Hi all,
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Sometimes you just have to get on with it when an ideas comes into your head.
I haven’t decided what kind of novel writer that I am because this is the first time that I have attempted to do so.
In my fantasy mind, I saw myself ‘splurging’ the words onto the page and all the ideas neatly forming paragraphs. I would then go back and edit.
The reality is that as I have written I have had so many ideas that I have had to stop and make a plan.
One tip I took on was to write the whole story in 100 words.
you then break the sentences up and write 100 words or so around each sentence.
I found that I could do some of this for some sentences and others just remained sentences.
I realised also that my story spanned decades with ‘flashbacks’ or explanations so I had to do a timeline whereby I worked out the age of each character at various parts of other characters lives. As wrote, I added to the timeline to ensure that I was able to ‘remind myself.’ I also have realised that I should have done ‘ biographies’ of each character which I could then use/ alter as I wrote.
Luckily this is informing me what sort of writer I am.
I am disorganised but am able to take myself by the ‘scruff of the neck’ and organise myself.
However you need to be able to have an initial outline of the story written down which you can then follow/ change as your book evolves. You should also keep a note of your influences (songs, tv programmes, pictures) so that you ensure that you are able to ‘describe’ the feelings they elicited for your writing. Some of my influences are songs I heard on the way to work which have ‘filled out’ the feelings of the characters’ or just formed part of the timeline of memories to describe the mood.
You need to remind yourself occasionally to check that some of the lyrics of the songs have not turned into chunks of dialogue to prevent plagiarising popular artists and getting yourself into trouble.
My immediate reflection so far is there is no formula for being a successful writer, or hard and fast rules. sometimes you may need to stop, take a deep breath and then review. you may be on the right track but retracing your writing steps may help you to find some beauty which got ignored as you rushed in.
So far 9 chapters named, an outline written, a timeline, idea for a cover. the book has 10,000 words which will be divided up again into the chapters.
When I have written a bit more I will share the title and the ‘blurb
Joe the poet 