Ideas | Writing Wings

UK biometric passport on pile of Euro currency (Photo credit: Christopher Elison)

Well November has disappeared and the hectic pace of NaNoWriMo has slowed to that of my walking-staggering. But there were two highlights: first and most important was my wife getting her Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK, until 2022 when her US passport expires. However she aims to have UK citizenship and to be a member of the maroon passport club by then. Will take more money of course, and she has to learn the National Anthem, plus swear to vote Conservative at every election and doff her hat to every policeman – last two might be exaggerations.

The second highlight was completing 50k+ of my 2012 NaNoWriMo novel, Wyrm Blood, before the end of the month. However I have to admit that I was unable to keep up my daily word count in the final few days or in the last few weeks. Wyrm Blood Draft 1 is still incomplete with about eight chapters to go and two sub-plots to build into it. These sub-plots are new ideas that I stumbled upon while writing scenes following – kind of – the outline that I’d written in October. I have attempted to write them into the last third of the WIP but I know that there are a lot of extra scenes to insert.

But is that a new draft or just add-ons to draft one?

I also feel that the antagonist needs scenes but I already have four POV’s and feel a fifth would be too much. Any thoughts as to whether even four is too much?

Trying to finish Wyrm Blood in December was the intended plan but that could be messed up. I’ve come out of the fervour of November torn between needing a break and wanting to finish. I also have a 2011-2012 Tax Return hanging over me, although it should be simple as I don’t really earn much – not that Inland Revenue believe me. Maybe I’m just putting it off as I always do.

If I do finish Wyrm Blood before Christmas then the New Year brings other options such as 100k in 100 days 2013 and the 2013 Debut Dagger competition. My original intention, back in the autumn, was to focus on an entry in the Debut Dagger, either Wyrm Bait (first part of Wyrm series), which is in its 2.5 draft stage, or the stand-alone Fates Maelstrom, which is still first draft. I can still choose to enter the openings for both of them, re-written and edited for the competition – entries close on Saturday 2 February 2013.

Wyrm (Photo credit: Jon_Tucker)

The rules for 100k in 100 days 2013 are quite flexible as it’s more about the incentive and taking part than winning anything. Less pressure than NaNoWriMo and wider selection of what counts towards the 100k. So it will be an incentive to write more blogs, although I have to resist boring the select readership with verbal garbage. If I re-write the first 3,000 words of my two chosen novels plus 500-1,000 word synopses of them, that will also count – but not shopping lists. Drawback is that I suspect that editing in terms of hacking and honing doesn’t count and that has to be my priority with four WIPs needing work.

The ultimate objective is to have at least one novel totally finished and the others much further advanced by the Spring.

English: First rays of the rising winter solstice sun light up the countryside 296447 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However for now I want to wish you all good writing and if the next blog hits the delay-button, then Happy Winter Solstice and Merry Christmas.

The Silver Scribbler

The Renewal of Yule in 2012 (reclaimingaphrodite.wordpress.com)
Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice. . . ?? (cherylbecker.wordpress.com)
It’s Winter Solstice, Charlie Brown (lacykitkat.wordpress.com)
Nano Day 13-Mark Your Calendars (chillersandthrillers.com)
Winter Solstice (barnabyd.wordpress.com)

Originally posted on http://www.rolandclarke.co.uk on 14 May 2012

There was a time some years ago when MS had so clipped my writing wings that it was hard to write and I had to turn down commissions to write articles or even take photographs. Even the novel that I had dreamt of writing was a mess and going nowhere – except perhaps to a shredder, one day. Spiral of Hooves as that unfinished opus was called, had taken almost a decade of scribbling and gone through so many plot versions that even the characters were confused – although we all perhaps realised it was meant to be a mystery set against the equestrian world of eventing. However at that point I realised that I was listening to far too much good advise but not to my inner muse whose voice had gone quiet as far as I was concerned.

Any crutch that I had left to help me continue writing had failed so I had literally started to shut down and accept my life in a wheelchair doing very little of worth.

Then in 2009 I met Juanita and we got married. She showed me how to fly again, telling me to trust my own instincts and stop believing in ‘I can’t’. She gave up her life in the USA to be with me and she was the one who took me out of that wheelchair, inspiring me to write again.

Since we have been together I have completed what I hope will be the final acceptable draft of Spiral of Hooves – which probably took 12 years. In one month last summer I wrote the first draft of Wyrm Bait – a cyber mystery set against the online gaming world – which is potentially the first of a series. Then in November I took on the NaNoWriMo challenge – www.nanowrimo.org/en – and wrote the first draft of The Last Leaf – a fantasy mystery. This spring, taking a bit more time, I completed the first draft of Fates Maelstrom – a psychological mystery.

So what about the quality of three drafts written at red hot speed during 9 months compared with 12 for my first attempt? Well judging by the comments of my number 1 critic when she read all four through aloud, Juanita could see that I was improving as I wrote more, which is what I felt as I was writing each new draft. The words came more easily and they flowed in interesting directions that on hearing them spoken seemed to work. Plus after each day’s writing I would work through what I’d done the day before and the daily editing process became more constructive. That’s not to say these drafts are perfect and that is the next step, honing. So of course I am looking forward now to the fun but hard part of revising these drafts – but that’s perhaps another blog.

At least now I know that at last my imagination is soaring as my writing wings have been unclipped again thanks to Juanita’s support – and perhaps my accepting that ‘I can’. As I have said I sense that the writing in these draft novels feels as though it is improving as I slowly learn the craft. I am only a fledgling novelist but I am learning the basics of writing flight and the crutches have become wings.

Never give up, believe in yourself and you will begin to have writing wings. I invite you to join this fledling on a winged adventure with The Silver Scribbler.