Keep Calm...

Another 2017, making 16,257 - that's 27% done!

I hope tomorrow to have some time to go back over the first few chapters and tidy them up a bit - there's one scene I already know needs to be told from another POV, for example. I know that it's not the NaNo way to edit as you go, but I'm ahead of schedule, and anything that makes the revision process more bearable has to be good, as far as I'm concerned!

Right. off to tackle the ironing instead.

A little bit behind here, but not with the writing!

As of yesterday, I was at 12,087 and plan for another 2,000 today.

But not until we've been on an adventure with a kite for the daughter, a nice lunch for us (Waffle House!) for a belated anniversary celebration, and got the belly pork in the oven for this evening...

Also been plotting a new story - one I can't wait to write. But it has to get in line!

Forgot to update yesterday, mostly due to sleep deprevation. I did, however, hit my target - just!
8013 words, and still on schedule.

More later, when I get to do some writing today.

Thanks to the daughter having a nice long nap this lunchtime, I am now ahead of schedule on wordcount, but still a little behind on plot. Since I'm venturing into London this evening, just in time to catch the end of the tube strike, I think I'll take my laptop along with me for when I inevitably get stuck somewhere. At least if I'm writing, I might not be so cross about the delay...

Day Three Stats:
Starting word count: 4057
Wordcount at 16:00: 6576

Well, it's the second day, and I'm still on schedule. For me, that might just be a NaNo miracle.

I'm trying something a little new for the plotting and outlining of my novel this year. I started out by using PBW's block plotting method to help me hammer out the basics, then I split my story into thirty chunks, each with a sentence or two detailing what needs to happen. They're not scenes, because several of them include more than one scene. But as long as I write a chunk a day, and average around 2000 words or more per chunk, then I'm on target.

I'm about to stop for lunch, and so far I've hit my 4000 words, but am only two thirds of the way through the chunk. It's not a problem, I'll finish it tonight, and hopefully it will make up for some of the lighter chunks, when 2000 words would be stretching the action further than it wants to go.

So, lunch, then an afternoon playing with the daughter (shortly to return from nursery) and doing housey things, then an evening drinking peppermint tea and utilising Write Or Die to get my last 1500 or so words. So far, so calm.

Of course, I'm only writing this down so that in a couple of weeks, when I'm 10,000 words behind on my wordcount, my outline has been tossed, rewritten and tossed again, and I'm mainlining espresso, I can look back and cackle at my early, misplaced optimism.

November is here at last, which means it's time for NaNoWriMo!

I love National Novel Writing Month. Some years I use it to write an idea I love but will never get around to otherwise. Some years I use it to write something I've fallen behind on. Sometimes it's just great to kickstart an idea that stalled in the planning stages - somehow the deadline makes the plot fall in to place.

More than anything, it's a great excuse to spend thirty days concentrating on the writing. I have an excuse to beg off country walks or housework. I can say to my husband, "I need you to watch your daughter for the morning - I need to hit my word count!"

This year, I've stocked the freezer full of homemade meals to see us through no-cooking November, and I've got a fantastic headstart on the Christmas shopping. The house is in order, CBeebies is on the telly, and I am ready to write.

Unfortunately, the daughter spent most of the night awake, and I've had the Nina and the Neurons song stuck in my head since one am. Daughter's still all out of sorts, and wants to cuddle on the sofa (most unlike her) and keeps dragging me away from the keyboard.

And at this point, this post is longer than my NaNo novel so far...

That's right. I'd forgotten the other huge advantage of NaNoWriMo - perfecting the art of procrastination. I always get so much done when I'm avoiding writing my novel!

Getting back to the manuscript right now.

My brother, two of my cousins, and one cousin’s baby daughter invited themselves over for lunch today. That sounds worse than it was – my brother called and said, “We thought we might stop by next weekend,” and I said, “Lunch or dinner?”

Then, worrying that I’d been too abrupt on the phone, and they might not think we were delighted for them to come (which we were) I sent invitations, asking them to a Whitley-style Sunday Lunch.

My maternal grandparents, Olwyn and Elfed Whitley, had their four children, their husbands and wives, and the eight grandchildren round for a Sunday lunch at HQ every week throughout my childhood. When they started to get older, it became every other week, or we’d have big celebrations at my mother or aunt’s house instead.

Even now they’ve passed on, the family still makes sure it gets together for big events, usually at Sunday lunchtime, and now featuring grandchildren’s spouses, partners and children. We’re really quite numerous at this point, and many of us live far away from Wales (we're almost four hours drive, as are my cousins in London) but we all make the effort to be together for the big occasions.

Anyway, so when I was trying to decide what to feed my guests, since we were right at the end of our food budget for the month, I thought, “How on earth did Grandma do it? How do Mum and Dad do it now?”

And then I realised. They cook our favourite, traditional, heritage dishes – sometimes more, sometimes less. So I started making a list.

Today’s Menu:


Starters

Tuna pate on toast

(This was the start of every Sunday at HQ, because people never arrived at the same time, and it was something easy for everyone to nibble on. An appropriately aged grandchild – usually me or my brother - was nominated pate monitor on arrival, and had to make it and hand it round.)

Mains

Mum’s Devilled Chicken Drumsticks
Dad’s Rice Salad
Grandma’s Stuffed Baked Potatoes
Auntie Barbara’s Shallot Tart
Green salad
Bread
Crisps

(We will be eating leftovers for the next few days...)

Dessert

Brought by my guests!

Chocolate pudding and cream
Emma’s fairy cakes

(I also bought after dinner chocolates to pass round, like we always did at HQ, but I’ve just realised I forgot them and they’re still in the cupboard. Bother.)


I made the potatoes on Wednesday, because they freeze really well, and reheat in 40 minutes. The chicken I marinated last night, so it just needed roasting today. The tart was new for me, but turned out well. And everything else was very straightforward, and was prepared before people arrived. I love having family round, and realise now why my family have always catered in this way. And after so many years of helping Mum and Dad, or Grandma and Granddad, prepare, I found I knew exactly what needed to be done.

And now I’m having a cup of peppermint tea and a rest.

Even the most nicely phrased “No” is still a rejection. But even the bluntest refusal has something you can learn from it.

I’m lucky; my latest rejection is full of encouragement, advice and helpful comment. And now I’ve gotten over the sting of it also being a “No,” I thought I might share it with you, line by line, along with my thoughts on how I’m going to use this valuable resource.

Background first – although it’s all in my earlier posts, if you want the nitty gritty. Basically, this is from a super agent – director at one of London’s biggest agencies – who took a chance on me and an earlier novel a couple of years ago.

Even after a lot of work, that one didn’t sell, and I’ve been trying to come up with something else she might like for the last little while. She shot down my latest manuscripts – Dream a Little Dream and An A to Z of Love. Here’s why:



Dear Katy


Sorry it has taken me a little while to come back to you. I do think you should share your work with other agents, yes, because you are a good writer and your work has charm and may well appeal to someone else more than it does to me right now.

She’d mentioned before that she just didn’t love these books enough, but that the passion required was, of course, subjective. I’d asked if she thought I should share it with other agents, and this was a good, honest, helpful response to that. I’m prepping the manuscript for submission now, based on her feedback and my own gut instinct.

I’ll be totally honest with you, wanting to be helpful more than tactful. Commercial fiction is terribly susceptible to fashion and although trends come and go quite quickly they totally dominate the markets while they reign. There was a point a few years ago when vintage-y, romantic, rural, wistful fiction was ‘in’. And it probably will be again before long. But right now your ideas and writing style feel a little out of step. Publisher aren't buying many debuts at the moment but when they do they are modern, harder-edged, witty and sexy rather than gently humorous. (Or they are book club reads - sort of accessible-literary).

This is useful market information. Unfortunately, hard, witty and sexy are not really my forte (pity my husband...) I don’t enjoy that sort of thing so much, and so I write it very poorly. This is one area where I might just have to wait for trends to change. I’m actually working on something in a totally different genre that might have more success, so perhaps it’s time to focus on that for a while.

I liked the warm tone and lovely detail in DREAM but the characters felt rather cliche'd to me, especially the older generation. I am really sorry, but I think putting a lot of old people into a book for young people is a big risk. Similarly, in AN A TO Z, the first few pages feature a dear old soul. There are loads of members of the RNA out there writing books about people in their 50s, 60s and older and they're not getting published. Write about young people! At least you know what it's like to be young in 2010...

This is really helpful. Unfortunately, in DREAM the older generation are vital to the theme and meaning of the story. This tells me that this didn’t come across strongly enough, and I need to work on it. That said, there are things I can do to make it feel ‘younger.’ The main couple are in their late twenties, which is fine, but there’s also another sub-plot couple, a little younger, who have very little page time. I think that developing that sub-plot more thoroughly might balance things out better. Obviously, I also need to do some deeper character work, to make them feel more real. I’m already working on ideas for this.

In A to Z, however, the older lady sidekick could really be any age. If I revise this for submission later in the year, maybe I'll make her in her forties, instead. We'll see.
You are a very able writer who definitely deserves to be published. If you want to write rural communities, that's fine, but make sure the emotional storylines feel modern or relevant to your generation. Have a look in the shops at what is working in this area (like that Herriot type stuff, about being a modern vet, I forget her name). And keep your characters in check; they are liable to run off with a scene and change its tack altogether at the moment! Use dialogue more sparingly, to leave room for action. Don't lose your sweet romantic touch but up the ante in plot terms.

Again, fantastically useful. Lots of things to focus on in the rewrite, and in future books. I need to sharpen up my scenes, my dialogue, and do some more plot work. Yes, that’s a hell of a lot, but did you read the first sentence of the paragraph? She thinks I deserve to be published. That means I’ll put in all the work necessary.

It's not easy to criticise someone who seems on the surface to be doing everything right but I hope some of this feedback is helpful and I definitely do think you should seek other opinions. I am sure quite a few readers will spot your talent.

All my very best

So, despite the work ahead, everything here is encouraging – at least, that’s how I choose to view it!

What did I do next? I sent a grateful, polite and warm email back, to which she responded very positively again – leaving the door open for me to send her something direct in the future, if I think it will suit. That’s a nice position to be in.

Of course, I know that some rejections are much harder to learn from. On the face of it, a form letter tells you nothing at all. But look deeper. Do you need to work harder to hook the reader’s attention from the off, perhaps? Or do you need to do serious work on your plot/characters/writing style? If you’re not sure where to start, get other people to read your work. Online critique groups, writing groups, even a very literary friend (as long as it’s someone you trust to tell you the truth, however hard).

Keep at it, and you’ll progress to the personal rejection – and mark this as the triumph that it is! Someone saw enough promise in your writing to tell you what you need to work on next.

Perhaps the most important thing is to see each rejection as a step forward. You’re marking time, paying your dues and – most importantly – learning every single step of the way. Take encouragement from your rejections, and they’ll be worth much more than the paper they’re printed on.

I'm currently rewriting my NaNoWriMo novel from last year - Sea Fever.

At the time, I wrote it because the idea had been hanging around in my head for years, taking up valuable space, and I figured that if I just gave it a month is would be happy, satisfied, and leave me be. After all, it's a YA, paranormal murder mystery. I'm a contemporary women's fiction kind of a gal. It was just a fun side project for thirty days.

Fast forward eight months, and the situation's slightly different. With my agent turning down my latest women's fic offering, maybe it is time to look for something different. And heaven knows I needed something fun to work on for a while.

So I pulled out Sea Fever again. I did some more world building and research to beef it up. I started idly outlining sequels, making it the first in a series, although still a stand alone novel in its own right. I workshopped the characters, and their journeys.

I started the actual revision and...

... found it really needed to be in first person, not third.

It's a lot of work. The first draft had two POV characters; taking it down to one means I have to find a way to incorporate all the things that the second character saw and thought and felt into the Stella's narrative.

And, yes, I'm aware that Stella was supposed to get a roasting from Dylan yesterday. This is why that's delayed.

But it works better in Stella's first person POV. I'm only a couple of scenes in and I can see that already.

And I'm excited about the story. About all of it.

I'm writing on, but less calmly. And that's fine by me.

I mentioned last week that The Agent had decided not to take on my latest novel, and that I was waiting to hear what her reasons were, before deciding what I should do next. She said she’d write ‘in the next few days’ and we’re now approaching two weeks, so I’m sending a gentle reminder today, just in case she’s forgotten about me.

I hate to nag, really, but I’m not the world’s most patient person. And sitting at home imagining all the terrible things she might be thinking about my writing is not helping with the keeping calm, or with the writing on.

As my father would say, the problem with us Analytical Masterminds is that we like to have a plan. We’re happy to amend the plan as circumstances change, but we need some sort of map or chart to look at and say, “Right now, that’s where we’re going.” Without it, we’re lost in the wilds of Powys following misleading yellow diversion signs, wondering if we’ll get there before last orders.

And at the moment, I’m wondering if I’ll ever be a published author, because without The Agent’s feedback, I don’t have a proper plan.

I do, because I am an utter geek, have a flowchart of possible plans, though, based on possible responses...

It helps me keep calm. And write on.

A roast, according to Wikipedia, is ‘an event in which an individual is subjected to a public presentation of comedic insults, praise, outlandish true and untrue stories, and heartwarming tributes, the implication being that the roastee is able to take the jokes in good humor and not as serious criticism or insult, and therefore, show their good nature.’


Whereas I’m more used to the meat and veg with gravy version, a comedy roast, it occurs to me, might be a fantastic way to get to know your characters. After all, what shows a person more clearly than their friends and families recollections and stories of them? It’s all about what they’ve done, or in the case of the untrue stories, could conceivably be imagined to do. And the only real way to show character in fiction is through action and reaction.

Anyway, it’s a theory. And, to see if it holds up, I thought I’d give it a try. Starting next Sunday, with the protagonist of my current novel-in-revision, Stella Fortune, as seen by her sometime best friend, Dylan Albright.

And yes, I imagine some of the jokes might be about her name.

When I decided not to go back to work after my maternity leave, I knew that it would mean some changes in our lifestyle – although, not that many more than if I had gone back, given how much of my salary childcare would have swallowed up.

So I expected that we’d have to tighten our belts, watch the pennies a little closer, and that we wouldn’t be able to go out so much, which we were too tired to bother with anyway. And I knew, intellectually at least, that I’d have less contact with other people than when I worked in a busy office.

Still, I’m quite a solitary soul, so it didn’t bother me too much in principle. But my husband started to get a little concerned when in answer to the question, “What have you been up to today?” I started saying things like, “Well, I had a long chat with the man who came to read the gas meter about his holiday in France,” and, “I’ve changed our electricity supplier again. Claire who rang from Scottish Power is from Wales too, you know.” He’s still a little concerned that I welcome the Jehovah’s Witnesses in every week, even though I’ve made it clear that my religious priorities are already set. It’s just nice to have someone round for a cup of tea now and then.

Regardless, my mother in law staged an intervention, and insisted I do something to get out of the house. Something besides the occasional toddler group I force myself to attend, even though I don’t think my daughter even likes it all that much. Something away from screaming children. Something with actual adults who aren’t trying to sell me something.

So, after some consideration, I joined a choir.

This isn’t as abstract as it might seem. My whole family has always been very musical, and I sang in a very successful girls’ choir in school. I chose a ladies choir, because I already know how to sing in parts with other women, and men just make this sort of thing messy, anyway. And I’ve been loving it. For two hours once a week, while my husband babysits, I focus on notes and rhythms and tempo, and forget about nappies and nursery rhymes and tantrums.

And tonight is my first concert with the choir. I’ve got my long black skirt (hemmed by my husband) and my black top, and my pink corsage. I’m hopeful that I’ll manage to remember the words, and maybe even the tune, to all our songs.

But to be honest, the concert is the least of it. I’ve got two hours a week where I’m something other than a mother, to other people. And that is very valuable indeed.

We recently signed up to a fortnightly farm box from the nearby Church Farm in Ardeley, and as a result, every other Friday I spend the afternoon fielding phone calls from my husband asking, “Is it there yet?” and “What do we have? What are you going to make?”

We have, I must admit, been incredibly impressed by the content and quality of these boxes. The meat has been spectacular, as have the vegetables, eggs, milk and bread. My husband’s excitement is not unwarranted.

For example, this week we have:

• Plums
• Grapes
• Salad
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Green beans
• Milk
• Eggs
• Bread
• Cucumber
• Topside of beef
• Pork mince
• Sausages
• Chicken legs

I said yesterday that I’d post today about where I am in my writing career, and how I got there. The quick answers to those questions are: Nowhere and Slowly.


The longer answer is a little more complicated, but I’m going to summarize.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and I started taking it seriously when I left university, nine years ago. I studied my craft, I got better, I started submitting to agents and received many rejections ranging from the usual form letter to, finally, a personal ‘I like this, but not enough. Send me what you do next,’ from the number one agent on my list.

What I did next was a novel called ‘The Fairytale Way,’ which became ‘Breaking the Spell,’ during the year I worked on it with The Agent, and finally, ‘Everyday Magic,’ at the point when we finally sent it out to editors.

A lot of them liked it. None of them liked it enough.

I was pregnant at this point, and sick every day, and more tired than I thought possible. But I took the news in good part, and headed off to work on something new, a novel called ‘Playing Make Believe,’ sending chapters over to The Agent for comment every couple of months.

Six months later, we both decided we hated it. I think the title might have been the best bit.

And now I had a small baby to deal with. One who didn’t like sleeping very much.

Still, I was determined to make the most of my maternity leave. I wrote the first draft of two more novels during the second half of 2009, one women’s fiction, like the previous books, called ‘An A to Z of Love’ and one YA paranormal called ‘Sea Fever’ that I wrote during NaNoWriMo.

I knew that ‘An A to Z of Love’ needed one hell of a revision before I could send it over to The Agent, so I signed up for Holly Lisle's How to Revise Your Novel course, which I found immensely helpful. Still, it took six months, and since my husband and I had decided that I wasn’t going back to work, I found myself with a little time on my hands.

So I wrote the first draft of another novel, ‘Dream a Little Dream,’ which I still think is possibly the best thing I’ve written to date.

I set myself a deadline – by the end of May 2010 I wanted to have both ‘An A to Z of Love’ and ‘Dream a Little Dream’ edited and over to The Agent. And I did it.

Then I sat back and waited.

And waited.

And then last Thursday I heard back from The Agent.

She hates them both.

Well, what she actually said was that she didn’t love them enough to offer to take either of them on. But in the end, that feels like the same thing.

So, now I’m waiting to hear why she doesn’t love them, if it’s fixable, and whether she thinks I should send them out to other agents, or if she wants to see whatever I write next.

But I’m not just sitting around and waiting. I’m revising ‘Sea Fever’ instead. And I’m entering competitions, like the Savvy Authors Drive 'Em Wilde contest, and I’m thinking about writing short stories, or even poetry, to stretch my writing muscles. I’m writing this blog.

I’m keeping calm, and writing on.

In a wonderful twist of metaphor, we’re having new doors put in today.

This is fantastic, because in the five years we’ve lived in this house, we’ve never been able to enter through the front door, and now the patio doors at the back are sticking so badly that you have to cross your fingers, turn around three times and spit before you attempt to lock or unlock them.

But it’s also very fitting for the first day of this new blog, and the stage of my writing life I currently find myself at.

I’ll post more tomorrow about how I reached this point, but for now, suffice to say that the last couple of years have felt like I’ve been wandering lost in a long, eerily lit corridor of doors and windows. And every time I cautiously approach an ajar door, it slams in my face, just as all the other doors and windows around me also bang shut.

So, I’ve decided to make my own doors, in my own corridor, all with perfectly oiled hinges and no locks. And I’m going off in search of other corridors, and other doors, to see if they could use a spot of oil too. Or even a key.

I’m making my own opportunities. I’m chasing every possibility. I’m writing what I love, making what makes me happy, and working damn hard at it too. I’m not giving up on my dream of being a writer, and of staying at home with my daughter while she’s very young.

I’m keeping calm and writing on.