they weren't back then, so after that nerves got the better of me. On my second test I was so determined to pass my mind went completely blank and I failed coming out of the test centre, which was unfortunately situated on a hill. On my third test I couldn't stop shaking and accidentally accelerated out of a junction, instead of braking, and narrowly missed getting hit by a lorry. The examiner looked a bit faint.

The fourth time I was eight months pregnant with the twins, and could barely squeeze behind the wheel. The examiner, a steely-eyed woman with a look of the traffic warden about her, looked at me and hissed, "Don't think you'll get preferential treatment just because you're pregnant." Charming, I thought, convinced I'd already failed. I must have relaxed at that point. I even remember thinking what a lovely day it was. Blue sky, etc.

Naturally I passed, and I was thinking about this today while my baby girl was being put through her paces.

It's been a similar tale with the writing (there had to be a link somewhere!) First Ever Novel was written quickly and confidently and sent out straight away. Nicely rejected, but rejected all the same. I became nervous. Started trying too hard, and thinking all the time about getting published, instead of just writing.

So maybe it's time to relax and enjoy the journey again, and perhaps the rest will take care of itself.

At least I'm not likely to be hit by a lorry. Unless I'm writing by the side of the road. And a learner driver comes careering round the bend ...

Sadly, she didn't pass. I baked her a chocolate cake just in case and I think she's feeling better about it now. I reckon she'll do it next time.

Very trying

Teen Son zoned in on me earlier, as he's wont to do every now and then. Usually when he wants some something. "What happened to that novel you were writing when we moved here, Mum?" He even remembered the title. "'Making Other Plans'" wasn't it?"

Oh Christ. "Erm," I dithered, wondering if I could get away with saying, "well actually, darling, it's with my agent and will be coming out at the end of the year," and somehow get it written and secure a publishing deal before March.

"It sort of bit the dust," I admitted.

"I thought you were doing it again."

"Um, the moment had passed," I confessed. "But I'm doing another one now!" I added, pathetically eager, and he nodded sympathetically.

"Is that the one about being famous?"

"Er, no. I, um, sort of ran out of steam on that one."

His brow furrowed manfully. "Oh. What's this one about then?"

"Oh, it's sort of hard to explain," I wibbled, and he nodded with great understanding.

"At least you keep trying," he said kindly, before wandering off to annoy his brother.

It's horrid admitting failure to your children when they still look up to you and somehow assume you can do anything. They must think I'm a right hopeless case. I can't even make money grow on trees for heaven's sake.

"You couldn't lend me a couple of quid could you?" he said hopefully, five minutes later.

Like he said, it's the trying that counts ...
****************************

Oh, and a big thank you to the lovely Alis Hawkins for this rather smashing award!


If anyone would like to pinch it, feel free - you're all cool you know :o)

Resolutions

It's m' birthday tomorrow. (Or today. Or yesterday. Or the 27th, depending on when you're reading this.) Twenty-three. I know, I can't believe it either! I usually make a resolution on the day. Much more sensible than making one at the beginning of the year, when I'm still high on mince pies. And not a big Out Loud resolution either, in case I get flak for failing to achieve it, (although maybe I should) but a little one, generally along the lines of "I WILL get the novel finished and Out There this year." Last year's was to get a short story published in a national magazine, which I did (YAY!) but I've reverted to the old one again this year. It seems to be heading in the right direction as opposed to in the bin, which is promising.

However, a brilliantly funny post on Spiralskies blog tapped in to a conversation I had with Teen Daughter today, and made me realise I might have to add another resolution.

"Why do you wear so much brown?' she said, scanning my cords beadily.

"It's the new black?" I offered hopefully. "It matches my eyes?"

"You look like a giant poo," she said.

Right.

Nearly as bad as her comment after my yearly scuffle with the hairdresser, a few months back. "You look like one of the Beatles," she said, stroking my head thoughtfully. I don't know which one. I didn't like to ask.

It's clearly time for a style overhaul.

When I've finished the novel...

The Gulp Factor

There's a great post on emerging writer's blog about an international literary contest, where brave writers anonymously submit the first page of their novel to be read aloud in front of a panel of agents, who all shout "STOP!" at the point where they'd cease reading. A sort of Britain's Got Talent for writers. Definitely not for the faint-hearted, but it was interesting to read some of the reasons given for not wanting to read on...

Opened with rhetorical question(s).

The first line is about setting, not about story.

The first line’s hook did not work, because it was not tied to the plot or the conflict of the opening scene.

Took too long for anything to happen (a critique, incidentally, leveled several times at a submission after only the first paragraph had been read); the story taking time to warm up.

Not enough happens on page 1.

The opening sounded like an ad for the book or a recap of the pitch, rather than getting the reader into the story.

The opening contained the phrases, “My name is…” and/or “My age is…”

The opening contained the phrase, “This can’t be happening.”

The opening contained the phrase or implication, “And then I woke up.”

The opening had a character do something that characters only do in books, not real life. Specifically singled out: a character who shakes her head to clear an image, “he shook his head to clear the cobwebs.”

The character spots him/herself in a mirror, in order to provide an excuse for a physical description.

The first paragraph was straight narration, rather than action.

Too much physical description in the opening paragraph, rather than action or conflict.

Opening spent too much time on environment, and not enough on character.

There are LOADS more reasons on the author author site and only 8 on why an agent WOULD read on. Blimey.

I'm guilty of one of the above, but I'm not going to say which (shakes head to clear cobwebs. No it wasn't that one.) I like to think I've done it in a lightly amusing fashion, rather than a cliched one though I'm probably wrong.

Either way it's definitely worth whipping out that first page again and trying to make it really stand out. Thing is, can I keep it up for the rest of the novel?

Realism

YOU ARE A REALIST You don't see the glass as half empty or half full. You see what's exactly in the glass. You never try to make a bad situation seem better than it is... But you also never sabotage any good things you have going on. You are brutally honest in your assessments of situations - and this always seems to help you cope.

Are You An Optimist or Pessimist?

I was hoping for optimist, but being a realist is no bad thing.

After your kind and insightful comments re: The Dilemma, I've decided there's no point having a thrombo (as the Teens would say) or hunting down cake for Comfort. Actually, I don't need an excuse to eat cake, but I digress. No. What I need is a New Angle. A USP as they say on The Dragon's Den. When they're persuading Duncan Ballantyne to invest in an Anti-Eating Mouth Cage. Actually I could do with one of those (see Cake reference above...)

I've had a good old think today, and am fairly certain I've got a firm grip on the slippery beast once again.

I hope to Christ it's all going to be worth it in the end.

AAARRRGGGHHHH!!

While shelving at the library today, I happened to pick up this rather attractive novel, by Sharon Owens. Glancing idly at the back cover I did a double-take. NO! It couldn't be... It was. The story is identical to my novel-in-progress. Well, almost. It's the same idea, anyway.

AAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

I mean. For heaven's sake. What's a girl to do? More to the point, what am I going to do??

This situation reminds me of an interview I read, a while ago, with the author Sophie King (aka Jane Bidder.) Apparently she wrote 11 - yes ELEVEN novels, before The School Run was accepted for publication, and the reason two of those novels were rejected was that, on both occasions, the publisher had just accepted a similar story written by someone else. How annoying must that have been? I simply can't imagine the frustration.

I suppose I should be inspired by the fact that, instead of giving up and sulking in a corner for twelve years, she just kept plugging away until she got it right. She's written another couple since then, I think.

Oh bum. I'd better get m'thinking cap on. I don't want to give up, but I'm going to have to do some serious twiddling.

Cringe

It's probably not de-rigeur, but I've decided to post the first chapter of my novel-in-progress (see link to the left, under my profile) for you to cast your beady eyes over. I know you've all got quite enough on your plates as it is, but if you feel up to passing comment (or wind, if you prefer, I don't mind) I'd appreciate it.

I value your opinions as sensible, straight-talking women who know a good tale when they read one, and if you think it's a big pile of trite, seen-it-all-before doggy-doo, or a total yawn-fest, or even badly-written tripe, then give it to me straight. I can take it. Honest.

I'll go and lie in a darkened room and wait for the axe to fall...

Close, but no cigar

Well, I've thrown in the towel. The Novel-In-Progress just ain't working. I asked my bloggy friends for Help a little while ago, and you lovely lot confirmed what I already knew in m'heart of hearts. My plot - which seemed nothing short of brilliant at the moment of conception - just didn't have legs. Well it did, but they were short, hairy little buggers, not capable of offering much in the way of support. A further thrashing out of the finer points with Lovely Husband was the final nail in the coffin. 'It just doesn't sound interesting enough,' he said thoughtfully, and I couldn't argue with that. He's never wrong, annoyingly.

Plotting is a real weakness of mine. It's frustrating. I have a vivid imagination, and I KNOW a good story when I read one, and I read a lot, but while I get lots of Ideas (thank goodness I do...otherwise I might as well give up and train as a plumber - which would actually be really useful because we've just paid a fortune to have our shower fixed. I'm sure the chap just picked a sensible figure out of the air and quarupled it. Since it was put about that plumbers are rarer than hen's teeth, round here, they've started swanking about thinking they own the planet, and they could probably afford to...not that I hold a grudge or anything)...anyway, I digress. To the point where I've forgotten what I was babbling about. Oh yes. Ideas. Plenty of 'em. Trouble is, I can't seem to sustain them. I chuck all these balls in the air, think up some clever plot twists - even work out roughly how it will all end, then somehow everything topples down, like a house of cards, and that's when I start editing and tweaking and fluffing endlessly, trying to avoid the truth, because I know it's all going to end in tears. Mine. Well, not literally. I've toughened up a lot since an agent told me the plot of my First-Ever-Novel was 'tired.' I know how it felt.

I've had a lot of feedback over the last couple of years...mostly 'cos I kept sending that damn manuscript out like a matchmaker trying to fix up a difficult friend. I can write, apparently -unless those replies were the equivalent of that oft'used breakup line "look it's not you, it's me." There's nothing wrong with m'pacing, structure, dialogue or characterisation, it would seem. But those are as nothing, without a decent plot. You might as well try and bake a cake without using butter. Or flour. (With my track record, you'll know that I already have).

Anyway. It's really hard to chuck out what you've already written, which is why I carried on worrying away at it. In the process, what's actually happened is I've wittled my first two chapters into a New Story. Yes. I have another Idea. This one, dare I say it, seems to have better legs. Long and sinewy. Lightly tanned. Toned, even. Unlike my own. Not thoroughbred racehorse, exactly. More well-bred greyhound. It might even go the distance.

I won't hold my breath though. With my luck it'll keel over the minute the gun goes off.

(I plead guilty m'lud, to a blatant overuse of analogies in this post. Please don't fine me. I've had a plumber in recently...)

Help!

The main character (she's single, by the way) in my booky-wook is facing a dilemma, and to this end I would like to ask you my dear, occasionally unhinged (but in a good way) readers, if you wouldn't mind answering a question for me.

If you accidentally found out that the handsome stranger you were about to "bump" into on your birthday night out, was actually a male escort hired by your two closest friends, with instructions to "flatter you to within an inch of you life," how would you feel?

Outraged? Betrayed? Amused? Panic-stricken? Thrilled and excited? Sick to your stomach? Let-down?

Would you confront them? Go along with it and have a ball? Go along with it but vow to get your own back?

Also, is this something you would EVER do for a single friend who was still seriously off men, two years after a disastrous relationship ended - assuming she's spurned all "normal" attempts at setting her up with friends and colleagues etc??

I really need you to write my book for me some feedback here, because if it doesn't make sense it needs to go, basically. (No pressure then - Ed).

So, if you've got a second, I would most 'umbly appreciate your help (I'll stop grovelling now).

It's over to you...

Ooh, and there's another lovely award going round (makes it sound like a virus) which Lane has kindly passed on to me, among others, (I feel unfairly spoilt, I must say) with instructions to pass it on to TEN other people, which is nice actually, as so many of you deserve it. Yes I'm still grovelling, but I mean it, goddamm you! So, bearing in mind lots of people have already been handed it, I'm going to pass the award of excellence to... A.Writer CallyTaylor Alis Spiral Skies Leigh Mike Maddie Sarah *G* and Poetess.

Erm, in all the excitement, with your lovely awards and everything, don't forget I need HELP over here, will you now??? Good :0)

But what's my motivation, dahling?

After hitting a bit of a brick wall, writing-wise, I decided to sit my main character down and ask her some questions. Like a therapist, or an interviewer from The Times, or The Independent. Not one from Heat magazine. They'd probably ask her who she'd grope if she was invisible for a day, or whether she'd ever had a threesome - although I suppose the answers could have been equally revealing!

No, I wanted a proper, in-depth Q&A session, along the lines of:

"So, Harriet. How did it all start?

"What did you do?"

"How did you feel, when you found out?"

"Why did you react that way, instead of simply confronting them?"

"Then what happened?"

And you know what. It actually worked, really well. I typed about 20 sheets altogether - there's literally no end to my procrastination tactics - and as Harriet's answers unfurled I began to see meaning where I hadn't before, and also to understand properly what everybody else's motives were, which has, in turn, created more depth. Depth which had been sadly lacking - hence the Q&A session in the first place. It was as if I'd worked out the plot and stuck to it as closely as possible, but had started to lose the bit of thread that made sense of, or clarified, everything. I'd gone off at a tangent here and there, which is fine - in fact, by the end of the exercise, I'd realised my story is as much about friendship as anything else, which I hadn't picked up at all before (!) - but certain things had ceased to make sense. (I know. What am I like? Call myself a writer?) It's like when you know you've got to confront someone about something, and you work out in your head all the clever, insightful, completely brilliant things you're going to say, but you haven't factored in their responses and feelings properly, so when you finally come face to face, they say something unexpected and you burst into tears. No? Just me?

Ok-ay...

Like posting my chapters as a blog, it's helped me to move things along nicely (a sort of mental laxative, as it were.) It's made me see what I've written so far with a fresh eye - I keep a supply of them under my desk for such occasions - and I thought it might be worth a mention, just in case anyone else out there is having a similar wobble and might find it useful.

Which I'm sure you won't as most of you lovely writers seem to be a lot cleverer than me, and possibly on the verge of being published any minute as it is (not that I'm bitter or anything...)

NaNoWriteOff

Well, I didn’t manage 50,000 words by the end of November. Not even close. However, I did do more writing during that month than the rest of the year put together, and that was the idea really. I like a deadline, it seems to focus my attention, and I’ve proved to myself that when I put my mind to it I CAN sit down and Get On With It, which begs the question – why don’t I?
My new strategy, I’ve decided, is reverse psychology. If I tell myself I can’t do something, I immediately want to do it - for instance, if I mentally decide not to eat chocolate for a day/week, (Hah, as if!) I simply can’t think about anything else and I always give in. So, following the same principle…I’m not going to do any writing AT ALL for a week. I’m banning myself from going to the computer, from opening up the BOOK file, from re-reading my work, from doing a bit of editing and from deciding what’s going to happen next…I SIMPLY WON’T ALLOW IT.

I can feel it working already.

Lost my Mojo

I'm really cracking on with the NaNoWriMo thing, and more importantly - enjoying it.
It made me realise how recently, I've been 'trying too hard' with my novel.
A couple of years ago I sat down and wrote a Whole One - 300 pages - and loved every minute. Being completely naive, I didn't do any re-writing or editing. I couldn't wait to sent it Out There. Surprisingly (because looking back it was pretty bloody awful - cringeworthy in many ways) I received some very positive feedback. The the main criticism were, my main character wasn't 'rounded' enough and one of the plot points was 'a little tired'. Basically, it needed re-writing.
And that's what I've been doing ever since. The trouble is, I found myself tied up in knots, trying to write what I thought agents and publishers wanted to read, but it soon became apparent that this technique just wasn't working. I kept faltering. Starting again. Thinking about giving up. Changing the first chapter. Changing the title. Changing the theme. Changing the whole thing. Another year went by with not much to show for it.
Yet, reading through my very first effort last week, for the first time in months, it struck me how spontaneous it sounded. I had great fun writing it, and it showed. The dialogue was...well, quite sparkly in parts, and I laughed out loud a couple of times. Yes, lots of things needed tightening up, but basically it was miles better than anything I've produced since. What's that all about???
So now, I've gone back to basics. I'm resurrecting my original masterpiece. It needs a lot of re-shaping and it still might not work, but I'm actually having fun with the damn thing again.
I think I've found my Mojo.

NaNoWriMo

In the spirit of Getting On With It, I've decided to sign up to NaNoWriMo, which should be a kick up the backside if nothing else. I'm good with a deadline, but the key is not to edit or polish (something I'm rather good at, to the extent that I've re-written Chapter One so many times it's turned into a different novel) - but just to get the thing out there. 50,000 words is the target. Gulp.
Actually, I'm sure the gutters need de-leafing. The fridge needs a good soaping as well...