I will post my first review for a chapter from The Hunger Games tomorrow – I just need to type it up and put it in order.

I will review York and my next steps after it at the weekend when I get a chance to sit down and write it. I want to do the weekend justice and that will take some time.

Okay, I know I love to write, if I didn’t then I wouldn’t spend so much of my time doing this let alone try to get a published book out there, because believe me I’ve read the horror stories and know too well you don’t become a writer for the fame. That doesn’t mean that I’m motivated all the time or that I don’t try to trick myself into believing that I’m writing when I’m not. Listening to writing podcasts, following people on twitter, doing research or reading my genre are all important but I’m not actually writing when I do those things. And sometimes they are just easier to do. Take last night, I’d been feeling grumpy all day, had loads of work to do and was tired by the time I actually got a chance to sit down and write at half nine in the evening. Half of me just wanted to give up for the night, not bother, but that small nagging voice in my head kept saying treat it like a job. In the end I managed 700 words before bed, which was not a lot, but it was better than none which at 9.25 I was tempted to have as my word count.  So how do I, and how did I motivate myself to do write last night.

First I keep in my mind, that I changed my career to do this. Yes, I have a day job, I tutor, but I don’t teach anymore. There was no way that I could teach and write at the same time, not if I wanted to sleep. So I keep reminding myself that this is my career and my day job is just that a job, it brings money in, and if I want to cut back on those hours I need to sell something. Not brain surgery to work that out but it’s still easier said than done. Next, I set myself a word target, I try to write a chapter a week, which means aiming to write a 1000 words a day Monday to Friday and gives myself the weekend to plot of the next in detail and work out any changes to the central plot etc. The only way I can keep myself accountable to this is by keeping a spreadsheet that tracks my progress. I also keep my ipad on me, so I can jot down notes of chapters, while I’m working etc, and add to them later that night. That can really help when I’m having a slow moving night because even just transfer those notes and putting them into sentences can sometimes spark ideas. Finally and this is the point you are going to groan at because its so obvious but it’s also true, I sit myself down and force myself to write, often promising myself rewards if I do x number of words.

So what rewards do I promise myself. I like promising myself games as a reward – but I have learnt many times that promising myself a game on football manager is not a good reward. That game is just too addictive for me and one game will soon turn into many more, and before I know it two or three hours are gone. So I’ve had to shelf football manager just for when I listen to Sheffield Wednesday play and then at least I can win a few games even if the actual team is playing badly. Instead I’m going with playing mah-jong titans, a game where you have to find matching pairs, only some of the pairs are blocked, so you have to work out the order to clear them in. It’s also addictive but doesn’t take as long to play one game and somehow I can give this one up much easier after a few games. Another thing I reward myself with is TV, I’ve tried to pretty much given up watching TV as it eats so much of your time, but there’s still shows I want to watch. Luckily with the internet and box sets etc I can reward myself with one episode of something after x amount of words without being sucked into watching a whole evening of shows.

So here’s what I do in short (and if this helps anyone I’m happy it did, if not it just reminds me) –

1. Write everyday
2. Set a target – if you don’t meet this it needs to be made up.
3. Keep something to jot down notes on because even just transfer can bring up some ideas as you turn them into sentences.
4. Reward yourself but don’t pick something too addictive that will waste hours of your time.

I guess the only other thing to say, is after I get back from York this weekend, there’s going to be a few changes to this blog. Actually it’s not really changes more additions. I want to put something up here each week, but if I just focus on my writing, research and letters to agents etc, there’s not always a lot to put without it getting boring and repetitive. So as well as the stuff I have been writing, I’m also going to do some book reviewing – chapter by chapter stuff so its more detailed but does not eat up too much time into my writing schedule. After all don’t they say a good writer is a good reader? I’m going to start next week with the first chapter of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I have picked this book for a number of reasons. First because I love it, so motivation should not be a problem. Second because it is layered with so many details that you only pick up on a second/third/fourth reading. And third because it’s one of the books that I have brought with my to Geneva and it is not stuck away in a box somewhere in my parents home in Sheffield.

Talk to you soon and take care.

Let me just say first this was my experience of the editing process, and I doubt many others will find it the same. But nevertheless here’s how it worked for me any why it took a mammoth ten drafts. I’m going to spilt this into four section because they where were the big edits took place. So without further ado here we go.

Draft One to Three – These will actually be most people’s draft one but it takes me the three to get things ordered. Draft one is just really a case of getting the ideas down, its really the skeleton for the rest. There so much more meet added to the bone after this. Draft two is where that starts to get added,  and each chapter grows quite a bit in time. And three is where it starts to make sense and I sort of the dyslexia signs – bad grammar and spelling particularly. Spell check is great, but if you can’t recognise the right word or more often than not your spell checker asks you what language you are trying to write in, it really doesn’t help that much. This is where the good old thesaurus come into play – much easier to use and much more dyslexia friendly.  These drafts really have an open outline. I have a good idea where the story is going. Key points for each chapter. However after I have finished a chapter these get re-evaluated. Some points get shifted forward, some backward and some deleted or replace. I’m not sure whether that makes me an outliner or not. I have got a strict outline but it is constantly getting changed. Anyway at the end of draft three I actually have the story that I am happy to work with. This is where before I have published on the internet, and I have to confess it was hard not getting the feedback at this stage and it took a lot to get going again. I know its shallow but I did miss the feedback a lot here.

Draft Four to Five – So instead of getting instant feedback, I took a break, tried to forget it, not that I could do that for too long. I did keep to the rule that you need to look at it from different eyes, like a book so I printed it off here. Reading it once before I marked a single word on it. After that took words out, deleted scenes, kill my babies as well as adding two or three more scenes. Draft four was transferring that back onto the computer and draft five was getting rid of the dyslexia in it. Then it was sent out to my first readers with a list of questions, and this was painful. Every two minutes I was desperate to email people and check how they were getting on. Luckily real life kept me sane as I’d just moved countries and started a new job. No time to dwell that much with all that on your plate. Also I ended up doing a lot of reading focusing around my genre and reading anything that was slightly recommended, finding some good book and others well, they weren’t my taste.

Drafts Six to Eight – Well the feedback came back and it was fairly positive. First two/thirds took too long and the last third was too quick and needed a battle scene. So through most of draft six, I was cutting the first two thirds including joining two chapters together and then spent the last third adding, including a full new chapter – a battle scene chapter. Draft six ended up having a similar feeling to draft one, although it was neater and more organised, it was back to being a skeleton of a novel.  Draft seven parts got fleshed out, parts got and really took a similar fashion to draft two. At the end of draft eight, mainly ‘spging’ (spelling, punctuation and grammar) the dyslexia out of it I was happy with it and willing to send it off again. My second readers were a mixture of some of the first readers (mainly the ones that had points out the biggest need for change) and some new readers. This time it went out for longer, giving people more time. I actually managed to keep more sane this time, despite still craving the feedback, I already had some and I knew I was on the right track but perhaps more importantly I had started writing book two and that was more than enough to keep my mind off the second readers (most of the time.)

Draft Nine to Ten – the feedback came back and it was good again. All that was really left to do with nine was a word cut as I was still aware that for its genre it was too long. If I thought I had murdered by babies before and took away the unnecessary I really did that here. The other with this draft was make sure that I added just little bits of foreshadowing. Draft ten, well that was just smarting it up. And well now it’s finished and it’s back to work on book two. The writing never stops eh?

p.s. sorry this post didn’t come up yesterday as promised but I’ve been having a pretty successful writing weekend of book 2 and didn’t want to break away from that until I had finished the chapter I was writing.

I have finished Firebound (provisional title). – Happy dance! 

It has been through 10 drafts and had an 18% cutt and has finally come in at 209 pages and 92046 words. And is now ready to send out, just in time for York. I plan to write a detailed post on how I worked through those drafts at the weekend (if I don’t do his you have my permission to kick me) which hopefully some people may find useful otherwise it will still be useful for me to motivate myself when I’m stuck on draft one with book 2. But for now since other things beckon, here is a quick look at my spreadsheet that tracked by progress.

Okay, maybe it shouldn’t be pitch perfect. I’ve been putting the start to my pitch for the York festival later this month and doing a lot of research on how to do a perfect pitch. The one thing is though there is never really a perfect pitch – something that is perfect for one person may not be perfect for another, but I can be pitch prepared, pitch perfected (for me) and pitch profitable – okay profitable is a stretch, but its linked to marketable and begins with a P. The research has basically turned up the same things – all stuff that you would expect really.

1. Set up, Hook and Resolution all need including.
2. Short and attention grabbing – at most 2/3 sentences, ideally the size of a tweet to hook your audience.
3. You can use a combination of books/film to give a clear idea of the story e.g. James Bond meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer mixed in with Nancy Drew (Now that would make an interesting book!)
4. Needs to describe the main character.
5. Needs to show the heart of the story.
6. Needs to have a compelling central idea.
7. Needs to explain the core conflict.
8. Needs to show the differentiating factor.
9. Needs to show the setting.
10. But shouldn’t just use lists.

That’s hell of a lot to put into a couple of sentences and that’s without even trying to condense 90,000+ words to less than a paragraph or two minutes of speaking. Luckily I managed to find a copy of the logline to the fantastic book – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hunger-Games-Suzanne-Collins/dp/1407109081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299186296&sr=8-1) – side note if you haven’t read this trilogy you really should it’s amazing. Anyway here was the logline:

In a future North America, where the rules of Panem maintain and control though an annual television survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss’s skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister’s place.

How good is that is shows you:

1. The main character and her age.
2. The main conflict.
3. How its different – the whole kids fighting on tv thing – gladiator meets  big brother.
4. The setting.

So using that as a base, I worked on for ideas myself and emailed them out for some feedback and this is what I came up with:

1. In modern day Britain, the underground elemental world of the Guardians is facing a rebellion against their Elite system and both sides are pinning their hopes and expectation on sixteen-year-old Abigail Cooper, still grieving from her mother’s strange and untimely death and much more interested in her ‘normal’ life, regaining popularity and boys than her ability to control fire.
2. Headstrong sixteen-year-old Abigail Cooper will fight against anything she doesn’t like whether that be enemies at school or being forced into the elemental world of the Guardians, where she expected to learn how to control fire and become a proper Heir to the royal Elite, the monarchical like ruling system that includes her mother’s ‘murderer’.
3. The elemental world of the Guardians is in conflict as a rebel group tries to upset the system of monarchy and take over and both sides see their savour in sixteen-year-old Abigail Cooper who has little interest in the system or controlling fire and just wants to return to her normal life of boys, regaining popularity and sport.
4. Sixteen-year-old Abigail Cooper is a runner, both physically and mentally, she avoids thinking of her mother’s death, the elemental world that she has been dragged into and the fact that she is losing her popularity at school that is until injury stops her and she turns to a rebel organisation that will help her throw fire in the face of the Guardian Elite that she is an Heir to.

I’m waiting on feedback from people – so if you have any idea which you like, comments would be really appreciated. I’m really not sure with one I like the most – I did come up with my TV/Book/Film parallel though.

The Vampire Diaries (books) meets Avatar: The Last Airbender (TV Series) set against the backdrop of the French Revolution in modern day Britain.

Then of course there are all the things to do on the day:

1. Don’t talk about the process – no one needs to know how you got there, just that you did.
2. Don’t pounce on people.
3. Don’t verbal vomit – remember to breath and pause between words.

These two articles were the most helpful on finding all this and they go into much more detail including explain ‘The Hunger Games’ tagline in full.

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/pitch2.shtml

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/pitch.shtml

So what else have I been up to – well pitch procrastinating. I picked up a copy of ‘The Mockingbirds’ by Daisy Whintey (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mockingbirds-Daisy-Whitney/dp/0316090530/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299187481&sr=8-1) a while ago after hearing a review on a podcast and well it’s been sitting in the bottom of my bag waiting to be read. Well yesterday after the battery in my kindle died out, I pick it up, think I would just read a chapter or two while I waited for brothers 4 and 5 to finish school. Needless to say I got instantly hooked (I was finished in less than a day), which is strange really as it’s a date-rape story but it was really compelling. Each chapter kept you turning. All the characters were well rounded and interesting. The protagonist when through a strong character arc. It kept you questioning what was going to happen next while still feeling sympathy and drawn into the main character – who grew stronger with page. And most importantly it had just the right ending – not a happily ever after all the problems fixed but justice was done and the main character showed she could get through this – she offered real hope. Its definitely going on my recs to others list and my reread list, not that I have time to do that. But now I do need to stop procrastinating, even if it is on great books and get back to pitch preparation mode.

Talk again soon.

p.s. Anyone able to spare some cash giving to charity please, visit my brother’s website and support the Sheffield Children’s Hospital – http://givingwild.com/

I know, I know, I know, I have been very bad at updating this blog. I really have no excuse, so I’m not going to try and a give one, I’ll just update you on what has been going on. The last time I posted I was anxiously waiting for first reader comments. Well they came back and they were generally good, with the exception that the first third dragged a little and the last third needed more detail. So it went into edit, I cut a lot of the first third, combined two chapters (chapters 2-3), added a bit more action, you get to see characters control the elements a lot quicker. The middle third stayed roughly the same and then I added quite a lot to the last third, including upping the blood count, now the book does have the battle scene I avoided before. The action was just needed parallel the angst levels and the teenage girls levels. After all that was done I sent it out again.

As well as sending it out to second readers (again feedback mostly good – but it did need another word cut), I also sent it to The Writing Show Podcast’s Slush Pile (http://www.writingshow.com/podcasts/2011/01162011.html), this is a Podcast run by Paula B and looks at first chapters to look at their potential. It is a wonderful podcast and gave some invaluable advice, oh which I am very grateful for. Firebound’s (still my working title) feedback starts abot the twenty minute mark and overall I was very happy with it. The style and voice is right for the market and it is very well written with a character that you are rooting for from the start. That naturally made me very happy, as I think that my main character, Abigail can be somewhat of a brat especially when the story starts. The negatives that the cliff-hanger wasn’t big enough for a first chapter, which has now been changed, it was still too long (hence yet another word cut) and that the prologue wasn’t needed. Now I love the prologue so that was really hard to hear but she was right, it was just back story, it was passive and it didn’t introduce the main chapter, so painfully I cut the prologue.

With all the feedback in, I worked on giving it another cut and have a draft that I am happy with just in time for the writing festival that I am going to. (http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/festivals/index.shtml) And the rest of my time has been preparing for that, sorting out my back story and world details etc, working on synopsis and query letters again and starting book two. But I will go into all of that in lots more detail in the next few posts.

Right now it’s all up to date – I will talk to you soon. I swear. Feel free to beat me with a big stick if I don’t.

So the big feedback has come back from the first readers and the major edit has started with has explained why I’m only updating this weekend. I’ve been stuck with the writing out extra scenes, adding extra detail and making some cuts.

Overall, I’m fairly happy with the feedback that I’ve got. There were positives in all the feedback I got back and some of the people I sent it to are hardly the target market. The general feedback though was the idea was good, the plot moved nicely and the characters believable. The first third needs speeding up, the middle a few more details and the end needs slowing down. All this has lead to joining chapters 2 and 3 together, writing a new penultimate chapter in addition to the current chapters and adding to scenes in five other chapters.

I have currently written the extra scenes by hand, and edited the first two part both by hand and transcribed that to the computer. I’m hoping to get the third part done by the end of next Saturday – damn real world and jobs getting in the way.

I promise to talk more about it when the process has finished, but for now my red pen is calling.

Talk to you soon.

So, yesterday was the deadline day for my first readers. Something that was needed to be extended for a couple of people that are close to the end but didn’t quite make it. I should be getting a lot more of the feedback early next week.

The week itself has been highly nerve wracking, the closer the deadline got the more eager, jumpy and well just plain anxious I got. Even worse was opening the comments. Each email made you nervous. Part of you wanted to plough straight through it, lapping up the feedback, seeing what others thought of my world. The other part was nervous, worried, even a little scared. After so long of this being just my baby it was out there defenceless and open to criticism and if you kept the email closed then it stays my baby, just as it was. But of course the common sense wears down quickly and you need the feedback and run through it quickly.

There has been praise with each bit of feedback but quite a bit of constructive criticism as well and the trick with that is to be objective because that feedback I is needed more than the praise. A lot of that has been to do with bit that I saw so clearly in my head, that I didn’t think to write down more details to it. But of course the readers are not in my head, which is actually a good thing, my head can be a very scary place. So without going into detail it’s going to need at least a couple more drafts before the big SPG check, but that’s no biggy – it’s better to get these things right now and I don’t think any of the changes are major, it’s not like I need to throw the plot or characters in the air and start again. Everyone thinks that there’s something there with the story and characters.

As for how things move on. Well I’m waiting on a few more emails and then once they come I’m going to start a reread (which should be interesting as I’ve kept to the self discipline of having the file closed for three weeks – to see it with new eyes) and then start to edit again.

As always I’ll keep you informed on how my reread goes and talk to you soon.

I’m sorry there is really not much to post again – two reasons for this: a really exceptionally busy week (in normal work world) and not that much new has happened on the writing front. Luckily the second reason is something that will change by the next post as the first readers deadline is Saturday 11^th, which will hopefully prove to be a nice birthday present. And even if it means little sleep that will prompt the first reason to change – I will find the time.

The positive news is that I have a synopsis and a cover letter finished that I am happy with. A bit more research resolved my conflicts on how much to show in each and how to get it down to a page.

Keep tuned next Sunday for a long post as I devour my first readers comments and my nervous wait for them.

Talk to you all soon.

So as I posted last week the book went out to the first readers last Saturday with a three week deadline and I was left to playing the waiting game. However it seems that I’m not very good at this. For example, unable to wait two weeks to buy Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay, I downloaded it off i-tunes and listened to the eleven plus hours without a break. I’m even worse with my own stuff. There was a good reason I posted on the internet before this – instant feedback. I just hope I haven’t drove people crazy asking where they are up to.

I have had one feedback questionnaire back though, which I am very grateful for. It was on the whole very positive with some really useful comments that may lead to a few small changes to the final piece.

To stop driving myself crazy, I have tried to focus on other things – reading Writers and Artists’ Yearbook (www.writersandartists.co.uk) a couple of times, taking notes and going on agents websites (and have a rough idea who I will target first); having another edit of the cover letter and writing a synopsis. I have to say I’m lost with the synopsis though – I’ve given it a couple of people and they say it gives too much away, particularly concerning the end, however everything I have read says tell everything, especially the end because anything else looks amateur. Guess it requires more research but if anyone knows anything more about that, or where I could find example synopsis let me know.

As for next week, well it promises more waiting, more research and I may just start my character bibles.

Sorry the post this week is short but it really has been a waiting week with not much new to report – hopefully next week’s will be more exciting.