A General Update

I feel like a lot has been going on this past week - nothing big, just a lot of it. The air smells different, and everything has shifted slightly. 

• Last week, I was dropped from a project I was becoming very immersed in. It was quite a jolt back to reality. It's hard enough finishing something, but being pulled out of a world unexpectedly is even worse. Thankfully, it was nothing I had done, but I wish that I'd had some warning in preparation. The story was by no means one of my favourites, but the world and the characters were finally becoming solid in my mind and now they've been taken away from me. I miss them very much, but I have no rights to them. That's the worst part of being a ghostwriter. 

• I've finally been given the go-ahead to start the sci-fi/fantasy novel, and it's going absolutely fantastically. It's coming very naturally to me, and I really think I'll be able to create something beautiful, something I would be proud of to call my own, out of it. It's going to be incredibly tough to give it up, but I'm not going to think about that until the end. I'm just going to enjoy it.

• For my own writing, I'm going back and forth between my fanfic and Bonsai. Both are going reasonably well, although I have days where I cannot bear to look at either. I am thankful that I have so many different projects on the go, so if I hate a couple there always something else to work on. I can't not be writing - it makes me irksome. 

• My partner and I have finally sent of for my fiancee visa. Very nerve-wracking. All the fingers crossed. 

• I am falling hard for Veronica Roth's Divergent. I am trying to resist, but it's a big struggle. If I was still in my days of deep fandom, I would be ficcing the hell out of it! As it is, I am reading and learning and using it to inspire my own writing. I wouldn't call her a brilliant writer, but she has a very easy, very skilled way of immersing the reader deep into her world and into the minds of her characters. I am very impressed. I've fallen a little bit in love with Tobias Eaton, but I suppose that was unbearably predictable. I'm a sucker for a hard-luck case. 

Falling Behind and Going Backwards

Having taken a few days off for a friend's wedding, I am desperately struggling with my NaNo. The key to success is definitely making sure that you some Every Single Day, even if it's just a couple hundred of words, otherwise - if you're like me, at least - you will find your concentration and enthusiasm dwindling, and your mind wandering to other projects you would far rather be doing. 

As it is, I've decided not to worry and let myself take a break. I love it enough to know that I will certainly return to it soon enough, but right now I'm going to concentrate on my work and use my fanfiction as my Hobby Writing. 

I have been writing this particular fic on and off since 2006(!!) and I consider it to be my Masterpiece. Of course, the quality of writing has changed massively over the years, but looking back at the beginning of it, I don't cringe as much as I do with other things and, over all, I wouldn't change a thing about it. I definitely intend to finish it and have it on my bookshelf as the definitive work of my early writing-life, and at the moment the word count sits at 119,678 words. Which is quite a lot. 

I wish that I was working on it more frequently, but my Harry Potter passions are very sporadic. Although, when they do get me, they get me hard. It's definitely my favourite state of being, and I am reminded of how ardently I fell in love with Potter all over again. It's my safe spot and my area of expertise, and oh! how I wish I could make a living out of it!! Coming back to this fic is like sinking into a hot, bubbly bath and feeling all of your muscles relax after a day travelling on a coach. 

Finishing is a very long way off, but we'll get there in another ten years or so!

Homesickness

It's been nearly a year since I left my university town, Aberystwyth, and not a day goes by where I don't miss it desperately. It gave me the stability and the unconditional love that I never experienced growing up in Devon. No matter how stressed out I was, simply walking along the sea-front or coming into the train station was enough to lift my spirits and give me enough perspective to make it all better.

I hope, one day, to be able to accurately write about my love for Aberystwyth and do it the justice it deserves. I doubt I'll ever fall so completely in love with a place again, for no love will ever be as deep as your first.

Advice for New Writers

On the 17th, I will be 22 years old. 

As I progress through my twenties, I am becoming more and more aware of myself - where I have been, what has made me into who I am today, where my own mother was at this point in her life - and I've been wanting to do a post about this in regards to writing for a while. 

I am particularly inspired to do this now as my NaNo cabin has recently acquired four new members - young writers at the very beginning of their careers. I feel very lucky to have them in my cabin; it's amazing to watch them work, and a privilege to offer my own advice in the hope that it will be something that sticks with them. 

I was thirteen when I first started publishing online and writing seriously, and the experiences I had then have most certainly been important influences on what I am doing now. 

Although I have changed and developed throughout the nine years since then, I can clearly track everything I have done and can see precisely how each point in time links back. A long story short: If I had never been a Draco Malfoy fangirl, I would not be here now. 

A list of well-meaning tips for would-be writers - 

• Copy. Shamelessly copy something that inspires you, word-for-word. It doesn't matter, no one else is going to see it, but it is important to you. Don't be afraid of copying - that's how artists learn, isn't it? It's the same for writers.

• Emulate. Take those elements that made you feel and use them. Over do it; be cheesy. Again, it doesn't matter. Inspiration is the heart of writing, so milk it for all it is worth! Write something that you want to read. Other people don't matter.

• Own it. Now make them your own. You've learned what works for you, now make it better. Treat everything as a competition. If angst is what you love, be the best angst-writer out there - twist those emotions shamelessly, and make your reader come back begging for more. Now is the time to learn your market, even if it's only minimal. Always strive to be the best you can be. 

• Experiment. Find new ways of doing it - it's still, fundamentally, the same thing, but push yourself and experiment. Don't be afraid of failure - it doesn't matter. This is where you find your own, unique voice - make it so that there is no-one on earth like you. People will copy you, and when they do, take it as the highest compliment (but don't stand for plagiarism!) 

• Be Alert. You will never know everything, but that is part of the fun of it! Always keep yourself open to new things; take advice when it is given, and know which advice to leave - not everyone's words of wisdom will be relevant to you. Absorb everything around you; it's amazing how much from your real life gets absorbed unwittingly into your writing without you even realising it! Quite terrifying, actually... 

• Be Selective. Of everything. As a writer, you are playing God - no-one, and I mean no-one, can tell you categorically what to do. Take the praise, take the criticism and use it all to your advantage. If you don't trust what someone has to say about your writing, then don't take it. Simple as. You will always be your own worst critic. Of course, learn the fundamentals and strive to be better, but trust yourself above anyone else. Never let anyone tell you writing isn't a worth-while past time. Set out to prove them wrong.

• Be Competitive. That doesn't mean be aggressive or bitchy, or even letting everyone know that you're being competitive, it means working hard to be the top of your game. Working very hard. If your ambition is to become a writer, you will gradually surround yourself with more people who are exactly like you - and they will be competing too. Learn from them, learn from yourself, and don't let their successes get you down - rather, use them to push yourself onwards. Always push yourself onwards. There will be days when you think 'What's the point?' but they are the moments that define you. It is the people who push through those moments and come out the other side that succeed. Writing is half talent and half pure determination; hanging on when other people are giving up and letting go.  

• Finally, stay true to yourself. Be honest in your work, and right about subjects that inspire you, and you won't go far wrong.

(Almost) A Week Down!

And 8,750(ish) words in! As I am handwriting the whole thing, I am roughly estimating that I write 250 words per page - sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, usually depending on how much speech there is. But progress is happening, and I'm very pleased with how it's going. 

My characters and my setting feel much more solid this time around; I feel that I now know them as intimately as I do my fanfiction world, which is a big achievement for me seeing as I have struggled for so long to find something of my own to connect to in this way. I always find that I'm making fewer notes, and consulting my notebook less as everything is becoming much more solid in my head. The actual process of writing this time around feels much more organic than it did in November - then, I was writing to prove a point to myself, this time I am writing to get the story out of my head and onto paper. 

I've fallen hard for my characters, although there are only three or four of them so far as opposed to the vast cast I had first time around. I am looking forward to introducing the rest of them, but it's also really nice to give each one the attention they deserve rather than chopping and changing every thousand words or so. I think (hope) the finished product is going to be much more satisfying the second time around! 

Here's what I'm listening to today - Florence + The Machine: Never Let Me Go. If I were to give Dakin a theme-song, this would certainly be it. 

Day the Third, and the pressure begins!

I  always knew this day was coming - the day when NaNo starts to conflict with work. Now, before you get too excited, nothing dramatic happened; it wasn't a Sophie's Choice moment, and I didn't get fired or anything. Just a little note in my inbox from one of my lovelier clients asking how I was getting on.

To problem is, I haven't been getting on. Not even a bit. 

The problem with falling absolutely in love with a project - as I have with 'The Moon Path' - is that that becomes all you want to do with your time. An hour in the evening isn't enough, five hours in a coffee shop isn't enough. A whole day isn't enough! I want to be writing it twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year for the rest of my life! Of course, I cannot wait until it's the finished polished piece in my hands, but, equally, I'm dreading the day when it's over. What will I do then? 

This is exactly the reason why I am loathe to finish anything. It isn't laziness (well, maybe a bit!) it's the very real phobia of leaving something behind. Every time I finish a piece - my diss, my november NaNo, a ghostwriting project - my body goes into shock. It's quite terrifying. I've spent so long with that piece, and wrapped myself so completely up in it that it has become my entire world that, for an hour or a day, I struggle to function in a world without it. 

I'm the kind of person that likes having several projects on the go, doing a bit here and bit there, and never committing to finishing anything (my fanfiction.net profile is a key example of this). I struggle with endings, writing them and dealing with them. I am never satisfied. That's why fanfiction has been so liberating - it means nothing is ever finished; there's always prequals and sequals and What If oneshots. 

But real life, and real writing, doesn't allow for that - the purpose is to finish and move on. Let it go.

I don't think I'll ever learn how to do that without my body going into shock.

In other news, this is what I'm listening to today - Christina Perri's Human

  It feels pretty appropriate for my main character. I really like coming across songs randomly that just seem to fit. 

Day Two of Camp

So far, it's going well - very well. I have 4,000 words on 14 pages of A5, and I have altered my projected goal from 30,000 to the full 50,000. I've decided that I want to fairly finished piece at the end of this, whether it's polished or not, especially since I will be forced to do a thorough edit when typing it up. 

A really great thing about this camp is that everyone else in my cabin is doing really well too, so that's sparking my competitiveness and spurring me on. I really like working around like-minded people; I'm not trying to be better than them, but I am definitely keen to keep up. It was the same at uni - it's all very friendly, but the pressure is definitely On to be 'Up There'. It's brilliant, and I certainly work best under these conditions. 

Today, my writing music is The Lion King: Broadway Soundtrack. It is flawlessly beautiful and never fails to raise goosebumps. 

  

And so it begins...

Pinch, punch, first of the month and happy Camp NaNo all! Over the last few days, I've found myself becoming unreasonably excited for this - partly because I'm psyched about polishing up The Moon Path, and partly because all the feelings from November's NaNo (my first) is all coming back to me. 

But this time, I'm more prepared, more focused - I am a veteran, and it's going to be awesome! 

For some reason, I've made the executive decision to write my novel by hand (yes, even the stuff I've already got typed) Whether that's a wise choice or not, it is yet to be determined. If all goes to plan though, it'll force me to edit thoroughly when typing it up after the fact. If it doesn't, it'll end up being left on a train and I'll never want to think about it again. 

Let us all keep our fingers crossed that it is the former! 

I used to write everything by hand first - I really loved having that raw, unique copy in my own handwriting. I loved the way I could just whip out my notebook anywhere and start scribbling - in the launderette, on a bus, in the pub etc. But then I lost my almost-full notebook on a train (I think) and it broke my heart. I'm hoping this NaNo will fix my PTSD regarding this because there's nothing more satisfying than having a notebook full of work.    

Anyway, it's going to be the best and busiest month so I'm going to set up with a large cup of Assam, put Cirque Du Soleil on Netflix and get down to business!

Good luck all you NaNo'ers out there!