What's Up Wednesday (7)

Woah, I can't believe another week has passed already. We're racing through March, I can't believe it. Welcome to another edition of What's Up Wednesday, the weekly meme hosted by Jaime and Erin.

WHAT I'M READING

Read Lobsters this week, which was fantastic. About to start Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warning, although I have a desire to start rereading all the summery books I can, as spring is in the air and it makes me feel like rereading all those light and wonderful summer stories!
  
WHAT I'M WRITING (+ A WRITING GOAL)

STILL EDITING. Although, I actually managed to sort the ending out for my YA story this week, so am pleased with that. Plus, am making good progress with my new story, so am pleased about that.

Goal: continue editing, address comments, sort out character development. Plus, keep writing new story.


WHAT WORKS FOR ME

Getting my head down and focusing! As well as just focusing on one thing at a time. It's nice to have a couple of different things to work on, but also have the focus to really concentrate on one.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW  

There were lots of announcements this week - from YALC (soooooooooo excited, who else is going?) to the sad news of Terry Pratchett's death, so in many respects its been a strange week. I am still so very sad about Terry's death. He was such a wonderful writer and man and the world will miss him greatly. I'm going to have to go back and reread some of his books - as well as crack on with some of the ones I haven't read yet.

It feels like spring is here to stay though - was a gorgeous day yesterday, and I'm looking forward to more days sat outside and walking around barefoot - as well as the bluebells!

What's Up Wednesday(6)

Here we go again! Welcome to another edition of What's Up Wednesday, the weekly meme hosted by Jaime and Erin.

WHAT I'M READING

I'm reading Black Dove, White Raven at the moment by Elizabeth Wein and I LOVE it. So good. While at Foyles this week, I also picked up The Boy Next Door by Katie Van Ark and Stung by Joss Stirling.
  
WHAT I'M WRITING (+ A WRITING GOAL)

Ashamed to admit that I really haven't done much writing this week because I've been so busy and had my head full of other things. That's not to say that I haven't done anything, just that it's been rather thin on the ground. But, I am still editing (I promise), and still playing with something new!

A goal: to actually do some useful editing this week!

WHAT WORKS FOR ME

I saw Gayle Forman speak this week, and that was really inspiring. I also saw my lovely friend Laura and it's always really great to chat to another writing friend about what we're working on etc.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW  

My extra busy week has come to an end (thankfully) and I collapsed in tiredness! It has been a great week though, seeing lots of friends, and doing other various exciting things - as well as seeing Gayle Forman! It's been lovely and sunny too, and I am so, so incredibly happy that spring is finally here. I love seeing all the primroses, daffodils, crocuses, and more!

Have a great week everyone.

What's Up Wednesday! (5)

I can't believe it's Wednesday again - I nearly forgot about this.

Welcome to another edition of What's Up Wednesday, the weekly meme hosted by Jaime and Erin.

 WHAT I'M READING

I finished A Darker Shade of Magic, which was fantastic. As it was my birthday this week, I treated myself to some new books that I'm looking forward to reading: Black Dove, White Raven, The Last Leaves Falling, and Lobsters.
  
WHAT I'M WRITING (+ A WRITING GOAL)

Still plodding along with those edits!

Plus I started something new. Oops.

Goal: keep editing, playing with new story.

WHAT WORKS FOR ME

I always forget how much I love being able to switch off and write by hand. So writing by hand. It's wonderful.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW  

This week has already been jam packed and exciting. It was my birthday on Monday, I attended a Studio Tour Hogwarts Express Preview yesterday, and have more exciting things lined up this week - including a Gayle Forman talk and signing. Can't wait!

Hope everyone else is having a good first week of March - spring is finally here and I'm so excited.

What's Up Wednesday (4)

Welcome to another edition of What's Up Wednesday, the weekly meme hosted by Jaime and Erin.

 WHAT I'M READING
Over the weekend I started A Darker Shade of Magic by Victoria Schwab! I've been so excited about this book and I was surprised and happy to find it in the bookshop early! Loving it so far.
  
WHAT I'M WRITING (+ A WRITING GOAL)

I finally printed out Nowhere House and so I've been slowly reading that out and writing down some edit notes. It's amazing how many different things you notice when you're no longer staring at a screen. Still editing SLL too - plus I had the idea for something new *gulp* so I've been making lots of notes for that.

Goal: keep editing!

WHAT WORKS FOR ME

Printing out a draft and reading it out loud! Works wonders. 

WHAT ELSE IS NEW  

This week has been better than last week - I got a new laptop (yay) and all my documents have been restored *phew*, so I'm very happy about that. I have plenty of exciting and rather nerve wracking things coming up this week and next, so it's going to be rather busy and different! Also it's my birthday next week (how did that come round so quickly?!), so that's going to be fun!

See you all next week - I can't believe that February is nearly over. Wow, how quickly time flies.

What's Up Wednesday (3)

Welcome to another edition of What's Up Wednesday, the weekly meme hosted by Jaime and Erin.

 WHAT I'M READING
My reading has slowed down a bit this week. I got a stack of books out from the library, which I'm looking forward to reading, and I really enjoyed reading Gayle Forman's I Was Here. I've also been indulging in some rereading of Famous Five books...
  
WHAT I'M WRITING (+ A WRITING GOAL)

I finished my edit of Nowhere House! Now I just need to print it out and do a proper line edit of it, before sending it to readers, but haven't got round to printing it yet. In the meantime, I'm embarking on a serious edit of Sweet little Lies - and I finally sorted that time line. So now I have those chapters to rewrite - and that what I want to focus on this week! As well as getting that draft of NH printed. 

WHAT WORKS FOR ME

Making a calender of events in my novel! This really helped me to straighten everything out in this story and work out what I needed to change and edit. It also resparked my enthusiasm for this story, so I'm looking forward to working on it. 

WHAT ELSE IS NEW  

What a week. It hasn't been the best of weeks. My laptop finally died, and while *fingers crossed* I'm getting everything back, it's been rather stressful - and I'm glad I had saved my current WIPs onto a USB stick. Phew. And that's just been the icing on the cake of a rather stressful week! But at least today the sun has come out and it actually feels like spring, there's that nice smell in the air, so I'm a little more hopeful now...  

What's Up Wednesday (2)

Welcome to another edition of What's Up Wednesday, the weekly meme hosted by Jaime and Erin.

 WHAT I'M READING


I've been reading a lot this week. I've raced through several books including, The Sin Eater's Daughter (soooo good), The Shadow Cabinet, and the The Farm Beneath the Water. And I've just started I Was Here by Gayle Forman - been looking forward to this one! 

WHAT I'M WRITING (+ A WRITING GOAL)*


I'm still plodding on with NOWHERE HOUSE, editing and adding words. I hit 30k, my target, yesterday though, which makes me very happy. I need to get back to editing Sweet Little Lies. Things are much the same as usual!

So this week, hoping to finish going through Nowhere, hopefully add some more words, and maybe start some editing on SLL again. We shall see....

WHAT WORKS FOR ME

The sticker/calender method. I talked about this last week briefly, and I know that others have written about it recently as well, but this week I realised just how quickly I've got used to it/how well it works in encouraging me to do things so that I have stickers on my calender and don't just spend time just messing about online! There's nothing better than being able to reward yourself with a few stickers! 

WHAT ELSE IS NEW 

Last week I went along to the Waterstones Picadilly Harry Potter Book Night as part of MuggleNet to take part in a fun quiz. It was a great night and incredibly surreal! You can read a piece I wrote about the night for MuggleNet here.

What's Up Wednesday

I've seen this on so many other people's blogs and I've been meaning to start it for ages. What better than a new month? So here goes. Hopefully it'll be a good way of posting something simple every week!

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme created by Jaime and Erin. Go visit their blogs to find out more.

WHAT I'M READING  

I'm currently enjoying ALL FALL DOWN by Ally Carter, which is fantastic so far! I love Ally Carter and so I was very excited to get my hands on this.  I just finished ARSENIC FOR TEA by Robin Stevens, which was amazing. I'm looking forward to reading THE SIN-EATER'S DAUGHTER by Melinda Salisbury later this week! Plus, I've got the new Neil Gaiman to read. So many treats and so many fabulous books are being published at the moment. 

WHAT I'M WRITING (+ A WRITING GOAL)

I'm currently editing, editing, editing. Which I do enjoy, but sometimes I just long for the excitement of a first draft! 

Currently, I'm trying to focus on two different projects (after being sidetracked last week by another old project, which I read through and made notes for). Trying to focus this month on my middle grade story, NOWHERE HOUSE, and a YA project, SWEET LITTLE LIES.

Writing goal for the week: sort out the timeline for SLL and continue editing/making notes on NOWHERE. 

WHAT WORKS FOR ME

At the moment, I'm remembering that I can't do everything at once and that drafts don't become perfect with a click of the fingers! For now, what works for me when editing and trying to get into the flow of it is reading through a draft, adding small bits as I go and making notes about how to extend/change things, make a list of things to work on, and go through the draft, addressing each one by one. For example, with SLL, the next thing I'm going to address is the timeline! 

WHAT ELSE IS NEW

Well, it's Harry Potter Book Night this week (tomorrow at the Picadilly Waterstones), which I can't wait for. Rather nervous too about my role, but it's going to be great. Can't wait! 

Plus, I joined the gym last week! Oh yes. So I'm getting into a good routine and hoping that my foot doesn't give up on me again. All in the name of getting ready to go windsurfing again!

Hope you enjoyed my first What's Up Wednesday. See you all next week!