Apologies

For anyone who's been waiting for more writing from me, I'm sorry. Life has kind of got in the way over the past few months and time seems to disappear whenever I think I might have the time to write. I won't promise anything, but hopefully things will improve in the future and things that I've promised will be written, completed or begun.

Apologies

Sorry for the lack of writing from me recently - we're in a very hectic time of the year at work, and so there's not much opportunity for me to get to the keyboard and write. I have been adding to the latest chapter of Becoming Anne, and hopefully that will be ready to be posted soon - it's just a case of getting to a natural break and chapter end for it before I post it. Hopefully that will be soon.

The busy period should be winding up soon, though there is the prospect of me getting a promotion in the next week or so which might reduce amount of time I have for writing. I do promise to finish Becoming Anne for you all, though, no matter how long it takes!

For the end of the weekend or the beginning of the week

Something new to read: Becoming Anne Chapter 4 is now up on Literotica. Hope you enjoy it if you've enjoyed the other parts, and thanks to everyone who's read and commented on it so far - seems to have been a flurry of votes on my work over the weekend, and it's always appreciated. Chapter 5 should be submitted early in the week, and I'll keep you up to date with any release news as the chapters appear.

Happy reading!

Ready to read

Just a quick post to let you know that Becoming Anne Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 are now available for reading at Literotica - and Chapter 4 is in the queue, waiting to be approved.

Success

Just after 6pm yesterday, I crawled over the finishing line and with a grand total of 100,076 words, I completed the 100,000 words in 100 days challenge. I also completed Part 4 of Becoming Anne in the process, which should be appearing on a website near you very soon.

It's been fun doing the challenge, though it's also been tough at times, and I was definitely flagging towards the end of it. I had a lot of momentum going when I was working on Bite - and had The Way To Her Heart to also add to - but once those two were finished, I wasn't really sure where to go next. As I found when I did NaNoWriMo with short stories, the trouble with doing multiple stories is that each one can take time to build up its own momentum, whcih means you don't get the benefit of those sections where you're able to cruise through the story and fill in background if you can't think of anything else to write.

But I did do it, and I've got some useful drafts of stories out of it - Bite, I think, will work really well with the ideas I've got for the rewrite, and the characters in The Way To Her Heart are great, I just need to add some others in there to give them more people to interact with, and some jeopardy and threat to provide a bit more drama.

The main point is that I've finished it, and am still feeling motivated to write more - and I have to, as I've been serialising Becoming Anne, so can't abandon that partway through! - and want to get on with these stories and another one that's been rattling around my head for ages, which I think I can now see a way to make work. Whether I'll average 1000 words a day for the next 100 days too, I don't know, but now I know I can keep writing at that length over a long period, it's good motivation to keep me going.

Today, though, will be a day off from writing - not because I need the rest, but because I've got too much on at work to have any time to do it. Hopefully, though, this weekend will have lots of opportunities for writing - though I do say that about every weekend, don't I, and then spend Monday morning's post explaining why it didn't happen.

Can I do it?

So, there are three days left in the 100,000 words in 100 days challenge, and I'm currently at 92,479 words, which means another 7,521 are needed to drag me over the finish line, or about 2500 a day. Didn't get any done over the weekend because of other commitments, but luckily work commitments for the next couple of days are quite light, so it's time to get my head down and do it.

Part 1 of Becoming Anne is now up at Literotica, so please take a look, rate it and comment on it, and other parts should be following in the next couple of days, assuming I manage to get my head into gear and write it.

Wish me luck, and hopefully I'll be at the target soon!

Closing on the target

I know that in some of my early projections I expected to have finish the 100,000 words in 100 days challenge by now, but as you'll know if you've been reading along, I've been faltering a little as I get to the end. Various others life issues have cropped up in the last few weeks to take away the time and motivation I've had for writing, which means that the last week of the challenge might be a bit of a white-knuckle ride to get to the end.

What I do know is that as of this morning, I've done 90,871 words, which means I need to do 9,229 over the next seven days to hit the target. By my reckoning, that's just over 1300 words a day, and as I managed 1972 yesterday, it has to be doable, right? I've done over 8000 words of Crossing The Floor since I last posted here, but it's getting a bit bogged down, as I'm kind of splashing about waiting for a plot to happen - I need some sort of threat to the main characters that hasn't quite emerged as yet, but that's what first drafts are about for me.

So, I've broken one of my rules and started another story while that one's still unfinished. This is a lot simpler, and a lot more erotic, as after an initial setup it's pretty much going to be just sex all the way through. It's called Becoming Anne, and I've already submitted the first part of it to a couple of sites, so I will share links with you when it becomes available to read. Hopefully, some of you will find it enjoyable, and it'll drag me over the finishing line before next Wednesday comes to a close...

Backed up

EDIT: Another post that should have come up ages ago, but Blogger has turned it into a draft...

After a decent surge to start off the new story, I've dried up for the last couple of days, but it's nothing to do with the story itself. No, instead it's because I've picked up a minor back injury that makes sitting at the keyboard for any length of time a bit painful, and as my writing method involves lots of sitting down, staring into space, aimlessley looking round the web, reading over what I've written before and then finally getting down to writing in a huge torrent of words, it means I've not produced anything for the last couple of days.

Normally, I'd fix this sort of problem by going for a decent walk or two, but have you seen the weather here recently? It might just fix my back, just as it would fix my 'not having hypothermia' problem.

But, things are feeling better now, so the likelihood is that I'll be back to writing today, and hopefully making some good progress towards the final target, as the 100 days is getting closer and closer to running out...

Starting again

After thinking it over, I started a new story yesterday. There are various ideas for ones floating round my head - see some of my earlier post for details - but the one that finally pushed itself to the fore is a story called Crossing the Floor, which is a lesbian romance story between two MPs (that's Members of Parliament, if you're not British). As ever with the start of a story, things are going well, with over 2000 words done yesterday as I get things moving and introduce the two main characters to the audience and each other.

The story's going to mix romance and political intrigue (at least, that's the plan). Amy's a newly elected MP, after a shock by-election win as an independent candidate. Concerned that she has no party to support her in the Commons, the Speaker asks Sara, a maverick MP from the ruling party, to give Amy some advice on how the House of Commons works. The two quickly become good friends, and there's a clear attraction between them, but will the closeted Sara be willing to act on it, and what happens when their relationship becomes public knowledge?

I'm hoping it will be fun to write, as the two main characters are interesting, and there's an interesting assortment of supporting characters to either cheer their relationship on or act as a roadblock to what's developing between them. Stay tuned for more on it as I write it!

Finished

Yes, yesterday afternoon I finally finished the first draft of Bite (formerly known under the working title of Lesbian Vampire Highlander, hence the LVH label for it). In the end, the first draft was 62,736 words long, the last of which was 'alive'.

I would offer to share it, but it really needs a second draft, as the story needs a complete page one rewrite. The characters are good, but the plot I originally envisioned isn't the one the story ended up wanting, so it meanders and jumps a lot before getting into the real groove. I've got a definite vision for the second draft and how it will go, but I need to take some time to plan and outline that properly, to get it right. There's also the germ of several other stories in there, either in the form of flashbacks or as sequels, and I do feel like I've created an interesting universe that's a somewhat different take on the vampire tales.  More will be explained later, no doubt.

The only issue I have now is what to write to get me to the 100,000 word total for the challenge? Guess it's back to my big list of short story ideas to see what catches my interest...

Twenty days and counting

There's 20 days left until the end of the 100,000 words in 100 days challenge, and my current total is 79,420. That means I need to do another 20, 580 words in those 20 days , at an average of 1029 a day. Can I do that? I think so, it's well below what I was managing to do at the start of the challenge, and I seem to have regained my writing mojo after the pause of the last couple of weeks.

I'm working through the climax to Bite at the moment, and haveing taken the decision to jump possibilities into that, I'm now getting a much better vision of how the rest of the story can work to lead up to it. Maybe I should just try writing entire stories backwards in the future?

Not much more I can think of to write about at the moment, probably because I didn't sleep too well so I'm still feeling a little tired and dozy this morning, but having to think of words for this is kicking my brain into something like gear. Now I just need to make sure that when I do start writing today, it's not single word grunts and groans, but proper sentences.

Cheating to the finish

Wrote 1442 word of Bite yesterday, and made a decision that the way to get out of the story cul-de-sac I'd found myself in was to cheat a little. As I've mentioned for a while, writing this first draft has given me lots of ideas of how to rewrite it in the second draft, and that includes changing a lot of the details of the plot (though the characters remain the same). So, what I've chosen to do is effectively bring over the conclusion I was planning in my head for the second draft and use it in this one, as a trial.

I'll be honest and admit that it doesn't quite gel with what has gone before, and so comes out of left field a bit. Not quite a complete deus ex machina, but perhaps a demigod from the machine, saving the day, but setting up the same climax I'd always planned. It changes the world I'm writing in a bit, too, introducing global networks, plans and conspiracies that threaten to spin off and create their own stories, but that's a good thing, right?

So, not quite at the end yet, but getting there, and now I know where I'm going, it's just a question of keeping on in that direction till I reach it. I suspect it won't take 20,000 words to get there from here, though, so now the question is what do I write to get myself up to the 100,000 target? I'm thinking that it's time for a couple of fresh and quick short stories, something I can put on Literotica for a bit of instant feedback. Suggestions and requests are welcome...

One down

Finally, I have finished something. OK, I did finish Screwing The Pitch earlier in the year, but that wasn't anywhere near as epic as the things I've been working on. I didn't expect this story to turn out so huge at the beginning either, but in the end it bloated to a monster 17,000 words, and I finally put the capstone on it yesterday afternoon. Now all I need to do is go back and rewrite it all, because there are lots of changes I've seen it needs, and no doubt more will come to light when I start going through it again.

The story is currently going under the title The Way To Her Heart, and at its heart, it's a romance between two women who are both walking the West Highland Way. Jess is getting back into her old pastime of walking after ending a relationship (in the first draft she was doing it alone, in the second, she'll have two friends with her) while Becky's doing it with her boyfriend, though their relationship is severaly fraying. Sparks begin to fly when the two of them meet, but will they act on them?

It's been enjoyable to write, and I like the two women at the heart of it. The one problem I've identified in the first draft is that there's not enough drama in it, and not many obstacles for the two of them to get over, but those things can be easily added in to the next draft, which I'm going to leave to simmer in my mind for a bit while I finish the first draft of Bite, and then get back to it. Or possibly rattle off the first draft of something else to get me to the 100,000 word target.

The good news is that in getting to the finish yesterday, I did over 2500 words, which has knocked a big chunk off the target as I head towards the end. That's now 17,719 words in total for short stories, which makes for a grand total of 76,735 words, and 23,265 to go till I reach the target. Another day like that, and I'll be back in 1000 words a day land!

25860

That's my number - that is, the number of words I need to write by April 10th to meet my 100,000 words in 100 days challenge. The total as of this morning is 74,140, made up of 59,016 words on the work in progress (I'm getting drawn towards Bite as a title, but can't explain why) and 15,124 of short stories. To anyone who's been keeping track, you'll notice there's been a very big drop off in the writing rate in the last couple of weeks, but with 23 days to go to the finishing line, I'm feeling confident that I might just squeak over it. I need to average 1100 words a day, and as I was doing 1200 before my speed bump slowed me right down, that should be possible.

As it is, the short story is almost at the end (though I've been saying that for a while, haven't I?), and indeed might well be long past the point when it will end in the rewrite, but I'm using this opportunity to tell their full story, and then the most important bits will get into the second draft.

The work-in-progress is still around the point it was last time. I'm kind of stuck in a position with our heroines in peril and being threatened by the villain, but can't quite work out how to get them out of it. Again, I suspect that by the time I come to do the next version of it, these scenes won't be in it in quite the same way, to try and avoid that problem. Of course, the only way to solve it is to keep writing and see what comes up, so that's what I'm going to have to do!

The seventy percent solution

It occurred to me today that it's day 70 of the 100,000 words in 100 days challenge, so it might be worth taking stock of how far I've come and how far I have to go. As I've a had a very slow writing rate for the last week or so, I felt it might be useful to see just how far I have to go in the remaining 30 days, so I know what target I need to be setting myself as I pick up the reins and get writing again.

The situation's better than I thought it would be. 56,857 words so far on the work-in-progress and 14,091 on short stories, coming together for a total of 70,948 words. That means I'm still above the target (for one more day, anyway) and need to be doing around 969 words a day for the next 30 days, if I want to limp over the target on April 10th. That seems and feels doable to me, and not too daunting after the break, so hopefully either tonght or tomorrow, I'll be back on it and heading towards 100,000.

Wish me luck!

Derailed

Life has happened. A combination of work and other factors - including a car dying - meant I didn't get any writing done yesterday, and not sure I'll get any done tomorrow. Off travelling for work and family stuff for a few days after that, so writing outlook is patchy (may depend on space and power sockets on trains), but I'm not giving up, and I've still got that 100,000 word target in my sights, even if it will require an epic writing session on April 10 to achieve it!

Plod, plod, plod

Only managed 300 words of writing yesterday, but did have a decent long walk in the morning, which always helps me to get my brain thinking about plots and stories. Think I can see a way out of the cul-de-sac I've ended in with the work-in-progress, but we'll only see that when I actually try writing my way out of it.

Still getting towards the end of the short story in progress, though haven't actually got the bit about the Quarter Mile High Club that I mentioned yesterday. Maybe I would if I'd got to 1000+ words for the day, but no matter, we shall press on and all things shall reveal themselves in time.

Aside from that, I can't think of too much to write. Things may be a bit patchy here for the next week or so, as I'm travelling all over the place for work and family things, so writing time might be limited. So, I might end up starting my days by writing stories instead of blog posts, but we shall see...

The Quarter Mile High Club, and other mad ideas

My brain's always a bit slow starting at weekends, so this will likely be a short entry. However, I did manage to write just over 1000 words yesterday, which was the first time I've managed that on a Saturday in a while. The problem with this story is that it doesn't really want to finish, even though the main couple have now got together. I'm pretty much writing a long, but sexy, epilogue - though perhaps that's what a lot of erotica might be. When other stories would have left the scene, here there's a lot more to write about and present to the audience.

In other words, I thought of the concept of the Quarter-Mile-High-Club, and damned if I'm not going to use it.

What is it? I'll explain later, but it's something from a scene I'm coming up to in this story, and the concept seems to good to forget about. Maybe I should just get on and try writing it?

Decision time

Getting near the end of this short story now - which is getting too long to be a short story, really - so it's getting close to the point where I'll need to make a decision about what to do next. Do I dive straight back into it and write the second draft, or do I let that stew in my brain for a while (the new characters I need to make it work don't feel fully formed yet) and go back to the work-in-progress?

I'm tending towards the second, just because it's been over a week since I've done anything on that, and I really need to pick it up again before it slips too close to my brain deciding it's been abandoned, so I can forget about it and/or start on a rewrite. I need to finish this first version, otherwise I know I'll never finish the future ones.

Yes, that probably makes no sense to any of you, but it's how my writing brain works, so it does to me. Lots of work and life stuff coming up in the next week too, so that might affect how much I get done too.

Anyway, I did get 1300 words done yesterday, so that's March off to a decent start. If I can keep that as a daily rate, then I'll hit the 100k target well before the end of the month.

Writus interruptus

OK, I'm not going to talk specifically about my work, but if you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I don't work consistent hours, so my writing periods tend to come at different points in the day, depending on when I can fit them in.

Yesterday, I was on a late shift, so was writing in the afternoon before I had to head out for work, and was going really well. I had finally got to the scene in my current short story where the protagonist and her love interest make it into the bedroom and are having a very good time together, the words were flowing, I could imagine just what it was like for them and how they'd be feeling together...and then I looked at the clock and realised it was time to get moving if I wanted to be there on time. Damn.

But still, having got them to that point means I know I'm now on the run to the end of the story, as they're together and making each other happy. It's just the last few bumps on the road to navigate, and then they're home and dry and happy ever after.

I did manage over 1200 words yesterday which took my short story total over up to 10,057 in total, and coupled with the 56,857 words I've done on the work-in-progress means a total of 66,914 for the year so far. A quick bit of maths and a look at an old post tells me that's 29,216 for February in total, so I've just about managed to keep over the 1000 a day average.

The need for an antagonist

More writing yesterday, and an entirely unplanned finishing total of 1111 words, which kept my short stories total as a nice orderly number, this time 8,765. I do like the story, but now I'm wondering if there's not enough drama in there - I'm already planning to add another couple of characters at the start to give our protagnoist someone to talk to while she's pining over her seemingly unavailable love interest, but now I think I need some sort of antagonist to try and keep them apart after they together. The way the story's structured, there needs to be something coming in to stop them diving into bed together on one day, delaying it till the next, so that could be it. I shall think over this more when starting the second draft.

Though before that I do need to get back to the work-in-progress too, as I'm still leaving it at a tricky place, not quite sure where to take the story next, and how to get our heroines out of their predicament. I'm sure by now my subconscious has worked this out, I just need to let it loose...

Back in the saddle

Phew, I managed to do some writing yesterday, and added 1080 words to the short story. Those few days without writing were weighing quite heavily on me, and I was starting to feel increasing pressure on me to get back to writing, and then of course, the pressure itself started feeling too oppressive that it was easier to ignore it and not write, rather than deal with it by writing.

That makes the total for short stories now 7654, which fits nicely with the 1234 words I wrote the other day. Maybe I should set 123,456 as the target for the challenge?

Still, very good to get writing, even if this story is starting to sprawl and make itself look like it's going to be a lot longer than I expected to be, especially when I have to go back into the rewrite and add in extra characters. Definitely novella-esque length, I think, which is a bit more than I thought it would be when the idea came to me. Good to have characters who want a longer story, and then might even return in something else later on, who knows.

Right, I have to get off to work, but hopefully there'll be time for some more writing this afternoon and evening. As well as finishing this story, I need to get back to the work-in-progress before it starts stagnating too much and I can't pick up the thread of it again.

And there's your badly mixed metaphor of the day!

Falling off the wagon

Life is what gets in the way when you're planning to write. I've now hit three days in a row without doing any, but I'm hoping to turn that around today. This is why having the buffer zone was important, as it means I won't fall behind the target for a day, even if 1200 a day might be a bit beyond me now.

In other news, thanks to everyone who downloaded a copy of Almost Chance during the free promo, and I hope you liked it. If you did then please leave a review on Amazon and let other people know!

Twenty two hours to go

Almost Chance is still free for another day. Thanks to everyone who's picked up a copy so far, and I hope you're enjoying it - and if you are, please leave a review on Amazon and let others know. I've made it into a bestseller list - though 'seller' is likely not the right word when something's being given away, is it? I'm around #700 in the overall list for free books on Kindle at the time of writing, and up to #66 in the erotica section. Probably #1 in the lesbian erotica section, if there was one, as all the ones above me in the list appear to be hetero from their titles and descriptions. And I do feel like rewriting my description to point out that my book doesn't feature a billionaire, unlike so many of the others. I wonder what might have inspired all those writers to make heroes billionaires?

Unfortunately, amidst all the free book excitement, I didn't manage to get any writing done yesterday, so no words to add to the total.

1234

The orderly part of my brain likes that I produced that many words yesterday. All on the same short story that I was working on the day before, but that's now getting close to the end of the first draft, and a good writing session might well take me there. Of course, it's now getting a bit long to be called a short story, but we'll see how long it comes out when it's finished in the next draft!

Anyway, that takes my total words for short stories to 6,574 which on top of thr 56,857 I've got on the work-in-progress (which I will be getting properly back to today or tomorrow) takes me over 63,000 words. Have a busy work week next week, though, so do need to make the most of this weekend, and the universe might be helping me by snowing me in!

And, of course, don't forget that Almost Chance is free this weekend, so make sure you get a copy while you can!

Get it for free this weekend!

Almost Chance, that is. While there may be other things available for free elsewhere, they're not coming from me.

Yes, I've decided to make it available for free on Amazon for forty-eight hours, so now's your chance to save yourself a dollar, a euro or 77p and get it for nothing. All I ask is that if you do read it and like it, then please leave a review and please tell others to get a copy as well.

For those of you who don't know what Almost Chance is, it's a 30,000 word erotic novella that tells the story of Jen. She's on a trip to go and see a friend when she spots an attractive woman on the train. The woman notices Jen's stares and announces herself as 'Mistress', someone who Jen can't help but obey. She then offers Jen the chance to enter a world of sensual pleasures with her, and all Jen needs to do is submit to her. Where will Jen's journey take her?

It's free in all Amazon stores - including the US, Canada and the UK - for this weekend only, so why not take a chance on it?

A diversion, and a sample

Yesterday, I didn't add anything to the work-in-progress. I didn't have loads of time to write because of work commitments and other things, and when I was at the computer, I just couldn't get my head into it, so I did some more on the short story I'm doing at the moment instead. It was only 801 words, so below the daily target, but the story's moved on nicely, and the shape of it's there, I just need to finish this first take on it, then go back and redo it with the additional characters in it that help it make sense.

And as it's a bit from a draft that likely won't see the light of day, here's an unedited sample from it for your enjoyment. Hey, it's Friday, we all need some excitement.

The shower was an old one, the head resolutely fixed to the wall and just about capable of turning a few degrees, but not being detached. I had wistful memories of my shower head at home that had been a good companion on many occasions when I wasn't getting any attention, but this time my fingers would have to suffice. I thought of Becky in the shower just a few metres away from me, imagined how her body would look in the mists of water, beads forming on her skin. As my fingers began working in my folds, easing my clit out to play, I imagined her standing in front of me, that amazing rear of hers rubbing against me while my hands reached round to play with her breasts. As we rubbed closer in the warm water, our bodies slipping and sliding over each other, her hand reached back to stroke between my legs, and it was that I imagined rubbing between mine rather than my own. My eyes closed, my free hand reached out to the wall to balance myself as my/her stroking became insistent, my already aroused body burning for her until I gasped and cried out, my body shuddering and shaking as my climax rocked through me.

There'll be more where that came from when it's finished.

Coming soon

I've decided to try something this weekend and see what happens when I make a book available for free for a limited time. Yes, I'm making Almost Chance available as a free promotion on Amazon this weekend, so if you haven't got a copy already, now's the chance to save yourself the 77p, $1 or whatever it would cost in you your local currency and pick it up for free.

Don't worry, I will post many reminders here and on Twitter over the weekend, but if you do pick up a copy and enjoy it, would you do me the favour of leaving a review behind? A good review is almost as good as royalty payment - though they don't accept it in exchange for goods - and you'll make me smile if you do it.

In other news, yesterday was a 1700 word day on the work-in-progress, taking it to 56,857 words so far and introducing an odd plot complication I wasn't expecting. That keeps it fun, but it's going to make editing a bugger.

Oh well, it's Thursday and it's not raining. That's always a bonus.

Another day, and other words

It's all getting quite routine at the moment, which means everything will no doubt crash and burn around my ears in a little while. 1100 or so words yesterday to take the total for the work-in-progress to 55,097 and my overall total very close to 60,000. In an ideal world, of course, I'd have passed 60,000 yesterday to get back to the 1200 a day pace, but I'm fine with it as I'm still well over 1000 a day still, and I've recently been booking some holidays and time off, I'm going to need to establish a proper buffer zone to stop me falling too far back.

Broke one of my rules yesterday in where I stopped, as it was right at the end of a scene, but I can't decide if that's the end of the chapter or if it needs more before jumping back to the present day. It's the flashback to where one of the heroines meets the antagonist for the first time (the other heroine is about 200 years from being born at this point) but as friends and lovers rather than enemies. The question's a structural one - do I then tell the full story of how their relationship progressed, deepened and soured straight away, or l

And I can't remember how this post finished, but I'm sure it finished and was published, then Blogger decided to revert to an earlier draft for reasons I don't understand. Thanks, Blogger!

Slower starting

Very late in doing this today, and quite late in starting writing too, as I've still not done anything. However, yesterday was a good day, and I did 1700 words on the work-in-progress by the end of it, despite having a rather slow start and feeling very unwriterly. (And I'm really hoping that 'unwriterly' isn't a word) Total on the work-in-progress is now 53,978.

Yesterday's lesson really should be that even though I'm heading for the target of 100,000 words, I shouldn't be afraid to back up and start again on a section when it doesn't work. I'd done the opening sentence of a chapter on Friday, and then when I went to work on it, I found that because of the content and phrasing of that sentence, I had to meander around at the start looking for the best point to properly start telling the story from. That's likely why things were coming slowly at first - all the grasping round in the dark looking for the threads of the story - but then picked up when I finally found the right way to tell the scene. Once I was up and running with it, the rest of it came quite quickly, hence making it to a good total after that start.

Still thinking about the structure of this story after I've finished it. I do like the flashbacks, but I'm not sure how much they work with the present day storyline, though they're now becoming a bit more relevant, and the question has to be how to get the two streams to work together, or if it's best to separate them entirely.

Anyway, that's something to think about in more depth when I've actually finished the writing. Which I'm going to take a few more steps towards doing now...

One of those days

Yesterday was a lazy day, most of which was spent doing not much more than lying around watching TV. In other words, no new words to add to the total.

Today I'm feeling like it's going to be a tough day's writing. Of course, it might not be, but at the moment, the thought of opening OpenOffice or Scrivener is filling me with dread, and the idea that I might actually come up with new words to follow the ones I've already put down for those stories feels somewhat absurd and ridiculous. But then, circumstances seem likely to take me away from home and put me into my alternate writing location for the remainder of the day, so perhaps things will feel better when I get there.

I suppose if all else fails, I could go back and work on one of those other story ideas I listed the other day, see where I get if I start off on one of those, but that would likely be bad in the long run, as I need to crack on and work on the work-in-progress. Just because I've come to a tough bit in the story doesn't mean it has to be abandoned. I've solved every problem I've had with it so far, so this one can be resolved too!

Sunday, Sunday...

As expected, being out all day yesterday for work meant I didn't get any writing done. Not sure whether I will today or not - I've already been up for a while, but in a half-awake, half-asleep zombified state where I can barely write my name, let alone vaguely coherent fiction.

As I didn't do a proper post yesterday, a quick catch up - almost 1200 words on the work-in-progress on Friday has taken me to a total of 52,239 and some real drama and twists - a new antagonist has revealed herself and our two heroines are now her prisoners. Short stories total is still 4,549, which means the overall total is 56,788 at an average that's still over 1200 words a day.

Maybe keeping the average above that will motivate me to write some more later today..

Promotion coming soon

I've decided it's time to make use of some of the features I have with Amazon, so just to let you all know that Almost Chance will soon be available as a free promo. It'll last for two days - but which two days? I'm not telling yet, you'll have to wait and see!

Pushing the story up a hill, and other failed metaphors

A decent enough day of writing yesterday. Did just over 1000 words on the work-in-progress in the morning, and then a few hundred words on the short story in the afternoon while on a break between two work things. For those of you keeping track (which is me and me alone, I believe) the totals are now 51,049 words on the WIP and 4549 words of short stories, which means I'm still over the 1200 words a day average.

Again, might be a poor weekend for writing - definitely looks unlikely tomorrow, as I'm off on a work thing all day, leaving very early and not getting back till late, and then Sunday will likely be a usual Sunday. So, need to get myself into gear and properly write today, so I polish off a good chunk of words and keep that total ticking over. The buffer zone's quite big now - about 10 days worth, but I need to keep the momentum going now. The WIP's got a lot of weight in it now, so once I get rolling downhill to the finish, things should take care of themselves, but for now I'm still shoving it slowly uphill, and this metaphor doesn't really work, does it?

As for the short, it definitely will need a rewrite to liven up the start of it, but now I've got to the meat of it, it should flow quite well. Might be a bit longer than usual short story length as well, even after editing it could well be getting on for 10,000 words. Not sure if that takes it over the boundary into novelette/novella territory, or if it's just a long short story. Though now I write that, I am thinking it might be worth breaking it into sections to encourage me to liven up the earlier parts some more.

It will all make sense when you get to read them, honestly.

Bitter and twisted

It's Valnetine's Day, so I could be cheesy and write about love and romance, but to be honest, I absolutely detest Valentine's Day. I've spent quite a lot of my life being single, and to me it's always felt like a day that's calculated to say 'if you're not in a relationship, you're worthless, and if you are in a relationship and don't spend loads of money on tat, then you're just as worthless'. You can have love and romance and pink teddy bears with cute sayings sewn into their bellies in your life every day if you want, you don't need society's permission to go all out for one day and then forget it the rest of the time.

On more pleasurable thoughts, I churned out about 1500 words of the work-in-progress yesterday, and that took me over the 50,000 total (50,027). If this was NaNoWriMo, I'd be finished, just 14 days late. As it's not, and the target's twice as big, there's still a long way to go. I was a bit unsure about where it was set to go from the point I stopped it at, but then everything came clearer when I was close to sleep last night - and for once, it's still clear when I wake up.

Have to get today's words done this morning, though, as work pressures mean I'll be out for most of the afternoon and evening - yes, while you're all in restaurants that have doubled their prices for the evening, surrounded by other bored couples, I'll be at work. I'm so romantic that way.

Subconscious solutions

I do like days when the words flow out easily. I was writing what I thought was going to be a difficult scene yesterday, where our heroines encounter one of the villain's henchmen in a tricky situation, and I thought it was going to be a difficult one to write. Turns out that my brain is capable of working things out without me knowing it, as it had gone through the situation and revealed the answer to me as I wrote it.

It's an odd sensation, that, when an idea you haven't properly thought of before jumps out at you and you instinctively know that it's the right answer. It's that 'hole in the page' moment I talked about back at the start of this process, where I have the feeling that I'm looking at the actual scene and just describing it rather than creating it. The characters went along with it too, which is good, as sometimes they tend to protest at my plans for them.

You know, if they ever have to section me then some of these blog entries will probably be used against me.

Having done over 1000 words on the work-in-progress and still having time to do more, I decided to go back to the short story I was working on last week. It definitely is going to need a rewrite - the main character needs some friends with her in the first part of the story - but I'm still going to go on and finish this version of it before going to do that. First, it might turn itself around on me again and reveal that she didn't need anyone else with her at the start and second, I don't want to get back into the habit of abandoning things halfway through to go and do a rewrite. As I've said before, if I allow myself to do that, then I end up abandoning the rewrite to do another version and so on and so forth in a writerly version of Zeno's Paradox, getting less and less into the story each time until I'm left just obsessing over the first word and decide to go write something else instead.

And the totals so far? 48,524 on the work in progress and 4,184 on short stories. To work!

Living on a prayer

I think it shows my age when the thought 'I'm halfway there' is followed by another part of my brain going 'woooooahhhh, livin' on a prayer!'

But that is where I am, on the way to the 100,000 word in 100 days target, and about eight days ahead of schedule. Did just under 2000 words yesterday, and that took me to 47,118 on the work in progress, and adding in the 3364 from short stories, that's a total of 50,482. Which leaves me just short of an average of 1200 a day too, and at this point I should be hitting the target before the end of March.

No idea if that will be when I finish on this story, or stories, though. It's become a great big sprawling bunch of tales, and I've no idea how much longer it will take to finish off the main story, let alone all the flashbacks and side stories that it's inspiring. However, the one thought that does inspire in me is that it could easily be broken down into a series of shorter works - probably novella length - that are all linked. The main story I'm writing at the moment would be the central one and the first in the series, then others would spin off from that.

That depends on them being any good and people wanting to read them, though, and before I can see if that's the case, I need to get on and finish the stories I'm telling.

Thought for the day: do stories get longer and start to meander and add in more detail because we dread them finishing and want to put off the task of editing them?

Almost at one nano

Did manage to get back in the saddle and do some writing yesterday. About 1100 words, so not the epic day I was hoping for, but enough to take the work in progress over 45,000 words (45,150) and with the 3500 I've done on short stories so far this year, I'm almost at 50,000 words for the year so far, which is the equivalent of one NaNoWriMo. Sure, it'll have been done in 42 or 43 days rather than 30, but it feels good to have got off to that sort of start to the year.

Now I just need to keep at that pace and see if I can hit the 100,000 word target within 100 days - and then carry on after that too.

Also (re)discovered another couple of story ideas yesterday. Got a new phone and reinstalled Evernote onto it, and found some story ideas I'd jotted down in there a while ago. Both for longer works - probably novella, possible novel-length stories - but when I read the notes I was reminded of the idea and how they'd work, which is a good advert to noting down ideas whenever they come, as otherwise they drift away.

When you're making other plans

Unfortunately, life has got in the way of writing for the last couple of days, but Sunday's now stretching ahead of me, looking mostly empty and ready to be filled with words, so hopefully I can start making up for lost time. Got too busy with other things on Friday and Saturday to get any done, so nothing to report now, but hopefully I'll have a nice juicy entry for you tomorrow.

In other news, I also have a new fancy phone with a nice big screen (a Galaxy Note) so that might make it easier for me to write in other places too. Might be good for producing short stories!

Coming up short

Real life intervened yesterday, which meant I didn't get to write as much as I was constantly being dragged away from the keyboard and into other things. So, I only produced about 700 or so words which takes the work-in-progress to a total of 43,981. Which again proves I shouldn't excitedly post about all the things I'm going to write when other things will eat into the time available for writing! Still, that's the first day in a long time when I've written less than 1000 words, and even though it eats into the 1000-a-day buffer zone a little, it's good that I got something done.

To Friday, anyway, and finishing off the week with a flourish!

The state of play

I need to get myself more motivated so I write in the mornings. Yesterday was a very productive day. In the morning, I finally got to the end of Incredibly Long Talking To Each Other Chapter and started Flashback Chapter That I'm Not Sure Where It's Going on the work in progress, which was about 1200 words in total, leaving me at a grand total of 43,251 words for that. Having done that, I then went back to one of my started-but-not-finished short stories and added 1864 words to that, which meant I'd done over 3000 words in that day. OK, I realised that the short story need a page one rewrite with a couple of extra supporting characters added for it to work properly, but the two main characters are interesting and connecting well with each other.

As well as that, I also looked through my short stories folder and was reminded of several of the ideas that I've begun or done notes for, but not taken any further. There's at least six that I look at (and that's not including the one I worked on yesterday) and think 'hey, that'll be fun to write', so it seems like my enthusiasm is coming back. And because I'm in a sharing mood today, here's a rough sketch of some of them:

Anne: A lecturer is seduced by one of her students, and finds herself being led into a new world
Crossing The Floor: A relationship between two MPs is complicated by them being in different parties
Down The Rabbit Hole: A woman explores her submissive fantasies
Number Seventeen: A pretty dark tale of mind control and experimentation as an innocent student finds herself corrupted
Helen's New Girl: A relationship based on age play
Her Daughter's Friend: Kind of self-explanatory title, but looking at some of the repercussions when a relationship like that begins

There are others too, and a half-finished erotic novel about an English couple discovering a hidden French village devoted to pleasure, which is fun though quite hard to keep track of all the characters. The good thing is that I've got lots of things that are driving my imagination at the moment, so all I need to do is keep writing them down!

And with that thought, to work I go...

Not quite 42

For the first time, had to check back at an old word count total here to see how far I'd got at the start of yesterday, and check I'd made it to 1000 words. I did, and the total's now 41,990 - didn't check the total I'd done yesterday before finishing, as I hadn't noticed the time rushing by and had to switch off quickly when I had to get ready to go out. Wish I'd done just ten words more to get it to a nice Douglas Adams-esque round number, though.

This chapter's taking longer to write than I expected, as a lot of it is the two main characters talking to each other about their pasts. So, it is heavy on exposition, and most of that will likely disappear down the editing chute when it comes to it, but it's still fun to probe into their backgrounds and hear them talking to each other. Also, I had a moment when I realised that I'd created a parallel between them with their stories, and how they both reacted to surprise betrayals, which might come in handy later on - it's certainly helped to build the bond between them.

But now the conversation has been broken by a ringing phone, and the message that comes on that is going to send things off in an interesting direction...

Short story cravings

40,878 is the total on the work-in-progress after yesterday, though now I'm back at the point where I'm itching to have a day where I get a chunk done on that and then work on a short story for a while. I've got another one that I started last year which needs finishing (and the start re-writing) but the immediate feedback they give is good for my ego, and my development as a writer.

Which is a way of saying that if you haven't read and reviewed one of my stories - Screwing The Pitch, When There's An R In The Month or Emma's Favourite Place - on Literotica yet, please give them a look and a vote!

Not much else to report today, though hopefully this afternoon will be a good one for writing. Just about to take the work-in-progress into the next action scene, and then there's a flashback after that which should be fun to write.

Back to the grindstone

As I'm sure any regular readers might have guessed would happen, after two days of producing quite a lot, yesterday was a zero day as real life got in the way of doing any writing. Weekends seem to have a habit of doing that to me, with all their distractions and my natural urge to relax and do nothing on a Sunday.

So I'm still where I was on Saturday, but I can see how the story's moving forward, as well as how to structure it when it comes to rewriting. I'm now thinking it's going to work best as two or more separate novella-length tales, rather than having the jumps between time periods. The modern story works well together, and explains itself without need for the flashbacks, and the flashback scenes likely need more space to work in by themselves, rather than merely being references back from the main text. Inadvertently, I seem to have created a series...

OK, time to face Monday and get to work...

Blogless days

Apologies to those of you hanging on my every word for not writing a post yesterday - I was having to travel for (real life) work and didn't get a chance to be online long enough to write one. However, I was travelling by train - on a company that hasn't yet worked out this whole wi-fi thing - and had my laptop with me, so was able to do some writing. The result? I think I need to travel by train more often. Over 1000 words on each leg of the journey made it a really good day's writing, and on top of a good day on Friday, I'm having a very good start to February.

Totals - at the end of Friday I was at 37,633 and by the time I got home last night, I'd reached 39,782.

Of course, it's all still very much first draft stuff, but it's still fun to write. At the moment, I'm just detailing a conversation between my two main characters, most of which likely won't end up in the final version, but writing it out is invaluable for me in coming to know about their characters. It tells me about their pasts and how they've got to where they are, and also lets me find out and explore their different voices, exploring their ways of saying things.

Generally, there's a lot going into this draft that's background and stuff that I know won't make the cut, but it's important to me in shaping the story and learning about it. This is the time for letting ideas take root and flow to their logical extent, and the editing, rewriting and cutting can take place later, once this draft has shown me what's important. Though when my target's only 1000 words a day (unlike NaNoWriMo's 1667), I don't have to be quite as demented in what I include to hit the daily target - I've managed to resist full-on infodumps so far.

Actually, that makes me think of one advantage of having viewpoint characters who don't know what's going on - you get to explain what they learn as they go along, not infodump everything they already know to catch the reader up. Obvious statement is obvious, of course, but it is Sunday morning.

January in review

Yesterday was another good writing day, with well over 1000 words written, another chpater finished and another one properly started (not just a line or two to avoid blank page syndrome). As it's now February, let's look back at the figures for last month.

Total on the work in progress so far is 36,198 words, with another 1500 words written of Screwing The Pitch to finish it off, making a total of 37,698 for the month, which is a decent average of over 1200 words a day. It's been good to get back to writing and slough off the feeling of a block hanging over me, and as the month's gone on, the writing's definitely become easier. I've got a good story going, with two interesting characters at the heart of it, though it will need substantial rewriting after I've finished this first draft.

It was also good to get another short story up on Literotica which currently has 10 votes and an average of 3.9, just to have something to point at and say 'look, I finished that!'

Need to keep a running total as I go, but I'm also going to reset to zero for February so I keep the average up over 1000 words a day, rather than eating into the buffer I've built up in January on the jutification that I'm above average overall. So the target in four weeks time when I next do a review post will be at least 65,698 words in total.

I think I've written a post like this every day so far as well, and they've been good motivation to keep me going, even if no one is reading them! They're effectively my morning pages, a chance to sort out my head while I wake up and arrange a few thoughts before getting on with the writing. I guess another target is to keep that up, and if I start missing them, try and nag me to get back in the saddle and writing them...

A good day

After wading through sludge on Tuesday, yesterday's writing went much smoother. Finally got the characters in the current scene to get things moving and happening, which meant things started flowing as I wrote. Was quite surprised when I stopped to discover that I'd done 1500 words, as I thought it was just over 1000, and that last 500 or so had just flowed out so quickly and easily that it felt like a lot less.

Total so far is 34,742, which means that barring a disaster today, I should hit the 35,000 target for the work in progress pretty easily. Now I'm out of the sludge I should have a decent day today, as I've got a good idea how this chapter finishes and how the next one starts, which should help things flow. Anyway, I need to get back ahead of schedule and rebuild the buffer zone, as I might not get much of a chance to write at the weekend, as I could be busy on both Saturday and Sunday.

Another old short story is pushing into my head too - one I started but wasn't too keen on the way I was telling it. There's a nice little romance in there, but I need to work out how to get to the meat of the story rather than the build-up. Once that clicks, though, the rest of the story comes alive in my head. What I might do is just plough on with it from where I was, then go back and redo the beginning. That approach worked quite well for When There's An R In The Month - the original opening didn't work, but once I'd written the scenes with Rose and Shauna together, I had a much better idea of their characters to go back and redo the start. (And it's the same with the work in progress as well - now I know how the characters work together, their original meeting has changed in my head)

It does feel odd, sometimes, changing character's histories in the light of later developments, but that's part of the fun of revision - you get to hack away the false tales you've told of these people in order to get to the truth about them. In a way, that's a sign of properly rounded and interesting characters - they surprise you by having stories that weren't what you expected when you began writing them.

Sludge

Slow day writing yesterday, one of those ones where every word comes reluctantly onto the page, and my mind was filled with treacle. It happens sometimes, and is likely a sign that my subconscious is telling me 'this isn't a good scene, is it?', which is confirmed when the two characters in it steadfastly refuse to have the conversation I think they should be having. I mean, they keep uttering lines to each other than fit in with what they want, but then when I think of how the other character would respond to that, it doesn't take the conversation in the way I expect it to go.

The good part of that is that the characters are alive and well, even if they're looking at their author with disdain for the day. Which means only 995 words yesterday - a somewhat odd number to stop in, so close to 1000 for the day, but not quite - but real life intervened as well after I'd got that far. Total for the work in progress so far is 33,173, so I'll hopefully be above 35,000 on it by the time January ends.

Thanks to everyone who's read and voted on my latest Literotica story, especially those of you who've come here afterwards to find out more of me. Don't forget that I'm also on Twitter, and all new followers there are welcome too.

It's Wednesday and the sun is shining. Time to work.

New story ready to be read

My latest short story is now up at Literotica. It's called Screwing The Pitch, and I hope you enjoy it. It was an attempt to do something a bit different, and I'm not sure whether or not it's succeeded, so I've put it out there to get some comments.

The genesis of it was seeing someone looking for London-based stories for an anthology. I began it, and then ran into my slump period last year and didn't get it finished. I rediscovered it last week and decided that as the start was interesting enough and I could still remember the character and the story, it was worth a bash at finishing it. The idea was to try something that was being told by a character in their voice, and for that character to be someone I probably wouldn't like if I ever met him. Could he still tell an interesting and exciting tale?

That's for you to judge, so follow the link, take a look, vote and leave comments to let me know. Or if it's the other way around and you've just come here from Literotica, then welcome! Feel free to read my posts and follow my links, there may be something there of interest!

(Regulars might like to know that a good writing session yesterday got the work-in-progress to 32,178 words total so far, by the way)

Blanking

Sooo...I didn't write anything yesterday. I intended to, but then weekend things got in the way, so I had to eat into the buffer zone I've spent the last week establishing. Should be able to get some time to write today and make that 1000 words back up, and I guess it's a good sign that I feel annoyed at not having done anything yesterday instead of relief.

And with that, there's not too much else to write about, as all the issues and numbers remain exactly the same as they were yesterday. However, one thing I did do yesterday was look at tablets, as I'm thinking about getting one for doing work on the move, so do any of my handful of readers have any recommendations or suggestions? I'm thinking of getting a Nexus 7 - any experiences with that?

OK, to work...

Another forgotten post

Yet again, I was thinking about things to write about here as I went to sleep, but now I can't remember any of them, so you'll just have to make do with me talking about what comes into my head in the hope it recreates some of them.

Managed about 1200 words yesterday to take the total for the work-in-progress over 30,000 (30,425 to be exact). Still really enjoying the story and the characters, and feeling that there's lots more to be told about them after this story. Indeed, that's making me that I might actually be writing two different books in parallel at the moment, which will make the editing of them interesting. However, that's not something to worry about until this version of the story is finished, then I get to work on bashing into a more reasonable and less meandering state or states. One thing I have decided is that I need to completely rewrite their initial meeting - their first encounter in this draft is a little too quick and convenient for the bond they form later, and so I need to stretch it so they have more contact with each other before the incident that kicks the story off properly.

That all makes sense to me, I promise, even if it's really vague to anyone else.

Blimey, that's just reminded me of one of my going-to-sleep thoughts on how to describe this story: "Bridget Jones falls in love with a lesbian vampire", though that makes it sound somewhat different to the way it is, and there's no one writing a diary with 'pints of blood drunk' as a daily category. Not that there'd be anything wrong with a story like that, it's just not this one!

Still, I shall continue to use the LVH - Lesbian Vampire Highlander - tag for it here, as there are elements of that in it too. Though without the decapitations or the Prize at the end and Freddie Mercury's not around any more to camp up the soundtrack to eleven.

In other news, still waiting for Literotica to process the latest story, so no link as yet. Have also submitted Almost Chance to a couple of review sites, and it's sitting in the queue there. Am somewhat nervous about what they'll say, but you've got to get out there and take the blows as well as the praise, whichever comes along. If you're reading this and fancy doing a review, then please get in touch!

Little bits of catching up

Still waiting to hear from Literotica, but then I did have to submit the story as a .doc file - I do like using italics to help tell the story - so I'll hear when I hear, and share the link then.

Was also thinking more about Julie D'Aubigny yesterday, and think I've found a way to incorporate her into another story I've got on the back burner. It's one I started a while back and did for NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago, but couldn't get it to work. Though now I've thrown her into the mix, it's suddenly taking on a whole new complexion.

As for the work in progress, a solid 1200 or so words yesterday, mostly developing one of the characters and giving a bit of an insight into her life, rather than action scenes, though I got to a point where the next bit of action is just about to (unexpectedly) start. She's the main viewpoint character for the modern sections of it, and it's quite fun to take her life, which is quite a routine single-gay-girl-in-the-big-city story, and thrust it into the middle of something much bigger, stranger and scarier. She'll come through it, though. I'm pretty sure of that.

Total on the work in progress now 29,248.

Right, to work, and hopefully a productive weekend ahead.

The next story

Over the last couple of days, I've been thinking about a character who's a bisexual opera singer, performing on the most prestigious stages in the world, and in their spare time they're also a master of sword-fighting and fencing, killing many people in duels. There's also a fantastic story to be told about this character seducing a nun - and burning down a convent on the way. Oh, and did I mention this character's also female and living in the seventeenth century?

You're thinking I've gone absolutely crazy and am proposing an absolutely unbelievable character that would never fit in with the real history of the age, aren't you? Unfortunately, I'm right and you're wrong because this woman actually existed. She was Julie D'Aubigny, also known as La Maupin, and I first heard her story a couple of days ago.

This is perhaps my worst case yet of coming across a new story while in the middle of another one, but this is a story that's screaming to be told. If she'd been a man, her story would have been awesome, but as a bisexual woman in the seventeenth century, it's incredible, and I wonder why she's not more widely known. Everyone's heard of Casanova, so why is La Maupin so obscure?

So, I think I may have found my next story, when I've finished the work in progress and see where it gets me. I'll need to do some research into seventeenth century France before then, because when the story's so incredible, it's good to make the setting as realistic as possible, just to prevent it looking like a fantasy.

But, she hasn't distracted me from the work in progress - maybe she's even spurred me on to write more! Good day of writing yesterday saw the total of that up to 28,021 (why yes, I did push on at the end to get over the 28,000 mark) and with the 1500 from short stories that's 29, 521 total for the year so far.

Story completed

I've finished off and edited the story I was talking about this morning, and I've just submitted it to Literotica. Keep an eye out for it there, as I'd be interested to hear comments and feedback on it - I like it, but I'm not sure if it's going to appeal to everyone! It's a short little tale featuring sex, drugs and advertising, but no rock'n'roll. I think it will be the first purely heterosexual story I've published anywhere too.

Link and a bit more on it will follow when it's been processed and approved there. If you like it and fancy publishing it somewhere else, get in touch!

A story finished

I did finish a short story off since my last post here, but it wasn't the one I thought it was going to be. Instead, I decided to finish off a different one, and have just added the last hundred words to it to round it off. That's another 1500 words to add to my total for the 100k challenge, and on top of doing about 1200 words on my main work for the challenge. So it was a good writing day, and a few more like that would be welcome.

Total words so far: 27,757 (26,252 on the book, 1500 on short stories)

It's a different short story to the sort I've written before, but the idea and the characters in it were very strong and really insisting to be written. It came from thinking about a story to write for a compilation (the deadline for which passed long ago during my blocked period) and the basic idea and final twist popped complete into my head. The challenge was that it presented itself as a story that needed to be written in first person from a man's perspective, so I had to get it voice right. I think I've got it right, but I need to go and check it over to see if it reads as well as I thought it did when I was writing it. Then once the revision's done, I need to decide where to submit it to and see if there are any upcoming compilations it might fit, or if I just put it up somewhere on the web.

Whatever I do, it's my first complete story of the year, and some of the characters in it have definitely caught my attention and might launch off some other stories in the future. We shall have to wait and see.

The tyranny of the blank page

Yesterday was a decent day's writing. I wrote over 1500 words which took me over 25,000 in total, leaving me 3000 ahead of the 1000-a-day total. Those 1500 words also took me to the end of a chapter, which meant that I had to snap from one stream of the story to the other. (And in this story the two streams are currently about 600 years apart, so it's a big a leap)

Getting to the end of a chapter after writing so many words would normally feel like a natural place to take a break, but I made myself go on and write the first sentence of the next chapter before finishing. One of those natural stumbling blocks for me in writing is having a blank page in front of me. Once I've got a few words down on it, it's easy enough for me to pick up the thread and follow on from there, but while it sits there with nothing on it, it's so full of potential and possibility that it can be off-putting.

The longer I look at a blank page, the harder it becomes to work out what the first word on it will be, let alone the first sentence. I remember all the great opening lines in literary history - and some of the not-so-great - and realise that how you start a story, a book or a chapter matters, and suddenly the critic within me starts pointing out that every word I think of is far too cliched to begin a chapter with. Any sentence I write looks clunky and horrible, and is immediately disappeared by the backspace key, and before long I'm just staring at the page, unsure if I could even write my own name on something, let alone creative words on a page.

So that's why I made sure to finish with one sentence on the new chapter last night, and now I'm looking at it again, I've already got an idea of what follows it, thanks to the lead I laid down yesterday, and I'm hoping for a good day's writing. I say that every day, don't I? But I'd like to get a big chunk of this done and then have a quick bash at some short stories I began last year - one of them's been nagging at me again, and I want to give it another try. I know I should be concentrating on the story I've started, but I did promise myself that on some days of this challenge, I'd get a 1000 words or so of that done, and then do some more on another project. Maybe today is the first of those days.

Total so far is 25,068, anyway. On we go...

Resisting the call of editing

In another life, with another identity, I have a blog, and that used to be on blogger until I finally wised up and moved to something else. I remember that now because Blogger had a brain fart yesterday and managed to turn a published post into a draft one and hide it from view. Or perhaps it's reading them and trying to tell me something - 'Really? You want the world to see that? Go back and give it another shot.'

Finally managed to chain myself to the laptop yesterday afternoon and got in a couple of hours writing, which led to 1700 or so so words and an overall total that now stands at 23,500. What I'd like is to get some really good writing days in this week and get myself well ahead of the curve and the 1000-a-day target, as when I get some momentum going, the story really starts flowing in my mind and I get a lot of words down and a lot of the tale told. No idea how long this story is going to be in the end, either, as some plot lines have yet to properly kick off, but I'm also aware that there's a lot of editing to be done after I get to the end.

And the editing will wait until the end. Another curse of mine in the past has been to cut back to the start when I'm halfway through a story because I've decided it needs a rewrite. I then get about a third of the way through the new version before deciding that needs rewriting, until eventually I get caught in ever decreasing word circles and give up. As I've learnt from other completed works, you can't really tell what needs editing until you know the shape of the entire story, not just the first part.

Though I know chapter one needs a full rewrite to be told from a different perspective... but it will wait. The next scenes are sitting in my head, waiting to be written, and they will always come first until the story ends.

Bad writer, no biscuit

So after getting up early and writing those 900 words yesterday morning, I managed precisely zero for the rest of the day. And with real life things on this afternoon and evening, that means I need to get a decent writing session on this morning to do at least my 1000 words for today, and maybe even try an extra 1000 to catch up with yesterdays missed ones too. But then, I'm still ahead of the 1000-a-day schedule, but I'd like to get well ahead of that.

It's time to write, then.

Aft gang agley

I was planning lots of writing yesterday, but somehow it failed to materialise. Not through the block returning, thankfully, but through real life returning. I had various chores and things to accomplish in the morning, and then thought I had time to do lots in the afternoon, but it was not to be, as other things ended up happening earlier than I had expected or planned for. (And could that description be any vaguer?)

So, I only managed 100 or so words yesterday, but as I woke up early this morning, I have now done another 900ish words to take that over 1000, and I can call the time up to now Saturday. All I need to do now is find the time today to write another 1000. Total so far: 21,781

It does make me wonder about what time is best for me to write. I'm generally not a morning person, so it's not usually the time I get some writing done, but as I've been able to put down a good chunk of words, and it's quiet and I haven't been disturbed or distracted, maybe I should be forcing myself to do more early on. Or maybe I just generally need to learn more discipline in my writing and stop procrastinating and wasting time.

The line that comes to mind is one I first heard a good few years ago: "I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning". I think I need to take that as my motivation, and maybe start using Scrivener in full-screen F11 mode, blocking out all else until I've done a certain amount of work. Use what I like to do when procrastinating as a reward for getting to where I want to go, perhaps.

I think it's about this time in every writing project that I make the same promises and declarations, which gives an idea of how likely I am to keep it. However, I have made it publicly this time - even if barely anyone reads this - so perhaps the prospect of being ashamed in the eyes of non-communicative strangers will motivate me?

Stop and start

Stopping writing in the middle of an interesting and important sequence does work well for me. The time I ended was somewhat enforced on Thursday, but it meant that when I sat down to write again yesterday, I had a clear idea of where I was going and what needed to happen next in the story.

The trouble is that it's very hard to force myself to stop in the middle of something interesting - the natural human inclination is to carry on and tell it until a regular break appears in the story. Once I've get to a point where it takes a pause and things have settled down, then the instinct for me is to take that pause as well. Of course, that means when I come back to it, I'm having to start from scratch.

So, I guess I need to make more of an effort to tear myself away in the middle of scenes, so I can regather that momentum when I start off again. I've heard of some who stop writing in the middle of a sentence, but I'm not sure I could go that far. Sentences for me often come as complete entities, so pulling away and not putting down that next word or finishing it off would just feel wrong.

So, where am I on the current story? For a start there's a lot less sex in there than I expected, though there is a nice romance going on in one strand. In the other, our heroine has just found herself covered in mud and lying next to a pig sty. It'll all make sense.

Total words so far is 20,717, decently ahead of the 1000-a-day schedule.

Twitter

Does anyone know how to get my Twitter posts to appear on this page? There was a widget that did it, but it seems to have stopped working, and the code from Twitter just gives what you can see now, rather than the tweets themselves. Any ideas or suggestions?

Anyway, you can find me on Twitter here, if you're interested.

Snowmageddon is coming

So says the weather forecast, but the threatened weekend of snow chaos has yet to materialise here. I'm looking forward to it, somewhat, as it will hopefully motivate me to stay inside and keep writing for a few days and really plough on with the story.

(Ploughing pun not intended)

One thing I need to get into the habit of doing is starting writing earlier in the day when I get the opportunity. As I've said in other posts, I'm very good at procrastinating, and then rushing through to hit my target for the day when time for writing appears to be running out. When I've got a big blank of time to fill, it's amazing how much of it I can while away doing not very much, or things that suddenly seem really important, and have to be done before I can get to writing the current story. One day I'm going to write a story with an ADD protagonist to capitalise on this.

Bond was almost ready to take on Blofeld, but first he realised that there might be some useful information in the xkcd archive, so he had to spend an hour or so going through random posts there.

The good thing about working under time constraints like I had yesterday is that it removes my excuse for procrastination - ah, there's enough time to do it later - and compels me to work and write. Over 1000 words again, and reached a total of 19,199, which gets me a couple of thousand ahead of target again. The other good thing about being forced away was that I had to leave it in the middle of a scene that was going really well, and so when I start back today, I can plunge right back in there.

But first, there's something I hav to do on the internet...

Return of the missing post

(This should have published yesterday, but appears to have saved as a draft instead)

I'm sure I had a great idea for what I was going to write here last night, but now I've woken up it's completely gone - except for the knowledge that I had a good idea, and I was sure to remember it. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but those are the most annoying ideas, no matter what they are - and I especially hate the way my mind remembers the memory of having them, but not the idea itself.

I was thinking about why I'm doing this blog earlier, though, and for me it's working as a form of 'morning pages'. I did once use 750words.com quite regularly, but fell out of that habit, but I found it very useful as a sort of braindump to clear out everything I was thinking of and then get to writing. I think doing it here instead changes the motivation somewhat - there, I could write just about any old crap as long as it got me to the target, whereas here I'm at least semi-conscious of the fact I have an audience, so try and write so that things make at least a rudimentary amount of sense.

The stats say I have an audience, anyway, even if it's just in the single figures everyday, but if you are reading here regularly than thank you, or if you're just dropping by or passing through, then thank you too and I hope something I say interests you enough to pop by again sometime.

As for the writing itself? Yesterday was another decent day, well over 1000 words and I reached 17,792 in total. I'm rebuilding that buffer zone I had to trade away last weekend, but this weekend is looking like one where I'll have more time to write, so I

Shiny things

One of writing problems is losing focus on the story I'm currently writing. No matter how attached I get to a story, there's always a time when I feel so totally immersed in it and so aware of every possible twist and turn coming up in the story that it starts to become boring to me. The story itself isn't boring, but the process of telling it is, and at that point I can be easily distracted from my goal.

Once you set off down the path of actually telling a story you end up having to commit to a certain version of it, closing down all the other versions of it in your head and forcing one definitive account of it into being. At the same time, though, lots of other potential stories start cropping up in your head to tease and tantalise you with all their potential for story telling. They're lovely bright and shiny things that lure attention away from the apparently slightly dull and tarnished in front of me, telling me that they're a lot livelier and more interesting than the dull and familiar one I'm so used to.

That's why I need to commit to things like NaNoWriMo and 100,00 words in 100 days as they help to set up blocks to keep me away from the shiny things, and working on just one story. Otherwise, it's too easy for me to say 'I'll just spend a couple of days working on this idea, then get back to this' - it's not long before that couple of days becomes a week, and then I repeat the process and go on to something else, and before long I'm 6 or 7 stories away from the original and they're all unfinished.

As an aside, that's how I know I was suffering from a block last year, not just dissatisfaction with the current story - there wasn't anything else rising up to take my attention away from it.

So, this is my declaration that I shall keep on with this story until I reach the end, and I won't work on anything else unless I've already done my 1000 word target for the day on this one. Fingers crossed that I keep to that promise...

Total word count at the end of yesterday: 16,100

Slipping back in

Just over 1000 words yesterday, but it felt good to slip back into the story and get back into the swing of writing it. The two characters still feel very alive to me, and their story is waiting to be told. The only question I've got right now is over how quickly to take the relationship between them, as they're in a very interesting place.

Trying not to give away the plot, it goes like this: they've met, got on and were about to get it on when something interrupted them. Dealing with that something required one of them to reveal a very deep secret about herself to the other which meant that while they didn't do anything together, they have formed a deeper connection. The other, though, is somewhat scared by the secret and has had to decide whether she wants to know more, or just forget the whole thing. I'm at the point where she's decided to go on, they've met again, and now I have to work out how they move forward.

And, of course, where our antagonist pops up to throw a spanner in the works for them...

All good, though, and challenges that are interesting to deal with, not frustrating. They're letting me learn more about the characters and tell their story more accurately - and when I go back and rewrite this, it should get even better!

The stats say I'm at 14,842 words. Here's to at least 16,000 by the end of today!

Back to work

It became another weekend where I didn't get any writing done, though the story is still unfolding itself in my head. That's a good sign, the characters staying alive and doing things even when I'm not sitting at the keyboard and writing, and they're almost dragging me to get back to work properly, open up Scrivener and start telling more of their story.

As you can probably guess, I'm not a writer who follows a detailed outline, because for me the story only reveals itself in the telling. I've got some ideas for later scenes, even a sketched-out ending in my head, but those are vague destinations that the route I end up taking may run straight through the middle of, or may completely bypass and go off in a completely different direction. Things have already changed radically from the original plan in that the two parts of the book now have two different main viewpoint characters. rather than one being the current story and one flashbacks for the same central character.

I think it works, but the only way to find out is to get the words on the page - and if I don't get any on it today, then I really will drop behind schedule, and that's the last thing I want to happen!

Taking the story with me

I think a good sign of being committed to writing a story is that when you're compelled to take a day off from writing it, you can't wait to get back and carry it on. I had to travel yesterday, and ended up spending a while (and longer than I planned, thanks to our falling-apart railways) on a train, where I was itching to be able to get to write and having lots of insight into the characters and where the story's going to go. It's that feeling that the story is with me, that there is some reality to it and wherever I am, I can look through that hole in the page and see what's going on.

It's a good feeling to have, especially as I got into the position last year where I thought I'd never have it again, so let's hope it continues. And while it's here, I shall make the most of it - to work!

(And no, my train journey was nothing like the one in Almost Chance!)

Buffer zones

The weekend's threatening to be busy for me, so I'm not sure if I'll get any writing done. Luckily, I've had another good day and produced over 1800 words, leaving the total at 13,805. This means that even if I don't write anything on Saturday or Sunday I'll still be over the 1000 words a day average by the time I come back to writing on Monday.

It's only a little thing, but it feels good to have that bit of a buffer zone, and know that I won't be having to catch up when I start again. That was one of the things that exacerbated my writer's block during NaNoWriMo - knowing that even if I did the 1667 words for that day, I was still behind and had to do more to get back on target.

One thing that may help me - and deal with the issue in the last post - is taking the tea break earlier. If I stop at around 600-700 words (two-thirds to three-quarters of the way to the target), then I know I have to do more, and that pushes me on well past it, as I don't relax. Good to know I can find ways around my procrastination when I need to!

Things are still happening nicely, and the structure's sorting itself out in my head as two connected stories in alternating chapters. It also helps me write - while I'm writing one, my subconscious is working out what comes next in the other, and having decided to make the viewpoint character in each a different person, it's a lot easier to contrast them.

See you Sunday!

Targets as barriers

I've mentioned before how I've got to 1000 words for the day and then got interrupted and not been able to do any more despite good intentions to press on and build up a buffer. (Not exactly 1000 words, but a short distance past)

I think it comes from my tendency to think 'right, that's 1000 words done. time for a reward, then back to work'. (The reward is often nothing more than a cup of tea, though) The trouble is that it means I take a conscious break from writing, get up, get distracted and start doing other things, and then before I know it, real life has intervened and I don't get the opportunity to sit down and start writing again that day. I think some of it is a subconscious feeling that 1000 words is enough for the day, so I start looking for distractions, so I need to remind myself to press on and stop doing that.

Which is all a long way of saying that I did just over 1000 words yesterday and the total's now at 11,939. I am recognising that a lot of those words may disappear in the revision/second draft as my first draft of dialogue scenes tend to be very flabby - like me in conversation, people rarely come straight to the point in my first drafts - but it's good to be moving the story forward (and backward, with flashbacks).

Viewpoints

One of the hardest decisions for me when writing a story is to decide whose viewpoint I'm going to use to tell it. There are various ways to tell a story, which are adequately described in many different places on the internet, but when I'm writing longer stories, I tend to opt for a third-person restricted viewpoint. I'll use first-person for short stories sometimes, but that's usually when I want to make a stylistic choice in the way it's told, especially when a story's best told in a certain vernacular.

The issue with using third person restricted, though, is that you have to decide who is going to be your viewpoint character. The natural choice is to imagine it's best to do it from the view of the lead protagonist, but sometimes having them centre stage right from the start means that you can lose a lot of the mystery around them, placing them up front and centre from the beginning. The best example I've seen of that is in Doctor Who, comparing 'Rose' (the first episode of the new version) with the TV movie starring Paul McGann.

The TV movie had the Doctor as the central character, but also the main viewpoint character and narrator. That meant that all the mystery was stripped from him the moment he started explaining all about his background, the Time Lords, regeneration etc etc The new series, however, chose to tell the story from Rose's perspective, where she meets a mysterious stranger and gradually learns who he is, where he comes from and what he can do.

That's what I've realised my story needs to do. I wrote the first chapter of it from the perspective of the main character, then realised when I was writing the chapter that follows on from there that her story (or at least that strand of it) was best told by a character she encounters in that chapter, who then becomes involved in the plot. In Doctor Who terms, she's the companion - someone who can have things she doesn't know explained to her for the benefit of the audience.

(It's also worth noting here that no character - and no person - ever thinks they're anything but thestar and protagonist of their own story)

Which means, in passing, that I have to go back and rewrite chapter one at some point, but not while I'm pressing on with telling the story at the moment. A good day's writing and I'm now at 10,869 words. Today and tomorrow should hopefully be good for writing, and then there won't be anything on Saturday because I'm out all day, so I need to build up a buffer to not fall behind schedule.

The catch-up

What I forgot to mention in the previous post is that I managed to make my 1000 words yesterday, but just as I was hoping to settle in and get a really good day's writing in, real life intervened and kept me just past the target. I'm still over 1000 ahead of schedule, though - total is now 9,129 and the story keeps flowing well. I've introduced another viewpoint character, and she's come alive, with another take on the plot and a future scene that will help me to drive the main story forward.

(Possibly another blog post needed on my writing without much of a plan needed)

And a link I should have put in the last post, but couldn't find a way to divert it and make it relevant - Charles Stross has written a vampire novel as part of his Laundry series, which should be very interesting. I highly recommend the Laundry books for a very interesting take on the horror genre.

Thoughts on vampires

When you choose to write about vampires, you realise just how many different types of them there are in modern culture.

Having been doing a little research on the subject - partly to check that I'm not unintentionally ripping more people off than I think - it's been interesting to read about how vampire-esque myths appear in lots of cultures. The 'modern' vampire vampire beliefs that went supernova after Dracula appear to have emerged from Eastern Europe around 1700, but there are lots of similar references to undead people rising from the grave to feed upon the living in other cultures from long before that.

With so many myths and legends around, it's easy to weave a version out of it that suits your story, which is what I've been attempting. (As TV Tropes puts it, Our Vampires Are Different) I've been quite influenced by a couple of TV versions of the myth - British TV's Being Human and Ultraviolet. Both of those treat the vampire as a continuation of the human they were before being turned, and so not necessarily evil by creation, but by choice. Both present the vampire as a being of power, but that power comes from having sacrificed something, which led me to the idea for my central character. What if someone in a universe like this had been turned without choosing it? How would she choose to live after that? From there, I've also brought in a concept that there are a number of ways in which a vampire in this world can choose to live - every one of them has some kind of cost, but the value of that cost depends on the sort of person you are. You're damned by your decisions and your choices, not your nature.

It's been interesting to write so far, and creates some good moral dilemmas to work from. Plus, the characters that have resulted from these thoughts are springing to life and driving the plot along for me, which is always a good thing. Even I'm not completely sure where it's going, which motivates me to write more so I can find out.

Hitting targets

Another day of over 1000 words yesterday, which took me over to a total of 8,029 and completed a week of writing every day. Now if I can just make it over 1000 words today, that'll be a week of doing over 1000 a day, and will also mean I've typed 1000 in this post far too many times.

The story's going well, and I wrote what I think's a good scene yesterday, which is a flashback to the time when our heroine was first turned into a vampire. I think it's an interesting scene, because it's someone going through the transformation against her will and without any of the context to understand what's happening to her. It's happening in fifteenth century England, where I don't believe there were vampire myths in circulation - or, at least, not widely - so there's nothing for her to draw on and know what she's become. Indeed, 8,000 words in and I've not even used the word 'vampire' once, though I don't know if I can pull off the Ultraviolet trick and never mention the word at all.

Now I have a decision to make about another character - do they return and do a bit of exposition, or do they remain disappeared, and likely dead? Such power I have...

Ploughing on

The weekend wasn't too bad for writing in the end. I ended up with a total of 6,906, and 1500 of those were done yesterday, so it might even be that my momentum is building up as I'm getting deeper into the story, and I'm going to start producing well over 1000 each day from now on.

Oh why do I tempt fate in these ways?

Still enjoying the story and the characters, and wrote the first actual sex scene in the novel yesterday. Not entirely sure what to characterise the story as so far. It came to mind as being erotica, but now it's brining in elements of adventure, supernatural and horror as well. I suspect it's going to end up being something that has a very small target audience, but it's pleasing me so far, and that's the important thing.

The good part, though, is that I've written some part of it every day for the last six days, and if I manage it today, then I've done it for a week. The block is definitely dropping away, and I'm getting back into the rhythm of writing. No matter how good or bad the end product is, I'm happy about that.

Minimums and maximums

Weekends feel like they're vast spaces of unassigned time, yet I never seem to achieve as much as I want in them. Onw of my problems is procrastination - if I'm not working to a deadline, I can easily while away the time I should be working in on a vast range of other seemingly-important tasks and quests for shiny things instead of doing what I should be. And the internet is full of shiny things to capture my attention.

So, despite having what felt like loads of time to write yesterday, I still only managed just above 1000 words to leave me at a grand total of 5,383. I think one of my issues is that when I have an overall target I'm working to, I can sometimes treat reaching a milestone as a maximum for the day, rather than just passing an arbitrary point. Note how many of my days so far have been ones where I wrote just over 1000 words. I need to remind myself that the challenge is to write 100,000 in 100 days, and make sure I treat that 1000 as a minimum requirement, not as an excuse to go off and procrastinate some more.

As a corollary to that, I also need to ensure my motivation carries on beyond the end of the challenge. That's why 1000 a day does help - it's a reasonable amount to write, but not quite as likely to lead to that burnt-out feeling I've often had at the end of doing NaNoWriMo. Perhaps I should have the guts to set myself a bigger target - maybe 365,000 words of fiction in a year? - but something like that can seem so vast from early January that it's very unfeasibility puts me into a slump.

Anyway, it's Sunday, I'm awake, and it's quiet. Time to write.

Praise or spam?

Had an email the other day, the sole content of which (in the subject line) was:

The best erotic story i ever read in my life

Which was nice - I'm just wondering which story it was, or if it's some bizarrely accurate spam.

But if you've read and enjoyed one of my stories, please let me know - and please let others know! Good reviews are for writers what fresh blood is for vampires - the power by which we will take over the world something which powers us and helps us to keep going.

Another day on target

I think I might be getting back into the groove. Managed to hit 1000 words again yesterday, squeezed into a couple of hours in the afternoon when I had some time to write. This is surely tempting fate, but it feels like the writer's block may have slipped away, or maybe it was never there and I just needed to find some interesting characters with an interesting story to tell?

Total at the end of yesterday was 4,346. Weekends are the sort of time I should be able to get on and write more, but they're also a time of many distractions and things getting in the way. So I'm not going to set any targets beyond the 1000 a day, but we'll see where it goes. And that first 1000 is always going to be on LVH, though I've also been having some thoughts about a short story I began last year but didn't finish. It's not going to take too much to finish that off, so if I can get a decent writing session in at some point over the next few days, I might be able to finish that off. Will likely be something for Literotica, just to give people something of mine to read that's new.

As for LVH itself, things are going well and getting interesting. The first (short) blood-drinking scene appeared yesterday, and maybe today I'll finish the introductory section and get into the first flashback section. Let's see where it leads...

Inspiration

I often find inspiration in bed. No, not that way - well, sometimes - but I'm one of those people who can take a while to drift off to sleep, and one of the things that helps me get there is thinking over my stories and where they're going to go next. Losing myself in a storyis a good way of letting my attention drift away from whatever annoyances might be keeping me awake, and before I know it, I'm gone.

There is a problem with this, though. While it's good for helping me work out the direction of the story, I often come up with good lines that I can never remember come the morning - and because I'm drifting off to sleep, I never get the chance to write them down. It's very annoying, and I'm sure there are many great lines that have been lost to my dreams that will now never get written down and seen by anyone else.

Which is my way of saying that I'm sure I had a great line to use in yesterday's writing, but by the time I came to write it, it was long gone. Still proud of what I did write, and am now up to 3,250 words, but that 'what could have been' will nag for a while.

But I was over target for another day, and the story's going well, the characters are coming to life - literally, in one case. I was expecting someone to get killed off, but then he proved himself a bit too clever for me to do that. I wonder when we'll see him again?