Write a Novel in a Month (by sarah)

November is apparently the month and this year my friend Ella who did indeed manage to write a novel in a month has invited me to join her South Hampton group. I will of course be a fringe member and therefore excussed for not being at all the meetings. I will also be doing the lower word count as I'll be doing my Masters course.

I am currently trying to decide which one of my stories to concentrate on as I can get all the research and stuff before hand then and just you know write!

I suppose I could start the second novel to the one I've already writen - The Drs Wife which is currently in editing/being typed up. Its about 85, 000 words and for what ever reason I chose to write it out in long hand. For those who are interested it would probably come under the headings: Romance, women's empowerment literature and possibly just litertary. I however call it and the other follow on books - Chick lit for geeks.

This doesn't cure my accute embarrasement over writing gulp romance - I want to write Sci-fi!

So please keep it quiet.

NaNoWriMo is what abreviates to as its apparently national novel writing month - more can be found out about it here http://www.nanowrimo.org/.

I am hoping to go down to Winchester for bits of this which should be fun.

Still wondering what I should write about though - should I write the next novel in the series or will the fact I'm editing something so similar make it all samey? Should I actually try and finish one of my scifi efforts? Even though I will probably get stuck and have to do a lot of research which is not ideal in the middle of a Research degree :/

Should I try for fantasy even though it always turns into scifi or horror though I will probably then not sleep for more than a month! (Scaring myself with my own stories is quiet common with me!)

I am wondering weather I should just start typing and see where that takes me but with so many things already started that seems a bit silly!

The goal is 175 pages which is apparently 50, 000 words which is actually quiet a short novel. I am setting myself a personal goal of 30, 000 words which is a 1000 words a day becuase my Masters comes first. I would love to hit the 50, 000 mark but we will see 🙂

Am I crazy? Yes! But then you all knew that already.

MRes the Return of the Geologist (by sarah)

Today I got an email saying that though problems with Registry are still not sorted I am on the course as I was accepted before and am sort of still on it from that!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right so when does it start?

The 29th of September EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hang on a minute I hear you cry but thats a Monday!

EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes it is and the other news is that the other night is a Wednesday so all my planing is infact out of the window. Wednesday is my Scout night 🙁 I however am not selfless enough to give up my last chance at re-entering the world of geology. I'm not sure how we are going to get round this one.

Alaric is now here for Wednesday nights but obviously runs the cubs so... someone else is going to have to be found in the next week and a half to cover me for one maybe two terms and on top of that I have organised the Scouts to have a Pink Party to raise money for breast cancer :/ Fun.

Also I still don't actually have the money to do this with - not really sure how I'm going to get around that one and there is another clanger!

Jean is not at nursery on Wednesdays! No she is not becuase I thought (as did the website) that the lectures would be on the Tuesday and Thursday. Erm.......

On the plus side the poetry reading at Slaks in Cheltenham during the Literature Festival that I thought I couldn't go to I now can 🙂

I am however feeling extremely nervous that I have forgotten like every bit of geology I ever knew 🙁 I still haven't really got very fast with teaching myself maths or physics as I keep side tracking myself.

Well wish me luck.

Missing My Chance :( (by sarah)

I've been very excited about my poetry readings especially the one coming up in October which is during the Literary Festival. This is one of the top literary events in this country and though it is whats termed a 'fringe' event I was very happy about being approached to read.

I even organised for my Scout group to be covered that particular night as it fell not on the normal Thursday but instead on the Wednesday. Imagine my disappointment to find out that the date has been changed once again this time to a Tuesday. Tuesdays are the compulsary lectures the ones I'm not allowed to miss 🙁

So it looks like I wont be reading at this years festival after all :'(

And now for a Wibble on Art (by sarah)

As anyone who has come round my house recently will know I have hung a few of my pictures up on the walls - I have been going to art classes in the village - mainly to help me with my illistrations for writing. The art teacher Mark turns out to be our neighbour and picks me up and even coems to see me read poetry!

He came round to the house on Sunday to tell me that the classes where starting again on Tuesday - eek I'd forgotten to tell him about my course! I explained and he said I could come along to the first few art classes anyway and that I could pay later on as well. He was also sad I was going back to science as he feels I should be moving forward with my art. He is the second person to tell me its time I started displaying my stuff in galleries but again I am faced by a baffling industry where none of the websites tell me how you get your stuff in the galleries in the first place. There are lots of guilds and unions but they all cost money to join and alot take up time too as you have to work unpaid at the gallery or display area.

I'm not sure now is the time to move forward with the art either as I've got so much going on but getting stuff into galleries that might sell and make me money would be nice.

Eek.... sometimes it seems like a curse being artistic and scientific. I need about four lifetimes to do everything :/

Submitting (by sarah)

I posted off some of my poems again - this time to a top literay magizine - don't worry they where spell checked and edited to a glossy perfection. I know that there may well be a three month wait to find out from them and I doubt that I will be accepted. I submitted to Interzone before and got a very nice rejection letter saying that they had just rejiged things and my story was no longer the type of thing they published but that they would be happy to read anything else I sent them. I felt this was a good regection and the mag I've just sent off to has a policy of actually responding to new submitters so I feel hopeful of getting at least soem advise I can use.

I have also been typing up and polishing all the written material I have. I have discovered I have alot of it. The publisher I work for is a small house press - and it is a tiny company - she has advised me to take my stuff to the big publshing houses fist and then if/when that fails come and talk to her as she likes the stuff she's seen.

I have discovered that I literally have hundreds of poems, these I have been typing up polishing and leaving to ferment. I tend to leave a poem for at three months and then look at it again - ie long enough to forget about it. I've had a few poems published in newpapers and things which is more than can be said for my short stories. This is depressing as the poems are easy to write (something I keep quiet about at the writing group) and the stories take time and lots more effort and none of them have been published of course there is more of an issue there with knowing where to submit short stories. The other depressing thing is that per word and amount of time put in poems have a far higher return than short stories.

I have also been working on some baby board book ideas - I am half way through doing the illistrations and I am actually happy with them. Of course I need to finish the pictures, scan them, tidy them up and then actually start seeing if anyone will publish them. I have a copy of the 2009 Writers and Artist Year Book and have already trawled through the thing extracting those publishers that take unsolicited submissions and publish board books. It took awhile and annoyingly I thing that by the time I actually go to submit half of them will have merged, or changed what they do :/ .

I am of course braking a writing rule here - I am not focused on one style or form or genre or even really consider myself a writer. I have several more childrens stories writen and now typed up! I have a very nice editor who will one hopefully be paid for all the lovely corrections she makes - she keeps saying she enjoys it but I really want to be able to pay her. I want to do the illistrations for these as well - and yes I know your supposed to go to the publishers and sell the idea and change it to what they want and conform to the market and stuff and preferably get an advance. But I just can't do that - I know the shape of the story it has a way it wants to be I cant force it nor do I want to.

A trainy teacher is very keen to try my storys out on his class which I took to be a good sign - he asked me after I read one of the shorter ones out at the writing class. The Beavers also liked the one I read out to them but they generally like anything presented with enthusiasm!

I'm a bit scared and a bit perplexed that I am actually arriving at this submitting stage in the whole writing publishing game - I am also hoping that I will see some money for the effort I have put in but am not holding my breath. I suppose I best go back to trying to build websites and actually earning some money!