One Day More!

I love the musical Les Miserables, and I love the song One Day More. And I'm in a very dramatic vein today, because my edits for Storms in Teacups will be completed today. One more day of edits may be less dramatic than one more day until revolution, but hey I'm excited.

I'll spend the next few days putting together my pack for each agent, because each agency wants a different collection of things. Some want query letters. Others want email submissions. Most want a cover letter, synopsis and sample chapters. Some want stamped addressed envelopes. Others want email submissions. Then there are some want you to include CV's (resumes) and short biographies. What is certain, is that no two agents want exactly the same thing.

So on Monday, I will finally send the novel out on query. Hopefully I won't get too emotional in the post office sending it, because I'm not sure Irish postal workers are equipped for a crazy woman crying like her baby is heading off for its first day at school.

Oh, and happy Bloomsday everyone!

Last Minute Inspiration

So, I had a plan to send my novel out to agents on June 1. I overshot that, realising that I still needed to tie up some loose ends. Unfortunately, the loose ends have taken a longer time to sort out than I thought. I was all set to finish up this week, when I had inspiration for another couple of scenes. Fine, grand. But, these scenes have since taken on a life of their own. They're now fully formed chapters, with a subplot, and I felt like crying yesterday when I realised that if I wanted to write these chapters properly, then I was going to have to do some research.

And if it wasn't bad enough that my own book seems to be conspiring against me, there have been other things getting in my way.My mother-in-laws sixtieth (and the accompanying hangover) took up most of my weekend. My hands are cramping up again, and I'm getting shooting pains in my wrists. I have news articles to write, and a husband who keeps trying to persuade me to watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones with him. I've made little or no progress with my two works in progress, and if that wasn't bad enough I have another novel that I need to get out on submission before the end of June. Try as I might, life just seems to get in the way.

What about you? What things get in your way when you try to write?

Virtuosity

I didn't even know that virtuosity was a word...you learn something new everyday. I am feeling especially virtuous because, despite the fact that it is a bank holiday in the Emerald Isle today, I actually did some work. I edited more of Storms in Teacups, a job that is proving so arduous it could have been one of the ten tasks of Hercules. But, I also got to read the opening chapter of a novel by my friend Krista, which was much more fun. It was so engrossing and well-written that I may have to hack into her hard drive to retrieve the rest of it. Don't worry, I'm only joking. I don't know how to hack.

Anyway, I have a busy week ahead so I'm going to settle down and read a Cathy Kelly book to unwind. Then I'm going to sit down with my husband and watch the latest instalment of Game of Thrones. Is anybody else watching it? It's brilliant stuff. It's nice to be able to watch a period drama as a historian without being irritated by inaccuracies. The wonders of fantasy! I especially love Daenerys and Tyrion Lannister. I may have an espresso martini too, which takes a little of the shine off me being virtuous, but hey, it is a bank holiday weekend.

Hope everyone else is having a happy Monday ;)

Goals for June

Well, today marked the deadline for sending out my agent submissions. Unfortunately, while I'm almost done, I came up with a few changes for the novel in question while writing the synopsis. I know it means breaking a deadline, but making the changes will make my book much better. I have spent so much time on the manuscript, I don't want to scupper my chances for the sake of a few days.

So my new goals for June are:

1)  Finish Storms in Teacups edits and send off submissions by June 8th
2)  Complete Bunowrimo by adding 50,000 words to If Life Gives You Lemons
3)  Edit Ravensborough so I can start submitting it in July

I'm going on holiday on July 2 with my family. Four adults and six children in a converted castle with a hidden medieval staircase on the Irish coast. And, bizarrely yet importantly, a built in Nespresso machine. Hopefully the holiday will act like a carrot so I can do the ginormous amount of work that I've landed myself with.

Anyone else got any crazy plans for June?

When It Starts To Feel Like Work

At the moment I'm editing my novel, Storms in Teacups, for submission. When you first start to write a book and you only have a few thousand words under your belt, submitting feels like a finish line. You write your first draft, edit, edit, and edit again. You rewrite parts that aren't working, cut sub-plots that seem to go nowhere and then shove it in an envelope and send it off. Alas, it's not quite so simple.

First you have to research your agents. I've drawn up a list of around fifteen agents, and each wants to be approached in a different way. Most want to be approached in a standard way in the British Isles, which is a packet sent by post that contains a cover letter, synopsis and the first three chapters of my novel. Each agent has different ideas on how long this synopsis should be, so I have to write different synopses for each one. All cover letters have to be personalised, generic letters are apparently a big no-no. Then I have to write a query letter for agents who like to be approached by that method. All this takes an unbelievably long time.

Now, the one thing that query letters and synopses have in common is that they both involve distilling the essence of your novel down to a page or two, and convince the person reading it that they need to read this book. This is hard. Added to this is the fact that hundreds of hours of work have gone into your novel, yet it's fate hinges on just one piece of paper. This is nerve-wracking like writing a CV (or resume) for a job that you really want. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what it is.

With all this serious writing, I'm looking forward to getting back to some proper fiction writing in June.  How do all of you find the submission process?

Plot Bunnies

I wish I had come up with this idea at Easter, that would have been cool and very in keeping with the season. Unfortunately, I didn't. My mind doesn't work that way. I only thought about writing about plot bunnies after I was attacked by one.

It was a normal evening, pretty much like any other. I was trawling through my final edit which, as I've mentioned here numerous times, I am finding increasingly tedious. My husband (he's my beta reader, he works as an editor which makes him more critical than the average husband) was reading over some chapters with his customary little frown on his face. He chuckled a couple of times, which I took as a good sign. Then he told me that it was very good, and I relaxed slightly. It's nerve wracking giving someone part of your work to read. My writing is entirely fictional, but deeply personal.

I felt upbeat then, and went back to my editing with renewed vigour. 'You're so close to the finish line,' I told myself excitedly. 'You can do this.' And then...the plot bunny attacked.

Plot bunnies are strange creatures. When you actually need one, catching one can seem almost impossible. But whenever I'm working on a story, a plot bunny pops up and waves it's little paw at me. Incessantly. This bunny is especially unwelcome, because I've put writing novel 2 on hod in order to edit novel 1. And this plot bunny told me firmly that he was destined for novel 3.

I have to try and ignore it while I finish the job at hand. But I don't want to completely ignore it, in case it wanders away and I can't find it when I come to write novel 3.

What about all of you? How do you deal with plot bunnies?

My Writerly Routine/Once More With Feeling

My Writerly Routine

My working days tend to take a fairly regular pattern. I get up early, walk the dog, and aim to be sitting at my desk for eight am. Then I do my journalistic work which, on a good day with no procrastination, I can do in under two hours. Then I do some household chores and set myself up for an afternoon of writing. My husband works is out of the house for around twelve hours, and often times the only people I meet are dog walkers, the postman and the biweekly Tesco delivery man. In some ways it's a hermetic existence, well as hermetic as you can get when you live in a suburb of a capital city. My routine (and even the fact that I call it a 'routine') makes me sound all hard-working and diligent, but just because I'm at my desk in person does not mean that I'm working. I would not like to see a tot up of the hours that I waste fawning over fora.

I write in the kitchen, with my French doors open onto our lovely garden. We have an office in the front of the house, but it doesn't get the sun and can be dark and gloomy. In the kitchen I can see the sun filled garden and listen to birdsong which is all very inspirational. In short, I love my routine and didn't realise how much until I found out that my husband and I have an appointment tomorrow morning in our house. This will mess up my system. If I don't get a certain amount of work done in the morning, my day is practically a write-off. I find it hard to get into the groove again. I've been this way as far back as I can remember. This may make some of you worry that I have some form OCD, but trust me, fifteen seconds in my less than immaculate home would set you straight.

Once More, With Feeling


So, this is it for Storms in Teacups. I've set my submission date for Wednesday June 1, the day when I sent out my sample chapters, synopsis and cover letter out to agents across the British Isles. I have a month of hard editing to do, and then I'm done. Now, I love my book. I think it's good, and there's parts of it that still make me smile even though I've read it around a dozen times. The problem is, this edit is making me crazy. Maybe because it's the last one, maybe because I've edited it countless times before, but I'm starting to lose the will to live. Not to mention the fact that I have The Fear. On previous edits I haven't worried to much over whether or not my corrections are the best they can be, because if they don't work then I can always pick it up in subsequent edits can't I? Ah, no. Not any more.

My husband must know I'm under strain, as he bought me this Fry's Chocolate Cream (well, not this exact one) completely unprompted. Yummy and scrummy and completely dairy free. He's a man in a million.

Magic Month of May

Ok, I wimped out of finishing the A-Z challenge, I didn't do Y and Z before the end of April. I was going to finish it on the last day of April, but I forgot until yesterday that there was only thirty days in that month. I can only ever remember by using the rhyme. Still, the challenge did what I wanted it to do, it got me writing in my blog regularly so I'm pretty thrilled with that.

May is promising to be a busy month with a lot of introspection. Do you remember my angst about whether or not to go further with my education? Well, my potential PhD supervisor got back to me and said she'd support my application. She agreed to do it last year, but I couldn't proceed because I was too ill. I always wanted to do a history doctorate, and doing it would be an achievement that I didn't let my fibromyalgia stop me from achieving my dreams. But I have another dream - to be a published writer - and I only have so many spoons. If I do a PhD then I will have less time to write, but if I don't do a PhD and I don't become a published writer then I've lost two dreams. It's hard to decide. You're probably thinking 'But Christine, you can't even remember how many days are in April, are you sure that going back to University is the right thing for you to do?' This is a valid point, but I'm actually quite a good student. It's real life that leaves me baffled.

I'm also editing Storms in Teacups for an early June submission to a number of agents. How scary is that? Oh, and hopefully by the end of this month I will be halfway through the first draft of If Life Gives You Lemons. So a busy month ahoy.

And in totally awesome news, the fabulous Caitlin Vincent gave me an award! How cool is that? I'm fairly new (yet addicted) to the blogosphere, and it made me tear up a little to think that someone would give me an award like this. It literally made my day, thank you so much Caitlin!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend :)

U is for...Ugh.

It's a lovely bank holiday weekend. The sun is shining, my husband is off work, there is a ridiculous amount of chocolate in my house. But I have decided to disregard all these things in order to have a rant thread.

My fibromyalgia has been bad this week. My hips and knees are so bad that I had to bow out of a fun game of rounders that my husband and his friends had organised. I was never going to be playing, I wouldn't be able to, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to stand and watch or sit on the grass either. So my husband went off on his own. He didn't want to leave him, but I made him go. He misses too many things due to my ropey health. Even so, I know that he'll be worried about me while he's there, and I feel so guilty for taking the shine off the day for him. And I really wanted to go out, enjoy the sunshine and chat to some nice people. I'm a bit down about that.

I had four of my siblings over yesterday for dinner. They're 7, 10, 11 and 14 and I love them to bits. We had a good time, but I struggled to seem cheery and upbeat for them because of the pain I was in. I really hope that they didn't pick up on it. They're only kids, and the last thing I want is for them to think I don't enjoy their company. I do, so much.

And then, of course, there's my writing. Despite resting my hands and arms, they're in bad shape and it hurts to write. This is bad, because I've reached a seam of writing where it's all flowing, and I'm in the middle of some intensive edits too. I can't work right now. Writing is what got me through my illness, and now I worry that physically my body can't do it.

Living with a long term illness is hard. Not only the pain, the nausea and the lack of energy, but you sometimes feel like you are losing yourself, the person you'd like to be and the person that you want to become. I think to be honest that that's the worst part of all.

I'm just having a bad day. Tomorrow will hopefully be better, and I'll remember that in the scheme of things I'm a very lucky woman. I've a great husband, a lovely family, I get to write a lot and have a lovely house and supportive friends. But right now? I need to vent.

Anyone who has a chronic illness, or knows someone who has should check out The Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino. It gives a great explanation on what being ill feels like on a day to day basis, and my husband said it really helped him realise what it's like to be me.

Hope this all finds you well, and that you have a great Easter. I'm going to go cuddle my dog, drink copious amounts of tea and read a book.

L is for...Life Getting in The Way

So today I finally got back to work with a vengeance. I spent the weekend editing large chunks of Storms in Teacups, but not writing any new material. I was stuck on a scene in one of my WIP's and I just couldn't resolve it. So I sat down today with my twin buddies, chocolate and caffeine, determinedto resolve it. And it worked! Now I've managed to resolve that scene it should all be plain sailing. Well...for a couple of days at least.

First drafts can be tricky for me. At this point  I'm still getting to know my characters and discovering what's happening as I go. I know some people find that outlines help, but I find the whole process too sterile. I have a rough idea when I start a novel where I'm going to go with it, but for the most part I play it by ear.

Before I finished Ravensborough and Storms in Teacups I found it a lot harder to get motivated to write. I had a pile of college work, a pile of housework and I was struggling to come to terms with illness. I enjoyed writing, but it was hard for me to prioritise it. I mean, who knew if I'd even finish my books after all? It seemed like a big waste of time.

I find it easier now that I know I can actually finish it. But if you're struggling with first drafts then there are some free applications that can help. First I used Write or Die. This ominously titled website lets you set a time limit and a word count goal. If you stop typing for a certain amount of time then it makes an annoying noise, which doesn't stop until you start typing again. I found this great, though I've recently graduated to Focus Booster, which puts a little bar at the top of your page. You set a timer, I set it for twenty five minutes, and it starts off green, then moves to orange, and finally red. It makes you much more aware that time is passing, and therefore focuses you on your writing. I like the fact that you can write in Word with this app, whereas with Write or Die you have to type in the box on the site, unless you pay for their desktop version. Both of these are handy if you have a busy life and can only commit to twenty minutes or so of writing a day. They help focus you so you get the most from your time.

For edits, I like EditMinion. It's still in beta, but is handy for identifying things like repetition of words, passive voice, that kind of thing.

What about all of you? Do you have any tricks to keep you motivated through the writing process?

Oh, and I'm going to take part in this query critique blog hop. Anyone thinking about submitting soon should think about taking part. On April 19 everyone involved posts their query and critiques at least five other queries. Like Query Shark but with less sarcasm :)

Revisions, Revisions, Revisions

After coming down from my Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award high, I got back to work. At the moment I'm giving urban fantasy a break, and am concentrating on writing the first draft of my new novel If Life Gives You Lemons and revising Storms in Teacups for submission.

Why is revising so hard? When I was a kid and dreamed of being a writer, I thought you wrote the story from beginning to end, and that was it. Done. How I wish it were so.

The hard part for me about revision is that it means rereading my own work. And sometimes that's okay. I find blocks of text that are much better than I thought, dialogue I laugh out loud at, (it's sad to admit you find your own books amusing, isn't it?) and that part is quite good for oul' ego. However, there are still bits that require yet more work, and that I think are awful. And that is, quite frankly, disheartening.

What's especially difficult about this revision, is that it's for the Final Draft (cue scary music). In my previous edits, if something wasn't flowing I didn't stress about it too much. I reckoned that I could sort it out in another edit. But as this is my final one, I have to iron out every little snag so I can send it out into the world.

To this end I took out a roll of Christmas paper, unrolled it on the living room floor, and started to write out the main plot points and characters in a selection of brightly coloured Sharpie felt tip pens. Not very dignified, but the best I can do until I can afford to buy a white board. I feel a lot better now, I've clarified some of the most important elements of the story in my head which was good.

How do all you other writers out there cope with the editing process?