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?

Yes, kind of a 'you read mine and I'll read yours.' I'm blind as to my mistakes so it's a fresh pair of eyes. I need to get someone else to look at the novel and the picture book ASAP to be honest. Then I can revise, send them off and get working on the next one. I can read anything, I also studied Law so would be useful for a crime novel.

I submitted to three on Friday, I heard back from one today.

sounds good. you have my addy I think, I can read anything once school breaks up this friday! I prefer to do it on hard copy, that way I can annotate and you can take in any comments you agree with and reject the rest .
that was a quick response from the agent, crikey! never mind, onwards and upwards.

It costs a fortune to print it off! I'll send you my email again in a PM. Tha agent was a waste of time. I even said in the subject line that I have a publisher interested.

Ok, an agent, even bigger then the last one, has asked to see the first three chapters (think...wizard called HP). I'm excited and trying to stay calm. It's just a small step (grabs paper bag and starts to breathe into it).

I emailed, told them about the publisher being interested, gave them a brief synopsis. They are updating their site at the moment so they are not accepting email requests. I can email mine though, they have given me a different email address.

Well, from what I've read in the papers, they've now got a gap in their stables for an internationally successful children's author . Good work and fingers crossed for you.

It's OK Dandy, ask away. I submitted to the publisher first. There's quite a few that accept unsolicited submissions, so it seemed easier (hahaha!) to submit to these first, then look for an agent. The publisher who is interested in the manuscripts is the only one to have seen them, I approached them first so I'm incredibly lucky.

That was my thinking Funtime

I've not sent it in, yet. I'm going to go over it and make sure it's as great as I can make it.

Hello, started a thread earlier, but as the board is so quiet now, I thought you all might be coming to this thread direct from Threads I'm On and not see it.

I did post a couple of times a few months back, but lost the oomph again. I'm planning to write in the early morning which is what my thread is about, here - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/creative_writing/1264012-When-do-you-write
Any help or input would be much appreciated.

I'll have a look TimeWasting

The publishers don't want the picture book. I'm quite relieved really, I don't think I can come up with another idea that they will like and I find it easier to write novels, I have plenty of plots for those.

Hello all, just popping in to say Hi. DD (3)'s childminder is on holiday so I am looking after her and have no energy left of an evening after her bedtime to write, then we have house guests. So writing resumes (hopefully!) beginning of August. Am a month behind my self-imposed deadline for finishing the book but hey ho.

Hi everyone, mind if I join you on this thread? I've done up to chapter 10 of this novel and have to finish it by the end of August (first draft only, of course!) I know I can do it as I've done it before. I want to use this thread to stay motivated and stop me going on MN.

So, today I've gone through the first ten chapters (I have all of the chapters plotted out, a page or so per chapter) and made slight alterations. I now want to finish chapter 11 by the end of the day.

Will come back on later to say I've done it!

I have to finish editing chapter three of my WIP today. I've been appallingly lazy this week. Must. Work. Harder. Can't wait until I'm at the stage when I can start submitting it places.

Well I've just finished chapter 11 after a lot of procrastination. It was a difficult chapter where two main characters meet for the first time, but in th end it went well.

I'm so stupid, if something's on the page it can be edited. It's the blank page that's so hard. Exciting too, but hard!

Well done for finishing Chp 11, Imperial! How many more chapters left and are you under contract (you said you had to finish first draft by end of August)?

No, not under any contract - just my own pride. I do have an agent who will read it for me but I wouldn't send it unless I thought it was as good as it could be.

There will be about 30 chapters, I think (gulp!) - hope to post tomorrow that chapter 12 is written.

Well done to all of you getting something done.
I'm struggling, haven't written a thing in nearly 2 weeks. As soon as DSs chicken pox cleared up my DD came down with it. Finally all dried up today so that's that out the way!
When I have had a chance to sit down and write, I've procrastinated and got nothing done so I need to make an effort.
I'll have plenty of free time tomorrow night as my DH is out with work mates so I'm planning getting back into the swing of things then.

I was supposed to have finished editing chapter four of mine by now, but it just hasn't happened. I've got ch2 up on a critique site and I've been critiquing other people in the hope of getting comments back (haven't had many yet), and that's eaten up a lot of time.

Hoping to do some tonight but I have some freelance work to do and should really be getting on with that instead.

hi all. gave up for a while - got really depressed by the small chances of success, hard to motivate with all the dcs/ job/ etc. remember reading someone on here saying we should all be on twitter, making connections - i can't begin to work out what to do on twitter! it just seems so complicated.
on the plus side, i got a new netbook for my birthday, and am going to send my (new) book to the Chicken House competition, as soon as i have started finished it....

When does the Chicken House comp open??

already is - once a year - submit by 31 oct - up to 80,000 wds - age 8 - 13 yrs - thro The Times - google The Times and Chicken House together and click on the link to the 2011 competition