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I am an aspiring writer living and working in Hull. I working on a novel, as well as writing short stories to keep my writing skills fresh. I decided to start a writing blog to connect with other writers. So please, take a look around and leave some comments - I'd love to read some of your writing blogs too. Nari X

Monday 21 November 2011

Week Two: Progress

My lovely new desk

Please excuse the delay of this post. It was meant to go out Sunday last week, but, well, evidently it didn't. I have been making progress, which is really good. Last week was definitely a better writing week. Part of the reason is, da-da-da-da... I
  have a shiny new beautiful desk. It fits nicely into the space we have, and it has a nice little shelf for the printer. Shanequa has been enjoying having the company too. I also had a lighter week, at 21 hours, so I had a bit more time to play with (and no assessed services...). I do, however, have 2 exegesi (what's the plural??) and an assignment to do for Preacher training, which has been competing for my time.

The good news, though, is that I have been getting into the swing of writing. I've been popping off upstairs while The Husband dutifully sacrifices his much demanded time to make sure I don't have the option to be tempted to play Skyrim. Isn't he dedicated? I mean, even when I'm not in, he's making sure I won't be tempted when I do get in... It's amazing. The guy's a sweetheart.

I'm still not as far as I need to be, but I'm further than I was 2 weeks ago. I'm at just over 8,000 words now, which isn't bad. I'm on another long week this week - it was 40 hours, but one shift's been cancelled and one shortened and I haven't recalculated.

So, the actual story. It's coming along, and I've been getting more and more ideas and plot twists, which I've been writing down on memos or scrap pieces of paper, as you can see on the picture. It's really interesting to see how the plot is developing so quickly when I'm not jumping back and ahead and writing scenes far further along in the story.

I've not had so much time this week, but I have the weekend off. Friends visiting though... I'll let you know how it goes.


Monday 7 November 2011

First Week Blues

Pumpkin Soup and Goat's Cheese Bread for Bonfire Night

It's not going well. My word count as it stands is a pathetic 2,370. It should be 13,328.
I am positively screwed. 

What doesn't help is that I just so happened to get pretty much a full time week last week, which is brilliant because I can buy things... but It means I have had no time to write. I had an assessed service yesterday, which I have been dedicating any free time I have to planning. I also realised last night that I had not backed up my work, and then proceeded to leave my phone (and the only copy of my novel) in my assessor's car. I have it back now (phew) and I am backing it up as we speak. 
Oh, dear readers, things are not going well. 

But, the optimist in me wishes to say a few words. I have a much lighter week this week, and no services until New Years Day (groan), so hopefully I can at least try and catch up. I'm really struggling to let go of the quality control freak part of me, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of just getting words down and, more importantly, getting story down. At the moment the exposition feels shameless and clumsy, and the storytelling very rushed, but I will press on. 

In good news, we finally ordered a desk today, hurrah! It's more of a 'workstation', and yes, we ended up going to Rymans - Thank you Tom :) . It's narrow enough to fit into the space we have, and it had space for all my CDs too, with a lovely printer shelf on top. I think it'll do me for a while. 


We went into Game today and made another very exciting purchase. We Pre-ordered Skyrim. Oh yeah. Except the midnight launch has been cancelled. I was cross for about a second, but then remembered I have work on Friday anyway so couldn't have gone.

I also got to make my pumpkin soup and goats cheese bread for Bonfire Night which was lovely. The soup was pink. I thought it wasn't orange enough and put red food colouring in for a giggle. 
Anyway, the more time I spend here, the less my word count is climbing. How is everyone else's Nano Novel going?




P.S. Read this. Patrick Rothfuss makes me laugh. And he is now also doing NaNo. The rest of us don't stand a chance.