In Which I Mention Hope. A Lot!

So I did mean to make another post yesterday but then things happened and I didn’t have time. Now though I’ve finished the little bit of work I did have for today and I can finally make the post that I intended to make yesterday. I want to share with you all the things that I have planned for the blog. There are a lot of things that I want to do, the primary idea is to establish a schedule for posting stuff up on here.

Some of my other ideas are several collections of posts around a similar theme. One I want to be is an ‘A to Z of Writing’. It’ll basically be an alphabetised explanation of different things related to writing. Each post should (hopefully) revolve around a single letter, starting at A and ending at Z (duh?!). These will be posts that (hopefully, again) I will have worked on before the post date, planning them and writing them and turning them into beautiful polished pieces of writing. Or at least pretending to. Another series that I want to write is ‘A to Z of Life’ that is basically similar to the writing A to Z but focused on things linked to general life, rather than being focused on writing. Again there should, hopefully, be about 26 posts for that series. Because you know, 26 letters in the alphabet and all. One final series is going to be ‘The Life of a Novel’ with me comparing planning and creating a novel to the life and development of a human being, from start to finish, particularly focusing on the similarities between the two. In theory right now it’s going to be about And now, before I start sounding like I’m writing a proposal for a dissertation I’m going to stop. I’m being very ambitious, I know that and hopefully (there’s that word again) I’ll be able to finish them and see them through. Does it sound cool yet?

I’m also going to delve into the world of book reviews. I read a lot of books, some of them amazing and some of them that I end up wondering why the hell I actually spent money on them. I want to share my thoughts on these books with people but don’t know anyone who really wants to hear it all. I’ll probably put those reviews on Goodreads too and possibly even Amazon. I’m hoping to do one of those a week but we’ll see how that goes with my, admitably, ever increasingly busy schedule (blimey that was a bit of a complicated sentence wasn’t it? I hope that makes sense). Sometimes I just want to gush about books. Sometimes I want to rant about certain books. Sometimes I just want to ask why parts of books are so confusing to me and hope for some clarification.

All of this will be on top of regular posts about my general life, work and writing. It’s ambitious, I know this. I’ll probably get other ideas for posts that I want to make, I know this too. And I’m hoping, really really hoping, that I can keep it up and stick to what I’ve got planned. As to that schedule I mentioned? I’m thinking posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with an occasional post on Sunday or if something amazing happens that I can’t wait to share with the world. Let’s face it though, that last one is unlikely to happen because my life, while nice enough for me right now, is BORING!

So what do you think? Am I a bit too ambitious? Do you reckon I’m biting off more than I can chew? Or do you think I can handle it? Can you think of any topics that you really want to see me post about? Do you just want to be super supportive and encourage me on? Let me know, I always love comments and try to reply to them if I can.

NaNoWriMo: Day 2

NaNoWriMo is upon us once more. Writers everywhere are desperately scribbling words however they can, trying and praying that they reach the 50k word goal by midnight on November 30^th. Parents go ignored, spouses go neglected, children are left to turn into feral Lord of the Flies style wild children, hamsters escape and hide under the fridge.

Me though... I’m somehow not neglecting my life. It’s already two days in and I’m at over 6,000 words. I’ve been spending quality time with my family, working full time and I even did a little bit of shopping today now that my money situation has been sorted out by the nice people at the Job Centre. I’m as shocked as you. I work all day and still manage to write roughly 3000 words a day, give or take. The night is still young too which means that this word-count may go up even more by the time you read this. I can’t figure out how I’m managing this. Although that may have a little something to do with the fact that my narrator has become a character in his own right.

Yup that’s right. I have a narrator that is not omniscient and is now a character. He has no name, a paranoid, bonkers personality and a tendency to go wildly off topic. I also struggle to get him to describe anything happening properly. Oh and let’s not mention the fact that there are apparently two people in his brain, him and someone called Cecil. I’m only halfway through the first chapter! I’m getting the feeling that this novel may actually kill me if I ever finish it and get to the stage of editing.

I think one of the biggest influences in my success so far is the CD I got sent by a fellow NaNo-er (I would include a link to the forum thread this spawns from here but the site is down AGAIN). It’s full of a variety of music and most of it is really inspirational. I pop it on as I start writing and it really helps me to get into the flow. It’s about an hour long and once I reach the end I know that I’ve finished an hour of writing, (with a few distractions). If I’m still in the writing zone, which I usually am I’ll pop on my own playlist that I plan to burn onto some blank CDs in the next few days to send off. That’s just over an hour long as well so I know that once it’s finished I’ve been writing for at least an hour (again with a few distractions). Within the next couple of weeks I should hopefully have another two CDs with lots of interesting music to inspire my writing.

I had planned to do an inspiration filled post tonight about how I love the NaNo spirit at the minute but I’m just too tired. Personal problems made sleep an issue last night and it’s almost my bedtime now so I’m flagging a bit. Before I go though I thought I’d share a big bloggy decision with you all.

As of Sunday I will have a regular update schedule. Well, sort of. On Sundays I will be doing my usual RoW80 post as I try to fulfil more of my goals there. On Wednesdays I’ll be making posts specifically about how I’m finding NaNo and some of the tricks I’m employing to get through it all; including a day of my schedule, inspired by this series of blogs. Any other day is fair game with a possible post about basic writer related things and links to other blogs and articles that I’ve found very interesting.

Keep Writing!