I had a very clearly defined plan this morning - write 7,500 words. I let the middle of the book get to me on Wednesday. The beginning was there, the end pulling together nicely, then I suddenly realised I didn't know what I was doing in the middle. Generally in a story this is where it all goes wrong, Obi-Wan Kenobi or Phil Coulson dies, and I had nothing.
The last thing I wanted to do was run straight into this problem head on. I think that would have really set me back, so I sat and tried to plan on Wednesday. Not as easy as it sounds by a long stretch. I did manage to get some ideas on the board though.
Thursday was kind of OK with 3,500 words written. I wasn't sure if I should include the next bit I was planning to write. It all seemed a little boring. I didn't know if that was just me or actually the case, so I decided to just write it and if my alpha readers didn't like it, it would get cut.
This morning I started strong, but I got distracted by an article on Top Gear, it's going to be very interesting to see how that shakes out. This somehow led into looking at jobs. On a positive note, I did apply for seven, the time wasn't wasted. I got back to work properly at 12.00 noon with the very firm intention of getting another 1,000 done by lunch. I didn't manage, it was close but I lost 15 mins trying to work out the name of a merchants meeting place.
The afternoon was better, bust still a struggle. I got a phone call from a recruitment company at 4.30pm and suddenly I had an interview the next day. That cost me over an hour in talking to them and digging out the suit.
Still by the end I did manage a solid 5,000 words. Not as much as I'd like, but at least I didn't waste much time. Also I did continue after getting that call. It was so tempting to just call it at 5.30pm with my focus broken. I didn't and got another 1,500 words done so it was worth pushing on.
Total now at 43,000 words.
Monday 27 April 2015
Sunday 26 April 2015
Rush
I watched Rush while looking after my daughter on Thursday night. It
was a fantastic film.
Firstly, I'd better say that I'm a Formula One fan. I watch all the races and I'm one of those nutters who gets up at silly o'clock to watch Australia, Malaysia, China and Japan live. The Hunt/Lauda battle is before my time, but it's legendary in the sport and often spoken about. That said, I only knew the barest bones of the story.
The film starts with Chris Hemsworth wandering into a hospital before getting treated by the nurse, played by Natalie Dormer - Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones, and seducing her. It's then we get introduced to Formula Three and the first meeting with Niki Lauda. We get to see the beginnings of their rivalry and how different they are as racers. Lauda is the calm, methodical, planning driver and Hunt the balls to the wall, seat of the pants racer, neither an inch better than the other.
Throughout the film we see the depths of their commitment and just how dangerous Formula one was forty years ago. Two drivers died every year and yet these men still queued up to put their lives on the line in the pinnacle of motorsport.
Strangely this isn't a fast paced, car movie. It has nothing in common with the Fast & Furious series, films I also greatly enjoy, but for completely different reasons. Rush is a film about what drives men and women to be the very best in the world. It is also about the truly extraordinary story of Niki Lauda's recovery. He won two more world championships after that crash.
If you want to be inspired by one of the greatest human triumph over injury, watch this film. If you’re a Formula One fan like me, the question is simply, why haven't you watched it yet?
Firstly, I'd better say that I'm a Formula One fan. I watch all the races and I'm one of those nutters who gets up at silly o'clock to watch Australia, Malaysia, China and Japan live. The Hunt/Lauda battle is before my time, but it's legendary in the sport and often spoken about. That said, I only knew the barest bones of the story.
The film starts with Chris Hemsworth wandering into a hospital before getting treated by the nurse, played by Natalie Dormer - Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones, and seducing her. It's then we get introduced to Formula Three and the first meeting with Niki Lauda. We get to see the beginnings of their rivalry and how different they are as racers. Lauda is the calm, methodical, planning driver and Hunt the balls to the wall, seat of the pants racer, neither an inch better than the other.
Throughout the film we see the depths of their commitment and just how dangerous Formula one was forty years ago. Two drivers died every year and yet these men still queued up to put their lives on the line in the pinnacle of motorsport.
Strangely this isn't a fast paced, car movie. It has nothing in common with the Fast & Furious series, films I also greatly enjoy, but for completely different reasons. Rush is a film about what drives men and women to be the very best in the world. It is also about the truly extraordinary story of Niki Lauda's recovery. He won two more world championships after that crash.
If you want to be inspired by one of the greatest human triumph over injury, watch this film. If you’re a Formula One fan like me, the question is simply, why haven't you watched it yet?
Tuesday 21 April 2015
New Project
Another very good day. Just shy of 7,000 words. That's three in
a row. If I can keep this up, I'll be hitting 45,000 before Friday and
gain a day back.
Something that occurred to me today is how useful breaks are. I'm not talking about time away from the screen, rest, etc, but purely from a writing perspective. I think sometimes when you're writing dialogue, you can get lost in the moment and it drones on unchecked. The break allows you to walk away and when you come back, you’re out of that grove. While you work to get back into it, you're thinking more about what happens next and not just the conversation. This tightens up the dialogue into natural endings rather than going on and on.
That's about it for today. Nothing else to report. I'm working my way through the MCU in preparation of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Tonight it's my favourite of them all, Avengers Assemble while eating a very calorific pizza. I thought I had a shepherds pie in the freezer, but it turns out I don't, so it's pizza instead.
Total now at 33,000 words.
Something that occurred to me today is how useful breaks are. I'm not talking about time away from the screen, rest, etc, but purely from a writing perspective. I think sometimes when you're writing dialogue, you can get lost in the moment and it drones on unchecked. The break allows you to walk away and when you come back, you’re out of that grove. While you work to get back into it, you're thinking more about what happens next and not just the conversation. This tightens up the dialogue into natural endings rather than going on and on.
That's about it for today. Nothing else to report. I'm working my way through the MCU in preparation of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Tonight it's my favourite of them all, Avengers Assemble while eating a very calorific pizza. I thought I had a shepherds pie in the freezer, but it turns out I don't, so it's pizza instead.
Total now at 33,000 words.
Monday 20 April 2015
New Project
What can I say? A fantastic day at 7,000 words. I do feel I'm
getting a feel for the story and characters now. There are a few things
that are dropping in as I write that I'm really loving. The first one was
the very first bit I wrote this morning. I was planning to do just a
couple of sentences to tee up something to happen a lot later in the book and
ended up writing 1,000 words. It really told me a lot about who this
character I'm building is. Now I can't wait to introduce her.
I also managed a bit of exercise this morning. I think that is the biggest disappointment of the past year (other than very few people buying my books). At the end of May last year I was the fittest I had ever been. Four times a week I would do:
70 push ups
70 sit ups
7 chin ups (these were new and I was building them up)
3 x 35 bicep curls
2 x 10 weight rep (I don't know what any of these are called)
2 x 20 weight rep
2 x 10 weight rep
3 x 50 weight rep
3 min plank
2 x 10 mile bicycle
Once a week run 3.5 miles
Once a week do an hour of Karate
Pretty good for a guy in his mid-thirties. I was fit and I felt great. I could go out and eat whatever I liked. I didn't stint on my normal portions and worried I wasn't eating enough. I would wake up in the middle of the night hungry. I didn't get ill either.
The loss of routine killed me. The daily cycle was to and from work. No matter the weather, when you have to go to work, it cancels out the 'can't be bothered' attitude. I don't think I've cycled anywhere since July.
The worst thing is that it took me four years to get to this point. At the start I was doing 25 push ups and cycling 3.5 miles to work. I built it up slowly, changing my route, doing an extra 5 push ups and adding new exercises. Four years of hard work. It's not all gone. I can still manage each individual exercise, though I am down to 60 push ups now. It's just very hard to do the full rep and when I want to write 7,000 words in a day, spending an hour on the bike, that includes warm up and cool down time, is just not an option.
Oh well, boohoo me. Only one person can change this. I need to suck it up and get on with it. I did it once and I still have a good basic level of fitness so I can do it again.
Total now at 27,000 words.
I also managed a bit of exercise this morning. I think that is the biggest disappointment of the past year (other than very few people buying my books). At the end of May last year I was the fittest I had ever been. Four times a week I would do:
70 push ups
70 sit ups
7 chin ups (these were new and I was building them up)
3 x 35 bicep curls
2 x 10 weight rep (I don't know what any of these are called)
2 x 20 weight rep
2 x 10 weight rep
3 x 50 weight rep
3 min plank
2 x 10 mile bicycle
Once a week run 3.5 miles
Once a week do an hour of Karate
Pretty good for a guy in his mid-thirties. I was fit and I felt great. I could go out and eat whatever I liked. I didn't stint on my normal portions and worried I wasn't eating enough. I would wake up in the middle of the night hungry. I didn't get ill either.
The loss of routine killed me. The daily cycle was to and from work. No matter the weather, when you have to go to work, it cancels out the 'can't be bothered' attitude. I don't think I've cycled anywhere since July.
The worst thing is that it took me four years to get to this point. At the start I was doing 25 push ups and cycling 3.5 miles to work. I built it up slowly, changing my route, doing an extra 5 push ups and adding new exercises. Four years of hard work. It's not all gone. I can still manage each individual exercise, though I am down to 60 push ups now. It's just very hard to do the full rep and when I want to write 7,000 words in a day, spending an hour on the bike, that includes warm up and cool down time, is just not an option.
Oh well, boohoo me. Only one person can change this. I need to suck it up and get on with it. I did it once and I still have a good basic level of fitness so I can do it again.
Total now at 27,000 words.
Friday 17 April 2015
New Project
Nothing blogged about on the new project since April 1st. Wow.
The reason is that it's been hard, very hard. I think I know why.
For Reason I was thinking about the story for three months before I started
writing. When I did it, was 500 or 1,000 words here and there in the
evening. It was only when I was made redundant five months and 50,000
words later I started writing all day. At that point, after a couple of
trial days, I knew it was possible to write 5,000 words in a day, I'd even clocked
7,000 once.
For Crusade and Revolution the world and characters were already there. All I needed was to set up the senarios and everything flowed from there. This time I'm starting from scratch again and from a brand new idea. I only came up with it two weeks before I wrote the first word. Yep, I can see why I'm struggling.
The good news is that I am still on schedule to finish the first draft by the end of May, which has always been my plan. I've got 27 writing days left and 26 days of writing to do. The characters are settling in nicely, though I've still got to introduce about half a dozen secondary’s, a couple of those being the main villains, so I imagine that's going to slow me down again.
This is definitely more challenging, but then again, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
6,000 words written today and the total now at 20,000. I'm feeling positive!
For Crusade and Revolution the world and characters were already there. All I needed was to set up the senarios and everything flowed from there. This time I'm starting from scratch again and from a brand new idea. I only came up with it two weeks before I wrote the first word. Yep, I can see why I'm struggling.
The good news is that I am still on schedule to finish the first draft by the end of May, which has always been my plan. I've got 27 writing days left and 26 days of writing to do. The characters are settling in nicely, though I've still got to introduce about half a dozen secondary’s, a couple of those being the main villains, so I imagine that's going to slow me down again.
This is definitely more challenging, but then again, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
6,000 words written today and the total now at 20,000. I'm feeling positive!
Tuesday 7 April 2015
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
A friend of mine lent this to be months ago and it has sat on a shelf ever
since. Not as I wasn't interested, but because I have struggled to be in
the mood to read recently. When you spend all day either working out how
to describe something or editing, reading becomes one of the last things you
want to do. I'm not stuck precisely at the moment, but I am struggling
with several overarching plot stories on the new project. It was a nice
day yesterday and I thought it would be nice to take a break, sit in the sun
and read.
Wow, The Rook is very, very good. It's based in a supernatural world hidden within modern day England like Harry Potter, Supernatural, Warehouse 13, etc. O'Malley takes that, adds a magical MI5 and throws in a mystery plot.
The main character is Myfanwy Thomas and she wakes up with no memories surrounded by dead bodies. Fortunately her previous self knew this was going to happen and wrote detailed letters on who she was and how the new her could get by in her world. The mystery part is that she didn't know who was behind the attack.
The original Myfanwy is no James Bond, Jack Bauer or Evelyn Salt. She's a high up administrator with no field experience. This gives an extra element rarely explored and adds to the interest. We see Myfanwy explore this world through new eyes, helped by her previous incarnation’s intricate notes and learning about both herself and the world.
The story is well paced with a good blend of action, mystery and discovery. I honestly did not want to put it down and ended up reading late into the night rather than watch Revenge and Gotham.
My gripes are fairly minor. Firstly the name Myfanwy was distracting, the author makes a point of telling us early on it is pronounced as Tiffany with an M. It took about half of the book for this to become natural to me. I was constantly correcting myself in my head and this took me out of the story on a regular basis.
Secondly, the letters from pre-amnesia Myfanwy are pure info dump and do tend to feel like you are being lectured to. They are also placed right at the moment something big happens and I was constantly tempted to just skip them to get back to the story. They are all relevant and engaging, even the most obscure, they just felt false and annoying.
As I said at the start - very, very good. I will certainly be getting book two next year.
Wow, The Rook is very, very good. It's based in a supernatural world hidden within modern day England like Harry Potter, Supernatural, Warehouse 13, etc. O'Malley takes that, adds a magical MI5 and throws in a mystery plot.
The main character is Myfanwy Thomas and she wakes up with no memories surrounded by dead bodies. Fortunately her previous self knew this was going to happen and wrote detailed letters on who she was and how the new her could get by in her world. The mystery part is that she didn't know who was behind the attack.
The original Myfanwy is no James Bond, Jack Bauer or Evelyn Salt. She's a high up administrator with no field experience. This gives an extra element rarely explored and adds to the interest. We see Myfanwy explore this world through new eyes, helped by her previous incarnation’s intricate notes and learning about both herself and the world.
The story is well paced with a good blend of action, mystery and discovery. I honestly did not want to put it down and ended up reading late into the night rather than watch Revenge and Gotham.
My gripes are fairly minor. Firstly the name Myfanwy was distracting, the author makes a point of telling us early on it is pronounced as Tiffany with an M. It took about half of the book for this to become natural to me. I was constantly correcting myself in my head and this took me out of the story on a regular basis.
Secondly, the letters from pre-amnesia Myfanwy are pure info dump and do tend to feel like you are being lectured to. They are also placed right at the moment something big happens and I was constantly tempted to just skip them to get back to the story. They are all relevant and engaging, even the most obscure, they just felt false and annoying.
As I said at the start - very, very good. I will certainly be getting book two next year.
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