christmas reading wrap up, and a dash of inspiration

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! I went to Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, with Duffy. We had a dreadful start to our holiday, with our flight being delayed due to the bad weather in London -- we eventually landed in Lanzarote NINETEEN hours after we should have! That was one big planeload of weary holidaymakers. Anyway, we suitably recovered and got some brilliant days. I didn't expect the weather to be so hot and glorious. However, aside from the weather, the Canary Islands as a destination isn't anything to write home about - a volcano that has vomited in the ocean, and 17 million tourist resorts plonked down on top, chocka block with fat sunburned Brits and Germans.

Now back in London. It's 23 degrees Celsius colder here.

No writing over Christmas (Holidays? Is that a worthy excuse?) but lots of reading and lots of thinking about the story.

So I read:

The Brightest Star in the Sky - Marian Keyes' latest book. I really love Marian's stories, they're so readable and she has a lovely voice. Truthfully, I don't like her early books that much but her writing has improved amazingly. I like the way her stories are crafted to unwind as you read them, and they're not predictable either. To date, my favourite one is Anybody Out There. It's heartbreaking & I recommend it.

The Rapture by Liz Jensen. Fairly absorbing, has a relevant story about climate change. Kind of post-apocalyptic drama set in the near future. I'm finding it hard to figure out why this story didn't grip me and I think it might be because I didn't care for the main character that much - I suppose for some reason, I didn't feel empathy for her, when I know I should have.

Old Man's War by John Scalzi. A fabulous space opera! I just looved the snippets of humour in this too. Some of the dialogue - so snappy, a delight to read. (You can read Scalzi's blog for more of the humour). And the science was awesome too. I looved the green soldiers. Looking forward to finding the sequel and reading that.

P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern. I saw the movie for this and I enjoyed it. Not your average rom-com, you know the kind which methodically ticks off all typical scenes such as kooky best friend advice, getting drunk & falling over, the Big Misunderstanding, the mad run through city/boat/town to proclaim undying love, blah blah scene, etc. But the book? Meh. Average writing, really average. And I don't understand why it became so popular and won awards and got turned into a movie. But the funny thing about that, is it inspires me.

I can write a story like that. I can write a better story. If Cecelia can do it, so can I.

Lying on the sunloungers, I thought a lot about In Finding (previously known as Molly) and figured out a few little things that need tweaking and scenes that need adding earlier in to balance the story better.

Tomorrow is Wednesday - writing day! - and I will start working on those amendments.

Lastly, here's a random piece of inspiration: Have you seen the new Chanel No.5 tv ad with Audrey Tatou? It's so lush and luminous and golden. I love Audrey Tatou. Ah! Here's an exciting I thing I just discovered when Googling it - the ad was directed by my favourite director, Jean Pierre Jeunet! (Now I know that, I see it too...) So, here it is:

one night a week, it's all i ask for

I have a plan for writing, and I want to feel hopeful and determined about it. I want it to make a difference. I'm not sure if it will, and that lack of confidence sucks. Why do we go through these cycles? These frenzied delightful periods when it's all about writing, so sure of it, followed by a time of inactivity, doused in guilt. A big hairy fuck off guilt monkey, sitting on our shoulders.

Will this up and down ever end? Will there ever be a time when I will just write, and continue to write?



Here my Latest Plan™: to write every Wednesday night. Wednesday is when I make words. Home from work, inhale food, whirl through shower, and sit down with whirring clunky laptop and just do it.

Schedule it in, like an appointment. Like my 'girls night' every Tuesday with Cara & Lou, like my gym every Monday and Thursday (only, well, more regular than the gym even).

It seems simple, right? It's just one short period of time every week which will be for writing. And of course, I can write any other day as well. Let's see how it goes.

So, I sat down last night to work on Molly / In Finding, and it went well. I haven't added very many new words lately but I have restructured it and I'm pleased with how it flows now. There are a lot of placeholder "write this here" sentences, but that's for the next phase of plugging the gaps!

I need to do some research on Dunkirk, and wartime & post-wartime Britain, to fill in Tom's story.

Hovering around 31.5k words at the moment.

oh hai!

Oh, oops, I have not updated here in a while. Erm, see previous post. Plus I had a wickedly busy while at work through Sept-Oct-Nov. It's calmed down now.

Wickedly busyness had an affect on the writing, of course (I did no writing, no blogging, no gymming, no friendling) but I'm back on board now.

First of all, I think I came up with an actual title™ for my Molly story: In Finding

'In finding' the title, I also located lots of themes of the story. So I need to do some edits. Now I know there are those who say, "no edits until you're done!", but I think in this case I will ignore them, and go back to the beginning.

What I'd like to do is rewrite quite a few chunks, making sure the themes are there from the start, that the story arc is supported by them.

Hopefully it won't take me too long and then I'll be back into brand fresh new words - plus with the added benefit of I know the themes when I'm writering them.

I've also been pondering about writing time. It's quite clear that my writing is affected by routine, and if I'm not consistent in a weekly routine then I don't get much writing done. I think I'm going to try setting aside a particular time every week which is dedicated writing time; such as every Wednesday evening. I think even just 1 timeslot like that will make a difference... The issue of course will be sticking to it.

STICKING TO IT.

Kind of the whole issue with writing, in fact.