“How do you feel, now that it’s nearly over?”
Fraudulent, I think, but I don’t say that. I smile sheepishly and go with something vague like “oh, I haven’t really got that far yet… Ask me in January.”
Eagle-eyed readers might have noticed that it’s January now, so I suppose I’ll have a go at answering that question from the perspective of four days hindsight.
I still feel a little bit fraudulent.
Filed under 12booksin12months, blogging, writing
Yesterday was the busiest I’ve ever had on the 12 books blog, which is lovely, so I hope people liked it enough to come back. If you are visiting for the first time and would like to know what on earth is going on, you can read a quick overview on IdeasTap or a slightly longer evaluation of the journey so far on Mslexia.
Meanwhile here is a reading from book seven, which you may remember is aimed at kids and is about a grumpy wizard called Snooky Jim, a slightly batty cat lady called Amelia Trousers, and a young lad called Chris who is well brung up and usually eats his greens. I wrote this yesterday and have just done one take, so it’s literally just me reading off a bit of paper. But it’s pretty short, so that’s a bonus… And anyway if you don’t like it you can’t be mean cause it’s my birthday, so there.
Filed under 12booksin12months, blogging, socialnetworking, writing
As regular readers are hopefully aware, I am trying to write a book every month with a vague future aim of publication and possible literary stardom.
One question I am asked on an occasional basis (by two people, but they have asked multiple times so I deem it pertinent) is “HAVE YOU GOT AN AGENT YET?”
The answer to this is no, and I can tell you for why.
Filed under 12booksin12months, blogging, socialnetworking, writing
Hello Dear Readers.
This is the last day of book six, so naturally I’ve been frantically catching up using my breaks at work and all of this evening to boot. Except of course I haven’t, because I am knackered. I was reading Caitlin Moran’s new book in my break at work (very funny so far), and when I got home I ate some biscuits and watched Hollyoaks. Hollyoaks! Not even the news, or a re-run of Friends, or anything else remotely watchable! I am clearly a feeble wreck of a woman, in need of about sixteen hours of sleep.
To that end, I am about to retire. (To bed, obviously. I can’t retire from work til I’m about 70, or haven’t you been keeping abreast of the strikes? I don’t blame you, it’s something to do with Michael Gove wanting kids to learn history in chronological order. Except that isn’t what it’s about at all. But he does think that.). However, before I go, I feel the urge to sate your insatiable thirst for knowledge about how it’s all going. So, CLICK HERE to read the last of my guest posts for Mslexia Magazine, in which I evaluate the project thus far and cunningly explain it to new readers at the same time.
Thank you, and good night.
Filed under 12booksin12months, blogging, socialnetworking, writing
Last night at around 11.15pm I decided that it was time to call it quits on book five and get myself some sleep. I battered out a few paragraphs to remind myself what I wanted the last couple of chapters to entail, and set about organising my packed lunch for work. Tuna salad, for those who are nosey about such things…
The word count stands at 30323, and I think it’ll end end up around 36,000 by the time the first draft is finished. This means that overall this year, I’ve written 165,585 words of fiction across 151 days. That averages out at 1096.6 words per day, although there have been days when I haven’t written anything at all, and a few when I’ve done 10k in one go. Averages, dear reader, are relative.
Filed under 12booksin12months, blogging, socialnetworking, writing
This week I’m chatting to Shropshire based writer Ian Collings, who tweets as @ibc4 and blogs at Take One Step Back. I’ve split this email into a Q&A format.
Which part of the writing process (condensed as it is into such a short period) do you find the hardest? The editing? Re-writing?
Because the writing process is condensed into such a short period with this project, editing and re-writing don’t actually get a look in. Not yet, anyway. The plan was to leave all the drafts for a minimum of 3 months before going back to look over them, but so far I haven’t had the time to go back and start editing any. The hardest part of the writing process with this is therefore the purely practical aspect of fitting in writing time – when I sit down and do it, it’s a race against time to get the words out there so I just write and write, even if some of it’s nonsense. These first drafts are littered with asides like “she said, by way of exposition,” which all add to the word count! But generally speaking I think editing and re-writing are much harder work.
I’ve had a lot of support from other people though, especially on Twitter. The general consensus seems to be that it’s a slightly mad thing to do, but in a good way!
Filed under 12booksin12months, blogging, socialnetworking, writing
