Sunday 11 December 2011

Welcoming Eleanor Harriet to the world

I can't remember if I mentioned before, but my brother and sister-in-law were expecting a baby at Christmas. Well, little Eleanor Harriet clearly decided that having a Christmas birthday didn't sound like much fun, so she arrived yesterday instead. Eleanor and her mum are both doing well, despite the need for a Ceasarian in the end. I don't know any more details than that, as my brother has been too busy dashing to and fro between his home and the hospital to do more than send a couple of texts and give me one very quick phone call, but he's promised to phone later with more information.

It's wonderful to have something to celebrate, after all the family has been through in recent months.

Needless to say, there's not going to be much time for writing in the next couple of weeks. I think I'll have to set a target of about ten words a day if I've any hope of achieving it!

Sunday 27 November 2011

Achievable targets

I've actually made good progress this week, despite the fact that it's been terribly difficult trying to summon up any kind of motivation since my father died. I now understand what people mean when they say they find themselves unable to concentrate after a bereavement, because I certainly feel like my brain's flitting from one thing to the next without settling on anything for more than a couple of seconds. However, I've found that as long as I set myself achievable targets, then I can make progress.

By achievable, I mean minute, bordering on the microscopic. For example, yesterday I set myself the target of finishing a paragraph. I got stuck stuck there last week and finally moved on to something else - I think the problem was that I kept telling myself I had to finish the chapter, and that seemed like an impossible task. However, once I told myself that I just had to write a couple of sentences, I had no problem getting down to work. And once I got going I didn't stop at the paragraph, but carried on writing for most of the afternoon and finished the chapter. But the point is, even if I hadn't got further than the end of the paragraph, at least I would have achieved my target and moved my story forward. That's better than getting nowhere at all.

Saturday 19 November 2011

Getting there...

I'm slowly getting my act together.

I'd been dreading the funeral, but actually it went much better than I'd thought it would. It was lovely to see how many people came to say goodbye to Dad, and it really helped to hear their reminiscences and how Dad had touched their lives.

I got back home on Monday and I've been in a whirl of catching up ever since, but this weekend is blissfully empty. I'm sat by my fire (there's something so comforting about a log fire) and I've got a stack of rom coms  to work through, starting with Legally Blonde. There might be chocolate involved, too.


Sunday 23 October 2011

First post - motivation

I took the plunge this year and entered the first chapter of my historical romance in the Mills and Boon New Voices competition. Although I didn't progress past the open to all round, I did get fresh inspiration from the other entrants, and especially from the experiences of the existing authors. Reading about the years of hard work that they had to put in before receiving The Call has made me realise that I really need to start taking my work more seriously if I want to make any kind of progress.

Hence this blog. It's really a place for me to check in every week or so and report on progress. In my working life I've always been accountable to my students, whose performance will suffer if I don't come up with the goods. With writing, however, no one apart from me will suffer if I don't finish anything, so I've got to come up with new ways to motivate myself. Therefore I'm setting myself a target of having to report on my progress here at least once a week. Maybe the prospect of the humiliation of having to confess that I've done nothing will inspire me to get a move on. Maybe...

So - current state of affairs: the first draft of my novel is complete, but it needs a huge amount of editing. I did a lot of work on chapter one prior to posting on the NV site. As it didn't get anywhere it obviously needs more, but I'm going to leave that for a while and go on to chapter two. Maybe I'll have fresh inspiration for ch1 once I'm happier with the next few.

I'll report back in a week. If I haven't got any further, then it's zero chocolate for a week!