I seem to have forgotten to mention that the Flash Fiction Online Anthology 2015 came out in January, and contains my story "Your Past Life Interferes with My Very Important Studies". This story is one of my favourites, and came from the combination of random prompts at Codex Writers' Group - the title "Your Past Life Interferes with My Very Important Hobbies", having to use one of Shakespeare's characters or plots as inspiration - and the first line "Your past life drank all the milk again" landing in my head. At first I tried to resist writing the story. I thought it would be too silly, which just goes to show you should write the story that wants to be written instead of what you think you should be writing.

I've just started another story and I'm having the same problem. At this early stage I'm not sure the whole idea isn't going to come across terribly corny and contrived. Unfortunately, being a discovery writer, I won't find out until I write it. Another problem was I couldn't start until I had the main character's name. Placeholder names don't work for me, I can't change the name later as the character grows into it. One day it might be fun to start with a silly character name and see where it takes me. For now I've got this story to keep me going.

I'm trying to decide about doing NaNoWriMo this year. I'd like to, in that it's done wonders for my productivity in the past, although I'm not sure I have the mental energy to sustain it this year. Probably it's the idea of doing it I'm finding attractive, since I remember how much I enjoyed previous years. Perhaps I'll sign up to a shorter project instead, a half NaNo or a story a week. I certainly need to get some momentum back up again.

I was chatting with some writer buddies the other day, and realised that I'm really bad at motivating myself to write longer works. I can manage flash (although even that's touch and go these days) but anything longer and I really struggle.

A large part of this is that I write best if I can get my first draft down in one or two sittings, while the idea is fresh in my mind. However writing around work often means dragging things out for days, even weeks for longer stories, snatching ten minutes on the bus or an hour at lunch. I can't sustain that for anything longer than a few thousand words before I lose momentum.

The longer projects I have managed - "The Reflection of Memory", and two completed runs at NaNoWriMo - were written under very different circumstances to normal. "The Reflection of Memory" was written in an online writing group, where some friends and I got together with the goal of submitting to that quarter of Writers of the Future. There were deadlines and a supportive atmosphere. My first run at NaNoWriMo was completed on excitement and pure adrenaline, and continued with a similar online group which formed to finish novels. Unfortunately the group breaking up, and the realisation I had no idea what was behind my plot, stalled that project. My second run at NaNoWriMo ended on 30th November and 53,000 words. That one was also run on adrenaline, and also silliness as I'd promised myself a terrible fantasy trope every 1000 words.

Unfortunately the dedication required for NaNoWriMo (1667 words a day, or some seriously long weekends) just isn't sustainable in the long term, at least for me.

My work schedule gives me some long mornings, and some long afternoons (with the other end of the day being correspondingly short). I might try spending my long afternoons writing, so I can give it a couple of hours, and then use the long mornings for revising or sending submissions out. I need to try something to fit with the work hours.

I'm considering doing research in October, and then NaNoWriMo in November, although I suspect that way madness lies.

It's been a while since this saw the light of day!


‘Tis the night before NaNo, and all through my head
Not a creature is stirring, not even the dead.

A notebook is open beside the armchair,
In hopes that an idea will lodge itself there.
The boyfriend is nestled all snug in his bed.
The prospect of lonely nights fills him with dread.
And I at my screen so bright and enticing
Have just settled down for a long night of writing.
At midnight world-wide there’ll arise such a clatter
Of fingers on keyboards, it’s likely they’ll shatter.
Away to the pencils the writers will fly
For fear of a wordcount that passes them by.
The moon and the sun and the sky and the stars,
People and partners and buildings and cars,
All disappear as the writer’s gaze lingers
On two busy thumbs and eight busy fingers,
On hands that drive stories where speed is essential.
In order to win the flow must be torrential.
More rapid than eagles the words they must come,
As for punctuation – what better than none?
“No Full-stops! No Commas! No Speech Marks or Hyphens!
No Brackets or Colons, or grammar that frightens!
Leave them to the edit and heed not its call.
Now throw away! Throw away! Throw away all!”
As word after word to the novels will fly,
As the days of November will swiftly flow by,
So each hundred words will add fuel to the fire,
And pages once printed will pile ever higher.

And then, in a flash it will be December
And writers emerge and begin to remember
That every good novel begins with a plot –
Something that during the rush they forgot.
Suddenly characters seem paper-thin.
The piece needs an edit – but where to begin?
The words – how they cluster, in structures so dense
They switch between past, present and future tense.
The sentences, structured as Gordian knots,
Are tied up so tightly they serve as garrottes.
The story is choked beneath thousands of words,
Most are unneeded, and many absurd.
Plots twists are more tangled than tagliatelle,
With wandering penguins and jars of grape jelly.
Perhaps NaNoEdMo will prove its salvation
And make a real novel from this aberration,
Which doesn’t seem that it was writ by a loon.
Or failing that, Script Frenzy opens in June.
The year will pass quickly, with novels dismembered,
And before you can blink, we’ll be back to November.
The thought of another month’s anguish and pain
Makes the suffering authors cry “Never again!”
But the fun makes the poor fools forget all the fear
As they do it again in each following year.
So let me exclaim, before I too am struck,

"Happy NaNo to all, and to all some Good Luck!"

I seem to be slightly short of links this week, so I thought I'd post some for those planning on taking part in NaNoWriMo next month. I'm giving it a miss this year, too much other stuff going on, but no doubt I'll be wanting to take part by the end of the first week.

For those who don't know what NaNoWriMo is, here's the website. They have a very helpful Reference Desk where you can research pretty much anything. The danger is spending more time there than actually writing.

If getting words on the page is a problem, Write or Die has a nifty online app that punishes you if you stop writing for too long before you reach your wordcount or the timer runs out. The consequences vary from a gentle reminder to your word unwriting itself. If you're more for the carrot than the stick, Written? Kitten! offers pictures of fluffy cats for wordcount. Just don't set your count too low as the number of available kittens isn't that big.

Of course, you'll be wanting to keep track of your wordcount, and post status updates all over your social networking. Writertopia have a couple of nifty wordcounters you can add to blog posts.

Finally, if you're struggling for ideas, Seventh Sanctum has a random story generator, along with generators for settings, characters, and other random things. Just don't spend all your time playing with it.