Tag: novel

Two And A Half Days Until Lift Off

As I previously mentioned, I have signed up to http://www.nanowrimo.org and have every intention of writing a 50,000 word novel in November.  I am pumped and can’t wait for Tuesday to come around so I can get started.  You can still sign up for a month of madness, so if you haven’t already put your name down for passage on this fantastic voyage do it now.  You know you want to.

I have decided upon my subject for November.  I feel it is quirky enough to get 50,000 words from.  Not only that I get to fulfill a long-held personal ambition.  Since I decided to participate I have had an idea in my head which has already started to take on a life of its own.  I know that between now and the time I finished this project I will not be able to sleep.  Today I filled in my synopsis on the NaNoWriMo website so I feel able to publicly share the very loose basis for the project.  Of course it may change a thousand times through November but for today it is correct.  So here you are, the brief outline to my new novel.  Are you sitting comfortably?

There are three things which can irrevocably change a man’s life. Death, God and saying the wrong thing at precisely the wrong moment. Unfortunately for Professor Henry Tomlinson he has recently experienced all three. As Henry desperately tries to cling onto the remnants of his sanity he gets pursued by ninjas, hunted by journalists and stalked by priests. Can Henry get through this ordeal without losing his mind, and if he does what kind of Henry Tomlinson will remain?

No News Isn’t Necessarily Good News

Tuesday marks the deadline I set when I last submitted my novel.  So far I have sent it to two literary agencies without reply.  I don’t know if it’s better not to hear, or if it would be better to receive a rejection.  Any which way the news certainly isn’t positive so I am already turning my attention to my next target.

It’s inevitable that I am asking myself a lot of questions, and that some part of is quietly concerned that perhaps my novel isn’t good enough and I am just a ridiculous dreamer.  On a positive note I find myself a lot less anxious than I was a month ago.  I believe I have come to terms with the fact that this process if going to be lengthy.

I am much more anxious for November 1st to come around so I can get started on my next project.  I have a rough idea that I am toying with in my head.  I am eager to get started.  So eager that I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days my brain explodes.  I am quietly confident that I can produce a novel in 30 days.  The only thing which worries me is that 50,000 words may well be a little on the short side.

The November project is keeping my mind occupied.  I am no longer concerning myself with the future.  About the only thing which has changed is that recently I have started wondering exactly how strong my submissions are.  If my cover letters are too stiff and formal.  If they actually say anything about me at all.  I have reached the conclusion that I would rather fail honestly, therefore I shall try a different approach with my next submission.  Wish me luck.

A Novel Approach

Yesterday by sheer coincidence I discovered www.nanowrimo.org.  NaNoWriMo is an organisation which promotes creative writing and sheer insanity.  One way they do this is by organising National Novel Writing Month in November.  They challenge willing lunatics to try to write a 50,000 word novel in only 30 days.  In 2010 there were 200,000 participants.  Over 30,000 of them wrote a novel in a month.  Sounds like coordinated madness, right?

Two things impressed me about NaNoWriMo.  The first is their all too public honesty.  Trying to write a novel in 30 days is slightly mad.  It is inevitable that you are unlikely to produce a Booker prize-winning novel.  However the one thing which pushes people away from trying their hand at a novel is the idea that writing a novel takes a great deal of time and effort.  Weirdly, it’s not time and effort which is the problem, it’s getting started and finding a rhythm.  I wrote my initial 80,000 word draft in just over 3 months.  The idea of just producing for 30 days and then trying to edit it into a coherent form is a fantastic idea.  The reason being that it forces people to write.  Regardless of form, a large number of people will finish November as a Novelist, and that is something to cherish.

The second is that it is all organised by a tiny but mighty non-profit organisation called the Office of Letters and Light.  These lovely people spend a great deal of time trying to get kids actively interested in creative writing.  They do it by raising money for a program which reaches 2,700 different classrooms.  They also do nice things for libraries.  And well I like libraries.  And perhaps if more kids were interested in using their imaginations, maybe there wouldn’t be so many little shits on earth.

After some thought I have signed up.  The idea of writing a novel in 30 days sounds so absolutely absurd, that the experience will either drive me mad or teach me something new about myself.  Either way I am willing to find out.  Honestly, I can’t wait for November 1st.

Pigeon-Hole Yourself

Language has its limitations.  We expose them on a daily basis and we don’t actually realise it.  Yesterday I finished drafting a synopsis for my novel.  I actually wrote a few different versions varying in length and style.  I actually found it very difficult.  First actually selecting 450 words to describe 80,000 was tough enough.  Second and even harder was choosing exactly how to pigeon-hole my novel.  It is a work of literary fiction.  Well it’s certainly not commercial.  But then how would I know.  If by some miracle my novel was a hit then surely it becomes commercial.  Is it a thriller?  Well it contains some typically thriller like elements?  Is it a comic novel?  Well I never set out to deliberately write jokes but it does have some funny moments.  Is it a satire?  Well it says a lot about the world we live in without being obnoxiously satirical.  So what is it then?

This question, which we value so greatly is meaningless.  Our armoury of weapons we have to describe something consists of adjectives and adverbs which are incapable of telling the entire truth.  Pick three words to describe yourself.  I choose intelligent, funny and moody.  Now ask yourself am I always those three things.  Are those three things a constant about me?  In my case no.  I am sometimes all three.  Never always.  So then ask yourself for one word which describes your character.  One word which is always fitting.  I bet you can’t do it.  And we do this all the time.  In job interviews you often get questions like describe your greatest weakness or strength?  Or a number of seemingly innocuous questions which convince your brain that you need to answer using adjectives which describe your character.  ‘So tell me Mr Scott what can you bring to the position of chief burger flipper at MacDonald’s?’  ‘Well I am dedicated, driven, punctual and have a great team ethic.’   When your brain switches on you realise that what you said doesn’t actually have any sense to it whatsoever and for some reason the person interviewing you is grinning like a rather contented cat.

We don’t only do it professionally.  On a personal level we are always swapping descriptions about people.  It’s as if a human being cannot make their own assumptions about stories which describe someones character.  It’s as if we have to fill in the gaps for each other.  ‘Scott did the craziest thing the other day, but then you know what he is like,  a bit nutty you know.’  In that imaginary sentence there is barely a single piece of information offered to the listener to help them make their own mind up.  It’s our way of ensuring or making sure that the listener is of the same opinion as us.  When you are the listener in that situation automatically you find yourself nodding encouragement or mumbling an ‘ah-ha’ or ‘go on’ to the speaker in order to hurry them along.  However the speaker assumes that your encouragement is actually a validation of the point they were making.  It’s a bizarre habit, a ritual almost which we all participate it at some point.  The weirdest of these situations is when you observe women talking about a new man.  Whether it is after the first date and a friend asks ‘so what is he like?’ which is clearly a stupid question when she is only starting to get know him, or when the speaker looks for validation by adding the words ‘you know what men or like.’  when what she actually wants to say is ‘Help me please my friends.  Is it normal for a man to wipe it on the curtains afterwards?’ .

In one exercise I used to write my synopsis it asked me to try to write a moral which is applicable to the story.  I found this task remarkably difficult as I hope my novel is multi-faceted and I believe it contains more than one.  In the end I tried to choose one which seemed applicable to the ending.  Which seems doubly fitting.  The moral is about how your own judgment is what makes a good deed a good deed and not the action in itself.  However as I have discussed here judgment is blinkered by language, it is often as precise as a nuclear bomb.  And this is why a pigeon-hole is rarely a comfortable home for mice, men and novels.  A much more honest question is to who do you aspire to be or to what do you aspire?  As a person I strive to be good, honest and warm.  As a writer I aspire to be interesting, inspiring and intelligent.

How Good Is One Fifth Of You?

Now I am finally in a position to reduce the hours I spend playing around with websites(It’s amazing to think that two weeks ago I didn’t know a thing.) I can slowly start turning my attention back towards my novel.  I have been fighting with myself for sometime.  Namely the knowledge that I must attempt to polish either the first three chapters(I don’t have a single chapter) or fifty pages into a shiny enough state that someone may mistake it for a diamond.  And that my friends is a troublesome thought.

Picture the scene.  A whirlwind romance.  Man and woman meet, fall in love and get married.  Man only tells woman about 20% of his true personality.  Is the marriage going to work?  Hell, no.  Picture the scene.  Thirty something business executive goes for a job interview.  Rather than explain what he has been doing for the last ten years, he only mentions the last two.  Is he going to get the job?  It’s rather unlikely.  And this is the very real issue I am faced with.  How do I make the two years which Mr X does talk about so compelling that he gets the job?

This type of thinking can torpedo the most brilliant project in a manner of seconds.  You can’t help but wonder whether you should make small changes to suit the people you are going to send it too.  If the agent or publisher you are targeting has interests in a broad spectrum of work, but and it’s a very big supersized quarter pounder meal butt recently made a wheelbarrow full of money by promoting a book about lesbian hairdresser vampires flying a spaceship to the planet Ketchup; should you add some hairdressers?  It’s hard to resist the temptation.  I know in my own case, my novel includes sequences regarding civic unrest.  Six months ago I was considering moving the story to the middle east.  A fortnight ago I was thinking about moving the story to London.  In some respects you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.  When you find yourself face to face with the inevitable rejection letter then you will be sternly asking yourself if lesbian hairdressing vampires could add something to your story.  And that’s when the problems will really start.

Confidence doesn’t come to many.  Those who are gifted with it are often deemed arrogant by their peers.  However if you truly love what you have created there is nothing wrong with having faith and sticking to your guns.  My novel Lesbian Hairdressing Vampires From Outta Space will be available on………..