My NaNoWriMo Word Count Widgets!

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Good news....

....I have had a request from a publisher for the full manuscript of Hospital Corners! It's my first positive response and I'm over the moon. In fact, I have butterflies the size of vampire bats swooping around my stomach whenever I think about a real, live (well, obviously...) commissioning editor reading MY book!

It's a wonderful boost to my confidence after 16 outright rejections and a spell of not knowing where to take Agoraphobics Anonymous. I still don't know exactly what I'm going to write next, but I know I'm going to keep on writing because I must be doing SOMETHING right!

I've taken two weeks off from any kind of writing as it's the summer holidays and Big Toots and Little Tootsie were staying with me all last week. We had a blast with our local church summer mission and Lovely Boyfriend. But Lovely Boyfriend goes back offshore today, and the Toots are on holiday with Granny and Grandad for a week, so it's fingers at the ready for some fast and furious writing sessions. I'll hopefully keep you all posted on the progress over the next two weeks.

Saturday 14 July 2012

30,000 and counting...

....22 chapters and I have a clearer idea where things are going for Angie, Ryan, David and the rest of the group. 

I realised, chatting with Lovely Boyfriend one night, that I was running the risk of turning my novel into a self-help guide to the 12-steps and CBT. That's not what I set out to write! So, after a couple of hours on the phone, I came up with a vague idea that has now started cementing itself in actual words. There's still some way to go (I've probably got to go back to some earlier chapters and tweak things, as you do when you suddenly develop a new plotline) but there's actually some light at the end of the tunnel. 

I was really starting to panic about where I was taking my characters and what they were going to do for the next 30,000 words. I still don't have the fine details worked out (I don't have chapter outlines like I did for Hospital Corners and my NaNovel effort), but I have a STORY which is what counts.

It's not going to be pretty, but that's what first drafts are all about! And it's not going to be pretty for some of the characters either - but that's what happens with mental ill-health. Not everyone in the group is going to get better. And it's often the people who least expect....

I'll be very much a part-time writer again over the next few weeks (which is typical, when I actually have an idea of where to go!) because it's the summer holidays and I have two small Tootsies to entertain. The weather has improved today, so we've been exploring the gardens of our local National Trust property and discovering a roosting bat (well spotted Big Toots!). However, rest assured that my brain is ticking over the Agoraphobics Anonymous characters as I go about my own life.

Friday 6 July 2012

The wheels are churning....

...ever so slowly, Agoraphobics Anonymous is pulling itself out of the bog of "what the hell do I write now" and into the land of "Ping! That's a good idea".

I haven't even been able to call myself a part-time writer these past few weeks, I've been so busy with getting on with the other bits of my life. Blame Lovely Boyfriend for one. The school holidays for another. Me being stuck about what to write for three. Benefits issues, mediation appointments and general all-round slowness of ex-hub to do ANYTHING I ask him too.....sigh.....but progress is slowly getting made.

But it's no wonder that some days I just want to hide under the duvet and wait for the sun to go down...not that I've been able to see much sunlight through the persistent grey clouds! Apart from the one day last week, where Lovely Boyfriend and I took a picnic into a stone circle, spent an hour lazing in the only sun we'd seen for weeks, and ended up looking like a set of red, stripey bookends where the sun had burnt our faces around our glasses....oh deary, deary me.

However, today I made the supreme effort to: a) get out of bed at a reasonable time; b) do all the housework/chores I've been ignoring for the past week; and c) WRITE something. ANYTHING. And the result is seven hours of computer time reviewing, tweaking, re-writing, and newly writing to bring the chapter total to 19. Something like 27000 words now exist where, a year ago, there was nothing but a vague idea for a title and two characters. I hope to get a bit more finished tomorrow before I'm invaded by Big and Little Tootsies. They've spent a week with their Dad and assorted Grandparents, hopefully not getting too flooded out.....I'm sure I'll hear all about it tomorrow!