planning my novel

This venture into planning my novel has not worked out particularly well.  My heroine's profile seems to come through as I am writing, rather than when I am structuring.  The author Susan Price uses a lot of post-its when she is writing and I am going to adopt that idea as I go along, to keep up with the profiles and the plot.
Today I have gone through writing magazines and jotted down competitions for entries over the next few weeks.  the idea is to work on my novel alongside short stories and poetry.  It will be rather like my reading, I always have more than one book on the go.
I have also sorted my desk out.  On it I have a mug given to me when I retired from a University.  It says, 'I used to write with CLaSS (letters stand for Centre for Learning and Study Support)   Now I write with class.'
Every time I look at it I feel inspired.  I also have an egg timer for exercises and to beat procrastination, a notebook that reads I could've been a novel and a smaller notebook titled hopes, dreams, ideas.'
So no excuses Linda, write!  You call yourself a writer, so write!

Re tuning your ear

I started to write my book and found that I was emulating a writer whose investigator I had come to like.  Hallie Ephron says in her book Writing and Selling your Mystery Novel that some people have difficulty in reading mystery fiction whilst writing, but states we can learn from the masters, 'Reading good mystery fiction tunes your ear.' So I should avoid this particular author for a time.  I haven't completely abandoned my heroine but I have included another character as a contrast.

This particular book also sets out some useful templates for character building - what does my mystery sleuth like, dislike?  How do they come across to people, what are they really like?

I am going to attempt a profile and ignore the nagging voice that tells me I'm procrastinating.  I'm not, I'm building a profile, I need to know what drives my character, I need to believe in her in order to create a believable character.

Monday 16th July

I have followed my own advice and shared some of my writing and got an encouraging response.  Now I have to keep on writing.  My approach is going to be to concentrate on the novel but also to write some short stories and poems and enter competitions.
In order to write the novel I need to do some more planning and work out the story line. I am only into chapter two and have already started to wander from one sort of story to another.
This is another form of procrastination because I am constantly editing and then coming to a full stop.
Procrastination is like an iceberg - you start to deal with the bits that are showing and then find there is a whole lot more underneath - I am drowning in my indecision.
There is also the point that procrastination is like a security blanket.  I'm not exposing myself to the real world.  But who am I fooling?  Certainly not myself, I can see through that guise and berate myself constantly.
So I need to write my next two chapters, put them aside for a day or two, work on other writings and then come back to it.  Watch this space!

Saturday 14th July
Sarah Waters On writing in the mslexia diary (useful to get one to act as a reminder/nudge) that 'No one is capable of writing a perfect first draft, most of writing is actually rewriting.'
Comforting in one way but not in another.  What if you can't get past the rewriting so you constantly edit, rewrite, adapt, stop, erase, sit on your inner voice?
The hardest thing is to share your writing.  I have started to be brave and do that and now I worry.  I didn't send the right piece in, it's terrible;e, I don't know what I want to write.
But here's the thing.  If I don't share I won't be a writer because as a writer I share.  Also, people may not view my characters in the same way as I do.  Go to Susan Price's website and blog, she has some really useful advice and wonderful links to other people.

So today my thought is that sharing is so very important.  My critique is not necessarily helpful or wise.  I need to know what other people think, I need to write and send it somewhere.  I need to experiment more and push myself.  I have started to write poetry again and I am actually quite proud of my output.

A writer needs to write, it is to them as breathing.  sometimes its like having a heavy cold when your breathing becomes difficult.  But you take one breath at a time, one word, a sentence, a paragraph. You write when you like, where you like, as much as you like.  THEN you do something with it!

At the beginning

This is the story of my journey from procrastinating to publishing.  I have read lots of self-help books and the only thing they agree on is that they disagree.  I should plan, I should be spontaneous.  I should research, I should just write.  I should write about what I know, I should break the rules.
Okay, that is really helping with my procrastinating!  I think I am reading too much - I start writing in the style of the book I really want to write that has been written by someone else.  Familiar?  I need to discard my inner voice and START WRITING.
I also need to decide WHAT I want to write.  I am trying to write for too many competitions,  short stories and poems as well as writing THE NOVEL.
I will beat this procrastinating, I will actually have a beginning, middle and end.
Join me, encourage me, give me your own views.  We'll beat this together!