July is editing month

Our 50ks in 30 days challenge ended on Monday, and it feels strange no longer to be writing under pressure. A staggering 1,749,046 were written during the challenge and I'm proud to be on of the motivators of the challenge (along with my partners in whip-cracking and mirth, Sandie Hudson and Rhian Cahill). It is great to see others achieve and push their writing boundaries.

I have emailed our gorgeous winners certificates out (so now everyone who made 50ks is officially certified) and ordered the badges so we can wear them at the RWAus conference in Melbourne in August, and display our tenancity, our creativity and our insanity.

My head is now all over the place as July is editing month for me. I'm working with two different critique partners so I'm switching between working on Diary of the Future and I'm with the Band. My first 3 chapters of I'm with the Band have insertions and deletions scribbled all over them, and I'm about to add these to the computer, to keep myself on Writer Island for another week. And in between thinking about the characters of each of these stories, the guys from Hold the Anchovies keep making guest appearances in my head insisting that I finish that story. Because although I'm at 80k, I haven't reached the end yet. As the story starts with a pizza-fortune telling, I would also like to end it that way to bring it full circle and to show Lisa's emotional growth, but I'm not quite sure that Lisa has grown as much as she needs to as yet. And in hope, I have updated the status bar in the right hand colum with a projected word count of 85,000 but they may expand according to the character's moods.

Except for the cold weather and getting home in the dark after work, I really like July. It's the month I cash in my enforced savings plan by getting my tax refund and then make the annual pilgrimage to the Byron Bay Writers Festival with my writing buddies. Just a couple more weeks of the day job and editing and writing...and then I'll be lapping up the festival atmosphere. Can't wait....

Finished 'I'm with the Band!'

Whoo hoo! The first draft of 'I'm with the Band' is complete! I finished writing it on Monday (the day before I was due back at work) with a mammoth writing effort of 4,314 words for the day.

This is the final word count:

110,173 / 110,173 (100.0%)

So my estimate that I'd be finished at 103,000 words was not quite right - the story kept expanding.


And this photo above indicates how I felt at the end of the writing marathon. Although the cyber dancing girls did come out to celebrate and did high kicks, and splits, and somersaults. Thanks Sandie and Rachel.


I'm still amazed that these two photos and the acoustic Moving Pictures tour in 2005 inspired a whole novel. The imagination is a wonderful thing!






The feeling I wanted to capture for the story was about a woman feeling 17 again, being transported back to her teenage years by the reunion of her favourite band. I even managed to slip in a cameo for the author when the band plays a gig in Coffs Harbour.


So this manuscript will be set aside for awhile as I complete my 100 word a day challenge with Beyond Happily Ever After.

53,592 / 60,000 (89.3%)

When I've finished Beyond Happily Ever After, I will have completed three first drafts in less than 3 years. So somehow, somewhere, sometime I need to fit in the rewriting, editing, reworking that is required to polish these drafts to submission standard.



And submit, submit, submit.

I've been busy writing....

Well, I finished Book in a Week with 7639 words - not quite the 10k target I wanted but at 76% I'm very happy with that and I think I only have three scenes to write of 'I'm with the Band' and the first draft is finished. The total word count is now over 99k and the zokutu word meter is still not updating!

Happily, I have written the final scene, so I know exactly where everything's heading and there should be no deviations or wild tangents.

Considering I gave up caffeine the same week as the BIAW, I think I did very well, and I'm sure that my health will be better for it. I've gone past the stage of caffeine headaches but this week, I had a major sore throat and ended up having a day off work, and then a day on alternative duties (i.e. non-speaking) when I returned. Today I had a pesky migraine but I'm starting to feel better now, especially as the next two weeks are four day weeks, thanks to Easter, and then I have a week off to write and edit to my heart's content.

I joined the 100 words a day challenge which started on 1 March and I have written every day since (which sometimes doesn't even happen during Nanowrimo). It's a habit that I do want to instill every day so while some times it has meant taking my notebook to bed and scribbling out the minimum before turning off the lights, my minimum word count any day so far has been 132 words. Haven't written anything so far today and I'm not counting blog posts.

I'm really enjoying watching Dexter at the moment. It is such an intriguing show and Michael C Hall does such a fantastic job in making the audience complicit with his actions. I've reserved the novel from my library - it will make an interesting read. Meanwhile the entire first series will replay on Austar on Easter Monday. Can't think of a better way of spending it. Dexter and Easter Eggs!

I also got a new mobile phone and an ipod last week. While the mobile phone is purely functionary and I really cannot be bothered playing around with all the extras, I love my Ipod. why did I buy some other brand before? Don't know but maybe it had something to do with the expense a couple of years ago. I love that i can just plug it into my computer and it will select 240 songs at random, so I never really know what I'm going to get. And then browsing itunes and discovering albums from bands I love that I didn't know existed. Certainly puts the collection of CDs offered in the shopping centres up here to shame. But it could get expensive. So there will be no new songs at the moment. Maybe they can be a reward for when I finish the first draft!

Easter cards available at my cafepress shop.

Writing Workshop

This weekend I did a writing workshop with my writers' group. The workshop was led by Peter Matheson, a dramaturg and was about storytelling. There was a lot of emphasis on character building and planning, which is in total opposition to the way I usually work. I admit it - I'm a pantser - I fly through a first draft by the seat of pants, rarely planning any further ahead than the next scene or the next couple of scenes. I choose a situation or a concept i.e. Diary of the Future I started with the idea of being able to write the future in a diary and have it come true. With I'm with the Band, I started with wanting to capture the feeling of being 17 again through the reunion of a favourite band. Making the Cut started with an idea of a film festival in a small country town, the characters came after the situation. The character for me only comes after the writing starts.

I have tried plotting and planning it all out in the past. Kissing Toads was more or less planned out with a chapter outline but new chapters kept popping up and stuff I hadn't planned on kept happening throwing the immediate trajectory in a new direction. And that one took the longest for me to write - 4 long years. And why? Because I'd lost interest. For the most part, I knew what was going to happen. As a writer I want to be surprised by my characters as if I'm reading it.

So yesterday when I took a photo of a woman that I'd never seen before and tried to build a background based on her as a character, I was falling back on cliches. Because the character was not organic for me. Perhaps if she'd been in the middle of an action or a situation, my imagination may have been triggered more but I just had this face smiling at me with her too pink lipstick and overdone make-up.

Today I took Kat from I'm with the Band to the workshop. We did an interesting exercise as we interviewed each other's characters. Nothing really new came up for me during the interview, but the perception of Kat I gave to others was interesting - much more passive than I intended. And the word groupie kept coming up. Middle-aged groupie. It's pretty sad really. She doesn't intend to be a groupie. She considers herself to be a huge fan, not a groupie. And when Alex invites her to sing with the band for a song or two, then she's 'with the band' not a groupie. It's her friend Maddie who's the groupie - in fact, she's such a groupie that if there was a show created called Australian Groupie (instead of Idol) she'd probably take out the title.

Certainly much to think about now. I'm still a fan of the shitty first draft (as Anne Lamont calls it) or the 'vomit' or binge writing as Peter referred to it over the last few days.

During the 'Twelve Days of I'm with the Band' I not only added to the manuscript but I also examined some of the previous writing and rewrote certain scenes, making them stronger. I'm over the 88k mark now and I need to stop the dialogue - the characters spend too much time talking, for some reason (probably a symptom of being a muso) they don't like sleeping much, but if it keeps up I'm just going to start jumping from scene to scene and only writing the absolutely pertinent stuff. I don't need to eavesdrop on everything they say and do. Do I?

Writing, recording and dodging kangaroos

86,461 / 90,000 (96.06%)

Word count is now at 86, 461 words and I've got this old fart 70's rocker Billy Badd who has turned up at a gig with his two blonde bimbo daughters (referred to by Kat as the Bimbettes) and is desperately trying to pull focus. I think he wants the story to be about him. But tough luck Billy Badd - we're moving on and leaving you behind, and I'm hoping that he doesn't show up at another gig.

Bought a DVD recorder yesterday. Haven't been able to record stuff for quite a while but now it means that I can record all the late night TV stuff such as the Countdown episodes which are screening on rage at the moment. Watching it now - Neil from The Young Ones hosted the first one I recorded. I loved the character of Neil from that show. The rest of the characters seemed to need each other to bounce off for real comedy to work (I found Rik Mayall's stand-up routine as the character Rik really dull, but when he was just himself doing stand-up, he was great) but Neil was one of those characters that seemed to be able to create comedy just by himself. I've got his Heavy Concept album but it's extremely scratched so I'm not sure how much I could salvage off it even if I had a record player.

In the second episode, as well as Tim and Debbie (remember them from Australia you're standing in it - when will they release that on DVD?) , they played Moving Pictures performing 'Where they Belong'. At last, something other than 'What about Me?' and it focused on Alex Smith singing. So now I'm happy. I really want to get hold of the televised concert Moving Pictures did in the early 80's at the Hordern Pavillion. I did have it taped way back then, but of course many moves later and even before the moving, I think it was taped over. If anyone can help me out with the footage, let me know.


I'm independent again - I picked my car up after the accelerator cable was fixed, after 4 weeks of car sharing. Then on the way home, one of the tail-light covers fell off, smashed and bounced off into the bush. A few minutes later, I drove around a corner and a kangaroo was standing there. I hit the brakes and the kangaroo took off so I was lucky because my car and the roo could do a lot of damage to each other. So yesterday morning, we went out on a mission to get a new tail-light housing - at the second wreckers we found the part, and that problem is now solved. Then we bought the DVD recorder and I bought the Vicar of Dibley last 2 episodes - it is so funny.

It took about an hour to set up the recorder because Robbie wasn't listening to my instructions and its quite confusing when you want to plug in both Austar and a set top box. Finally, after much arguing and wrenching the TV out of the entertainment unit and untangling chords, it was all set up and I was able to test it out. So recording is great, but for some reason it doesn't like my Vicar of Dibley DVD and won't play it. It's not the disc - it plays on the old DVD player - but maybe the recorder doesn't like English comedy. It has played every other disc I've put in, so I've got no idea what's going on. Robbie thinks it won't play dual layer DVD's but I think it only won't record on dual layer. Anyway, I can always watch the Vicar on the laptop if I need to.

Well, its back to 'I'm with the Band'

Day 13-17 of 'I'm with the Band"

I've got to do something about this addiction. But when there's all these beautiful glossy magazines sitting in the charity shop, well - I can't walk out empty-handed, can I? More photos for collage, more text for collage poetry. And the magazines are being recycled and the money's going to a good cause. Another 12 magazines added to my collection today. That was all I could carry back to work today but there was a lot more left in the store. Somebody must've cleaned out their shelves. So I may need to take another walk down there on Monday at lunchtime.

Day 13 - 17 of I'm with the Band have been obstructed with a little thing called work. So much happening in the workplace, I've been quite exhausted each night (yet still suffering from insomnia) and have only added a few words. Plus I've been sucked into the world that is facebook (very addictive) and have been hunting for friends for a pig - see post below.

But words have been added since my last blog, and scenes have been finished - still moving forward. Kat has got herself a new image - hair cut and colour, new clothes. It may be time for me to do the same thing!

Total word count is now 81,745 and I plan to write much more over the weekend.

Day 12 of 'I'm with the Band'

Total word count is 80,252 - so I've passed another milestone on the current manuscript.



And its an emotional milestone for my heroine Kat. She's just walked out on her husband, he's asked how he can contact her and she's suggested he tries her mobile, which lies in pieces on the floor after he's smashed it.



So the 12 days focus has been quite successful, but the story is not yet finished so for now I'm going to pretend I can't count and continue with Day 13 and so on....whatever it takes to get the first draft finished.

Unfortunately, it's back to work tomorrow but that's okay because it removes my internet temptation.

Day 11 of 'I'm with the Band'

Its amazing - at the beginning of the weekend, you wake up believing that an infinite stretch of time lies before you...until you have to go back to work.


Then you wake up again Sunday morning (if you're lucky!) - usually more likely Sunday afternoon, and that infinite feeling has gone and the pressure of the time remaining is upon you. The weekend is all over.


Who decided that five days at work and two days off was a good idea?


Unfortunately I do need a day to do nothing, even at the expense of the one of the days of my 12 day focus.


The rain is gone, the river has subsided and we are surrounded by heat and humidity.

I have 50 best 80's Aussie bands playing on Music Max reminding me why I'm writing 'I'm with the Band.' Nie to see Noiseworks, The Mentals, The Choirboys, INXS etc.


Hunted for more collage pictures on Day 11 - this combination will definitely make it into the collage - I laughed when I found the couch picture in an old HQ magazine - couldn't find a credit for the photographer. I haven't tracked down my photo of the Big Prawn and I don't have a decent picture of the Big Banana (amazing - considering where I live) and they are both important scenes and mark a contrast between Kat's past and her present.

So Day 11: procrastination, day dreaming, no new words, just new thoughts, and some new pictures.

Hopefully, I'll be able to return this evening to report that Day 12 has been more successfu.

Day 10 of I'm with the Band.

Catch up post - Day 10 of 12 Days of ' I'm with the Band' was Friday!

Soon Kat will be away from hubby and back with the band. I can't wait!

78,779 / 90,000 (87.53%)

It seems like it will never stop raining. After work yesterday, we stopped at the supermarket and stocked up for the weekend. It's a half hour drive into town for us, only 15 minutes to the supermarket but with this constant rain, there's a good chance that we will be cut off over the weekend. There's very little chance of our house flooding because it's a lot higher than the river but there are swimming pools in the driveway and the yard.

Here are photos from last August:

Somewhere beneath that water is a park. Can't even see the flood measurement sign in this photo.

And the alternative route to town:

The river has flooded again this morning, and while the other road to town is not yet cut, there is a lot of water on the road, and its still raining. So, it's likely that this afternoon we will be stranded.

It's cool! I have chocolate, I have Coca-cola, I have food and now I have no excuse but to write, write, write.

I may venture out later and take some photos.

Day 9 of I'm with the Band

This is a catch-up post: Day 9 of my 12 day focus of current work in progress was on Thursday.

Total word count 77,386.

Still moving forwards (which feels much better than moving backwards) and still moving thought the conflict between Kat and the return of her husband. Kat didn't want him to come back. I didn't want him to come back. But some characters have a mind of their own. It's actually better for the story that he returns from his vanishing act because somewhere in the rest of the story, Kat will have to make a decision about whether she wants her future to be like the present or the past.

Anyway, I got sucked into watching Dexter - fabulous episode- and flicked through magazines looking for more pictures for a collage of this story.

Day 8 of I'm with the Band

77,174 words and its time to call it a night even though I've just commenced a new scene. Something to be going on with tomorrow.

I've been avoiding this section for a while now because it's the part where Kat's husband comes back into her life. I hadn't planned for that to happen - but she was dropped back home after the north leg of the band's tour to discover the lawn overgrown, dirty dishes in the sink, laundry piling up and her hubby drinking and watching football, six weeks after his disappearing act. He's taken her out to dinner at the pub now (because that's his idea of a good night out) and she is SO NOT impressed. Kat's not happy that he's decided to make another appearance just when she's finding herself, and I'm not too happy either because I have to write out their conflict.

Anyway, it's after midnight. I've sketched out the next few scenes earlier today (yesterday?) so I will be able to pick it up easily on Day 9.

It's interesting that the scenes can work so well in your head while you are daydreaming about them, but as soon as you sit down to commit them to the page, that beautiful phrasing, that perfect wording has vanished. And you just have to keep writing until you find it again

And then you finish a scene, and later as you're cooking dinner, the perfect line for that conversation will sail through your mind, and you have to capture it, and hold it until you can get back to the draft to write it down.

In the end, it's all about the rewriting. The replaying of the scenes over and over in your mind until they solidify like an actor's performance and take on a life of their own.

Now I'm just rambling. I hope sleep comes quickly and my characters don't keep me awake all night!

Day 7 of 'I'm with the Band'

I did the stereotypical writer thing today. A great start to the new year. I slept in late, woke up and thought about my characters and a pivotal scene. Decided I needed to rewrite it. So got up, got out the laptop and wrote in my pjs. Ah! The writer's life.

1986 new words today (so far). And yet I only have a total of 76,430 words because much of it was rewriting the pivotal scene. A scene of temptation and betrayal. I feel pretty good about the new scene because I think it captures how torn Kat is in the scene, much more than in the original writing. And I have echoed the dichotomy again in a later scene, but this time it shows that there is no dichotomy and that her mind and body are now in harmony. Still, I will probably ask some people for some feedback on these scenes, to see if I have indeed made the right choice in the rewriting.

After the original scene Kat was pretty laidback about it and forgiven Alex quickly for his misbehaviour! But after the rewriting she was extremely angry with him and also pissed off with her own behaviour. So that meant more rewriting in further scenes.





I'd been talking about how I wished I'd taken more photos of Moving Pictures when I was younger. But I didn't always take a camera with me and I didn't have an SLR back in those days, so I think I was stretching whatever camera I had to the limit anyway.


Here's an example of what happens when you use the wrong speed of film:

Freaky, hey?

Day 6 of 'I'm with the Band'

It's the last day of 2007 and I'm halfway through Twelve Days of 'I'm with the Band', my current work in progress.

We were going to go out tonight but the street party was cancelled due to bad weather. Instead we had sausages not cooked on the barbie. When we got to the supermarket this afternoon, the store was packed with holidaymakers who had cleared out the meat section - no chicken kebabs, no steak. I'll know better next year. It's been raining on and off all night but it's clear in Sydney so we'll have a nice firework show in approximately half an hour on TV.

I escaped from work early today - it was very quiet so I was able to use some flex.

My word count now stands at 76,132 words. (Zokotou doesn't want to play, so there's no word meter this evening). Another missing scene complete. I feel like my head is now completely in the story and I'm Write on Track again.

I have the day free tomorrow as it is New Year's Day and hope to start putting together a collage about this story as well as adding a few more scenes.

The only new year resolution I want to make is to WRITE EVERY DAY.

Every thing else I want to achieve will be set by goals, and I'll probably only set those a month at a time.

So my first goal for 2008, is to finish the first draft of 'I'm with the Band' within the remaining 6 days.

I'm really liking this 12 day technique. It's less than half the time of Nanowrimo and the focus can be on anything from writing, rewriting, editing, collaging - anything that will add to the current work in progress. So I don't feel guilty when I've spent the evening thinking about my characters, watching concerts or listening to music, reading newspaper articles or listening to interviews. It all adds up to thw whole. I'm pleased that I've taken this on and especially at this time of the year.

Well, it's nearly time for fireworks!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

May 2008 be wonderful!

Day 5 of 'I'm with the Band'

74,228 / 90,000 (82.4%)

Day 5 - yesterday.

Watched disc 1 of the Countdown Spectacular (no 1) to watch some old rockers try to regain their glory days. Interesting to note the ones that still had the voice and the moves, and the ones that will never recapture it again.

At last some new words added, and we're moving ahead. A missing scene starts to take shape. Enough of a start for me to continue on Day 6. But a migraine has stopped me from continuing and demanded an early night. All that Countdown?

Well, so much for the early night - that was the theory. In bed at 9pm, wide awake again (migraine gone) at 11.30pm. Knowing intellectually that I have to sleep, but my body and mind fighting me all the way. Not game enough to get out of bed and continue the scene because that will make me all awake and I have to work the next day. So thinking thoughts of sleep in between thoughts of the scene in progress.

Finally sleep visited again at about 1.30 am.

Day 4 of 'I'm with the Band'

Inching slowly forward with new writing, total word count now 73, 534 words.

73,534 / 90,000 (81.7%)

238 pages semi-edited with big chunks highlighted where I need to go back and rewrite.

If this toothache keeps up, then my main character will develop once soon.

Anyway, getting my head back into this manuscript means also getting my head back into the music that has inspired me.

This story has to be edited/written with the soundtrack of the 80's playing in my ear.

On the morning of Day 4, I also finished reading Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. Whoo- hee. Talk about sexual tension! When I finished it I went back and read the first chapter and the last chapter again to see how connects the two. Highlyrecommended - this is going on my keeper shelf.

Well that's the summary of Day 4, now I shall finish of the second half of day 5.

Day 3: I'm with the Band.

Day 3. That would be yesterday.

It started out well with me noticing that I was more present to the conversation happening in my head betweeen characters, than the conversation happening in real life.

But went downhill from there.

Shopping. Picked up a couple of bargains.

But was interrupted by food poisoning. Luckily the effects of that didnt last long and my digestive system dealt with it quickly.

But that was replaced by toothache last night and I can see that a trip to the dentist will be part of my New Year's Eve schedule.

Oh well, as Scarlett would say, 'Tomorrow is another day.'

Day 2: I'm with the Band

73,414 / 90,000 (81.6%)

Today I've completed a shallow edit of around 60 pages.
Words removed. Words added. A net gain of 17 words!

It was a work day today so I haven't attempted new writing but have been concentrating on editing and getting my head fully back into the story.

And for research I've been listening to an interview with Alex Smith on ABC radio:
http://www.abc.net.au/nsw/stories/s1435206.htm

I'm not working tomorrow so on Day 3 there will be new words. And I'll try and work out what happened in the scene that I have one handwritten page of, finishing mid-sentence.