Why You Shouldn't Say These 10 Things To Writers

There are some things that people say to writers that makes us want to strangle them. In reality, we'll probably just sigh and smile politely to hide the fact that we're clenching our jaws as a small part of us dies inside. But we'd really rather you didn't say them at all.

Why, though? Why do writers hate it when people say these things, and why don't people realise that we hate it?

I think it's because there are some misconceptions held by the general public about what writers actually do. I wrote a series of blog posts (called The Writing Process: A Guide for Non-Writers) hoping to clear this up, but if you don't have time to read that, here's the short and more direct version of what misconceptions are behind these 10 things that people say to writers, and why they're wrong.

January Writing Update

As a New Years' Resolution of-sorts, I decided that 2017 would be the year I get really serious about my writing. So at the beginning of this month, I set myself monthly writing goals for all of 2017, which focus on editing my fantasy novel The Secrets The Dead Keep.

This month's writing goal was to read through my completed 2016 draft making notes on what I want to change, and to start working on better characterisation.

It sounds like a relatively easy goal, especially compared to some of the others I've set myself for this year! All I have to do is read a book and make notes on it! Oh, and to think about my characters a bit. So I was really hoping to get this one done quickly and get ahead of myself.

2017 Writing Goals

For some reason, I completely forgot about New Year's Resolutions for this year until someone asked me what mine were on New Year's Day. I hadn't thought about it at all - their existence just completely slipped my mind. Still, it wasn't at all difficult to come up with an answer. I've made so much writing progress recently, and I really want that to continue. So, I decided that I want 2017 to be the year that I get truly serious about writing.

Since planning rather than 'pantsing' my novel seems to have gone pretty well, I thought I'd try the same for my writing life! So without further ado, here are my monthly writing goals for 2017:

Thoughts On The End Of A Draft

Approximately ten minutes ago, I wrote the 102,993rd word of the current draft of my novel, and then I stopped writing. I had reached the end of the last planned scene. It was done. The second full rewrite of my novel is finished!

The Writing Process: A Guide For Non-Writers - Part Three

So by now we've gotten to the point in the writing process where you’ve written a book. Congratulations! But your work is far from done.

I feel like people with no writing experience see this as the end point. You’ve written a first draft, therefore you’ve written a book, right? What people forget is that things hardly ever turn out right first time. If you read Part Two of my writing process series (discussing the writing of the first draft), you’ll understand the extent of this and the reasoning behind it. Even if you outlined your book in great detail, there is no guarantee that you won’t change things halfway through, or that you will be happy with the book that your outline produced. And of course, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll be happy with the actual writing. Every writer has their flaws: some of us ‘underwrite’, some of us ‘overwrite’, and we all have words and phrases that we use far too often. The first draft is just a foundation for all the good things to come later, and it may need fixing before you can even do that.

So once you’ve finished your first draft, it’s time to edit. 

The Writing Process: A Guide for Non-Writers - Part Two

In my last blog post, I talked about preparing to write a book, which is the first part of the writing process. You can find it here. Today, I'll be continuing with the next stage of the writing process: writing the first draft. This, I’m sure, is the bit non-writers think of when we say we’re writing a book. The bit where we sit down at our desks with huge smiles on our faces and a coffee by our side, and just let the words pour out of us. We’re excited about this idea and this story, and everything from the overarching plot down to every last comma is perfectly aligned in our heads. Now we just need to write it all down, then it'll be ready for the world to read and love! 

Sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it is. Although writing the first draft may be the least complicated part – the only step to it is “sit your butt down and WRITE DAMMIT” – that does not mean it is easy. A writer faces many challenges while writing the first draft. Many writers quit at this point.

Adventures in Wales

Back in April (yes, this is how far behind my blog is), I went to Caernarfon in Wales for two nights with the Newcastle University Creative Writing Society. As part of the Creative Writing Society's committee, I helped to plan and organise the trip. We chose Caernarfon mostly because we found a nice hostel there that was available on the last-minute dates we wanted. (If anyone's interested, the hostel was Totters'; situated inside the walled town, it's a nice little hostel with very friendly and accommodating owners, and it was just what we were looking for) Caernarfon's main attraction is its castle, though it also boasts a beaches, a pretty town, and a Roman fort.

 Once we arrived on the Thursday, we settled into the hostel, went for some food, then wandered around the shoreline until after it had gone dark, before returning to the hostel for some games.

In the morning on the Friday, we set off for the castle, a short walk from the hostel.

Admittance to the castle is £5.60 for students, but as a group of students, we got this discounted to £5 each. This admittance fee allows you to enter and leave the castle all day as you please, so there's no need to do everything at once; you can go to one of Caernarfon's cafes for lunch, and still come back to the castle without having to pay again. We then paid an extra £3 for a tour, which was informative, interesting, and definitely worth it. The tour does not cover all of the castle's large expanse, so there was still lots to explore once it had finished: towers, hidden passageways, exhibitions and displays... And of course plenty of photo opportunities!

We had a great day wandering both the town and the castle before returning to the hostel in the evening for more games and an attempted writing activity. Back when I was in my school's creative writing club, we had tried to write a story as a group, with each of us writing from one character's perspective, so I thought we could try something similar. Since Caernarfon castle has an interesting history involving a rebellion and two sieges, we decided to write on this theme. However, we didn't even get to the plot and character complications that come from having the input so many writers, which I encountered in my school's creative writing club: we barely even finished discussing ideas before we decided it was too late to write much. A writing activity like this needs more time than we had and definitely more planning, so that the group can spend more of it writing rather than brainstorming. It's something I'd like to try again - hopefully with more success next time!

All in all, it was a lovely few days, and we didn't even get to see all that Caernarfon has to offer! It would be great to go again and I definitely recommend both the town and the hostel.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Week 3 and Week 4 Summary

So, this July's Camp NaNoWriMo is over. Done. Finished. This year, I worked on the second draft of my novel, The Secrets The Dead Keep, with the goal of writing 50,000 words throughout the month. But how did I do? Did I manage to complete the challenge?

Yes! I did! :D

Though I managed to keep up and even get ahead during week 3, I was unfortunately unable to do the same in the final week, which was a little worrying. Life got in the way, which included two days of travelling right before the last day. I didn't think I'd be able to write anything while in the car on those two days, but it turns out I can, in fact, fit my laptop on my knee, so I managed to write 2,600 words in the end. Which meant that, on the very last day, I only had to catch up 5,000 words rather than over 7,000.

Five thousand words may sound like a lot (probably because it is), but I know from experience that it is a manageable amount to write in one day (though any more would not be), so even when I had no desire to write in the morning, I still wasn't worried. By late afternoon, at which point I'd already written over 2,000 words, I'd found my motivation, and the rest wasn't too difficult.

What a satisfying sight this is:

However, completing my 50,000 word goal does not mean that I have completed the second draft of my novel. After 2014's July Camp NaNo, I spent all of August finishing the first draft, which amounted to approximately 84,000 words in the end. I intend to do the same thing this year: keep writing until it's done.

I'm not entirely sure how far through the story I am, as a last-minute plot change has messed up my novel outline a bit, though a little rearranging should sort it out. I've been writing my novel in Microsoft Word, with the sections written during July's Camp NaNoWriMo all in one very long document, but I now intend to transfer it all the yWriter5. As yWriter5 separates all the chapters from each other and all scenes within those chapters from each other too, it makes organising and planning a lot easier, though I found during 2014's Camp NaNoWriMo that it can stifle creativity in favour of a rigid plan. That is why I opted this year to use it only in editing and not in the original writing. Hopefully once this draft is finished, no more original writing should be needed: so far I'm happy with how my plot's going, so only minor changes should be needed. Fingers crossed that minor changes don't require as much rewriting as major ones do!

One of the prizes for winners of Camp NaNoWriMo is a (previously free, now discounted) proof copy of your book. Back in 2014, the deadline for sending off your manuscript for printing was the end of August, and, as I mentioned earlier, I spent all of August 2014 finishing the manuscript, never mind editing it. Formatting it to send off for printing the night before the deadline was a bit of a nightmare! So I'm very relieved that this year, the deadline is at the end of December, which should give me time to not only finish the story but edit it too. Maybe I'll even be able to place my order before the last day of the offer this time!

Congratulations to everyone who reached their word count goals in this July's Camp NaNoWriMo, and better luck next time for those who didn't! It's been a great month for writing and I hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I have. :)

Camp NaNoWriMo: Week 2 Summary

It's pretty much halfway point in this year's Camp NaNoWriMo, so that should mean that I'm halfway through both my novel and my word count, right? Wrong. Despite trying to get ahead so that I have less writing to do at the end of the month, I've mostly been playing catch up this week. After a couple of days with less than 500 words, I only just got back on track yesterday. Here's how my word count graph is currently looking:

So, we've established that I'm not quite halfway through my word count yet... But what about my plot?

Unfortunately, that's even further from the halfway point. But that's to be expected. Back in 2012 when I first attempted this story, I got to 41,000 words before giving up - because I wasn't even halfway through the story (and I was busy). When I finally completed a draft in 2014, the total word count was about 85,000 words. So I'm neither surprised nor concerned that I'm only on the fifth of my planned twenty chapters at almost 23,000 words.

On the bright side, I am happy with this draft so far. Sure, I'm writing it thinking "I'll need to seriously edit this later", but I haven't had any doubts about this version of the plot, so this may be the last complete rewrite. That thought is a very nice one indeed.

Also, I made a Spotify playlist of songs that inspire me and help me build up the atmosphere specific to my story and setting. You can find it here.

Find me on Camp NaNoWriMo here, or find out more about NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo here and here.

Happy writing!

Camp NaNoWriMo: Week 1 Summary

It's July! For me, this only means one thing: Camp NaNoWriMo. Being in the middle of my summer holiday and with no exams or deadlines looming, July is the perfect time for me to write. This July's Camp NaNo marks the fourth year I've been working on my novel, The Secrets The Dead Keep, and I'm really excited to be working on the second draft this month, after finishing the first draft during July 2014's event. Here's how it's going so far.

But first, for anyone who hasn't heard of NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month, even though it's actually international... don't ask me, it wasn't my idea), it's a month-long online event which challenges participants to write 50,000 words within 30 days. The original NaNoWriMo is held in November, but a few years ago, the Office Of Letters And Light (the organisation responsible for the event) introduced Camp NaNoWriMo, which is held twice yearly - in April and July. For more information on NaNoWriMo, follow this link, and for more information on Camp NaNoWriMo, follow this link.

The first week of this July's Camp NaNo has been pretty good; so far, I've managed to stay pretty on-track. At this particular moment in time, I'm about 800 words ahead of my current target word count. I only missed the word count on one day, but I made up for my measly 500 words by writing 3,000 (!!!) the day after.

There are generally two strategies for completing: planning and 'pantsing' - i.e., whether or not you plot/outline your project beforehand, or whether you just start writing on the 1st of July and see what happens. Back in July 2014, when I finished my first draft, I planned. I planned out every single scene and... it felt like following Ikea instructions. The finished product was very functional (my mum loved it), but to me it lacked a certain something. It lacked that passion that was obvious in every line of the unfinished first attempt from way back in 2012's Camp NaNo.

This year I'm... neither planning nor 'pantsing'. That is to say, I made a plan more extensive than I did in 2014 (this one actually had an ending before the beginning of July; in 2014 I planned up to the middle of the story before I started writing, and then updated my plan when I actually thought of a suitable ending). But the difference is that this year I'm trying to look at my plan as little as possible. It gives me the confidence of knowing exactly where my story is going while simultaneously giving me the freedom and spontaneity of having absolutely no idea where it's going. It makes me feel creative even when I'm actually just ticking scenes off a checklist as I write them. It's bringing life back to my story and characters. At least, I hope it is!

The other thing that's making me more excited about this draft that the previous one is the plot changes. As I said, I only finished my 2014 scene-by-scene plan halfway through the month. This is because, despite having already been working on this novel for two years by this point, I had no idea how I was going to build up to my conclusion - or even what my conclusion was going to be. Eventually I found something that worked and slapped that in place. It was very obvious that it needed improvement. Plus, when you've been writing the same story for four years, you do need to keep it interesting for yourself. The changes I've made and the new aspects I've added mean I'm currently much happier with my plot. Let's just hope I'm still as happy with it once I've written it!

Find me (and my novel!) on Camp NaNoWriMo here.

Good luck to anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo this July! :)

Book Cover

Camp NaNoWriMo is around the corner so I thought I'd get ready by making a book cover for the project I'll be working on this summer!

It started off like this...

Then I added the bridges so that I didn't paint sea where they were supposed to be there, shaded the bridge and filled in light base colours for the sea and the city.

This is what it looked like when I'd finished painting the sea. Also note that I'd added the first harbour.

The city's beginning to take shape! I spent an entire afternoon painting tiny rooftops and even tinier windows and doors. If you think that sounds dull, you're right.

The finished painting!

Some details: the Central Clocktower, the Northern Harbour, and the bridges (Guard Bridge to the south, and an as yet unnamed bridge)

And finally - the finished product! It depicts the city that my story takes place in, Ivec Warra, which you may notice by the colour of the buildings and the bodies of water inside the city is inspired by Venice. It's not quite accurate to how I envision it but I'm by no means an accomplished artist so I'll forgive myself for that. Maybe one day when I've been painting longer I'll redo it, but for now I'm pretty happy with it.
I tweaked it a bit once I had it on my laptop, and then of course added the title and my name.

Find me - and my novel - on Camp NaNoWriMo here!

Editing Others' Writing

A while ago, I talked a bit about what I want from people reading my writing, which is mostly just a vast amount of incredibly detailed opinions. Over the past week or two, I've been trying to apply this to my own reviews of other people's work in giving feedback for the entries to the Creative Writing Society's upcoming anthology.

I'm not going to lie: it's not easy. At first I felt very awkward giving feedback to my peers - some of whom I knew personally, and some of whom were older and therefore more experienced in both life and (presumably) in writing than me. I felt like I was in no position to comment on anything they'd written; I felt like I'd arbitrarily given myself authority to criticise them just because I was on the committee, even though of course my writing is no better than any of theirs. So I made sure that everyone knew I wasn't trying to tell them what to do, and they could ignore all my opinions if they wanted. Reminding myself that I was just giving an outside perspective also helped. But even once I'd gotten that out the way, I still had misgivings. In trying to be constructive I often felt like I was just insulting their work, and I spent most of my time staring out the window trying to work out how to word something nicely, or whether it was worth mentioning at all.

The more I edited, though, the easier it got. I've given feedback on nine pieces now, and I suppose you could say I've worked out a bit of a system. First, I'll do a casual read-through, often at a time when I'm not planning to actually sit down and give any feedback yet. At this point, I'm reading the piece mostly out of curiosity, and for enjoyment. I won't think about it that much, I'll just read it. Often, I don't find much to criticise at this stage; everything seems fine.

When I come back to it, I give it another read through, being more critical this time but not making any comments yet. After that, I'll read it through as many times as I think I need to, annotating specific details, and making any more general comments in the email to which I attach the annotated document to send back to the writer.

There are a few things I make sure to look for and point out in both my annotations and general comments. The first thing is the good points. If there's a line or a paragraph or a word choice I particularly like, I let the writer know, and I try to tell them why I like it, too. In my general comments, I always start on a positive, too. This, I feel, not only balances out the review but also encourages them; nothing better than a nice compliment on your work to make you want to improve it even further. It also lets the writer know what not to change as well as what to change.

Secondly, I consider the theme or the take-home message of the piece. For the writer, this is mostly in their head; no matter what they put on the page, they know what they're trying to say, even if the two would not seem related to an outsider. That is, their overall meaning can get lost in winding sentences and trying to make this line rhyme with that line. So as well as looking at specifics I make sure to look at the overall piece to see whether its structure makes sense, whether the point of the piece is clear, and whether every part fits with this. I feel like giving a piece a clear theme or message gives it direction, which just makes it much more rewarding - not to mention easier - to read.

In pieces which have characters (some, like the essays and the poems, do not have characters), I make sure to look at them in great detail and outline for the writer how I perceive each character so they can check whether the character is coming across how they intend them to. For one piece, this meant going back through the piece an extra five times, looking at a different character each time.

To my relief, I've heard only good things from the writers who have got back to me after receiving my feedback so far. The next step I've suggested is for us all to swap our second drafts to get multiple viewpoints on them, then hopefully they'll be ready for printing!

New Semester Resolutions

     In the midst of writing essays and revising for the January exam period, I forgot to make New Year’s resolutions this year. Not that it really matters: I always think there are many opportunities for new starts apart from New Year. For me, one of those is a new semester. Deadlines and the stress they bring are gone for now, allowing time for other commitments such as self-improvement. Plus, with new modules under way, a new semester seems like the perfect time to become a new version of oneself.

     I’m not making resolutions as such, but there are many things I’d like to start doing, better habits I’d like to get into, this semester. One of them, as always, is to be more organised. This time, I’m going to stay on top of filing my lecture notes and I’m going to make sure to give myself plenty of time to not only complete but also perfect my assignments. I’m also going to watch the German news every night and watch more German films, to keep up my language skills; I might even sign up for German conversation classes, as I don’t feel I speak enough in seminars. And I’m going to do it all with positivity and motivation to spare.

     But that’s not all. I’m going to be a lot more involved in my university’s Creative Writing Society this semester, and that’s not so much something I’ve decided to do myself as something I’m already doing. I signed up to the Creative Writing Society committee last year as the “Editor”, which so far in this academic year hasn’t involved much, so I’ve basically just been doing odd jobs that other committee members are too busy to do. Now, however, the anthology we’re putting together is gaining momentum, and this is pretty much entirely my domain. I’ve been promoting the anthology to the Society’s members; I’ve been reviewing all the entries we’ve had so far so their authors can improve them*; I’ll be going to talk to the head of the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics to see if the School will support and advertise our project as well as get us more writers; I’ll be organising feedback sessions for the writers to read and comment on each others’ work; and when they send me their final submissions, I’ll be formatting the whole thing for printing. 

     On top of all that, I’ve volunteered to help out with some of the other things Creative Writing is doing at the moment, which goes from the running of our usual writing sessions and social events to the organising of a writers’ retreat weekend at the end of the Easter break in mid-April. All in all, I feel like being part of this society’s committee is going to be incredibly hectic for me over the next couple of months, but the success of this society is something I’m very passionate about, and right now I feel like my enthusiasm will be more than capable of making up for any time, energy or sleep I end up lacking.

     Finally, I hope to spend at least ten minutes every day working on my own writing project (come this summer I’ll have been writing this novel for four years, and I’d very much like to finish it before I die), and I’m also aiming to start updating this blog regularly – every Friday, to be exact. I’ll be posting updates on my writing, updates on the Creative Writing Society, other writing-related bits and pieces, book reviews, and maybe even a short story or two. If you’d like more frequent updates, I’ll be posting shorter posts and occasionally some pictures on my tumblr blog.

     I know it seems like a lot for one girl to do while keeping herself alive and healthy, attending lectures and maintaining some semblance of a social life, but I feel like I’m in a much better place mentally and emotionally this year compared to last year**, so I think I can cope. Plus, I feel a challenge is what I need. What better way to stay focussed than to always have something to focus on? What better way to get oneself out of bed in a morning than to have so many goals to achieve? Of course, I can only hope that this doesn’t backfire; this is supposed to result in productivity and fulfilment, not stress and an impulse to hide from everything under my duvet. If this is a success, then I’m hoping it’ll set me in positive, productive habits for the rest of my life.

     On that note, let the whirlwind that is this semester begin!

*=I’m planning on writing a blog post on editing others’ work, so look out for that in the near future.

**=There were points last year when even the prospect of leaving my room to go to a lecture seemed like far too much pressure, never mind making an appointment with the head of the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics.

Electric Reads Young Writers' Anthology 2015

Back in August, I came across a post on Facebook advertising a short story competition run by a company called Electric Reads. They were looking for British writers under the age of 25 to write a 3,000-word or less piece in any genre to be published in an anthology to showcase new talent. So I wrote a short fantasy story, which isn't something I often do (world-building gets a little difficult when you only have a limited amount of words to tell the story in). I was pretty pleased with the result, however, so I sent it to a friend for editing purposes. They basically told me they'd eat their hat if my piece wasn't chosen.

So I made the changes they suggested (and a few of my own) and submitted it. I was hopeful, but I wasn't really expected much.

Then, in early November, I got this email.

On the 11th of December, after several weeks of edits and preparations, the anthology was released worldwide! My story is one of only 25 to be selected and I am incredibly proud of this achievement. I haven't yet read the other stories (my copy only arrived yesterday!) but judging by the dedicated hard work the team at Electric Reads has put into this anthology, I know they'll have chosen some absolutely fantastic stories.

The Electric Reads Young Writers' Anthology 2015 is available from Amazon in eBook, hardback and paperback here, from Barnes & Noble in eBook here, and from Waterstones in hardback here. As young, uestablished writers, this is a huge opportunity for us to get our names out there so it would be amazing if you could support us by reading our stories and - even better - posting a review on any of the aforementioned sellers' sites, or on our Goodreads page. :)

Writer's Block

Recently I started sending chapters of my novel to a group of people I call my Guinea Pigs. In actuality, these are just my closest friends – the people I trust the most and feel most comfortable sharing my work with at this stage. However, it’s not easy, and for me, this editing seems to have brought on what many people refer to as writer’s block.

But before I get into that, let’s see where I’m at with this novel of mine. I did, miraculously, manage to complete Camp NaNoWriMo this past July (see my stats here), but in doing so I did not get anywhere near finishing the first draft of my sequel. I got so stuck with it that I decided it would be both easier and more beneficial for my writing if I were to instead write the second draft of my first draft (also my laptop spent six days out of my reach having a virus removed, so by the time I got it back, I had to write FAST, which I really couldn’t do with the amount of inspiration I was getting for the sequel). So, at the end of July’s Camp NaNoWriMo, I had a complete mess of a beginning of a sequel, and the first four chapters of the second draft of the first book.

Since then, I have edited the prologue plus one of those first four chapters and sent both off to my Guinea Pigs. After editing Chapter One about a week ago, however, I got writer’s block.

I say that like it struck me like lightning and I had to spend the week in bed with flu-like symptoms because of it. Of course, that is not the case. Writer’s block is not a disease; it affects different writers in different ways and for different reasons, and it won’t even be the same for each writer every time they get it. See this tumblr post for more on this.

In the past, I’ve had writer’s block from simply being uninspired. This time, though, it was decidedly anxiety-induced.

After sending Chapter One out to my Guinea Pigs, I started editing Chapter Two, but I couldn’t finish for the feeling of impending doom lying heavy on my shoulders. It suddenly struck me just how long a project this was, and how serious it was getting: I was writing draft two, and sending it out for other people to read! It is very rare for me to ever have finished a writing project, and I’ve certainly never gone back and completely rewritten one before, so this is the closest I’ve ever been to having a manuscript that is ready to send out to agents. This thought brought on even more fear: if I can’t deal with having my closest friends reading my writing, how will I ever be able to cope with getting anything published? What if I can’t achieve my lifelong dream?

It didn’t really help that I can be a bit of a perfectionist, and was worrying over whether any of this was worth my time anyway if it would never be perfect. Just thinking of continuing writing makes me want to hide from the world and all my responsibilities.

I decided the best way to overcome this was to take a break for a few days, and not force myself to write when I felt unable to do so. I've ended up consciously taking over a week off from writing my novel (I say "consciously" because often I just won't find time to write for this length of time or longer). On one hand, I could say that it has worked: when I do think about it (no use thinking about something that makes you feel like crap, right?), I feel a little better about it, and I have started writing again. On the other hand, what I have been writing is not my novel, and even if it was, this would definitely not be a permanent solution. The anxiety only comes back and then I'd have to take another break lasting a week or two. It could take years to get this novel done in this way, never mind its sequels.

Another potential solution is outlined in this tumblr post. I don't think the problem described by the anonymous user who sent in the question is quite the same as mine, but it's similar enough that it's worth a try. The advice suggests asking yourself a few questions about your writing whose answers are meant to encourage you and rekindle a bit of self-belief. I think my answers to these questions are certainly something I need to remember whenever I feel discouraged about my writing: yes, I enjoy writing, therefore no, I do not think it's a waste of time. That reminder that I'm writing this more for my own pleasure than for a future career might be just what I need to get me out of my writer's block.

July Camp NaNoWriMo 2015: Mid-Month Update

This month, I'm working on the sequel to my novel, which is actually proving rather difficult due to some rather big plot changes at the end of the first book that I've planned but haven't written yet. What that means is that I don't know where this story is going: I can't work out what's going to happen to the characters when I haven't fully worked out what happened to them previously. Luckily, this book introduces some new characters who originated from stories that I first imagined a few years ago. But in including them in this book, I haven't abandoned their stories; instead, I've simply integrated them as subplots. Because I know where these subplots are going, I have been favouring writing these rather than my main plotline. Unfortunately, that does not mean I am keeping up with my word count: as shown by the graph above, I am nine thousand words behind schedule. That's pretty normal for me during NaNoWriMo, though, so the fact that I haven't given up yet is a good sign that I may well still finish on time.

Things People Say When I Tell Them I’m Writing A Novel

Being a writer is part of who I am, and I don’t want to hide it, so if someone asks me what I’m doing tonight, I’m not going to tell them that I’m watching TV all night when actually I’ll be working on my novel. This generally leads to the other person asking two questions: what's it about, and can I read it? You’d think I’d enjoy hearing these two questions - hearing that people are interested in my book - (I know, me too) so here's why I don't.

What is it about?

So many things about this question make me nervous about answering. Firstly, I never know where to start. My head has been filled with the characters, settings and various plot points of this story for almost three years now. It has gone through many changes and will go through many more. This makes it kind of difficult to step back from all the tiny details of the project that I’m currently dealing with to summarise the book’s exposition for you. I always struggle with working out which bits are important and which bits you will understand without me explaining the entire history of my fictional world. As a result, my answer will either be short and vague and therefore rather disappointing (usually I just say “oh, it’s a fantasy”, and only elaborate with something like “it’s about a girl searching for her family” after a little more prompting, though that doesn't do it justice), or you’ll have to hope you don’t have anything to do in the next few hours because I’m telling you everything. Secondly, as already mentioned, I hate oversimplifying it. It gives the wrong impression (I once told someone my book is about a revolution, which it is, but it lead him to think it's a political book, which it isn't) or makes it sound dull, or like I don't want to talk about it (I do, I just don't know how to without sounding silly - a pocket watch that gives you the ability to talk to ghosts, are you serious?). On the other hand, I also don't want to end up boring the other person with all the inconsequential details, or messing up my explanation and just confusing them (which is very likely). I feel like this question puts pressure on the writer to have a good grasp of their book, which you would think they have, but in reality, (at least for me) it's just a huge mess of ideas.

Can I read it (before it's published)?

I hate this question, usually because I have to try and find a nice way to say no ("not yet" is my go-to reply). Before you ask it me, I want you to ask yourself a few questions first.

1. Why do you want to read my work? 

If it’s for a ‘claim to fame’, then please don’t ask me if you can read my book. My neighbour is apparently convinced I’ll be the next JK Rowling and wants to be able to say he read my book before it was famous. This makes me uncomfortable partly because it’s highly doubtful I’ll be as successful as JK Rowling and he really shouldn’t expect me to be famous one day just because I’m writing a book, but mostly because it implies to me that he’s actually only interested in my book so that he can have something to boast about in a few years’ time. It also disregards the fact that right now, my novel is a hobby, and getting it published - never mind it being a bestseller - a far-off dream.

2. Are we good friends? 

My book is incredibly personal to me. It isn’t just a story, it’s my imagination laid bare on the page for you to see. So I’m very self conscious about my work. If we’re not really good friends, then I’m not going to want you to read my novel. I’m also not going to want to disappoint you and tell you that I’ll only let you read it when the entire rest of the world can read it too, which puts me in a slightly awkward position. Basically, if I’m not comfortable enough to be myself around you in person, then I won’t be comfortable enough to let you read my book. If it was ready for you to read it, I'd have started querying literary agents already. So if we don't know each other that well, don’t even ask.

3. Will you be able to give me hugely detailed feedback? 

If you think that writing a book is easy, or that the books you see on the Waterstones bookshelves are word-for-word the same books that their authors wrote when they first sat down at their desks with a vague idea in their heads, you would be wrong. So lower your expectations of however good you think my novel is going to be, and then lower them some more. This is a work in progress and in need of a lot of improvements.    

As the writer, I see my story from a completely unique angle. My position is all-seeing. I know everything that is, could be and could have been in my story. To me, it all makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, my readers will not have this viewpoint, so I have to make sure everything that is important is visible from their angle too, but I can’t see from their viewpoint either. This is where I need help. At this stage, I need readers willing to give me a huge amount of feedback to help me get across what I want to get across and not miss out anything important. If you’re not willing to tell me all of your opinions of my book - what you thought of every character in every scene, your theories on their plans, how much of their backstory you’ve worked out, what confused you, what bored you, what you thought was unnecessary, what you thought was supposed to be funny but really wasn’t and needs to be removed, and, of course, what you enjoyed - then you telling me that you want to read my book is just someone else waiting over my shoulder for me to finish writing, counting on me to come up with a spectacular bestseller all on my own (not going to happen, guys). Your answer to question 2 is also pretty vital here - if I'm not certain that I can trust your judgement and you'll tell me nothing but the truth, it doesn't matter if you're willing to give me all the constructive criticism in the world.

The likelihood is, if your answers to these questions are the ones I'm looking for, you won't even have to ask to read my book, because I'll ask you - I wasn't kidding when I said I will need help with writing my book. And if I'm happy with your answers to questions 2 and 3, I might even completely disregard your answer to 1, but not the other way around.

I'd like to add that these are only my views on this subject. I'm sure there are many writers who are very private about their writing and feel rather awkward when asked about it, like me, but I'm also sure there are many writers who are perfectly happy to talk about whatever project they're currently working on, who don't worry about mis-explaining their plot or sounding ridiculous, or who will let anyone who asks read their writing. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them.

The Secrets The Writer Keeps

Several months and a sneaky blog-title change later, I'm finally posting an update! It's currently one week until my last exam, and therefore one week until my summer begins (I don't understand how quickly first year went!). I haven't managed to write much recently (whether it's true or not, I blame studying), but I'm looking forward to writing more over summer. I also hope to start posting on here again, so here are a few updates!

• I set myself a few writing goals and put them up on my wardrobe:

• Therefore I will be spending June writing my second draft, July taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo to get the first draft of Book 2 started, and August finishing Book 2.
• Over the past few weeks and months, I've mostly been fleshing out the world in which my story is set, planning my second draft (from big plot changes to tiny details) and attempting to write a new beginning. Since I decided to write a new prologue and move the old one into the first chapter, "writing" for me has pretty much become synonymous with "writing and rewriting the new prologue".
• I have received detailed feedback from one of the two people who has read the first draft of Book 1, and hope to receive more feedback from the second. Already I've found that even getting just one outside opinion is incredibly helpful: it helps me to see things from my reader's point of view, to see what works and what doesn't, which details need to be toned down and which need to be made more obvious, and see problems and characterisation flaws that I wouldn't have noticed (for example, I tried to make my main character grumpy-but-lovable, and instead it just resulted in her being slightly unlikable and difficult to relate to).

I plan on posting mostly progress reports on my writing here, perhaps along with a few other things, however I'm not currently sure what. Nevertheless, I shall endeavour to at least post something in the near future.

NaNoWriMo 2014: From Heaven To Hell/Hydrena

Time for another story about a story idea!

When I was maybe 13, 14, 15 years old, I spent a lot of my time on a website called FictionPress.Net, posting stories and talking to people in the forums. The site users used to start informal writing competitions among themselves, and I took part in two. The second is irrelevant (at least for now), but the first involved starting your story with a short passage which ran thusly:

"Stop, you thief!" Panting frantically, I ran down the escalator from the heavily puffing security guard. I clutched the pack of cigarettes tightly in my hand as I made my jump to freedom – crashing into someone. I looked up to find myself staring into a Goth boy's green eyes.

I'm not sure if this was from something, or if the girl who started the contest just made it up; if I've just infringed some sort of copyright thing, I didn't mean to and I'm sorry.

From this passage, I developed a modern fantasy story about a girl who discovered a new world and a new race (by means of the green-eyed Goth boy, who was a part of this race), and ended up having to confront Death himself, and I called this story From Heaven To Hell. I made it up as I wrote it, so the plotline was a bit dubious, and what kind of character gets transported to another realm by some guy she literally just ran into and doesn't ask where she is or what the hell just happened, I don't know. But it was one of the few stories that I actually finished at that age, and despite the fact that my two main characters didn't have much personality-wise (much like the rest of my characters - guess who couldn't be bothered with character development when they were 14), they stayed with me.

I mentioned in my post about The Dragon Story that I have a habit of merging story ideas together, and so when I realised during the early stages of planning Barnabus' Balloons that I would want some sort of magical race in my story, instead of creating a new magical race, I decided to steal the one from From Heaven To Hell, thus linking the story ideas. I also mentioned that I had created a network of sequels, prequels and companion books. Barnabus' Balloons is to be the first in the main series, which will consist of four books, and From Heaven To Hell, which I am renaming Hydrena while I rewrite it during this month's NaNoWriMo with a better plotline and more developed characters, is to be the last, while The Dragon Story is to be the third. I am also planning a prequel and have numerous over ideas which I may or may not ever write.

So Hydrena - the rewrite of From Heaven To Hell - is what I am writing at the moment. We are ten days into NaNoWriMo now and unsurprisingly I am very behind (both with writing and with my uni work, but that is neither related nor the point). You want proof? Fine.

However, I am not the only one doing NaNoWriMo at my university, and we have got permission to have an overnight write-in at our library soon, so as long as I don't continuously forget to write until then, I should be able to catch up. :)

Language Is Magic

I've been at university for a bit over a week now, and started my Linguistics with German degree course two days ago. At the end of the seminar I had today, our group was asked: "why do you all want to study linguistics? What about it makes it interesting to you?"

When I tell people I'm studying linguistics, many of these people ask me: "what languages?" They assume that they know what I am talking about, but they forget, or maybe don't realise, that there is more to a language than knowing how to use it to communicate. Linguistics is the scientific study of language as a concept, from phonetics (speech sounds and how we make them) to sociolinguistics (how social factors such as class, sex, age and ethnicity affect the way language is used) to syntax (the structure of sentences). But things like that often don't cross people's minds. After all, they have been speaking their language for years; what more is there to know?

That's why I find linguistics interesting. Those of us who, for example, can't programme computers know very well that we can't programme computers. But not many people know just how much they don't know about the sentences they build and the sounds they form into words every day. It's like a hidden science, it's like a secret society. You don't know it's there until you really stop and think about how you don't need to be psychic to place images in other people's heads, you can just put one word after another in a specific way and providing that they speak the same language as you, they can rebuild the image in their heads just as you described it to them.

And the person doing the describing doesn't even have to be anywhere near you for them to communicate that image. You can make little inks marks on paper, and these little ink marks have the power to take strangers on journeys around the world, to inspire them, to entertain them or to break their hearts. You don't need magic to cast a spell on people; you just need words.

If you think about it, all language is is a load of sounds, and all writing is is some funny squiggles, and yet we can understand them. And we take it completely for granted; we don't know how we do it, and we don't even think about how we do it, we just do it. Doesn't that say something amazing about the human brain? Because nobody told you how to put a sentence together, but you still know how to do it. Well, you say, it's just common sense. So does that mean that you were born knowing that the adjective goes before the noun (eg, "the sneaky fox")? Does that mean you were born knowing that it makes sense to say "the fox will hunt the rabbit" but not "the fox will the rabbit hunt"? If we were all born knowing these things, then why does the adjective come after the noun in French, and why would "the fox will the rabbit hunt" be a perfectly grammatical sentence in German?

Language is a mystery but that doesn't stop us using it every day. Language is powerful and strange, but language works in so many ways we don't understand, and personally I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to find out all it's secrets.