Why Pinterest reinvigorated my writing

So, recently, I started using Pinterest again. I'd used it a little bit before and liked the idea. But I'd never used it for my writing. I knew friends who did, and I didn't think that it would work for me. But then something, I can't remember what now, prompted it. I think I thought that I should look up some pictures as a guide for my Scottish island story. And so I thought of Pinterest, and just like that I was hooked.

So now I've created boards for all my projects, and scroll through them before I start writing, in order to take me back to that place. In a way, because I'm working on several different things at once, it helps me get back into that frame of mind and to the right place.

So I'm now a huge fan of Pinterest and using it for writing, in a way that I hadn't thought I would be. It's a great way to find inspiration and ideas - from landscapes to character outfits. I'm a very visual person and I see things like films in my head, if that makes sense, so of course it makes sense that it works for me.

Does anyone else use Pinterest for writing inspiration?

Little white lies.....

So, I wrote this epic post the other week about why I'm not doing NaNo, and all that jazz. And I'm still not. Not really.

I mean, I'm not OFFICIALLY doing it, not on the site or anything, because it doesn't work for me and I know I can write a draft and I don't want this to be a draft I cast aside. But.... I am working on something new. So I am unofficially doing my own version of NaNo. If I write at least 500 words of this day I will be happy. I am still editing another story, and I just unearthed another half finished draft I really want to finish, so I don't know if I'll prioritise this new project yet. The plot is still a little muddled too! But hopefully it'll begin to make sense soon.

BUT so far it is going well. And it's good to be writing something new, even if I am still working out many of the details.

I've slowed down in the last few days, but picking it up again now, and it's going well again. 

How is NaNo going for everyone?  Are you all still plugging away with it?

Writing about writing...

Autumn has arrived and time seems to be flying by. I realised that although I call this a writing blog, I am blogging very little about writing - which needs to change! And so, I will try to write a little  more about writing, I promise!

Let's start with, where am I at the moment?

Well, I recently finished a draft that I had left languishing at 19k, and hit 50k last week and a very rough, horrible first draft, BUT at least I have a story to play with now. The words are down. Sort of. They just need some playing around with. But I'm leaving that for now, so that the ideas can simmer away in the back of my mind. So, I'm working on editing a draft I wrote over the summer, and getting that up to something decent. I made lots of notes for it, and although I love the thrill of the first draft, sometimes editing can be just as exciting, especially when you have lots of ideas of where to go and what to do. Luckily, I still love this story and want it to be the best it can be. I've just got a little way to go!

What else am I doing writing wise?

Well, I'm trying to write more regular blog posts on here, and I also started vlogging (I know, we'll see how that goes - lesson being learnt is that it takes FOREVER to upload things to Youtube. But it's rather fun).

I'm happy with my writing at the moment though. I had a brief phase in September after I'd handed my dissertation in, was exhausted, and unsure where I was going, where I doubted everything and could barely write a word or settle on anything. Luckily that black cloud seems to have passed, and I'm pleased to be really focused on something.

And I'm brainstorming notes for something I might start writing next.

The trouble is, when I start thinking about all the different things I want to write I start to panic, so I'm trying not to do that, and just staying focused on one thing at a time....

So tell me, what are YOU writing at the moment?

'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...'

I'm sure I've used that title before, but somehow it seemed right again today. I can't believe it's nearly the end of NOVEMBER! I haven't posted since the beginning of the month, I'm sorry - it seems to have FLOWN by, so quickly. In fact, I can't believe that it's only two weeks until the end of term now, and under a month until Christmas itself. Where have the weeks gone?

It's noticeably winter now though, here in the UK. It's cold, and all the layers have come out. The cold just makes me miserable and grumpy, like a bear trying to hibernate, and I already miss the summer like crazy. The summer and Fowey. Of course there are high points of winter (grimaced as I typed that) - I mean sure, I love Christmas and when things are all magical and Christmassy, and I love Christmassy things, but it's the cold I hate. I miss wearing shorts and flipflops and tshirts. And suncream. I miss suncream. That's kind of weird I know.

But I suppose got to look positively at everything, and right now I'm beginning to look forward to Christmas. It's always a slightly stressful time, but ultimately enjoyable. Just a lot to do beforehand! Things have got kind of crazy recently, with lots of academic work to do, as well as other things. I've been busy working, writing, volunteering, and windsurfing among other things. Yes, still windsurfing even in this weather - I think the fact that I'm able to get out and do that (in my winter wetsuit, gloves and shoes) is helping me get through the horribleness of winter. It's nice having something outside to do regularly. I'm still swimming too, and that's helping to stop me be so miserable.

Otherwise, I've been busy writing, and trying to keep on top of several different projects. As I told you before, I haven't done NaNo this month (and it's felt very freeing. I haven't missed it at all. Not one minute. That's kind of telling I guess!), but I've been busy writing. I finished that draft I was half way through when NaNo started, and I've put it aside for now so I can come back to it with fresh eyes. It's a mess, but I think there's a story in there somewhere and I'm looking forward to editing it and teasing it out. Fingers crossed it will work, because it's a story that could be very important to me. Treading Water is still being edited, although it's taken a back seat. I'm hoping to start querying it sometime next year. I started something new too, because the story crept up on me and grabbed me, and made me want to start writing it, so I'm ten chapters into that and loving it. It's more NA I think than YA because the characters are older, but I'm just going with it and seeing where it takes me. For my course at the moment I've got to write a film treatment, so I'm also engrossed in that, trying to keep all the elements of the different stories separate - phew! Confusing at times. Luckily the stories are quite different enough. I'm also lucky enough to have been picked to be a MuggleNet Intern, writing news stories, so I've been busy with that too, and it's been tremendous fun. As I mentioned before, I've been taking part in PiBoIdMo too, so I've been scribbling down lots of ideas and it's been very productive, just for coming up with ideas. So that's me all caught up, sort of, for now!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends - I'm going to a Thanksgiving dinner tonight and I'm VERY excited about it! I was asked to make Cornbread for it, something I've never made or tasted before, so I hope I've made it right. Fingers crossed!

Return

A return to normal blogging, a return to Exeter, and a return to... Spring! Yes, Spring is seems is finally here, which means summer is around the corner and as these are my favourite two seasons I am in heaven.

 And utterly obsessed with daffodils.

Although, my favourites are the bluebells and I am eagerly anticipating them coming out, and going to find a bluebell wood somewhere in Devon, as I am not at home for them this year (if anyone has any suggestions PLEASE let me know! Cheers!)

I love the longer evenings, now that it doesn't get dark until 8.30 or so.

I love that the sun is shining and it's warm enough to sit outside (when it's not windy) and that we can shed the winter layers (I do feel like I've come out of hibernation!).

I love that I can go outside in BARE FEET.

I love that there are so many summer plans and it is nearly tennis season in the UK and that the French Open and Wimbledon are around the corner.

I could go on, but today I won't.  Am busy at the minute writing and finishing off assignments due for the beginning of May, and then I'm free! Until September! But I am looking forward to starting many more projects over the summer (I have a couple I've been planning on focusing on) and getting them written, and my mind is buzzing with ideas at the minute, which is exciting. One character strolled into my mind this morning, making me want to write her story down, so I scribbled some notes, but now it's back to focusing on this essay!

Poems and Classes

So guys look at this! It's a poem by me, on the blog of our uni's arts magazine site. So the poem isn't perfect and looking at it again now I would probably change things about it, but still! Exciting to see my poem on another blog and for them to chose it. Yay :) The start of things to come? Who knows.

Spent today in the company of some wonderful people from my poetry seminar and Maxine Chernoff, an American writer and professor who is visiting the university this week and I went to a masterclass run by her, and then a poetry reading. It was really good and great to get a different perspective on things and meet some new people!

I have my first fiction class tomorrow morning (9am) so I really need to get some sleep, and I am looking forward to it, but having enjoyed the poetry more than I ever thought I would, perhaps not as much as I did before. Still, would be good to do something different again. Although I miss my poetry class already! Luckily most of the same people are going to be in it, but it's going to be very different.

My story draft (Love-All) is going well too - have been making the big change to it that I was afraid to make, and now I'm really super excited about it all again and keep getting so many new ideas for it. It's a lot of work, but I'm enjoying it so I think that's good. So much editing to do, but I'll get there. Of course! Loving working on this too. I'm still working on my other story as well (George's Garden) trying to make the first chapter super snappy and intriguing. Phew! Busy, busy!

Feeling postive about things though at the minute. Yay!

Trouble Focusing

I'm at that strange writing stage where there are so many different projects I want to be working on (and not all of them necessarily straight forward writing) that I can't quite settle to any of them and it means that I don't get anything done. Some of them are at a point where I can't do anything at the moment, whilst others I could do more on or get started with, but for some reason I'm not.

And while I have been doing lots of edits on my draft, I have kind of got to the stage where I keep changing a word, and then changing it back again and feel like I should leave it for a little now, and focus on something else for a while, but it's hard. Editing never seems to be done; which is the nature of writing and editing, and probably my nature too, but I think until someone's read it, it's hard to keep doing all those small things and feel like it's making a difference.

I hate it when I'm at this point; too many things to do and I can't focus on any one of them. I seem to get that a lot. 

Does anyone else ever have this feeling?

Ideas and Dreams

I have a dream the other night which was so bizarre, but I kept remembering it and yesterday I suddenly thought of an AWESOME idea for a story which will be really interesting and exciting to write, and I'm already really excited about it.

Unfortuantely, it doesn't fit into my 500 word proposal I have to write, nor the story on the royal family I have to write (this is surprisingly hard - I always used to write about real people (fanfic) but writing it for something that has to be handed in is difficult). It doesn't fit into my NaNo story, nor my essay on Shakespeare (what a surprise there). Nor do I want to write it as a short story for my course.

So I'm just going to make lots of notes and keep thinking about it, and have something to look forward to writing when November is over....

inspiration?

I spend a lot of my time writing, or thinking about writing, or reading. Which I suppose is only a good thing.

However, its just over a week until NaNoWriMo starts and I'm itching to start my idea. I want to start it now, so I'm stuck in that strange inbetween period, whilst editing other stuff, I don't really have anything I'm particuarly working on. Which saddens me because I want to be working on something. Yet in a week I will be starting something. I have tonnes of ideas for longer pieces, but nothing for anything shorter at the minute, and considering my creative writing module I'm taking this term is focused on short fiction I feel like I should be collecting some ideas for that and writing some short stories. Yet nothing is coming to me for that. I'm writing lots of background for my NaNo, and I know that's important, but it feels like it will all soon be irrelevant, when I could have been working on some short stories for later in the term. But I have nothing. I've tried just writing and I don't get anything I like. My head is too focused on all these other longer things I want to write, or am still editing.

Although I bet when it comes to it, I'll have loads of ideas for one and not for the other.

I just feel like I should be writing. But what?

ideas

I keep having loads of ideas for the story I'm writing at the minute. I even woke up last monday, itching to write, having gone to sleep thinking of various scenes, and to me that feeling was wonderful. I think I wrote about 5,000 words that morning. Of course no other morning have I quite had that feeling again.

Still, scenes are coming to me for this story thick and fast, and I keep imaginging them and then writing them down as they come, no matter if I skip over stuff knowing I'll have to go back and write those chapters. I'm going with the flow as it comes, and I love it.

This story has become so much more to me - I'm thinking about the characters all the time,w ondering what they will do.

Becoming a bit obsessed with this... but I suppose that's a good thing?!