Pep Talk

I’m having one of those days where I sit at the computer and cry because I’m so incredibly frustrated that I just can’t seem to get out what it is that I want to say in a way that will actually make sense and is well written. I feel like I’m banging my head against this invisible force field. One of my main problems is that I have to cut down to one day a week of writing. This means stress-head Linsey goes into overload trying to cram into one day what I would normally try and do it two. This, of course is impossible but I still try and do it.

I keep telling myself; just breathe, there is no deadline on this. The more time I take, the more I think about it, the more I let ideas stew and become fully complete, the better chance I have of communicating well and being understood.

So, pep talk done, it’s time to get back to work.

What exactly am I working on? At the moment I’ve got two picture books that I’m tweaking, trying to get the perfect word to make the perfect sentence (urrrgggg). Also, I’ve got a manuscript for a children’s book that I’m going over again for the 32^nd time (actually I don’t know how many times I’ve gone over it). These are the ones that I have in front of me at the present and I’m not thinking about the other half-baked manuscripts sitting in my computer’s memory.

So writing…. Just do it!

All in Good Time

One of the major things that I am learning as I go through this writing journey is that writing takes time. 

I naively thought, at the beginning of my journey, that if I sat down and wrote and finished a story— I could send it to some friends, maybe get a manuscript appraisal and ‘whala’ – it would be finished. Done and dusted, on to the next project.

This is not how it works. Well, at least, for me, this is not how it works. And I am so pleased to find out that it’s not how it works for other people as well. I’ve been encouraged to read other writer’s journeys and how it might take years to get a first novel, picture book, children’s book etc. completed and then published.

That probably doesn’t sound encouraging but I guess in a way I was thinking, “Quick, get this done as fast as I can.” Stress, stress, stress.

I don’t know why I was thinking that but I was. No that's not true, I know why I was, cause I'm a stress pot. But I've admitted it now and I'm getting help.

Now it’s more like, “I want to get this right. I want to write a good story. So I’ll take my time about it. Learn more, write better, get advice and hopefully make my stories the best they can be—in time.” 

Time, Time, Time, Time

I have to be one of the most impatient people in the whole world. Okay a lot of exaggeration went into that sentence, but that’s how I feel so much of the time, especially with two boys under five.

So what does one do when so much of writing has to do with letting a manuscript sit so that ideas can evolve and mulling can take place? And I quote, “Time is your friend.”

When writing picture books or probably any book really. Write it and then put it away for a couple of weeks. Then take it out again and see how you feel. Okay, fair enough. I can put it away but what in the heck am I supposed to do in the mean time?

Write something else. Yes, I can understand that and I would love to as I have a few projects on the go. (I’ve discovered that I write how I read, a few books at a time.)

But going from one book to another, let along going from one age group to another or one genre to another is really quite brain boggling. 

So, I’m still in the learning process; learning how I write, how I work, how my brain functions (which is a bit of a worry sometimes).

Who knew all of this would crop up with a simple decision to write? 

After the course

I just finished my ‘Writing Picture Books’ course and I can officially say that writing picture books is hard work! I applaud anyone who even attempts it. My brain feels full to overflowing with all the information I’ve been cramming into it over the past six weeks. I feel like I’ve been given the tools to take my writing further.

I’ve been doing my writing courses through ‘The Australian Writer’s Centre’, if anyone is interested. They do a great job.

I have decided that I’m trying to do too much with my writing at the moment. I’ve got stories galore on the back burners and they’re all from different age groups.

I’ve got to figure out how to focus on one thing at a time, without getting distracted by everything else that I’m interested in exploring.

So maybe I need to actually plan my year out and try and finish something instead of starting and starting and starting. 

Word Dumps and Picture Books

NaNoWriMo has well and truly finished and I was so pleased that I was able to get out 50,000 words by the end of the month.

It was an interesting exercise. First of all I had to switch off my editor mode. Now, I’m not much of an editor in terms of grammar, punctuation and even spelling but I do have a knack for going over and over my writing, adding a little here and deleting a little there. But I wasn’t allowed to do that.

It was a big word dump. I found the first 10,000 words relatively easy to get out but by the time I got to 35,000 words, man was it a slog. I prayed a whole lot during those last couple of weeks.

The whole NaNoWriMo process was quite liberating, in a way. I started writing with little knowledge of what I was actually going to end up with. I sort of had a vague idea of what maybe I should be heading towards but I was constantly surprised with the new characters and issues that cropped up along the way.

I’ve been advised to leave the writing or typing on that particular project for at least a few weeks before going back for a more serious edit. So I’m having fun with other projects at the moment.

I have started doing a course on writing picture books. 

Oh boy, I’m in my second week and I feel like I have jumped into the deep end. A couple of years ago, before I attempted to write a picture book, I thought picture books would be a fun and easy way of writing. Then I tried to write a couple of picture books and discovered that it’s not that simple. Then I started this course and I’m fast coming to the conclusion that picture books may well be the hardest type of book to write.

Try writing a well structured, well paced, age appropriate, emotional, themed story that has good characters, humour, a great topic, has passion, conflict and a great resolution, amongst other things, in 500 words. 

And don’t let me get started on all the ins and outs on working with an illustrator.

I take my hat off to all the wonderfully creative people who write gorgeous picture books for us to enjoy. Because lets face it picture books are fun for adults too. J

I am learning so much, I only hope my brain as the capacity to retain a little of it.

Surprised by Characters

I have done it. I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo. A beautiful friend of mine said, "Why are you not signing up?" And that question just basically stumped me, so I did it. I’m not a coward anymore (well, in this one tiny area, baby steps) 

Freedom.

Yay for beautiful friends :)

So, I’m writing this story and I’ve got a vague notion of where it is heading but the details that are emerging are surprising me. I’ve had two characters pop into the story quite suddenly that I didn’t anticipate. That was quite a remarkable experience. My husband thinks I’m slowly going around the bend and if I start talking about my characters as if they are real people then he’ll truly think I’ve lost it.

However, to make believable characters a writer must imagine them as real. It’s quite an interesting process trying to create a character that is believable as a real person and not just a two dimensional character. It’s like in the movie ‘Inception’ Leonardo di Caprio’s character knows that the woman who appears to him is not real because she’s not as complex as his wife was in real life, she’s not as inconsistent or deep. She morphed into a two-dimensional character and was not believable anymore, even though he wanted her to be.

Real people act in ways that sometimes aren’t easily explainable. We hurt people because we were hurt or we fall madly in love with someone who our best friend just can’t stand. And for the life of us we have the hardest time communicating the simplest concept because the person who we are speaking to continually misunderstands us. We all see things through these amazing lenses that are built since our earliest impressions and memories and grow with each experience, which is so different from everyone else’s. (Woot woot, for taking Sociology and Anthro at Uni)

Of course, all of this background stuff is what the writer needs to know and not necessarily what ends up in the book. Readers can tell if a writer knows what the main character will eat for breakfast, even though it’s never mentioned in the book.

NaNoWriMo

Well, it is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words by the end of the month and I’ve taken up the challenge. Not officially, because I’m too much of a coward to sign up, but I’m doing it on my own. 

It’s great to have a goal to work towards. I’m finding it very motivating.

50,000 words sounds so incredibly daunting and I’m a bit scared of it. It’s already November 8 and I am behind. I’ve only typed 11,626 words on my adult fiction story. By my calculations I should already be up to 13,336. Of course, I've always been horrific at maths, which is why I'm a writer not a maths teacher.

So, I'd better start cracking and because writing on my blog doesn’t count for my overall word count, I’m going to stop right here and go back to my story. :) 

See ya later