Writing equipment

With Christmas almost here it means the new year and the traditional time for making resolutions is not far away. I’m not a fan of new year resolutions because I believe it adds too much pressure and you are more likely to achieve the outcome if you set well developed goals at a time appropriate to you and not necessarily defined by a calendar.

However, having said that, this year I have a desire to set some resolutions. As I’ve been doing my Christmas shopping I’ve been reminded of things I’d like to do and have developed a list of things I’d like to achieve by the end of 2012.

Complete weekend novelist – I was progressing well through this book until I wrote a post about it and I haven’t used it since! Therefore I would like to complete the remaining chapters.

Write journal at least once a week – although I have written a journal for many years I tend to go through phases of not writing, sometimes it is days, but sometimes it can be months. I would like to have some continuity in my records and think once a week will provide this without being too difficult to keep.

Write things I’m grateful for every day – I think it is good to finish the day thinking about the good things that have happened or things I’m grateful for, and I sometimes list them in my journal. However this is fairly erratic and I would like to do it more regularly. I’ve dropped some hints and hope I will be given a five year journal for Christmas and this will provide a small space to write each day, but will also enable me to review them easily each year.  ... Read more 543 words

Do you want to write a novel and either can’t find the time or don’t make much progress each time you sit down? If so you may benefit from a writing programme that provides ideas and structure for each writing session.

My husband knew I was not finding much time to write and although I made some progress each time I sat down I got frustrate because I didn’t feel my writing was cohesive. So he kindly bought me The weekend novelist as a birthday present. My birthday is in December, so once we had finished preparing and celebrating Christmas the first weekend happened to be 1st and 2nd January. This means it has become an inadvertent new year’s resolution that I will write a novel in 2011.

My review

I have to say that so far (weekend 5-6) I love the book; the style really works for me. It is structured by weekend or group of weekends but it does not tell you which exercise to do which day, so if you want to write all day Saturday and not on Sunday there is nothing to suggest that is unsuitable. It has also meant I’ve been able to write on Wednesday when I don’t go to work without feeling I’m ruining the structure.

I’ve hand written about 5 sides of A4 in my new notebook and the exercises have got me working out my plot. With my novel I’ve had images in my head of very specific scenes, but no idea how they link together, this programme has helped solves this by making me think of my plot structure in different ways.  ... Read more 661 words, 1 image

Its the first of November and that means two things; it’s time to grow a mustache and to write a novel in a month. As I’m challenged in the facial hair area, I concentrate on Nanowrimo.

At first it sounds daunting, writing 50,000 words in a month, but after thinking a bit harder the enthusiasm kicks in and you think yes I can write 1600 words a day, so you sign up and then reality hits. However, the great thing about Nanowrimo is, it is about quantity and not quality. It can be difficult at first to accept it, but it means the target for the month is to get as many words written as possible and it doesn’t matter if it is not your best writing, or whether you’ve missed out all the difficult scenes because you have a first draft you can revise over the next 11 months.

I have completed Nanowrimo twice, but have not participated the last two years; in 2008 I gave birth to my daughter at the beginning of the month and 2009 I returned to work after a years absence. As I don’t have any major life changes this year, I’ve thought hard about whether to participate knowing it will encourage me get words on paper instead of them just going round my head.

However, I’ve decided not to participate because I just don’t know where I will find the time to write the words. It was tricky before, but now I am working longer hours and have my daughter to look after, so is likely to take most of my free time. I thought about signing up and seeing how far I got, but in the end I decided that it would become stressful and remove the fun. Plus I want to work on an idea I’ve already started and that is against the rules.  ... Read more 385 words, 1 image