Me vs. Story - A bit of silliness

Evening folks,


This is just something a little bit daft that was inspired by a sleep deprived conversation with Milli at the end of Wednesday's 10K Day. Milli did a similar piece a little while back called Inner Kid and Igor Converse About Writing.


I hope this little piece of rubbish makes you smile, it's made me feel better today :-)

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Story: *tap tap tap*

Me: Hello?

Story: Hi, umm, I was just wondering, could I get written sometime soon?

Me: Certainly. Do you have all your material together for me?

Story: Not really, no.

Me: Oh, well then I can’t write you right now I’m afraid. I can make notes of what you’ve got if you like?

Story: Well, see the thing is, I really really want to get written.

Me: I understand that, but when you first arrived I did explain that you’d have to get your material together before I could write you. You’re welcome to stay up there as long as necessary to do that, but you’ve got to do the work, I’m just the typist.

Story: But surely it’s my turn by now, I’ve been up there a while!

Me: You’ve been up there a week…

Story: But it’s getting really crowded.

Me: I’m well aware of that fact, believe me.

Story: But but…but how long do I have to wait then?

Me: As I said, that’s up to you. Pirate’s Daughter has been up there since 2004, it’s only in the last two years that we’ve started making progress together, and we’ve made a lot of progress in that time, but we’re not quite ready for the 1^st draft yet and she’s happy with that.

Story: I have to wait two years???

Me: Of course not, you’re a short story, if you get your material together you can be written in a few hours.

Story: But I want to be written now!

Another Story: Umm…excuse me?

Me: Yes?

Another Story: Sorry to interrupt but I think I’m ready to be written.

Story: What??? I was here first!

Me: Actually she’s been here for nearly 3 weeks now. Have you got all your material together?

Another Story: Most of it, there’s two small gaps though…

Me: I’m sure we can work with that. Please make yourself comfortable.

Story: Wait wait wait! What about me?

Me: What about you?

Story: I need to be written!

Me: Get your material together and I’ll sort you out, I’ve told you that.

Story: BUT I WANT TO BE WRITTEN NOW!!!!

Pirate’s Daughter: Everything all right in here hon?

Me: Hi mate, sorry, can it wait a while?

Story: I WANT TO BE WRITTEN I WANT TO BE WRITTEN I WANT TO BE WRITTEN I WANT TO BE WRITTEN I WANT TO BE WRITTEN…

Pirate’s Daughter: Sure thing, just had an outline element arrive earlier. Ummm…want some help with her?

Me: Feel free to let a couple of your characters loose on her if you want but I think I can handle it.

Pirate’s Daughter: Ok, but just yell if you want a hand.

Story: I WANT TO BE WRITTEN I WANT TO BE WRITTEN I WANT TO BE WRITTEN…

Me: All right that’s enough!

Story: I WAnt…

Me: Thank you. Now then, you’ve got two choices. Either you go back upstairs and wait until you’ve gathered all your material, or you get out and go find another writer. Either way, you’d better stop pounding on the back of my skull! So what are you going to do?

Story: Umm…

2012 - Bring It On!

London's New Year fireworks

HAPPY 2012!

Firstly, what do you think of my new banner? My mate Lee McGeorge made it for me, and though at first I couldn’t believe he’d used that terrible photo it’s really grown on me. Now I just need to persuade him that I need series banners as well. :-)

Secondly, a lot of people have stated that 2011 wasn’t exactly the best year. I have to agree. I’m going to refrain from whining but 2011 wasn’t the best year for me, it certainly had it’s ups and downs. So I’m going to do my best to make…sorry I WILL make the most of 2012!

I’m coming to realise more and more that my attitude needs to change. Actually I’ve been aware of this for some time and whether it was a case of being unwilling or unable to make that change I’m not entirely sure, but the change is going to happen, and it’s going to happen now!

I’ve spent the last few days thinking carefully about what I want and need to achieve this year, and here are the main ones.

READING

Just some of the titles I plan to read this year!

Reading is so important for a writer-in-training, and though I love to read I know I can do more. I’ve noticed myself becoming more critical of my reading material. 

For example, the book I’m currently reading, and determined to finish reading today, really could have done with another proof-reading pass! Part of me is itching to take a red pen to all the mistakes that have jarred me out of the flow and send it back to the publishers.

In this category there are two very simple goals:

- Read at least 2 books per month. This shouldn’t be difficult at all. Since I’ve doing a lot of travelling for work I typically have one book going on the Kindle, and a paperback by my bed. I may also start doing some book reviews on here.

- Read more widely. Try new genres and read books that I wouldn’t normally even pick up.

I also need to limit my fanfiction intake! Once you stumble upon an archive of good stories it’s very hard to get out of it!

WORK

Signed posters from the best shows I've worked on.

Right now work is a major concern for me. I’ve been fortunate that since May I have had almost continuous theatre work, even though it’s been stage management rather than sound but still for the most part it’s been a lot of fun. However, because it’s been all fringe theatre since August, my finances have suffered greatly. 

At my stage on the theatre technicians ladder it’s not unusual to get stuck with the problem of either taking a decent job and as a result being unable to take theatre work, or take theatre work and really struggle for money, but at least you’re working in theatre.

So in this category there are four goals:

- Work on a show that lasts for more than 6 weeks. Until May, any theatre work I had typically only lasted a week and then it was back to hunting for another job. Working for Drama Studio London from May until the end of July was hard work but sheer bliss. I had assured and well paid work. Since then my shows have lasted 3-5 weeks which has been pleasant enough, but I would love nothing more than a longer gig to look forward to.

- Get onto a West End show. Even if it’s just for work experience at first, at least that’s a foot in the door. Better print off the CV’s and start doing the West End walk again.

- Become financially independent again. I’ve been guilty of using the Bank of Dad to stay afloat the last couple of months.

- Bunker down for the Olympics. Originally I’d intended to skip the country for the Olympics, go and find some work in New Zealand to escape the Hellhole that London will become in the coming months. I’ve heard some worrying talk that theatre is likely to decline during the Olympics so I will need to either be secure on a big show by the time it comes round or just skip town! 

WRITING

My new writing journal. Great start eh?

This is the major one for this year. As much as anything I’ve got to get myself into better writing habits.

So here’s the plan:

- Minimum of 15 minutes writing, 5 days a week. This is one of those habits that can be a great starting point. I spend far too much time thinking “I really need to write this, but I don’t have enough time”, so I’ve got to force myself to start using shorter amounts of time constructively.

- Finish everything I start. There’s a stack of short stories that I’ve started writing this year but have not yet finished. This is not good enough and must be remedied!

- Write the 1^st draft of The Pirate’s Daughter. This novel will get written! I know I’ve been threatening it for nearly two years now, but this is the year that it will happen!

- Blog more regularly. The first few months of this blog produced a lot of rubbish but I’m now working to change that. Rather than use this blog as a journal, I want to use it to blog about more specific things; reviews of shows and books, dedications to inspirational people, documenting the growth of my orchard, and my new series, Pirate Profiles.

- Migrate to WordPress. I’m not entirely sure why I want to do this, but I do, so will be working on that over the coming months.

- Get paid to write. Or at least look in to possible avenues of getting paid to write. A lot of the US bloggers I follow make it sound relatively easy to find work like copy-writing over there, but I have no idea how to go about finding such work over here.

- Sort out my desk! It’s become a dumping spot again, not ideal when it needs to be a spot of creativity and business!

So there you have it. I think that’s the worst of it.

BRING IT ON 2012!

    What do you want to do with this year?

The Story Wall

Hi folks!

Today I'm going to tell you a little bit about my story wall on the request of my friend Julia (she's a much better blogger than I am by the way! Thoroughly spooked me out with a post last night about Mr Able!)

Anyone who's been over to my place since I got back from New Zealand has been confronted by this monstrosity. One friend suggested it was my hit list, last week my new housemate stopped in my door,  pointed at it and said simply "what the hell is that?".

Every time I've done a story wall it's turned out different, but the basic idea is that it's where I can play with my idea's all in one place.

When I was working on my film Stageplay (it was a working title, I still don't have an alternative!) my story wall was loads of scraps of paper and post-it notes with scene summaries so that I could move them around as needed.

The scribbles for Letter's

The play I started working on at Easter Letters To My Mother was and still is in the embryonic stage so it was an opportunity to brainstorm, get down some early character idea's and the major events. It's still up above my bed in case I get a sudden burst of inspiration that needs to be written down. This story needs plenty more time to stew because I don't currently know where it's going.

Now the wall for The Pirate's Daughter has gone a bit crazy over the last few days. For more than a year now it's been 3 large pieces of paper with very few details on them. Names of the main characters, their ages and a photo that looks vaguely like how I imagine them to look. It also had the year the story is set in so I wouldn't forget, and a map of the region, including my imaginary islands.

Something clicked the other day and now you can't see that wall at all. It's covered with wall paper liner.

The section that's grown the most is the character profiles. Over the last year a whole host of new characters has appeared, including a new one last night. Each character gets their own space to tell their story; sometimes it's just fragments of personality, their quirks and habits, while others like to give me a coherent rundown of their history.

Even the ships have their own profiles. I went exploring in the National Maritime Museum while I was working in Greenwich and must have spent well over an hour in the model ship gallery, but I found both my ships, I know what they look like although I've had to bend their histories a little to fit the story.

Right now, probably the most important thing on that wall is the premise sentence. I'm hoping this will help me to maintain focus in the coming months as I make progress on the outline and eventually the first draft.
And just for fun, there's a mock-up of my book cover on there as well :-)
Of course there's plenty of room left over, and a number of strategically placed marker pens, just in case I get any middle of the night Eureka moments.

One slightly odd thing I've noticed about doing this is I can't use straight lines. Sharp edges simply don't have a place on that wall. All the photo's and most of the sheets of paper have to be torn, when I tried to use scissors it just made me cringe.

On the other side of the room, behind my laptop, there's a couple more important pieces of paper, things I need to keep in mind to make the story as good as possible.

The cross-sectioned plan of the ship has become my bible! I had no idea where anything could be found on a ship before I found this, and hopefully it will allow me to guide my readers around the vessel without getting them completely confused.

In the next few days I'll be adding a list of each of the characters key personality traits.

The point of view list has proven invaluable already. Back in August I read a post by Kristen Lamb (author of the best-selling writers social media guide We Are Not Alone) about P.O.V Prostitution. I don't recall ever being guilty of head-hopping but I was definitely guilty of switching from the omniscient P.O.V. to third person shifting, at which point I think every character in the book was fighting over the "camera". So I took her advice and locked it down to just the three primary characters, which has caused a few problems, but I'll work around those eventually.

Does anybody else use something similar, or completely different to explore their stories?

What's In A Name?

So folks, how do you like the new look of the blog? Someone finally piped up and told me that the colour scheme was hard on the eyes, so hopefully this one will be a bit more comfortable.
At some point I want to try and incorporate the photo of my desk and typewriter into my banner, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Today I want to discuss names.

Choosing names for characters is a hugely important task, but as I'm currently finding out, sometimes the name you give a character won't be the right one for them once they've had a chance to grow into themselves.

Names inevitably give readers some clue's as to a characters personality, as well as background. How do these characters sound?
 - Jane/Nettle Johnson
 - Captain Barnaby Johnson
 - Jinx Sterling (given name Alice)
 - Captain Red Wallace (a woman, just to point out)
 - Feckless Dicken
 - Charlotte De Bousc
 - Alfred Palmer
 - Cormac (or maybe Lorcan, I can't decide) O'Connor
 - Isaac Nibbs/Nibble

I'd be intrigued to know your opinions on these, so I know I'm going down the right path with them.

Now, the names a writer selects can also be used as a nod of affection, respect or mockery to someone else.
Can't actually think of any mockeries in main stream fiction right now (badly researched, I know), but they certainly appear all over fanfiction.

Now on the other hand, you can name characters affectionately, almost like a famous actor taking a cameo role in a film.

Rather than do this with a character though, I've done it with the ships. Of course in a pirate story, ships are a very big deal, and I always imagined that Captain Johnson would have named his ship after his late wife. Originally it was called the Sweet Emily, but that just sounds too fluffy for a pirate ship. So I renamed it, and as a nod to my mum, who I credit for endowing me with the writing bug, I named it the Lady Caroline. Sounds a bit more piratical now doesn't it.

However, it hit me recently that I'd named the captain Johnson. John is my dad's name, and with all due respect dad, he was not one of my influences for the character. Captain Barnaby Johnson is a little bit of Barbosa from Pirates of The Caribbean, a little of Professor Robinson from Lost In Space, with perhaps a touch of Vetinari from Terry Pratchett's Discworld, although that element seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

The name was a nod to a fanfiction writer I'm a fan of, and I just liked the name Captain Johnson. It did make me wonder how careful we need to be as writers when taking outside names or influences for our characters. I've never written a character that is purely based on one person, but some certainly have more traits of one person than another. I suppose sometimes we even take influences without realising it.

Your thoughts? How careful do we need to be?

Over the last year, I've gotten to know my main cast of characters very well...except one. Eleanor Palmer, the second heroine. I just can't get a grip on her! All I know is that she's blonde, between the ages of 18-22, the daughter of the current governor of Port Pleasance, engaged to Sebastian Davies...and that's about it. I don't know who she is.

A friend suggested that maybe she has the wrong name, and I think she was right. As Eleanor, I'm sometimes concerned about her turning into Elizabeth Swan from Pirates of The Caribbean. Certainly she has an element of that, but she's gentler, a little more timid, perhaps like Kate Bonnett from the novel of the same name.

I tried giving her a nickname, allowing other characters to reduce it to Nell, and it helped a little but not much. I hope soon to find a name for her that will jump out at me.

Here's an interesting post from a baby names website who obviously cottoned onto how many writers browse their site for influence.

And to finish off, things are going well over at Milliver's Travels. My latest story went live this week, Cape Reinga and the Awesome Bus, and it seems to be going down well with our regular readers.

I was sat on the bus on the way home from work the other day and decided to write a list of all the articles I could write for Milli. The final count was 46, and that number will continue to rise. So now Milli is expecting an article a week so I'd better go and get started on the next one! Take a look at the list here and let me know if there's any articles you would like to see sooner rather than later.

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

So...Conflict...

Happy Easter Monday folks,

I apologise for not posting much recently. I've now set myself the target of posting at least once a week, but knowing my wonderful deadline habits, that won't be an easy one to keep. In fact, one of my favourite writers quotes (of which you find thousands on *mutter* twitter) is courtesy of Douglas Adams,
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

I on the other hand do not get on well with deadlines. At my first university, I only ever made one assignment deadline. It was too soon after that that I found out the uni counsellor was far far too easy to get an extenuating circumstances letter from.
For some reason at my second uni I didn't dare miss a deadline. These guys were far less forgiving, and there were significantly fewer of us on the course, so slipping under the radar wasn't an option.

In two weeks time it will have been one year since I wrote the first draft of my novel's long synopsis, sat on a lovely comfy sofa, with a very friendly dog, in Auckland, New Zealand, waiting for confirmation that I could fly home without worrying about volcanic ash (Hi Jay!).
I told myself once I got back to the UK that I would write the second draft by the beginning of September. Then it was by Christmas. Then New Year. Needless to say it still isn't done, and as a result something tells me that my goal to have the first draft of the novel written by the end of December this year is a bit of a long shot.

So for those of you who maybe waiting for the next part of The Future Holds... series, it is on it's way, I swear it! Felicity is being totally rewritten, and Becca, the new one, has had to undergo a total restructuring.

Now, the reason that it's taking so long is due to one little word. Conflict. My friend Renee pointed this out to me about the first version of Felicity, that it's all well and good having a pretty little story, but to really draw a reader in, there has to be conflict.
Admittedly every book I've read so far about writing says the same, that conflict is essential.
So do we agree that a story can't be particularly interesting unless there's something in the way?
Out of curiosity, in your opinion, would the life story of someone who gained everything they needed and led a happy life without anything getting in the way, be a boring story?
Discuss - Is a story without conflict a story?

I'll admit that I'm too nice to some of my characters.  A friend and I were debating why that is for about 45 minutes last week. It would seem I avoid conflict a lot of the time. She says it's rooted way way back in my child-hood, I blame my sister (love you Fran!). Sometimes I just want my characters to have a quiet, problem-free existence because I don't. I think most writers will admit that in at least a fraction of their work, they give their characters the lives they themselves wish they could have.
Come on, I refuse to believe I'm the only person that writes a bit of myself into one character, even a very minor one, in most pieces I write.

So, to make sure I don't forget to put the conflict into my work, I have this posted above my laptop.

You should see how many curve balls I throw the protagonist in my novel now after being I told I was being too nice to her.

Anyway, I'm going to do my best to finish the current version of Felicity or Becca tonight and try to post one or the other by the end of the week. I just need to hide the Dexter boxsets, then I might actually get some work done!

Good night folks.

PS. I thought I'd start posting the link to articles or fellow blogs that I find interesting and relevant. So here's todays one. It made me laugh, as much as being very informative, so thanks to Austin Kleon.
It's entitled "How To Steal Like An Artist (And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me)"