For anyone else who wants to start/progress/finish writing a book in 2011

[artifarti]

As the title says really!

Me: After several years of dithering with short stories, I committed myself to Nanowrimo last month and managed to bash out a 50,000 first draft of an idea I've had for ages. There is some excrutiating crap in there but also the bare bones of a plot and some interesting characters. So I'd really like to spend 2011 trying to develop it into something better.

But I need some company so that we can mutually kick each other's arses when the temptation to watch Holby City is proving too great. Anyone else?

I'm not sure ninah, I said I'd work around her as she's busy and I'm a layabout who sits and thinks of silly books all day (I didn't say it quite this way). I have to meet my editor within the next couple of weeks so will have to ask if it's OK to meet with them on the same day.

Keep at it! Sounds like you all have a lot of other things going on at home.

ooh, it must be nice to say 'I'm off to meet my publisher/editor'
wonder if you'll have lunch. I've always wanted a legendary publishing lunch!

I have friends in London, one whiff that I'm there and they all want to meet for lunch. I may just throw a party so I can meet them all at the same time. I just need the agent to ask and it will be a complete mess! I may have to return for meeting friends.

I had a quieter life when I was working!

The novel is one chaper away from being finished and is currently at 40k in words. I also have (another) super duper picture book plot.

Nice one, belle! business first, you can have a launch party for your friends
got a rejection from the agent who asked for whole mss today, so I'm now at a point where I can look at my final readers' comments and revise yet again before sending it out. I'm not as discouraged as I expected to be, tbh. Working on revisions fits in OK for me atm so the current mss has gone on back burner while I fix this one ...I'm going to send it to a few agents at a time.

Oh, I'm sorry. Keep at it though. Did she/he give you any helpful feedback?

not really! c'est la vie ....
i need to read it again myself and be brutal

ninah, that's the spirit! We all need tough hearts on this journey, don't we? The important thing is that we believe in our MSs - if that means more work on it and being brutal then needs must etc.

I made more progress on scene planning today but need to do more tomorrow.

ooh I just looked again and saw lots of things I can do to make it better!
sometimes it's hard to see the wood for the trees when you've just finished and are close to it.

Evening all! Is it really just the three of us here now (ninah, belle and me)? Anyone else lurking?

Anyway, have finished plotting out all the scenes for the last section of the novel except the very last chapter which I'll map out tomorrow. A good day today.

Thank you Dandy! Going back to it is a good idea, I often notice mistakes that have slipped through the net.

I've amost finished the novel! I'm on the last chapter and I'm tying it all together now, it's great!

Hi all. The lesser-spotted mojito here. Have been continuing with my blog, posting once or twice a week, so doing well with that. Other writing is taking a back seat for the time being, but that's fine as the blog is giving me discipline and time to write.

Ninah - you asked how I present myself as a blogger. I am doing it as an anonymous blog, so although it has much of me in it and everything I say is true stuff that's happened to me, I don't bang on about very specific things that my children have done (I'm writing mainly about my life as a mother, my children, and the place where we live). It's not exactly a no-frills version of myself either - I tend to exaggerate things slightly to make it funnier, and write posts as 'articles' rather than streams of consciousness. There are different ways to approach the blogging lark though, which is the nice thing about it really because anyone can make a blog their own.

Staying on this thread, even if i'm not always visible!

Yey, lurkers! Hello .

[creeps out of the bushes]

I'm 91,000 words into a novel that will probably be around 100,000 words. First half has been pretty extensively workshopped. Second half needs some work. No great ambition- well, my ambition is to get a rejection letter that is more than the standard rejection

Congrats Belle on getting the call up from the publisher. Been following your posts, so that's great news. Is it the picture book they're interested in?

Just one of the three picture books Bride, and maybe one other that she likes the plot to that I've not written yet. I'm still working on my novel, it's almost ready. They asked for first refusal once it was done.

Hi all
I've been a bit of a lurker on here past few months but I've been finishing a creative writing course with the OU and wanted to concentrate on that.
I've written many first drafts in the past but never get any further as I hate editing! Plus I've always been scared by the thought of anyoen reading my work but getting over that now.
I've just started redrafting a novel I wrote last year but it needs quite a bit of work so feel like I'm completely starting again.
Does everyone here start writing from the very beginnning or do you sometimes write scenes that come to mind and write around them? I'm struggling with where to start with mine but know where I want to go.

Welcome lurkers and welcome to non-lurker Dandy .

Okay, so the last chapter is mapped out. Ready to start writing the last section of the novel on Monday!

Cassie, personally I am a outliner - in that I tend to prepare an outline of an entire novel before I start writing it. Obviously many things change once I start writing but generally I then adjust the outline.

And I pretty much start writing at Chp 1 but because I've got my outline, if I feel stuck then I'll jump to another chapter or scene.

I tried doing the snowflake method of outlining but it seemed to take forever and just wanted to get on with writing. So now I'm trying to just do a simpler outline.
Story ideas come to me in a mixture of scenes so think I'm going to try writing the scenes down first rather than starting at the beginning and then waiting to get to the scenes.
I've learned that my endings never go the way I plan now so the last third of my planning is always very brief!

Oh, I did Snowflake and my own method and it took two months of planning. But that perfectly suits my way of working. Definitely you should do it in a way that is comfortable to you. Most of all - enjoy it!

What's the snowflake method?

Snowflake method:
www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php

I looked at snowflake but it seems awfully complicated. If I plan something too much I get too bored with it to actually write it, I quite like winging it and seeing what crops up. I do have an idea, obviously, and chapter headings, but that's about it and I like to go off on a tangent as it occurs to me.
Have just revised part one and made the Bitch even Bitchier! now to part two

yes Ninah I found it over complicated too, but it did help in starting me off with a outline, it was just the last few steps that i started to get bored and was desperate to start.
I also find that as I write my charcters start to write themselves and take me in a different direction to what I started.
But I do find it helpful to have some outline to start with and it gets me thinkign about the story and how I want it to develop. I've tried winging it before but I'm not very good at it once past the beginning.
I think everyone has different ways of working though, I was given loads of ideas on the OU creative writing course for getting ideas flowing but use few of them now.
I've just finished doing a basic outline on scrivener last night so hoping I can get started at some point today.

I'm using the 'make it up as I go along' approach. It's working so far. I'll try to be more structured if I decided to write another novel.