Tuesday 6 November 2012

My first week as a writer...it could have been better!

Last week I blogged about my desire to start writing this month, after much to-ing and fro-ing I decided that it was time to bite the bullet and get on with it. Fortunately I timed it just right as Thursday marked the beginning on National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) so on Wednesday I logged into the site and set myself up for a month or writing and becoming a hermit.

Day One...
I woke up on Thursday morning full of excitement for what they day ahead had to offer. Logging into Twitter and I was overwhelmed with the number of people who were getting involved and suddenly became extremely daunted about the task ahead. Throughout the day I read lots of tweets and visited lots of sites that offered help and advice about the best ways to tackle NaNoWriMo and make the most out of your time. Getting home I felt prepared to face the challenge ahead.
I sat down in the office and began mapping out my book - characters, timeline, events and plot. I then began writing. After a few hours I reached my daily total and felt a lot better about the whole process.

Day Two...
I woke up eager and excited to get writing, I sat thinking off all the possibilities for my story and couldn't wait to get started...But then I realised I was babysitting my ten month old nephew and had to get up and ready to pick him up.
At home with him I sat him down in the office with his toys and tried to start writing. However, he had other ideas and as much as I tried to coax him into sitting still, he was having a far better time crawling around and making a dash for the stairs! I decided to give up for the day.

Day Three, Four & Five
My initial eagerness to get stuck into the writing process kind of... disappeared. Instead it was replaced with a lazy attitude and me lying on the sofa reading, obviously when I wasn't babysitting or working! I had the occassional thought about my book, but soon dismissed it and distracted myself with something else.

Day Six
Today the bug is back! I came into work early and plan on going home, putting the dinner on, sorting the dogs out and hiding away in the office until I have written at least one days writing quota. If I can manage to write a little more, then I will be happy.
I am having a dreadful time at work at the moment and am really desperate to make some career changes in my life and writing is something that I am hugely passionate about and it is time I turned my dreams into reality, as cheesy as that sounds, otherwise I will be stuck in a job that makes me uphappy for the rest of my life!

So here is to the next 24 days! I will make it to the end and I will write 50,000 words!!!

Thursday 1 November 2012

November already?!

Another month has flown by once again! We have somehow got to November, where does the time go? After a quiet month in September, I seem to have made up for it in October and managed to review a whooping seven books! Granted a few of them where short stories.

Last month I decided that it was time that I sat down and started my own book, so far I haven't made any progress and to be honest haven't really given it much thought. Then I got an email from NaNoWriMo mapping out this years event... it said that on day one you should write 1,667 words and I thought "how hard can that be?" I know I will be eating my words in about a weeks time, but in all honestly that isn't a huge amount to write in one day and I should be able to do it, I just need to give myself a massive kick up the bum and do it! My only problem is that I an enjoying reading books so much, if I do start my own book I will have to stop reading for a little while so I don't distract myself!

Whether I do decide to make a start on my own novel or not, I am setting myself the target of writing a short story this month. I have a couple of days booked off work, so I think this is definitely achievable.

While I continue to ponder over whether to write or not to write I have got a selection of books to review this month...


I have very kindly been sent all of this months books - One Hundred Names and Kismetology are definitely my kind of books whereas Spirit of Angels is something very different to what I usually read so I am very much looking forward to seeing what they all have in store for me.

Remember, if you have a book that you would like me to read and review then please send it on! Always happy to help a new author and lend a hand where I can, I will be asking the same when the time comes :-) 

As always, thanks for reading x