Friday 23 March 2007

At last I'm blogging...

I’m not doing very well with my blogs – I always put it to the back of the pile as I have so much on at the moment – its crazy!

I have just finished one of my classes though – the novel writing class at City Lit – which will free up my Monday evenings – but I’m sad to have finished it as everyone in the group was so supportive and it’s nice to get feedback about your novel. I told my tutor about this blog community and she seemed very interested in it and thought it was a great idea. Anyway my novel writing pals from my course, and I have all decided to carry on our workshops and send writing to each other every work – its nice to have deadlines and were also going to meet up every month – in the pub – oh dear wonder how that will turn out!

Anyway I have made progress on my word count – another 2,000 words – not that I can remember my password for my word count meter – silly me – I can’t change it! Not anywhere near my target of 5,000 words but at least I feel as though I’m going somewhere. I have an excuse too – I have just been commissioned to write for an online women’s magazine – Nuts4chic.com and I’m also doing some restaurant reviews for a food and drink magazine so I’ve been pretty busy doing other things. Not that this will get my novel written though so I am going to get on with it next month and really make my character vivid to my readers and drive the plot on as much as possible.

How is everyone else doing? I going to make a big effort to get to know you all a bit better and find out how you’re all doing! Until then – happy writing….and blogging!

Friday 2 March 2007

Lagging behind in the race...

Oh dear or dear I’m lagging behind, I never was too good at races!!

But I’m determined to carry on; there have just been a few things which have been distracting me lately:

- My other writing work, which pays the bills. I write career guides for How to Become. So far I’ve written four and I may also write some more in the future. But they’re really long (between 10,000 and 15,000 words – more than a dissertation!) so they’re quite time consuming.

- My part time job, I work for a corporate hospitality company and we do events like the Rugby and racing so we’ve been really busy (Which translates: no time to write while my boss isn’t looking)

- My hectic social life; I know this is a good thing but last week I was out almost every night, and I had so much writing to do; I should just disown my friends!!

- All my writing courses. I do a Novel writing class on Monday nights at the City University and a Freelance writing class on Wednesdays at the City Lit. They’re both brilliant but it means I running in and out of London like crazy all the time. Oh and I did a short story writing class, all day, last Sunday, which I’d recommended.

Another big annoyance which has been on my mind is a psychic reading I had last night. It’s something I’ve wanted to do in a while, and was really looking forward to what she would tell me. Big disappointment. I went with three friends who all had excellent readings by different psychics, but mine just blagged everything, I’m sure of it! Okay she told me a few things about how my writing career would improve but she could have said that to anyone. It was all such general stuff, and I can’t believe I paid her for it. A woman who went before me felt the same about her, so it wasn’t just me. It’s a shame as I feel as though I will be quite cynical about this type of stuff in the future, the only advice I can give to anyone who is thinking about having a reading is go to one which is recommended to you beforehand.

Anyway enough about that; I definitely needed to get it off my chest though!! I have lots to do novel wise, and really need to get on with it this month. I want to sort out my plot, characters and write at least 5,000 words, so I’ll keep you posted!!