Heaven Can Wait - Cally Taylor

I don't read a lot of chick lit, but 'Heaven Can Wait' had two major advantages for me. Firstly, I know the author, Cally Taylor, and secondly, I have a bit of a weakness for all things supernatural. I started reading as soon as I got home. Every time I tried to stop and get on with the many jobs I needed to do that evening, I thought, 'Oh, just one more chapter...' and eventually I realised resistance was futile - I finished it in one evening.

Something about the writing reminded me of Neil Gaiman, possibly the mix of the everyday with the supernatural, and the unlikely hero (or rather heroine in this case) overcoming bizarre obstacles to achieve the 'right' thing, not necessarily their heart's desire. The humour was also a wonderful mix of juvenile guffaws with clever observational gems, but the ending achieved something special, as it brought a tear to my eye. This is easier said than done, because I have clinically dry eyes - I have to use eye-drops with the worst name ever (I can't put it here, it could have an interesting effect on my searches profile...). I've also persuaded one of my colleagues to buy her own copy, by cunningly letting her read the back, then refusing to let her borrow it! It's a risky book-selling technique I realise, but it's working so far...

90,000!

A slightly unexpected burst of speed (possibly induced by the contents of Calistro's Pay It Forward gift, which I'll post about properly on Wednesday when I've taken the pictures) on Saturday has taken me past the 90% mark!

It's arrived!

If I wasn't just about to leave the house (we're spending Mothers' Day with my in-laws and we need to get on the road!) then I would SO take pictures and put them up immediately, but frustratingly, I don't have time right now. But, my Pay It Forward package from Calistro has arrived and it is FABULOUS.

Progress (at last)

Thanks to the impetus from Saturday (and possibly also because I forgot my book today), my word count has crept on by a whole 1%! Squee! Am now feeling a lot less like a fraudulent Racer, and while the finish is still a long way off, I'm out of the pits and back on the track again for the first time in months. It feels good.

Wow!

It seems fitting that my first post in ages should come straight after I meet all my fellow Novel Racers. (Thanks for the verbal kick up the bum Zinnia, please keep them coming!) Talking to everyone, sharing our ideas and experiences has made me want to stop letting work etc get in the way of both my blogging and writing. Even if it's just a few sentences, I need to actually do something regularly. So, I apologise for any times you have checked the blog and nothing had changed - I will do better. (Though being properly better about writing might have to wait until after my Italian exam. Eek.)

30,000 words and counting

The Novel Race this year has spurred me on, and I expect to get to 32,000 words later today. I'm finding that the more I write, the more I want to write, which is a satisfying feeling. However, I definitely go through peaks and troughs, so I'm hoping to extend this peak as long as possible, even if it means lugging my laptop all around Cheshire and Manchester so that I always have it with me.

Apart from reaching 30,000 words yesterday, I also achieved another milestone. I write in a fairly patchwork way, jotting down bits of scenes all over the place and adding to them when I think of something to say. It means there's always something interesting to write about no matter what kind of mood I'm in, but it does mean that I don't really do linear landmarks. Anyway, I decided to concentrate on my first few chapters, and as of last night, the first three are all finished! They're still quite rough and first-drafty (draughty also works as I'm sure there are plenty of holes the wind can whistle through...) but my story has a definite start now. I just need to tame the wilds and plug the gaps in the middle and end, and then I'll have the first draft of a whole book...

In Search of Adam - Caroline Smailes

'In Search of Adam' by Caroline Smailes, a fellow Novel Racer, is very different from most books. The way she uses text as a visual device, rather than just a way of getting her words into the readers' brains, and her intentionally idiosyncratic use of sentence structure, gives the impression that every word and strand of the story has been teased into the perfect place with surgical precision. This makes Jude's life, which is not comfortable to experience, seem all the more true. The use of language and of information as an emotional rock at times reminded me of 'The History of Love' by Nicole Krauss, another novel about a young girl trying to find her way in a world that seems to have buried all that she needs to find.

The hidden depths beneath the secondary characters enclosing Jude's world give an ominous feel to what might otherwise be considered a 'normal' street. These characters will also get their chance to be heard on Monday, when Caroline releases 'Disraeli Avenue', to raise money for victims of abuse via the charity 'One in Four'.

Writer's Bricks

I don't think I ever have time to develop writer's block. When I'm writing, it happens in little snatches of stolen time, when I should doing something different or should be somewhere else. I do have a lot of problems getting things finished, but it's always because I have too many ideas, rather than too few. Unfortunately, I find it very difficult to set my brain to just one channel, so I've got notes on a hundred different exciting plots, interesting characters and speculative 'what if's, and I carry round a stripy Paperchase pad for this purpose (though unlike Helen it doesn't have a band to keep it closed, so its pages are rather squashed in places...). I've been trying very hard recently to concentrate on one particular idea, and have got over 5000 words, spanning about two-thirds of the plot, though of course it will need an awful lot of expansion. But I'm beginning to think that trying to limit myself is a bad idea. If I'm not in the mood to think of Phoebe and her complexities, maybe having something completely different on standby would help me in the long-run? But I do feel terribly disloyal having opened a Google Notebook on two other projects today, even if they've both been doing laps of my skull for over a year.

Frustration vs procrastination

I'm quite contrary. When I'm given seemingly perfect circumstances in which to do something, I am prone to dither and watch TV (especially now I've discovered TV Links and can watch TV on my laptop without annoying adverts). Then, when I'm in a meeting, on a train, talking on the phone, or doing something which really deserves my full attention I have an overwhelming urge to do what I should have been doing when I got the chance. This weekend was a perfect example. S was working a lot of the time, there wasn't anything urgent I needed to do so I planned to settle down with my laptop and do some serious work on my blog and write reams and reams. Hmm. After linking all the Novel Racer blogs I felt rather blogged out - there are many, many people! So I deserved a break for an episode of Bones. Then my flat got far too hot to do any thinking so I watched House. This carried on pretty much all weekend...

I did manage some research for a little while, typed up some notes I'd made on the train last week, and updated a couple of scenes, but it was hardly the workathon I had hoped for. On the train home from work last night, I had lots of ideas and was happily jotting them down to type up and flesh out when I got in. Then I realised I wouldn't have any time to do that because last night was Knitting Circle (my first time, so glad I went, lots of fun and an excuse to finish the scarf that's been sitting reproachfully in my understairs cupboard for at least 18 months...). S is working this evening, so really I'm going to be in the ideal situation to get done all the work I really wanted to do last night but couldn't, though I get the feeling that when I arrive home I'll be feeling strangely like, ooh, maybe some House, then Bones, then whatever random stuff I manage to find which is exactly the opposite of what I should be doing. Argh.

Coming out of the (stationery) closet

I am a writer. Officially, I have been for about 2 years, although my job title inserts a handy 'Medical' in front of writer, to make sure that (during office hours at least) I concentrate on non-fiction. Apparently if you add a little fictitious sparkle when you're writing up a clinical trial they call it 'falsifying evidence' and it's terribly unpopular. How dull! Anyway, I got over this revelation by realising that they don't mind if I let the more creative aspects of my writing out to play after work (or at least not in something that's due for presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual congress), so I picked up the habit of scribbling fervently in my many notebooks, and it felt good. I've always had an inner monologue whispering to me 'If this was a book, then this would happen, and she would say that, or they would do this...', and now I've started letting it out on a regular basis, I've found that I have to distract myself when I'm not in a position to write things down to stop thinking of things that I'll just forget before I get to a pen.

Writing is something that I've always found comes easily. I did actually write a novel when I was 12 (terribly Enid Blyton-esque), and my little brothers loved it. Well, they were in it. Since then things like exams and deadlines have got in the way of finishing anything, but things are different now. I have invested in a shiny new laptop, joined the Novel Racers, and even told a couple of my friends what I'm up to. I think that was the hardest thing for me to do. Writer's block (touch wood) has only ever affected me when faced with a blank piece of paper, and just getting something down sorts that fairly soon. But acknowledging that I want to write fiction feels exceedingly scary. Why is this? It's an ambition, everybody has them. Why are creative ambitions so much harder to admit to than more concrete ones? Everyone I've told so far has been supportive and interested, and I have no reason to believe that any of my other friends will laugh in my face and tell me not to be ridiculous.