The daughter has always had a tendency to pick up my fallback phrases. When she was two, she began every sentence with “Hey” – something I’d never realised I did until she started repeating it back to me. She also says “Brilliant” a lot, which I suspect is my fault. Although I’m pretty sure I … Continue reading »
Flickr Photo Credit: Misserion Once upon a time, back in the distant past, before I was a mother, I used to organise conferences. When I started writing properly, real books with a view to publication, I was also working full-time, with an hour-long commute each way, and a lot of trips away and evening … Continue reading »
In another life, I used to organise things for a living. Conferences, events, people, travel, hotels, projects, production… Everything had a plan, a schedule and there was hell to pay if someone didn’t stick to it. Things happened on time, or early, and I knew every in and out of where a project was. Continue reading »
This round of ROW80 has been a bit of a windy road for me. On the one hand, fantastic news and a writing contract in hand. On the other, the realisation that there are actually only 24 hours in the day, and I can’t do everything I want to, no matter how hard I try. Continue reading »
One of the beautiful things about the Round of Words in 80 days challenge is that ability to change your goals, as and when you need to. An admission: I love setting goals. I love aiming high, having deadlines, striving to complete enough to put a tick on my to do list. I love seeing my … Continue reading »
I do not enjoy synopsis writing. I realise this doesn’t exactly make me unique – very few writers do, I’ve found. But for me, the hardest part has always been trying to condense my sprawling, nuanced story into a couple of pages of coherent narrative. So I’ve started doing something new. I write the synopsis first. Continue reading »
The hardest part of the write-revise-submit-write-revise-submit cycle, for me anyway, is the post submission malaise. When I’m writing, I’m fired with enthusiasm – either for the draft in hand, or for whatever shiny new idea I have had to put aside until it’s finished. Either way, I’m plugging on, getting words on the page, clocking … Continue reading »
Okay, it’s Wednesday again, which means it’s time to fess up on how the goals are going. First off, I’ve now been trying to persuade my daughter to have a nap for the last two hours. It’s not going well. She didn’t have one on Monday, either, and only had a half hour cat nap … Continue reading »
Reading Claire’s comment on my last ROW80 check in post, about how Real Life can be pushy, got me to thinking about how my imaginary life stands up to the domineering force of reality. In my imaginary life, I am a full time writer, sitting at my pretty white desk, tapping away at my top of … Continue reading »
I know we’re only three days into this challenge, but so far, it’s going pretty well. My goals for the 80 days are: Finish my edits on Sea Fever and submit to agents Plot, develop characters for, and write a first draft of Tea & Devilry And, over the last three days, I’ve edited 8,500 … Continue reading »
