Drafting Synopses

I sent off my first 5 pages and synopsis for analysis and no doubt much red inking at Get Writing in February.  5 pages when they're double spaced doesn't add up to many words ... I had to edit hard to get as much of the opening plot line in as I could.  I really like working to a tight structure, it makes you ensure every paragraph works hard to be included.
There's no time for nail-biting as I need to work on a synopsis for my most recent project which I'll be pitching in a 3 minute slot at the same conference ... I've just started writing chapter 4 and know how it's going to end, it's just the bit in the middle I need to work on.  Will be working on some loose ideas for the next couple of novels in the series too... there will be steam coming out of the keyboard tonight :)

Three days to go until I have to submit the first five pages of my novel ahead of my 10 minute facetime slot at the Get Writing Conference in February.  Eeeeeeek  I've hashed, re-hashed and trampled all over my first chapter and it's still not quite right.  I've consoled myself with half a tin of Quality Street, sat till gone midnight and stared at it till I'm blind with staring.  In a way I can't wait until Saturday, the last day to email it over, so I'll be forced to go with what I've got.
Meanwhile ideas for my new project are bubbling under the surface and I keep making notes full of pure brilliance ... or so they seem at 1am ... until I've finished my synopsis and 5 pages and can get back to it.  I'm pitching the idea of this one to a separate agent in a 3 minute slot so I need to come up with a slick, no-nonsense synopsis between now and 11th Feb. 
In the meantime the allotment is looking good ... I love this time of year as the weeds have stopped growing and I can actually dig a section over knowing that when I go back a week later it won't be covered in nettle seedlings.  I made a Heath-Robinson inspired compost bin last week out of chicken wire and old bamboo canes ... the bamboo canes are adorned with up-ended plastic milk-bottles to make them safe.  It looks hideous but better than poking your eye out.

So the disaster that was the lost chapters fuelled my resolve to plan, plan and plan again to get the novel in good shape to be written and submitted...... That was the theory, but in practice I became so bogged down with the wretched thing that I put it away, closed the folder and left it collecting dust under the bed.  I've just begun to re-visit it mainly due to my having booked myself in for a 10 minute face time slot at February's Get Writing 2012 event.  I'd been struggling with writing the novel in third person and trying to successfully get across the character's emotions and ideals so with an unexpected day off from work last Tuesday I re-wrote it in first person.  I think it works, better than before - there's no time to change my mind now.  My first 5 pages have to be submitted in less than two weeks .............. oh yes and I'm also working on a new young teen novel that I'm booked to pitch in a 3 minute slot.  Glutten for punishment or just plain daft?

A hard-learned lesson

My goal of 10,000 words by the end of August was achievable.  I'd written 5,000 and with the children away and DH also away for the weekend nothing was going to stop me ... far from it, I knew I'd sail past 10,000, maybe even reaching 15,000.  I sat up late into the night, hunched over the keyboard, eating pasta as it's quick to cook and even quicker to eat.  The only person I saw was the Tesco delivery driver for 5 minutes on Saturday morning. 
Then disaster struck Sunday evening......  I'd had a problem with the computer tower earlier in the month and had bought a new one, the local computer shop managed to save all my work and photos and transfered them onto the new tower.  So to stop any danger of work being lost on the tower in the future I started working off my hard drive, thinking it's only me who uses it so everything would be safe.  Until Sunday night .... the power lead failed in some way ..... all I could see on the screen were my chapters in feint outline. I tried to open one or two, the hard drive closed itself down and that was it.  The whole lot lost for good.  The computer shop did their best but only found very old drafts done way back at the beginning of the year, they bear no resemblance to the versions I'd been working on and they couldn't find any of the chapters I'd typed up that weekend.
Deep breath time ..... soul searching time ...... was it worth carrying on? ....... shouldn't I just give up? ....  then small snippets of chapters started coming back to me, not exactly the same but many of them better than I remembered writing at 2am.   So no, I'm not going to give up.  I'll carry on to the bitter end and on the way I'll be saving it to the hard-drive, the tower, printing out a copy and emailing it to my yahoo account....... surely four copies will be enough??  And at least I've only lost a handful of chapters .... I could have been at the end of the novel, ready to pitch and seen them all disappear in front of my eyes ;)

Summer Holiday Beano

I've been churning away at the novel .. sonetimes it's snail-slow and others so fast I could finish the novel by the end of the summer.  This fluctuating pace is directly in line with how many extra curricular activites I've got going on.  Take the allotment ... nothing grows as well as the weeds, just miss one week down there and they're towering triffid-like over my beloved beans.  And then there's the pigeons who managed to strip virtually all of the redcurrants off the bushes in the space of two days plus breaking lots of branches too.  I'm not one for cliches, but headless chicken's one that definitely applies to the past month but it's the start of the school holidays and I'll be down to working just 2 days a week.  My holiday target is to write at least 10,000 words between now and the end of August ... if I can write more than that in between days out, picnics, tidying up my side of the bedroom then whoooppeeeee but if I'm still on 2,000 by August 28th I'm going to chain myself to the desk, install a commode and bash away until I limp up to the magic 10,000. :)

Short Story Comp

It's coming up to Tring Writers annual writing competition.  This year's challenge is to write a short story on the theme Enduring Love.  Had a great idea for the ending and worked backwards from that.  I'm still perfecting it, the judging's this coming Wednesday and entries need to be in by Tuesday (it was last Friday but it's been extended).  Never let it be said that I would hit the send button without utilising every spare moment to edit  a submission.  A small tweak here, a longer one there .... so hard to leave something alone when you've still got 48 hours to plug up the gaps, spot any inconsistencies in the timing.  It's just about there, will take one last look tomorrow afternoon and then ping it away to its fate, then I can get back to the novel.... yes the novel.  It's beginning to take shape but need to get on with some research so I can write with authority ....... indoor sky-diving here I come.

More procrastination than is reasonably healthy

So.  Having hit sky high with my plotting, the novel almost ready to write itself I have ..... well written hardly anything.  (Not entirely true as I've written a 1,500 short story for the writing group short story competition and started a teen fiction novel that's been lurking at the back of my mind for a while. )  But the novel's been static ... so static it might as well have fallen off the planet for all the attention I've paid to it.  Out of guilt I dug it out again yesterday and I quite like it again, still think it's a great idea and really want to get on with it .... am kicking myself for all the lost words I could have written over past the few weeks, but am now buzzing with ideas so here's to the next five chapters :)