My Writing Week 2(8)

Hi all,

Well it's nearly the end of February and I was supposed to be rewriting a novel I wrote the first draft of a few years ago: I'll Just Sit Here and Watch it on My... Instead, I have just about finished chapter 26 of Stalking Tigers and there are at least two chapters to go. I have passed 120,000 words so at least there is plenty of scope for cutting when I finally get around to editing it.

I often wonder how people get the time or, more appropriately, make the time to write. I read about people writing 2,000 words or more a day. The other day I read a message on an online writing board where someone said he wrote 80,000 words in January (he said it needed heavy editing), and here I am struggling to get 5,000 words out in a week. Well at least I am sticking to the mantra followed by some of these prolific writers in that I am writing every day - I have done so since January one 2008.

Stephenie Meyer has numbers 1-6 in the Victorian best seller list this week. Not bad for someone who Stephen King says can't write. I'm not prepared to submit my brain to reading a teen vampire/romance novel to find out for myself. King compared Meyer to J K Rowling who he said could write. I have a Harry Potter novel sitting in the shelves ready for when my curiosity finally peaks. I think watching two of the movies didn't help as I was left wondering what the hell all the fuss was about (I have recently enjoyed a couple of teenage films including the Golden Compass).

It was such a joy to be able to finally do some reading for pleasure last Saturday, the one night I wasn't too tired and my eyes weren't bushfire smoke irritated.

Yep excuses, excuses, I think I need a personal writing trainer. Someone who will stand behind me yelling "WRITE WRITE WRITE you lazy illiterate" and rap me over the knuckles every time I try to click on Facebook or switch the TV on or get up to wander out to the fridge, or pick up a newspaper ("Hey, you don't need to be informed to be a writer," he could yell ). He would be a pretty exhausted and hoarse personal writing trainer by the end of each day.


Graham.

My writing week 2(7)

Hi all,

The end of the first draft of my novel is proving elusive. I had hoped to be finished and submitting it for critiques by now, but I keep on having to extend its length. What were meant to be three short scenes in the final chapter filled up all of chapter 25. I've started chapter 26 and I think there is at least one more chapter after that. At the beginning of chapter 22 I had thought that I had one more chapter to go and about 10,000 words, 14,000 words later I think I still have about 10,000 words to go.

I only achieved half of my desired word count last week. After last week's rant blaming the Prime Minister, The Victorian Premier and Rupert Murdoch for my low word count, this week I have the bushfires, weather and Trend's antivirus software to blame.

The bushfires kept me listening to the radio and reading the newspapers and their smoke has irritated my eyes and affected my breathing. The weather produced another thunderstorm (again with virtually no rain), that all but eliminated one writing session. And I was forced to waste time changing antivirus software, the one I was using had not been installing its updates properly. I contacted Trend and they sent me back a detailed list of things to do. I tried some and could not work out how to do others. Eventually I decided to uninstall Trend and downland another antivirus and firewall package. Firefox caused problems when I tried to install the new software so I uninstalled Firefox, and then briefly suffered using internet explorer, before reinstalling Firefox.

With my writing time eaten into, I had no time to critique and my smoke irritated eyes did not want to read anything before bed.

I hope I have better luck this week.

Graham.

Apologies to blog comment makers

Sorry to those who have made comments that I have seemed to ignore. I had thought that I had set blogger to notify me everytime someone made a comment, as happens with the myspace version of this blog, but obviously I did something wrong. I think I have rectified the problem.

My writing week 2(6)

Hi all,

Last week was a lousy week to attempt to be a writer, in Wangaratta anyway. The heat just sweated any desire to be creative; thunderstorms had me switching off my computer; bushfire smoke had my eyes sore and irritated; bushfire threatened power outages also had me switching the computer off; the heat meant I spent more time watering the garden; and news on the bushfires distracted me from writing.

It has been 40 degrees or more for about half the days in the past three weeks with the other days being in the mid to high 30's. Last Saturday 46 degrees was, I suspect the hottest day on record here. This is climate change so I, and other Victorians, better get used to it. Victorians have no one else to blame but themselves as we are probably the highest per capita greenhouse gas polluters in the world. Yeah, I am really narky today. Fed up. Angry about a dickhead Premier of Victoria who might now, after all these years of inaction, finally look up the meaning of global warming on the internet - and no doubt hit a site funded by Exxon/Mobil. I am angry at an overcautious Prime Minister, and a federal opposition full of climate change deniers who have caused/allowed the Prime Minister to be so cautious. I am angry at Rupert Murdoch's media spreading their founder's belief (until he recently decided it might be more profitable to say he is a believer) that global warming did not exist. Morons, the science has been clear since 1996.

So, I did a woeful 1,800 words last week. But at least I can blame the Premier of Victoria, the Prime Minister of Australia, the merchant bank twit lead and lawyer laden opposition, and a pathetic excuse for a human being who will do anything to try and control the world's media (he wont succeed; we're just not that stupid Rupert).

Graham.

PS. The smoke has diminished as the still out-of-control bushfire heads in the other direction, but at least it is only 30 degrees or so today.

My writing week 2(5)

Hi all,

It must have been so much easier for a writer to spend time writing before they invented the Web. All these bloody distractions at your fingertips, you don't have to move or even switch on something, just with a couple of clicks you're off to myspace or facebook for five hours of networking and playing games, or you're off to check your emails or you're off to do some research on....

I just heard some thunder I think, dark clouds outside, so I better make this a quick post before turning the computer off. I heard last week that just down the road in Benalla a guy's computer was destroyed in a power surge during a storm. I think that same power surge caused the power to flicker in Wang and turn my computer off.

So, how was my writing week? Okay, but I still didn't get to 5,000 words. I wrote just over 3,000 of the slow breeding bastards. I finished chapter 24 and then wrote about 1,000 words of notes for the final chapter, so it might be a long one. It was just as well I split chapter 23 in two as it would have gone for 9,600 words which is a bit long.

I applied for my critter critique ratio thingy to be put back to zero. I haven't heard back yet. I am still yet to critique anything this year. Must do at least one this week.

I read a little. There were a few articles in The Age about the proposed changes to parallel importation book laws in Australia, which I hope to post something on later this week.

Graham.