My Writing Diary - so far

So what have I been writing and how far have I got? Here is my writing news:

I have now emailed the pocket novel to my editor to edit for me. The plan is that when I get it back, if there are changes to make in the first three chapters, I will do those first then email those with the synopsis to the My Weekly Pocket Novel editor. Then I will start on the rest of the ms.

The quirky short story went out to Take a Break's Fiction Feast. Meanwhile, I got a rejection for the story I sent them in December. This has now gone to another magazine.

I have finished the ghost story for the Writing Magazine short story competition. Seems I might have sent it to them for another competition a few years ago, but I am still going to send it and see what happens. It is all printed out, ready to fill in the form and cheque to put with it.

I have finally got round to writing the story I started at the Women's Weekly workshop last month. It is now over 600 words, so getting near to the count of 1000, which is what I want it to be.

I have finished the current draft of the mermaid story and am now highlighting verbs. Lots of smiling going on. Lol. I shall go through those and either change or cut them out. Then I shall highlight all repeated words such as 'and'. Then the final edit will be to read through it.

I have also emailed the first 2 chapters and synopsis to the organiser of the SCBWI retreat, for the one to one with Melvin Burgess. Yes, he of 'Junk' fame. Can't wait for that, as those books are close to my heart.

In my author client world, I met my client yesterday and he has given me a few changes, inc the title of the book to do, which I will work on tomorrow. I shall then post them to him to check, he will do that and post back to me, so I can email them to the illustrator.

So, that is what has been happening in my writing world. I mainly have 2 of my own projects on the go, and my author client's.

My writing system

I thought it might be interesting to post about how I write on here. So, here it is: I know some authors type their ms straight on to their computer, but I can't do that. I tried once, and my brain went er. lol. So, I write long-hand with a pen.

1. Write the story or novel in longhand.
2. If I come up with ideas to improve a scene or add a scene to a chapter I've already written, then I will jot those down on a piece of paper and put them with the story.
3. Type up each day's writing.
4. Do the above until I have typed the ending.
5. Next draft - add notes.
6. When I have completed it all with no more notes to add in, then work on the second draft, which is
7. Using highlighters - highlight different aspects of the ms eg dialogue is highlighted pink. Do this until last page. marking any points where I need to add more of that aspect, with a blob in that colour. 8. Do this for all aspects until I have a whole ms with coloured pages.
9. Go through ms and add depth to the story where there are blobs. Print out.
10. Third draft - highlight all verbs for repetition, change any that are repeated.
11. Highlight any repeated words eg 'and' 'then'. Change or delete any repeated ones.
12. Type amendments up and print out.
13. Final edit is the read aloud or reading one (usually read silently as I am not alone that often).

So, there you have my writing system.

How do you write? Straight to a computer or with a pen like me?

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NaNoWriMo - my own version

If you are a writer, you might be doing NanoWriMo (National Novel Write Month), where people are writing, or attempting, to write 50,000 words during November. Me? I am doing my own version. With lots of other commitments and health issues, I know there is no way I could write that amount of words in a month, so I am doing my own version of it. I am aiming to write something new every day. So far, I have managed to do this. Here is how:

In the mornings, when I'm not out, I will work on my current ebook, 'A friend in need' which means highlighting and deleting words. If I am out in the morning, I will do this after lunch.

In the afternoons, if I've not been out in the morning, I will write something new. So far, I have rewritten nearly a whole short story, am almost at the end of another story. If I am out in the morning, I will work on my ebook after lunch, and later in the afternoon after a nap, will work on the new writing. Yesterday, I didn't work on a short story, but I did write a synopsis for the serial I have in mind for Woman's Weekly. That I will type up later and read during the weekend, so I can email it to the Fiction Editor next week.

So, are you doing NaNoWriMo? Or are you doing your own version like me? If you are, let me know how you are getting on. I will blog here about the word count, once I have typed up the stories, which will be next month.