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12 Books in 12 Months

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Writing Competition

The Guardian books blog has brought some pretty good things to my attention of late, not least the Mills and Boon New Voices competition.   The winner could well go on to literary stardom, or at least romance publication; and everyone who enters is given feedback on their first chapter – as Alison Flood discovered.

My first thought on reading this was to submit the first chapter of last year’s NaNoWriMo effort, which started life as an affectionate M&B parody.  But it was a short-lived thought, which lasted approximately up until the point where I re-read the thing.  The Single Mum’s Aristocratic Library Assistant has many fine qualities, but it is not stylistically appropriate for this contest.  I have copied and pasted below with a couple of minor edits so you can see what I mean…

Continue reading “Writing Competition” →

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To Plan Or Not To Plan?

Further to yesterday’s shout out for guest bloggers, Captain Fantastic writes:

Ali,

I read on the blog that you are shamelessly trying to spin out more books than Sir Terry of Pratchett. For someone that’s spent many a year dreaming of writing an epic fantasy novel, yet produced less than diddly squat, I’m wondering how you get going with the process each time you start a new book.

I’ve read lots of different guides on how to get started writing, but everything I read says to start by planning the plot, or the characters. I’ve tried both and failed – horribly. The planning really bores me – like reading the Silmarillion – it’s dry and dusty and it takes forever. I really want to just spew out the random jumble of words in my head and weave them into a story as I go, but everything I read says ‘no! bad dog! Start by planning, plot, characters, themes, snore, snore, snore, ya-de-ya – have a biscuit’. I probably shouldn’t look for guidance in dog books…

I was wondering then, how do you plan your writing. Do you do anything to keep the planning side of things interesting or do you just leap right in and start writing? How do you make the actual writing process itself fun so that it’s not a chore to sit down and churn out 2000 words in a day? Any thoughts?

Fantastic Regards

The Captain

Tuesday 25/4/11

Dear Captain,

The only book I have really planned thus far was the one I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year.  And even then, the ‘planning’ consisted predominantly of  reading a few books in my chosen genre, then choosing 30 cliffhangers and assigning them to different chapters.  I knew what the two main characters were called before I began, but I added everyone else in as I went along and got to know them as I wrote them.

Book One of this project, Caligula’s Blog, was planned in the sense that I read some history books and had a rough time line of Caligula’s life, and I tried to write according to that – but exact details are a bit woolly when your get that far back so it wasn’t done with military precision.

I tend to take the view that if you are bored with what you’re doing – especially at that early stage – the reader will be too.  When I planned out that first book, I couldn’t wait to start writing it, and doing so was much easier than the ill-considered NaNo attempt of 2009.

Kids author Andy Stanton makes chapter planning interesting... Or silly, at any rate. http://ow.ly/user/AndyStantonTM

With 12 Books, part of me tends to feel like there’s no time for planning (other than thinking about it in my head a bit!), so I’ve been inclined to jump in and start on the first of the month – either at a point I am looking forward to doing, or a cursory opening scene just to get something out there.  So far none of the openings I’ve written have stayed at the start for long, but they help me to get into the new story.

I think there’s a danger that if you plan too much you’ll overthink it, which is why the overarching theme of this project is to get something on paper and worry about continuity and plot holes later.  Once you have that first 50k in front of you, it’s got to be easier to plan the next 50k than if you’re still stuck faffing about with outlines.  And you may well see that themes and things have started to appear of their own accord, merely needing you to hone them a bit.

Having said all that, I do think having an outline can help you keep on track, as there are one or two problems with jumping straight in.  Frinstance:

– You occasionally find you’ve written the same thing more than once.

– Sometimes you can get quite far in and then change your mind about something, or find it tails off unexpectedly, so you end up having to lose chunks of what you’ve written.  But honestly I think that would happen with any first draft, because by the time you’ve done 50k+, left it a couple of months, and come back to it with fresh eyes, you’re going to have come up with new ideas, better ways of putting things, and so on.

– Jumping right in can mean you can lose sight of what you wanted to do.  With book 3, I thought I had a very clear idea in my head, but I hadn’t written it down in any detail. Immersed in the tale, I got to around 20k, but then unexpectedly got stuck.  I ended up breaking my ‘no editing’ rule and going back to read over it properly and change the chapters around.  That helped me to decide on a direction, and I didn’t need to lose any of it – but I can’t guarantee that result every time, and on that occasion fell very short of the arbitrary word count goal!

As a general rule with 12 books I decided to write and write until I get to 50k – even if I know some of it is nonsense.  After all it’s a first draft which is going to be severely edited – first by me and then by long suffering friends who’ll be asked to read it over before sending it to an agent who’d presumably make further suggestions before sending it to a publisher.  There’s just no need to get bogged down in detailed planning at this stage, because when you get going you’ll almost certainly change your mind about at least a couple of things.

In answer to your last point, this means keeping things fun isn’t that hard at this stage.  The process of coming up with first drafts is arguably one of the funnest, most creative parts of writing a novel.  It’s the point where you can try things out, and it’s a bit of a challenge getting to that 2000 words a day which is enjoyable as long as you don’t let it become a stress or something YOU MUST DO at the cost of all else.  The editing process, on the other hand, is far more laborious – that’s where writing becomes a job, and it’s how I reckon authors really earn their keep!

Hope this answers your question, and best of luck with the fantasy epic!

Ali

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Be Part of this Blog

I have had an idea to make this process a little more interactive, but in order for it to work I need the help of YOU, The Public.

Do you have a spare 15-30 minutes a day?

Would you be able to dedicate those minutes to sending me a short email asking about 12 Books in 12 Months?  Perhaps you have a passing interest in the writing process, where I get my inspiration, this month’s genre, or how I wear my hat?

I would like one guest emailer a week to enter into a correspondence.  They email me a query or a challenge, I email back, and so on – then the resulting dialogue goes onto the blog for all to see, alongside any links or promotions the other party wishes to promote.

(For those in the know, this is essentially the same premise as The Writer’s Tale, but with several Ben Cooks playing opposite my Russel T Davies, and no publishing deal immediately obvious.)

Here is an example of what I mean:

Monday 25/4/11 10:53
benedict_cumberchild@domainname.net

Ali,

12 books in 12 months?  Are you mental?

Kind Regards,

BC

Monday 25/4/11 16:22
ali.george85@yahoo.com

Dear BC,

No, I am not mental.  I have been writing books and stories since I was a tot, because I find it fun.  I can see how writing a book a month for a year might make it less fun, because it’s an awful lot of words and takes over a large amount of time.  However, I am very consciously not editing as I go because there isn’t time, and since editing is probably the hardest part of the writing process, that helps relieve stress.

I’m also changing genre every month so that I don’t get bored.  And I am accepting challenges and suggestions from You The Public to incorporate into each book, which keeps it fun and a bit different.

Ali

Tuesday 26/4/11 13:15
benedict_cumberchild@domainname.net

Ali,

I read on the blog that the fact you aren’t editing as you go is the reason why you aren’t making the books available for us to see at the end of each month.  That’s fine, but how do we know you’re actually writing them at all?

BC

ali.george85@yahoo.com
Tuesday 26/4/11 22:05

BC,

That is one part of the reason – as you can see from my first novel, published in all its original draft glory, it’s engaging in parts but occasionally loses the plot a bit.  Well, a lot.  But there is also the point that as part of book 13, The One About Writing Twelve Books in Twelve Months, I am going to include stuff about the editing process, and trying to get publishers and agents interested.  I’m also going to have a bash at self publishing one of them.  Something tells me that nobody will want to buy them if they’re already available for free download.

In response to the ‘how do we know you’re writing them at all question’ – ask my partner and friends how many times I’ve said no to social engagements ‘because I’ve got to get some writing done’ over the past few months!  You can also regularly read and hear excerpts of the work in progress on the blog.  Plus, if I was faking, I’d probably come up with slightly more impressive word counts…

Ali

Wednesday 27/4/11 09:01
benedict_cumberchild@domainname.net

OK, so what happens if you don’t get any of them published?  And what is the deal with word counts?

BC

Wednesday 27/4/11 12:45
ali.george85@yahoo.com

If I don’t get any of them published, the edited versions will be made available for free download, hopefully at some point next year – although the editing process takes a lot longer than initially bashing out the first draft so I can’t give you any exact dates as yet.

As to word count, the general aim is to try and reach 50, 000 words per month.  This is based on the target set by National Novel Writing month.  It’s about the length of a comparatively short paperback – think in terms of the early Darren Shan books.  I read somewhere on the internet that the average first novel is around 72,000 words – books thicker than that are harder to get published if you are a first time author because retailers are concerned they won’t be able to shift you as a relative unknown, and their shelf space is valuable.  However, I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t reach 50k because frankly, I have a lot of other stuff going on.

Ali

Thursday 28/4/11 00:14
benedict_cumberchild@domainname.net

What stuff do you have going on?  Surely nobody has time to do a project like this and also maintain a life?  I would love to write a book one day, but I know that realistically I don’t have the time.

BC

Thursday 28/4/11 07:45
ali.george85@yahoo.com

I work 4 days a week and in the other 3 am trying to build up a career as a freelance journo, which involves a lot of pitching articles to editors and volunteering my services at websites including The Edinburgh Reporter, STV Local, IdeasTap, IWeTwoThree and others listed here.  I also volunteer for a music website called Ten Tracks, doing the blog, ad hoc admin and occasionally helping on the door at gigs.

Generally speaking the thing that suffers as a result of all this is my sleeping pattern.  However, I regard it as being worth it on the grounds that if I can build a name as a freelance, the 4 days a week currently spent temping can gradually become 3, then 2, and one day I might even be able to cover my rent and bills through writing alone – be it fiction, journalism, or a mixture of the two.  It’s not as if I have more time than other people, it’s more a question of what I choose to do with it.

Ali

Friday 29/4/11 16:50
benedict_cumberchild@domainname.net

Sounds like a lot to take on board.  So how will you spend your Friday night?  Writing?

BC

Friday 29/4/11 18:00
ali.george85@yahoo.com

Maybe.  Sometimes I’ll combine socializing with journalism, eg I’ll go to a gig or whatever and then write it up for a website.  It’s weird, journalism is almost a form of procrastination before doing 12 books now.  It’s quicker to conduct a phone interview and type it up than to write a book, after all – and there are deadlines on articles, whereas the books are done as a personal choice.  Then there’s blogging, which is the form of procrastination that comes before journalism.  On weeks where my personal blog has been updated every day, there’s a possibility that there was an article I should have been writing that I left to the last minute.

Having said that, I do try to have at least one relaxing evening at the weekend.  I think I’d go a bit nuts otherwise.

Ali

Or something along those lines.  If you would like to play the part of BC, email ali.george85@yahoo.com, or drop me a comment either here or on the Facebook page.

Emails can be as long or as short as you like and you can ask me anything at all – although I reserve the right to ignore anything inappropriate and am unlikely to respond to Nigerian princes who want to deposit $1 million in my bank account.  I’ve been burned before.

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Confession

You may have guessed from the comparative blog silence that book 3 has been going pretty slowly.

I am currently out of the house at my temp job between 7.30 and 5.30 Tuesday-Friday, which gives me evenings, weekends and Mondays for this and other stuff.  Unfortunately I am juggling a bit more of the other stuff than usual at the moment.

For instance,  I said to STV Local “sure, I’ll profile all 21 bands involved in the Sick Kids Charity CD I wrote about for you” – which means setting up interviews with 21 bands, and trying to ask them all slightly different questions so that all the articles don’t wind up being the same. This means quite a bit of prep, and of course it takes time to write these things up.

I had another article commissioned by IdeasTap too, but the interviewee is very busy and hasn’t had time to answer my second round of questions – so essentially I can only file when there’s a gap in her schedule, which almost certainly won’t coincide with gaps in mine.

I’m also supposed to be setting up weekly Ten Tracks blogposts, which will hopefully get done today, and likewise I think I’m overdue a Mslexia update (although the onus is on me – there’s no set pattern agreed for those).  I’m also awaiting the answers from an email interview for an article for The Edinburgh Reporter, and need to send out some more for a different article I’d intended to have done for this week.

I’ve blown off several social events to give myself writing time, but it hasn’t been enough.  I think that logically, sleep now has to go!

Today being Monday 21st, if I was sticking in any way to the 2k daily word target I should be on 42, 000 words – barely any to go before 50k.  As it is, my word count is 8, 519.

If I can bash out 3,771 words a day between now and the end of the month it’ll be fine – theoretically that should only take a couple of hours because I know what I’m doing with the story and when I’m in the zone I type pretty fast.  But where to find those daily 2-3 hours?  In evenings this week I have at least 3 face to face interviews to do, which means travelling to various bits of Edinburgh, so maybe I can get some done on the bus – depending how much interview prep I’ve managed to get through already.  And I can do some in my lunch breaks, I guess.

I’ve also got to go to a gig on Thursday, because most of the bands I need to catch up with will be there; and a cocktail party on Friday because several people I blew off last weekend will be there and I can’t do it again.  The point of this project is universal adulation, not pissing off all my friends and acquaintances…

So anyway, I’m finding it a bit hard to get book-writing time shoehorned into my schedule just now (and don’t even get me started on reading time, because it makes me feel sad), but I’m going to schedule a few #WIP type posts from the meagre amount I do have for this week so that I don’t leave you hanging.  Next weekend I think there’s going to have to be a night of writing dangerously.

Also, if anyone has any thoughts on how to pre-empt the intevitable RSI that my writing lifestyle is surely going to cause before the end of 2011, do leave a comment!

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When Can I Read A Whole One?

For those interested in the more practical aspects of this project, such as when you will get to read a finished version of one of these books, I say this:

Because book 13 is going to be partly about the adventures of trying to get published, I suspect I shouldn’t put full manuscripts online until they have been definitively ignored/rejected by… oh, I don’t know, 30 publishers?   After all, who is going to publish something you can already download as a free PDF?  We’ve all seen enough of The Apprentice / Dragon’s Den to know this does not make good business sense.

Furthermore, I would like the opportunity to go back over them all, so that what is eventually available in its entirety for you to read online is something faintly more polished than a first draft.  But, the editing process can be a long and harrowing one.  Who knows what my tired brain will make of Caligula’s blog when I go back over it after writing eleven books in totally different fields?   So at the moment, I can’t really get a handle on how long that’s going to take.

For debut author Julia Crouch, who, like me, found her inspiration in NaNoWriMo, there was a gap of over two years between bashing out that first draft (which she did in November 2008) and getting it published (which will happen in March this year).  You can read an interview with her on the subject here.

What I’m saying is, I don’t yet have a definitive date for you to be able to read any of the 12 books.  Although I may yet decide to email people first drafts as part of some sort of competition scenario, or reward for getting involved.

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