Thursday 20 November 2014

Mid Month Pep Talk



Dear Georgia,

Come on man, take a good hard look at your word count right now. You could be doing so much more. Stop whining and get on with it. Sure it isn't quality, but you really should just get the story down.

These characters have been sitting in your hard drive since you were sixteen and now you've given them a little airing, you owe it to your characters to finish their story. You've never finished a piece of fiction that is longer than about 5000 words. That is an atrocious record.

Once it was your ambition to be an author. The teenage urge to write beautifully and be told that you aren't a bad writer and have half of an imagination in your noggin is still in you somewhere. So dig deep and pull out that fighting spirit.

On the other hand. LOOK how far you've come! You've written more this month than you have in your whole life. Your focus is awesome. Don't do it now...but look forward to December because you are about to have SO much fun editing this.

You can still finish this.

You can win.

Thursday 6 November 2014

Na No Wri Mo?

One of the biggest pieces of advice that I give out at work and that I was given at Uni was that if you have writers block, JUST WRITE. What better way to do this than to try Na No Wri Mo through November.

What is it?
National Novel Writing Month where writers around the world attempt to write 50000 words in 30 days. They couldn't have picked a month with 31? That's about 1667 words a day.

Why would you do it?
I'm doing it this year because I have a fantasy story which I wrote when I was 16/17 and never finished.  As I get older, I read less YA fiction, less fantasy and therefore I write less about it as well. I feel like if I am ever going to finish this story, it had better be when I am closer to teens than later when I'll have lost touch and become too cynical to try.

I'm also trying to practice the advice that you should learn to finish your stories as well as start them.

But I think for most people the attraction is the community, every week a Pep Talk email arrives from an author who gives you advice and enthusiasm to keep going.

Na No Wri Mo gets alot of flack because the quality of the writing isn't really taken into account when you are trying to get 50000 words out. And that is fair enough, a few people I know, not naming names, have entered Na No Wri Mo a few times and call themselves a Novelist.


So I'm doing Na No Wri Mo, it is very possible that I won't be speaking to ANYONE for the next month...I just have a few little things planned. so forgive me for the next 30 days, I'm MIA behind Na No Wri Mo lines.