Edit 2? What edit 2?

Indeed, what edit 2?  I should have started that in January.  It’s now 8th February and Italian Infatuation 0.2 is still exactly the same as Italian Infatuation 0.1.  Why?  Well, I must admin, I seemed to have blocked out the fact I needed to do it a few days ago – until today, I had genuinely forgotten I should be working on that. Oops.  I blame the cough and the cold.  I hate England. 

I also seem to be doing quite a lot of other things at the moment, which are maybe taking up the time I should be editing.   Good things though I think. 

So what am I doing?  Obviously I’ve got  the 20 or so blogs I read a day (thank god not everyone updates their blog daily).  I’ve now made a crack with the second (fiction) assignment for the writing course.  I need to list all magazines I can find that publish short stories, analyse one and write a short story for it.   Oh, I also need to read some modules that I keep forgetting to do.  I’m doing lots of little writing things too: Oneword daily, Fiction Friday on Fridays, and generally finding any prompts from anywhere online I can to write from. 

So really, it’s all good things that are keeping me from starting this edit.  I read somewhere that a lot of people write their first novel then stick it in a draw and it never comes out.  I don’t want to be one of those people.  I know I’m a little biased,  but I think Italian Infatuation is a story that needs to be told! 

I’m a little torn on what story to use for the course.  I have one pre written I would like to send, but it’s 1,600+ words and I need to have it 1,500 or less.  I don’t want to shorten it, I think it needs everything it has.  I have a story that I started for Fiction Friday, that I am working on to make a longer more detailed story, but I’m not sure if I can get it up to 1,500.  But I’d like to.  Or, should I just start a completely new story for it?  Oh the decisions. 

I think I might have thought up another idea for another novel this morning.  Serioulsy, can my mind not just work on one thing and one thing only?

Right, I’ve got 25 minutes before my lunch break.  I’m going to work on the course until I go.  I will not work on the story prompt I started this morning.  I will not work on the story prompt I started this morning.  I will not…

Mega Monday Moan

I actually did some writing over the weekend.  Better than that though, I made some notes for my writing course assignment AND bought some magazines for research.  Yeah, get me! 

I’m so excited about it now, I can’t stop thinking about what I’m going to write.  The problem I’ve just remembered is that I’m supposed to read some modules before I write the story.  I’ve read some of them, but not others, and I’m now not planning on going home for a couple of days.  Even with this, I’m still determined to get it sent by the end of the week.  I will do it. 

I’m doing an early shift at work, so am incredibly tired.  I am not a morning person so getting up at 6.15 (with a bad cough and cold) does not make me a happy person.  It also doesn’t make me a very creative person – I know I should write more, but I’ve got that can’t be bothered feeling.  I’m going to type up my notes about the short story for the course, then spend the rest of the day surfing I think.  Happy Monday everyone… Only 4 1/2 working days till the weekend…

[Fiction] Friday Challenge #141 – February 5th 2010

How Fiction Friday works:

• Spend at least 5 minutes composing something original based on the theme or challenge (below).
• But, remember, no editing. This is to inspire creativity not stifle it.
• On Friday, simply post what you wrote to your own blog. Then come back to Write Anything and leave the link in the comment section below.  

Pick a book of fiction you’d never read (e.g., if you read sci-fi, pick a romance). Open to a random page and read the last couple paragraphs of the page. DO NOT TURN THE PAGE. Now continue writing the story. Feel free to change the genre as you write.

 What?  Are you kidding?  That’s hard.  Right here goes then.  My extract is from the novel my boyfriend is currently reading The Stars Like Dust by Isaac Asimov (for information, it was publised 1955).  I asked for page 25, but he said it was ‘wishy washy’ go gave me this from page 24:

The view-room was a bubble on the ship’s “skin”, a bubble of curved two-foot-thick, steel-hard transparent plastic. The retractile iridium-steel lid which protected it against the scouring of the atmosphere and its dust particles had been sucked back. The lights were out and the gallery was full. The faces peering over the bars were clear in the earth-shine.

 For earth was suspended there below, a gigantic and gleaming orange-and-blue-and-white patched balloon. The hemisphere  showing was almost entirely sunlit; the continents between the clouds, a desert orange, with thin, scattered lines of green. The seas were  blue, standing out sharply against the black of space where they met the horizon. And all around in the black, undusted sky were the stars.

Using that and this picture:

I got this…

The second the earth came into view gasps and mutters filled the room like a tide.  Then silence, the passengers were in awe of the view.  No one could quite believe they were actually seeing the early from this high, and all for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. 

A voice came over the tannoy,

‘10 seconds’

The muttering started again.  They all knew they would only have one minute and 20 seconds in position before they had to start the decent back to Florida, but the time seemed to flash quicker than anyone imagined.

 ‘5 Seconds’.

Julie turned to the man to her right, she recognised him as an aging pop star.  20 years ago she’d idolised him, going to bed each night dreaming of him, now, he looked like a washed up has been. 

‘This is the bit I’ve been dreading’ she said smiling at him.  He smiled back, a smile that showed off his brilliant white teeth and more ‘laughter lines’ than Julie’s 95 year old mother had. 

‘It can’t be as bad as the way up…’

As he finished his sentence they felt the bubble detach from the rocket booster – a ungodly sound that they knew would haunt their dreams for months to come – before their whole bodies were thrust back into their seats and the earth quickly got closer.

When I read the prompt my heart sank.  I’d spent half the week looking forward to Fiction Friday, and then it was something that I was sure I was going to hate.  I knew I really had to use sci-fi or horror which I thought was going to be horrible.  I’ve tried reading sci-fi before and I find it hard to read, trying to understand other worlds or other creatures kind of detracts from me picturing the story in my head, which is what I do when I read. 

Even when I read the extract from the book I had no idea what I was going to write.  I actually chose 2 of the 4 paragraphs my boyfriend emailed me from the book.  The other 2 didn’t make sense talking about rockets blasting sideways or something.  I scrapped them before I’d even read half. 

Once I started writing though, I didn’t find it too bad.  Maybe because I took some sci-fi from the 1950s and changed it into what would probably be a thriller or dark comedy or something set in the future.  I nearly didn’t do it when I read the prompt, but I’m glad I did.  Again, I welcome any positive or negative criticism. 

Elsewhere in the NTWG galaxy, I think I’ve made a decision that the first short story I’m going to write for my writing course will be a lengthened story I’ve done before for Fiction Friday.  That’s what I think today anyway, I’ll probably change my mind a few times before I send it off.  Next week.  I’m going to complete this assignment and send it next week.  For definite.  By Friday at the very latest. 

I’ve just done the Oneword activity for today (use a word prompt to write for a timed minute).  Talk about coincidences, or maybe psychic abilities… Before I start each one I think of the names that I’ll use in that short story.  As I pressed ‘go’ I realised I hadn’t thought of a name.  I closed my eyes before the prompt came on and ‘Joe’ popped into my head.  I looked at the prompt and it was ‘brother’.  Guess who Joe is…

New beginning?

I had an email from my writing course ’student services’ this morning.  It’s fine for me to study fiction before non-fiction.  I’m really happy now I can do that, it feels like a new beginning to the course, I feel excited about it again.  That’s quite a relief after eight or so months feeling a little apathetic about it. 

I’ve just heard that the location of the office I work at is moving.  We’re all moving to another building in a different area of London in September.  That’s quite exciting.  But, it might mean I have to work a little harder than I have been over the last year (I started a year ago today!); Therefore spend less time writing. 

Because of that, I’d like to get as much of the course done by the time we move as I physically can.  I’ve 19 modules left and 7 months.  I can’t possibly cram it all in with the other things I’d like to do in the next 7 months - eat, sleep, read, go out, not to mention work - but I’m going to get as much of it as possible done by then.  I’d like to get fiction done by September.  At least.  I’ve already today spend maybe an hour or two on it. 

I can’t think of anything else I’d like to say, so I’m going to go and continue with the course

For the last few days/weeks I’ve had something in my head I just can’t shake.  Now I know I’m going to have to give in to it.  When I was younger I read the Anne of Green Gables books, and loved them.  And now *mumbles under breath* years later I’m going to read them again. 

Or should I say finish reading them.  I had a look at them today and found out there’s a few at the end of the series that I’d not read.  I don’t know where this urge has come from.  Actually, maybe I do… 

Since being an adult, until recently, it hadn’t even crossed my mind to read children’s or young adult fiction.  A few months ago I started to think about a book I read as a teenager, Summer Dreams, Winter Love which I think I could still say is one of the best books I’ve read.  I looked for it when I was back at my mum’s house, but couldn’t find it. I’ve been thinking about buying it again since then and re-reading it. 

Then, around the same time, Laura Best blogged about adults reading Young Adult books and it struck me, we can do it, why the hell not?! 

Weirdly enough around the same time, maybe subconsciously, I bought a novel which turned out to be YA and really enjoyed it. It’s like everything’s telling me something.  So long and short – I’m going to read Anne of Gables.  And, the library have it – woo hoo.  But it’s out on loan until about 10th.  Which is good because I’m reading 31 Dream Street and have Twenties Girl to read next.

My boyfriend thinks I should read something suggested by someone else.  Something out of my comfort zone of romance, chick lit and thrillers.  I think he’s thinking Sci-fi.  I’m sceptical, but I think he may have a point.  As a writer I should read as much as possible, and vary what I read.  Who knows, I might be destined to be a horror writer. Although I strongly doubt that.  With this in mind, can anyone suggest a something they think I should read?  Out of my comfort zone?  I tried to tell him Twilight was, but it fell on deaf ears as I’d blogged saying it was basically a romance novel.  Must stop blogging what I think (doubtful).

Fiction Friday Follow up

Last Friday I took part in Fiction Friday for the second time.  The prompt was that a wife forgot her husband’s birthday 9 years in a row.  On the 10th birthday he snaps.  My (UNEDITED) story is here.

RoseyPosey29 said she’d like to hear it from the wife’s POV.  So… as I like a challenge, I wrote it.  Again I’ve not edited it, and it was written in about 5 minutes.  Here’s Suze’s account of Jim’s birthday:

Suze watched Tim walk out the room and felt her heart breaking just a little bit.  She knew it would be worth it in an hour, but the hurt he’d be feeling until he walked back downstairs felt like it could crush her.        

She pulled herself together quickly, there was so much to do.  She knew she had about 15 minutes before he came back downstairs to go, he would think, to work. 

Her mobile buzzed, it was Frank, he must be outside.  Quickly she ran to the bottom of the stairs, there was no sign of movement upstairs so she opened the front door quietly. 

Frank and three of Tim’s co-workers were at the front; Tim’s sister, niece and parents were behind them; and at the back were Sharon and Mike and Tina and Jerry.  Quickly she ushered them all in to the lounge, being careful to shut the front door silently, then the lounge door behind her. 

In the short time they’d had, Tim’s friends and family had put up a huge amount of decorations.  You couldn’t fail to notice it was Tim’s 40^th.  There were banners on each wall, ‘40’ balloons floating round the floor, a massive cake with a 3d ‘40’ in the middle made by his sister and a couple of posters featuring Tim as a baby and child – with 40 printed at the top.

Jerry walked up to her.

‘Thank you so much for reminding me, I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d created that sadness another year.  It just broke my heart watching the realisation hit him that I’d forgotten AGAIN.  I had to stop myself from telling him that I’d remembered.’

‘No problem.  He doesn’t suspect then?’

‘Definitely not.  In fact he thinks I’m the worst wife in the world right now.  He’s probably upstairs now planning on leaving me.’

Something made her turn towards the door.  She saw Tim there with a puzzeled look on his face.  She saw the penny drop…

‘SURPRISE!’

What do you think?

Prolific Blogger Award

This is by far the most exciting thing that has happened to me since I started blogging (nearly) a year ago.  

Laura Best, who I should mention offers the most inspiring advice ever, was nominated for this award then passed it on to myself and six others.  Wow! 

The award originally comes from this blog.  And it comes with rules:

1. Every winner of the Prolific Blogger Award has to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers. Spread some love!

2. Each Prolific Blogger must link to the blog from which he/she has received the award.

3. Every Prolific Blogger must link back to This Post, which explains the origins and motivation for the award.

4. Every Prolific Blogger must visit this post and add his/her name in the Mr. Linky, so that we all can get to know the other winners.

The people I nominate are the blogs I read every day and have inspired me to blog and write and comment and do everything I’ve been doing for the last year (Laura herself would have been in this list, had she not already have the award – so would Owl and Sparrow - if Laura hadn’t have nominated her too).  They are:

• John at Bitemymoko
• Sharon at Thesunlitdesk
• Kait Nolan
• Christine Fonseca
• Merrilee Faber at Notenoughwords
• Victangueria at Ihadthewriteidea
• Keris Stainton

Guys, you’re blogs rock.  However, you’re also the reason I do less writing than I would like to!  It’s worth it though.  If getting the award wasn’t great enough, I also get to look at loads of new blogs I’d not heard of before, yay – more procrastination! 

*

In other news, I finished Twilight last night after a mammoth reading session yesterday.  When I first heard about it I wasn’t interested.  Through a lot of thinking I’ve realised I wasn’t interested because I’m not too big on horror things any more and in my mind vampires=horror.  I read it because I was sick of people telling me I should and that I’d love it.  I think I wanted to prove a point – that I wouldn’t love it. 

Oops.  Big mistake.  I really really loved it, in fact I can’t put into words how much I loved it.  It’s basically just a romance with vampires thrown in.  I seriously could not get enough of it.  It’s written so well, that I kind of fell in love with Edward a little too.  The only other novel I can say made me feel anything near this, was The Time Traveller’s Wife, which I found the most moving novel ever nad my favourite of all time.  It’s good to be wrong sometimes. 

On Friday I posted a short story I’d written for Fiction Friday (or as my boyfriend pointed out – Ficton Friday, I’d spelt it wrong in the title – duh!).  It seems that everyone who commented liked it – excellent.  After 6 comments over the weekend and my award today, I’m feeling pretty good.

I’ve made a decision about my writing course.  When you start it, they suggest that you work on non fiction first, then fiction second.  Where I am at the moment, with draft one of a novel written, I think it’s stupid if I do it that way, so have emailed them today to ask if I can do fiction first.  I think I’ll get more out of it that way.  I’ve had a read through the fiction assignment I’d be doing and I’m really excited about it. 

Fiction Friday – 29th Jan

For the second time, I thought I’d have a go at Fiction Friday (nearly everyone in the office is out at a meeting so I’ve had the time.)

Fiction Friday comes from the Write Anything blog here.   The rules are:

Spend at least 5 minutes composing something original based on the theme or challenge.

But, remember, no editing. This is to inspire creativity not stifle it.

On Friday, simply post what you wrote to your own blog.

Today’s prompt is

For the last nine years a wife has forgotten her husband’s birthday. The tenth time, he snaps…

Here’s my (totally unedited – so ignore the spelling and punctuation) effort:

After breakfast and not a word from Suze about the day, Tim stormed upstairs.  He couldn’t believe it, every year.  She could remember their anniversary, his mum’s birthday and it seemed every other important date on the calendar, but not his birthday. 

For the last few years it had started to get to him, did she not care enough to remember?  Even his best friend remembered.  Tim suspected he did that on purpose, just to make Suze look bad – they’d never got on that well.  If his best friend could remember, surely his wife should be able to.  Especially after 10 years. 

He sat on the bed, putting his head in his hands.  Was he blowing this out of all proportion?  The boys down the pub laughed at the situtation, it was always them that forgot their wife’s birthdays, and the wives that remembered.  Maybe he should be married to one of them instead.

For the last couple of days he’d been saying to himself that he’d leave if she didn’t remember.  He loved her with all his heart, but if she couldn’t remember something so important.  It was just thoughts, he knew he’d never leave her, but it wasn’t good having these thoughts. 

Actually, no.  He was going to leave her.  Just for the night. Or the weekend.  He’d go to Bob’s for a couple of days.  The kids were with Jayne that weekend, so they could have a proper boys weekend.  Yeah, that would teach Suze a lesson. 

Tim jumped up quiclky, grabbed a bag and started packing a few essentials.  He knew he had to do it quickly before he changed his mind.  He pulled the bedroom door open with excessive force, and watched as it slammed against the wall.  That would be a job for him for next weekend. 

He leapt towards the bathroom, knowing he had to hurry, this thought was already waning away from this leaving thing.  When he got to the bathroom he stopped.  Something was wrong.  He racked his brains trying to work out what.  The bathroom looked exactly like it had when he’d been in there every morning and evening this week. 

The front door.  It was open.  Although it was July and the house was quite hot, even at this early hour, they never left the front door.  He walked back to the top of the stairs and looked down.  It was closed.

‘Suze?’  He shouted.  Nothing.  Strange.  Wairely Tim started walking down.  He thought he heard voices coming from the living room.  TV?  Suze didn’t usually put it on in the morning.  When he got to the bottom he pressed his ear against the closed door.  There were murmered voices coming from behind it.  Puzzeled he slowly opened the door to see all his friends and family standing around talking.  Oh no… They didn’t….

At the end of the room Suze saw him, her face lit up and she shouted

‘SURPRISE!’. 

I’d love to hear what you think of it.  Positive and negative comments welcomed

New things

I’ve added a new page to my blog.  I think of it more as a ‘tab’ but according to those who know (or the boyfriend) it’s a page.  And I didn’t add it.  He did, but still.  It’s a page especially for the Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge.  I’ve got pictures of the books as I read them and when I finish them you can click on the image and it takes you to get the review of it.  Clever hey?!

I don’t really like this reviewing book thing, I just don’t know what to say – I don’t think ‘I really liked it’ would really cut it.  Book Chick City, the blog hosting the T&SR challenge, is offering monthly prizes; to enter you have to be signed up for the challenge and review at least one book in that month.  So I have to do them.  It’s good practice anyway.  Not sure what for, but good practice. 

I did start editing II yesterday.  Or crossing things out should I say.  As I’ve decided I need to focus more on the MMC and FMC’s relationship than anything else (as Mills & Boon request) I’ve got a whole load to cut out.  The first 4 1/2 A4 pages are pretty much going.  It’s really upsetting because I really like what happens in those pages, but I know I have to do it.  If there’s a reason I won’t make it as a writer, I imagine it will be that I’m bad at cutting things out.  If I like something I’m going to find it really hard to cut out.  I guess it means it’s just something I can add to another novel in the future.  In fact, as I’ve written this I’ve had a thought that I can take this bit and use it quite nicely in ‘Holiday’.  If I ever get back into writing that. 

As I was washing up last night, I thought of the (new) opening to II.  It’s going to be something I’ve got already, just padded out into a scene instead of a passing comment. I think it will work.  It means the hero will be introduced on page 2 or 3 instead of page 7 or 8.  I didn’t write it down last night, I should have done, but I’ve started it today.  Now if I could stop blogging and surfing I could get on with it. 

I think I’m quite enjoying Twilight.  My boss described it as Easy reading, and that’s exactly what it is. Until a couple of month’s ago I’d not read a ‘teen’ novel since I was a teen.  I just never thought of it before.  I now follow a few blogs of author’s who write Young Adult which made me think I’m missing out on something.  I’ve got a few books on my to read list now.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance of Vanger’s great-niece Harriet. Henrik suspects that someone in his family, the powerful Vanger clan, murdered Harriet over forty years ago.

Starting his investigation, Mikael realizes that Harriet’s disappearance is not a single event, but rather linked to series of gruesome murders in the past. He now crosses paths with Lisbeth Salander, a young computer hacker, an asocial punk and most importantly, a young woman driven by her vindictiveness.

Together they form an unlikely couple as they dive deeper into the violent past of the secretive Vanger family.

Saying I wasn’t interested in the Millenium trilogy when it came out would be a bit unfair.  I didn’t know anything about it.  Somehow it went over my head.  Suddenly people were reading it everywhere I looked – well everywhere on the tube.  Still I didn’t look into it.  Then someone told me I HAD to read them, they were brilliant.  Well, with a recommendation like that I had to get them.  I am so glad I did.

It took me a while to get into the novel, but I think that may have been because I was very tired when I stared reading it, but once I got into it I was hooked.  There are three stories that interlink through the novel and keep you interested.  I think there’s still a couple of questions that would make sure I read the next one, even if I wasn’t hooked on Salander and Blomqvisk anyway.

I did find it a little hard to keep up with all the names, so did spend some time flicking back and forward to double-check who someone was.  I’d say that was because they are Swedish names so not easily recognisable to me.  Or pronounceable.

The thing that amazes me the most is how clever Larsson was.  The tiniest little clue led to something else which led to something else.  I would love to see the prep for the Harriet murder case.  I wish I could write like him.

I highly recommend this novel, if I was giving star ratings this would be about 9.  It’s just so good.  One warning though, it’s graphic.  And not in a nice way.  There were moments when I wanted to stop reading because it was too much – I think that shows what a great author Larsson was.