Update, a local legend and November targets

View from Gelert's grave

I went to Beddgelert last weekend for my writing group's annual retreat. I managed to add about 6,000 words to my work in progress as well as polishing a couple of short stories, so I consider it time well spent.

Beddgelert is in Snowdonia and the scenery is stunning. In my last post I wrote how I get inspiration from scenery, so it won't surprise anyone to learn that I managed to fit in walks each day. It's one of the most beautiful places in the world. I only wish I could have stayed longer.


Something I didn't mention in my 'inspiration' post was local legends. As a writer of historicals, I like to collect local legends. Then I dip into them to help me create depth to a setting. There's a wonderful story associated with Beddgelert and the clue is in the name: Beddgelert is Welsh for 'Gelert's grave'. (Note to self: Gelert is a great name. I must use it sometime.)

Here's a photo of the plaque at Gelert's grave that explains the story. Have tissues ready - it's sad.

And finally...my target for November. I was tempted to join in with NaNoWriMo, but due to family commitments at the end of the month, I thought 50,000 words was over-ambitious. But I like the idea of pushing myself, so I've set a 30,000 word target. That way, I'll have broken the back of my first draft and hopefully have it finished by the end of the year. I'm already 15,000 words in, so I'm well on the way :)

Progress report and Scrivener

I started work on my first draft this week and so far I've exceeded my target of writing eight hundred words a day. It doesn't sound like much, but if I set out to write, say, fifteen hundred words, I freeze and convince myself I'll never do it. The best way I've found of fighting the fear is by convincing it there's no reason to start whispering to me in the first place. I know I can easily manage eight hundred words and once I've got going I can usually do much more.

My progress has also been helped by the discovery of Scrivener. I downloaded it a while ago, on the recommendation of a writing group friend. However I was in the middle of my previous novel at the time and because it looked complicated I didn't think it was worth the bother of switching over from Word.

I wish I had. It's quite simply the best way I've found of organising my writing. And it's not so complicated. I spent an hour going through the tutorial project and that's all I needed to grasp the basics. Now all my research notes, outlines, character sheets etc are one click away, on the same page that I'm working on. Previously I had to save everything into folders, or bookmark web pages and I was always mislaying things.

There's no way I can talk about all the features, but there are two I've found particularly useful this week. Firstly, it's dead simple to create a template. Eg a blank character sheet or location sheet. I used a tip from Jessica Hart and cribbed her scene sheets. I've found these so useful for planning each scene and it saves me a lot of time in the long run as I don't have to work it out when I write the scene. The second thing is the target setting gadget. I can set a target word count for each scene and as I type, a red line gets longer and gradually turns green as I approach my target. It's a great motivator.

I can't recommend Scrivener highly enough. Give it a try if you haven't already. (I use the Mac version BTW, but a Windows version is also available.)

Plotting

I feel like I should be rubbing my hands, going, "Bwa ha ha ha ha!" at regular intervals when I say that I'm plotting. And in many ways, planning a romance is a bit like being an evil mastermind. I take two lovely characters, ask myself what's the worst possible thing I could do to them, then go ahead and do it. And like an evil mastermind, I have enormous fun watching them suffer :)

Anyway. Progress report: I've got a feel for my hero and heroine now. It took me a long time to get to grips with my hero. Then a single phrase jumped into my head while I was out on a walk and it immediately showed me his internal conflicts and the turning point of the story. I even managed to write it down before I forgot!

I finished the outline today. Now it's time to start the first draft. I'm setting myself a low target of 800 words per day, because I've got other writing projects I'm working on at the same time. With a target of 70 000 words, that brings me to the end of October. It seems like ages away, but I bet it speeds past.

Fresh targets

I'm just back from a weekend away. Now that I can forget about my finished ms for a while it's time I set some new targets.

I've got some decisions to make. Firstly, what period of history to set my next novel in. I've already decided to go for medieval rather than Roman this time. Although I love Roman and Dark Age historicals, I don't think there's so much of a market for them. Certainly M&B don't have many slots for them, so I need to expand my repertoire. At the moment I'm torn between two periods of English history: the reign of King John and the Anarchy. Both exciting times with plenty of potential.

My second decision is novel or novella? I love the Historical Undone series and I'm tempted to try my hand at a novella. It would be good discipline for me to write something where I have to focus so closely on the characters' relationship and conflicts.

I'd also like to write some more short stories and try for publication in a magazine. I got so buried in my ms that I abandoned my short story writing. I think it's time to have a go at it again.

So I've decided to declare this week an ideas week. Time to read up on my chosen periods in history, sketch out some character ideas, scour the internet for some faces for them, and review all the short story ideas I jotted down in my notebooks over the past year and promptly forgot.