Search

12 Books in 12 Months

writing books and blogging about it

Open Search
Category

writing

Lessons Learned

I have downloaded the WordPress app to my phone for the express purpose of blogging some lessons I learned writing 12 books in 12 months, even though I’m not in Edinburgh or anything. Isn’t technology wonderful?

Lesson One
You cannot stay up all night writing. No matter how much coffee and Easter egg you ingest, you will still find yourself falling asleep on the sofa at 4.30am.

Lesson Two
The best way to increase blog traffic is to interview John Allison.

Lesson Three
You didn’t hear this from me, right, but you don’t actually need to read all the time to keep coming up with ideas. It does however affect the way you execute them.

Lesson Four
People on the Internet are very supportive of hare brained schemes. This is probably because following the exploits of fools is a useful tool for procrastination.

Lesson Five
Everyone has advice to give you, but none of it matches. All you can do is piece something together that works for you.

Lesson Six
Once you start obsessively checking blog stats, it’s very hard to stop. Just say no, kids…

Sorry to anyone hoping for something more profound, that’s not really how I roll. And now if you’ll excuse me I have to contribute to a conversation about the hotly tipped vampire squid romance genre. It’s what everyone will be doing for NaNoWriMo 2012.

2

Time for Reflection

“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.

Continue reading “Time for Reflection” →

2

Finished

At 2.29am this morning I finished the 13 page comic which serves as December’s book.  The plot is a bit thin, but some of the drawings are nice.

DOWNLOAD THE PDF HERE!

I am still a bit shell shocked, but happy.  I’ll be back in the New Year with some reflections and the like, and some information on stage two of the 12 books project.  See you then!

3

The Psychedelic Lady

As December finishes, it is time for another entry to The Pictonaut Challenge.

For those who don’t know what that is – every month The Rogue Verbumancer (also known on the Twitter as @Glempy) posts a different picture on his blog and invites people to write a short (around 1,000 words) story around it.  Entrants post their attempts on their own sites, or can send them to TRV if they don’t have one, and at the end of the month he does a post linking to them all.  It’s a nice way to flex your writing muscles, particularly if you are working on something that is doing your head in or if you are stuck for ideas and would like a fixed exercise to get you thinking.  It’s also really interesting to read the different ideas people take from the same image.

I began writing my December entry during breaks at work, but when I went to finish it today realised I didn’t actually email it to myself.  So I wrote a different one, in about an hour (using my favourite app, Write or Die, to get to 1000 words in just over 20 minutes and then revising it in the remaining 40), which I have posted below.  It is really not my best work, but such is the nature of the first draft, and hopefully the rawness will help you understand why the fact I have drafted all these books does not mean they are ready to read yet… Continue reading “The Psychedelic Lady” →

4

End of Year Review: The Plots

My festive stay in Perthshire sans graphics tablet has been prolonged, so the comic isn’t finished.  However, it’s a year to the day since I registered the 12 books in 12 months domain name, so it seems like a good time to reflect on how it’s gone.

With that in mind, American novelist Alison Walkley came across 12 books in November, and asked if there was a post explaining the plots of each book.

There is now.

Continue reading “End of Year Review: The Plots” →

2

Merry Winterval

Happy Festive Season to you, dear readers, from me and this weird sideways faced owl I found at the German market in Edinburgh.

I was hoping to have a PDF of the falcon comic for you to download as a present on Sunday but alas, time got away from me and I’m not going to manage it before embarking upon a round trip of Ayrshire and Perthshire in about an hour.

You can look forward to that next week sometime, but for now why not see if you can make your face go sideways too? It’s hours of fun.  This is my one:

Have a lovely weekend.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑