Onwards and Upwards

Hi Folks!

It's been an eventful couple of weeks that is for certain. Can't be bothered to waffle too much at the top of this post so I'm just going to jump into it!

My first guest post is live! Actually, it's been live for nearly two weeks now but that's by-the-by. Milli and I managed to move my first guest blog from first draft to live post within the space of a few hours. It was a very exciting day, with lot's of emails flying back and forth across the pond.
So here is the link for my first post on Millivers Travels. Please go have a read, and feel free to comment on it. As a result of this post, Milli has invited me to join the staff writing team for her blog, once I submit my next article.

Since that first post went live it's changed the way I view the things I do. I get involved in a lot of events of different types, and now I can't help thinking "I need to make notes on this, Milli might like it!"
It's also made me realise that I need to buy a new camera, as the quality of photo's coming off my Blackberry (the Raspberry/Riotberry! (see report's on the London riots to understand this reference)) is pretty rubbish.
I have a whole list of other articles to write for Milli, at least 10 more on my travels around New Zealand, and a number on event's in or around London. I would have liked to go up to Edinburgh to collect some "stuff" from the Fringe Festival but a) can't afford to get up there at the moment, b) it sent me crazy last year! Before I went up to Edinburgh last August, my hair was almost half way down my back. By the time I got back to London, there was maybe 3 inches of it left.

Milli also did me the honour of making me a guest blogger on her Fear of Writing blog as well. She'd had trouble finding material for that weeks post, so she hijacked (with permission) a section of my last post on here.  So here is my second guest post!
Thanks to Milli's mentoring, my blog follower count has increased from 2 to a whooping 5! How cool is that?

Tomorrow is the first attempt at a 10k day. Today is all about the preparation for it. Today, I have pre-procrastinated! I have swept the stairs and the hallway, I've done the washing up, I've put the shower head in a jar of vinegar to remove all the calc that resulted in the shower exploding again last week, I've put the washing through the machine...all those little things that I know I will use as an excuse not to write tomorrow. Except tidying my room, but that never gets used as an excuse not to write!

Later this evening I will be making a massive pasta bake so I've got plenty of healthy and quick food I can grab between sessions tomorrow, as well as having a box of apples and oranges (and chocolate bars) next to my desk in case I need a snack.

I intend to be writing in 45 minute sessions, with 10 minute breaks between them, with a couple of longer breaks every 3-4 hours. I know the chances of reaching 10,000 words in one day is pretty slim on the first go, but this is as much an exercise in self-discipline for me as reaching the word count.
For most of the day, the Self-Control application will be my best friend, preventing me from getting stuck on the internet, and my phone will be on silent, hidden under my pillow to stop me from glancing at it in case the red light is flashing and something "interesting" has happened.

The rest of this afternoon will be spent preparing the items I want to work on tomorrow. I will be reviewing the outlines for Becca and Misty, as well as preparing outlines for two more articles for Milli. There will also be the challenge of transferring the 8500 words that already exist of the outline for my novel into Scrivener. This could be an interesting few hours as I will have to copy it all out by hand instead of copy and pasting so that the formatting is right. The bigger challenge will be stopping myself from editing what already exists. That will happen when the outline is complete.

And so to end this post, a quick discussion on title. I stumbled across this blog article by Katie Ganshert on the importance of title. And it got me thinking. Is The Pirate's Daughter a title that would make you pick a book off the shelf in a bookstore? This has always been the title of my work-in-progress, even though somebody else already used it, but their story isn't even about a pirate, it's about Errol Flynn, so I think I have more right to use it :-)
Let me know what you think.

Take care folks.
Jo x