Hey Hey it’s Friday! Yay! Bring on the weekend. 🙂

OK I’ll keep this short cos it’s Friday evening and I’m completely knackered. Let’s just say it’s been a busy week, but an interesting one.

I’ve started looking into both proofreading and freelance writing as possible jobs I could do and I’m really excited about that. Plus my great friend Kate Frost has invited me to a book launch next Wednesday evening where I’ll hopefully get to meet some more lovely writer-types. 😀

The weekend ahead looks fairly quiet which is fine by me. I’ve got a lovely meal with my parents-in-law to look forward to on Sunday, which is always wonderful because my in-laws are fabulous and my mother-in-law is a great cook. Good times! This weekend I really need to start filling in my application for a new passport as my old one has nearly expired. I’ve been putting it off and putting it off because it looks like a real faff. And also I won’t be able to get it all done this weekend as I need someone to prove to the powers that be that I am who I say I am and not a robot/alien! Gotta get that passport photo done too.

So that’s the not-so-nice part, but actually I should also be able to get on with some writing and continue apace with my new(ish) WIP Reunion. Added to that a couple of dog walks, and that’s how my weekend’s shaping up to be. Have to say that Reunion is going really well, but obviously this is only the first draft and I’m sure I’ll change plenty of it along the way.

All right, that really is all I can manage tonight. Looking forward to next week when I can join in with WIPpet Wednesday and Thursday’s Children once more and generally connect with all you lovely writers.

Have a great weekend.

E.

I came up with this catchy (?) blog post title because I was feeling my wells of Thursday’s Children inspiration running dry. For weeks now I’ve been able to come up with something at least slightly different every time. Not today. So instead I thought I’d consider that word: ‘nothing’.

I guess you could say it’s a word that us writers dread. The feeling we – or certainly I – get when yearning for a bit of inspiration, but as we stare at the computer screen nothing comes to mind. We can’t focus; we may be able to write something but it’s not what we were intending to write, it’s not good enough for us. It’s nothing.

So I guess what I was thinking of making a point about is just this: how do we as writers get past the ‘nothing’ stage and reach the ‘something’ stage instead, the stage where we can actually write? Perhaps you think I’m talking about writer’s block and I suppose you could say that.  But it’s not simply writer’s block, I don’t think.  It’s not just that we can’t think of what to write.   It’s also that we’ve lost the ability to get our brains to focus and get out of this funk where we simply can’t see past the next paragraph.

I think at times like this there are a  number of things we can do.  And they don’t all involve writing or other writers.  Sometimes we just need time away from that computer.  Or manuscript.  It can be good to take a complete break, re-energize our ‘little grey cells’ as that famous fictional detective Hercule Poirot would say.  If you can afford it, why not have a short holiday?  Maybe a long weekend somewhere you’ve never been before.  It doesn’t have to be abroad; it could be somewhere in your own country you’ve never visited.  You might want to take a notepad and pen with you – but maybe leave it at that.

Don’t take the laptop, printout or detailed notes.  Have a rest – you’ve earned it.  Just focus on the real world around you for a change, not the one in your head.  Or if not a holiday, maybe change your daily routine a little if you can.  Try walking the kids to school instead of driving them.  Do what I often do and get off the bus a few stops early to walk the last quarter of a mile.  Get out and about on your bike if you have one.  Enjoy the great outdoors.

Because as hard as it may be, sometimes we need to escape from our writing.  We need time out to recharge our batteries.  I know it’s a well worn saying, but it’s true.  You could get out and see your friends more.  When you meet them, try not to talk writing.  Talk about your families, your hopes for the future (maybe keep writing out of your big plans for the future if you can), any future holidays you may have planned.  Hey you could even talk politics.  (Or maybe not if you don’t want a big argument with your best friend because you’ve discovered that politically at least you’re poles apart!!)

Read a book.  Choose one that’s a completely different genre from your own novel.  Because it can be so easy to just settle down into the same grooves, and read something that you’re comparing your work-in-progress to.  I find reading can be an escape.  Why not read a classic novel?  Maybe that might take your mind away from that early 21st century vampire novel you’re trying to write.  It could be a British novel from the nineteenth century.  Or perhaps an American novel from the 1920s.  Either way, escapism is key I think.

Then when you think you’ve had so much caffeine at those coffee shops with your friend that you’re never going to sleep again, or you’re broke after spending money you really didn’t have whilst on that quick getaway holiday, why not return to your work-in-progress.  You might just find that your ‘nothing’ has turned to ‘something’ after your time spent away from it.  As has this blog post for me. 🙂

If you would like to take part in Thursday’s Children, simply write a blog post about whatever inspires your writing.  Then add your name to this linky.  Thanks once again to the wonderful Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.

Hello fellow WIPpeteers! How’s your week been? Mine’s been interesting, lots of new developments including looking in to doing some proofreading for fellow authors… Anyway back to today. The excerpt that I’m sharing today is from my WIP which has the working title of ‘Reunion’. I’m sharing the opening 12 lines, it being the 12th June today. I have a feeling I shared the opening of this before BUT – and it’s a big but – I’ve been tweaking it, trying to make it grab the reader more from the beginning. Please let me know what you think. BTW big shout out to my good friend Kate Frost who’s publishing her novel The Butterfly Storm today. Yay for Kate!

‘That’s the last of them.’
Anna couldn’t answer. Her eyes were full of tears which obstinately refused to go away. Melissa looked at her with concern.
‘Are you OK, Anna?’
Anna shrugged by way of reply. Then gulping, she somehow found her voice. ‘I’m so glad you’re staying,’ she whispered. ‘It’s been pretty awful really.’
Melissa put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. ‘Well it’s all in the past now. It’s a new start for both of us.’

If you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, all you have to do is post an excerpt from your blog which relates somehow to the date, so it being the 12th June I’ve shared 12 lines. Or it could be 12 paragraphs. Or 12 words. You could even get clever and take 12 lines from chapter 6! Go on, get creative. 🙂 Then add your link to this linky. Thanks as always to K.L. Schwengel for hosting.

Hi all. I’ve been thinking about getting into proofreading. I’ve had a bit of practice at it for myself and others, and think I have a talent for it.

I’m thinking that to start off with I’d proofread a couple of manuscripts for free so that people can see what they think of my skills and go from there.

So if there’s any of you who would fancy having their manuscript proofread for free, please let me know. My email address is: elaine.jeremiah@gmail.com

Happy writing!

I’ll keep this short today because I’ve got quite a lot of things to do, but I thought I’d just tell you that I’ve gone and got myself my own domain name!! My blog is now: elainejeremiah.co.uk although I’m fairly certain you can still reach it through elainejeremiah.wordpress.com

Anyway to coin a phrase which I’ve heard being bandied about the blog world, I’m SUPER EXCITED! OK so maybe it’s not that big a deal, but for me it’s so lovely to see my blog address even more specific to me than it was before. And I’ve got in quick before anyone else can grab ‘elainejeremiah.co.uk‘!

So from now on I’ll be using my new domain name. I’ve updated my Twitter account and at the moment I don’t have any other website details to update. I’m on Facebook, but I don’t have an author page (yet) and I rarely use it. I’ve been hearing from various people about Pinterest and how good it is, maybe I should give that a try??

I should say something else before I go because it doesn’t happen very often: It’s sunny and warm in the UK at the moment!! Or at least it is in Bristol anyway. And I tell you it doesn’t get much better than this weather-wise in the UK at least. I’m happy anyway that winter is finally OVER. 🙂 It only went on for about 7 months (or it felt like that long anyway!). I know that for some of my blog followers winter is just beginning. But I guess we’ve all got to have our turn at winter weather. OK some parts of the globe never have winter, but you get what I’m saying.

I’m looking forward to the coming week which will see me take part in WIPpet Wednesday and Thursday’s Children again. 🙂 Hope wherever you are in the world that your Sunday is peaceful.

For this week’s Thursday’s Children I thought I’d consider colour and how it affects and inspires my writing. Yes, I know the picture with this post is beautiful, but it’s not entirely what I meant. Or at least it’s how I’d like my writing to make you feel inside.

Because I’ve been gradually coming to the realisation that colour is very important in any book, whether it’s fiction or non fiction. We have to ensure that we bring colour into our writing, as a colourless story is not one that anyone’s going to want to read.

Sometimes injecting a little colour into your story can mean adding a beautiful description here or there. You may use some lovely adjectives. You may come up with an unusual and striking simile. Or perhaps a bold and brassy metaphor. I’ve been trying to think in this vein whilst working on my new WIP. I don’t find it easy, I have to say, trying to extend my descriptions, to make them come alive so that what I’m writing is vibrant and full of arresting images.

But it’s necessary and I feel I’m getting somewhere with it. I tend to find dialogue easier to write than description and of course, the flip side of the coin is that it is possible to overdo description. But there has to be a happy medium and I’m trying to find it. I’m keen to ensure that my writing is vividly colourful, that I draw the reader into the worlds I create, so that the reader is keen to read on and explore my fictional worlds more.

I’m sure for many of you, writing colourful and vivid passages in your stories comes naturally to you. Everyone’s different. And BTW if are one of those people who finds injecting colour into your writing easy and you have any tips, I’d love to hear from you!!! I have been inspired by other writers who have written colourful stories. I want to be more like them.

Well that’s it from me for this Thursday’s Children. I know it’s short but I hope it’s sweet. 🙂

If you would like to take part in Thursday’s Children, simply write a post on your blog about whatever inspires your writing. Then add your name to this linky. Thanks once again to Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.

Hi all. I felt frustrated today because yesterday I spent ages on my computer, writing and updating my blog, but it didn’t occur to me to prepare my post for today’s WIPpet Wednesday. Hence I have less time, or at least I feel like I do. Anyway, unlike last week today’s selection for my WIPpet Wednesday contribution was easy to find. I don’t think I’ve shared it with you before.

Apologies if you recognise it but I just don’t have the energy to trawl through my previous posts. I’m still knackered from yesterday morning’s exercise class. It’s called body pump and – well you basically pump your body for an hour with different weights, often using a barbell. You get the idea. It’s very intensive, but it’s good for me. And I’m actually starting to enjoy it now. 🙂

Anyway back to today’s post. I’ve chosen 5 lines from chapter 6 – seeing that ties in nicely with today’s date. At this point in The Inheritance, Emma has left for London and Kate is still on the farm in Cornwall working hard. She’s brooding about herself and her father and what will become of them in the future…

It was six pm and Kate was still hard at work. Harvest time was one of the busiest periods she and her father had on the farm. She was busy lugging bales of hay from the wagon attached to the tractor into the barn. Her father often told her not to carry too much, that she’d hurt her back, but Kate ignored him. She liked to feel weary at the end of the day; it sent her straight to sleep at night and meant she wasn’t lying awake worrying about her future and her father.

If you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, simply post on your blog an excerpt from your current WIP which correlates somehow with the date, so it being the 5th June today I chose 5 lines from chapter 6. You can be flexible. Once you’ve done that, add your name to this linky. Many thanks as always to K.L. Schwengel for hosting.

We’ve all been there.  Not feeling much like writing, not feeling much like doing anything.  I often have times when – and this probably sounds awful – I just can’t be bothered to write. There. I’ve said it. For so long with my writing, I was slovenly about it. It took a lot for me to get myself motivated to write. In the days before I discovered how to interact with other writers – i.e. via Twitter which also helps me promote my blog – I would often go for days without writing. The impetus just wasn’t there.

Then my wonderful sister recommended Twitter to me as a means of getting in contact with other writers. I’d already started a blog at my husband’s suggestion, but although I’d spent hours scouring the internet I simply couldn’t find any writers to connect with. Honestly – it just wasn’t possible. But having taken my sister’s advice, I began to use Twitter and I found that it really was/is the way that writers in the 21st century connect with each other. I started following people, so people followed me and it went from there. I know it’s a cliche, but I really have never looked back. I have well over 1300 followers on Twitter and my blog is going from strength to strength as I’m gradually getting more people following it.

And in the world that we live in, it doesn’t matter if you’re in America, the UK (as I am), Australia or New Zealand or indeed anywhere else in the world – it’s possible to be in contact with another writer at the touch of a button.
So when we find ourselves in an apathetic mood, what can we do to snap out of it? Answer – just click our mouse a few times, go to Twitter or other sites and tell other people about it. I believe that interaction with other writers is essential, even if – or possibly especially if – it’s to have a moan about how unmotivated we’re feeling.

All I can say is that for me, being active on Twitter and therefore my blog (and vice versa) has transformed my writing. It’s transformed the quality of my work but also the number of hours I put in. Instead of only writing now and then, I find myself doing something towards my writing – whether it be working on my actual WIP or updating my blog – most days, even though I do still have down days.

How about this: the next time you’re feeling fed up and not in the mood for writing, try connecting with a few fellow writers. I can guarantee you’ll feel better and more motivated.

I had a friend around today to help me and my husband with gardening. Why did you need help? I hear you ask. Well me and my husband aren’t exactly keen gardeners. We need a bit of incentive and my friend, who by contrast is a keen gardener, really motivates us.

So the three of us, with the dog looking on trying to get free from his restraint, worked for a few hours on the gardens front and back. Technically the garden at the back is more like a yard as although it has flower beds, it has no grass. This suits me as it makes it easier to maintain. To the side and front of the house there’s grass and shrubs and between the grass and the road are some large bushes and trees.

Anyway it all needed to be cut back. Whilst my husband pruned and chopped away at the front of our property, my friend and I hacked away (or at least she hacked, I chopped large branches she gave me into smaller bits to fit in the bin) at some trees which had seeded themselves ages ago at the back. We chatted away whilst we worked which was lovely. It was busy work and a bit tiring, but once we’d done all we could manage it did look a whole lot better.

Gone was the overgrown, straggly, unwanted vegetation. In its place there was light and a bit more space. Now I should be able to see my husband coming home from work on his bike as I look through the enlarged gap in the shrubbery in front of our house. Now our dog should have more scope for nosing around the back yard. And now much of the ivy is gone, there should be more chance for nicer plants to grow.

And I do think you can compare gardening to writing. Because just as in gardening you need to prune and chop plants down, our WIPs often require some pruning and chopping as well. As writers it’s essential that we get our stories right, in order to make them appealing and interesting enough to attract readers. So this can mean some drastic changes. We might have to chop whole scenes out of what we have written because they do not adhere to the general plot of our story. Or we may need prune certain characters because they as they are they’re just not quite believable enough.

So when you’re next out in the garden hacking back at some obstinate bushes or weeding a flower bed, just remember that it’s important to do the same sometimes in your writing too. We may not like the idea of getting rid of certain chapters or storylines, but it can often mean the difference between having a story that doesn’t read very well and is rather disappointing and having one that does read well and is exciting.

* I wish I could say that this is a photo of our garden but unfortunately it’s not!

I can’t believe how fast Thursday’s Children comes around each week. But then again time in general seems to be whizzing by for me at the moment. If you’re not familiar with Thursday’s Children the idea is that you write a post on your blog about whatever inspires your writing.

I thought for this week’s Thursday’s Children I’d talk about family and how mine has gone some way towards inspiring my writing. My mum once told me that she thought me and my immediate family (i.e. my brother, my sister, my dad and herself) could almost write a story together. Her feeling was that we all had it in us to tell a cracking good yarn. So I guess in some ways I was steeped in storytelling as I grew up. When I was little my mum would tell me true stories about her own childhood which always began with ‘When I was a little girl…’ These stories were always so interesting for me as they would obviously involve not only her but her brothers (my uncles) and my grandparents. It was fun to hear about the scrapes she and her brothers got into.

My mum also enjoys creative writing herself and as I was growing up she always nurtured my craft. I would often share stories I’d written with her and she would give me helpful tips as to how to improve on what I’d written. I’m grateful to her for that. It’s been lovely to be able to share my work with her over the years.

While I was still only young my dad would read stories from the Bible to me. We had little booklets for children of single stories from it. My dad would read these stories to me and do different voices for different characters. One story used to make me squeal excitedly because when he got to a certain point, Dad would do a sudden nasty loud voice. I think it was one of the stories Jesus told about the servant who refuses to write off someone’s debt even though he himself has had his debt written off by his master.

I think I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but from a young age I would tell stories to my younger brother and sister. Some of them were about dogs tormenting cats with itching powder. My siblings ended up telling their own versions of the ‘Sniffy Dog’ stories. So I guess I inspired them too. Other stories I told them were about ‘Flopsy Bunny Rabbit’. The funny thing with the rabbit stories was that one time when we were in the car as a family in France, I began to tell a story about Flopsy Bunny going to Disneyland Paris. During that particular car journey, we started to see lots of signs for a certain theme park…

My brother and sister and I had no idea we were going there – it was all an amazing surprise. My mum later wondered if I’d twigged that we were going there and was telling that story deliberately. But I hadn’t. It was just a coincidence. I was being creative with my storytelling, realizing only that we were in the vicinity of Disneyland, so telling a story about that in particular.

Stories my grandparents told me have remained in my mind as well. One true story is really amusing. My paternal grandfather was in Spain many years ago. I can’t remember where he was or what he was doing there. But whilst he was out and about he came across a painting. As he was looking at it a man came up to him and asked him what he thought of it. My grandfather replied ‘Not much.’ The painting he was looking at just happened to be by Picasso. And you’ve guessed it – the man he’d spoken to was Picasso himself.

It’s stories like these which are really inspiring to me as a writer. My grandfather meeting Picasso like that is the sort of story I would love to be able to say I came up with. But although I haven’t, it’s inspiring to me to think that I might be able to emulate that kind of anecdote in my writing thanks to a wonderful story my grandfather told our family.

I’m sure it’s true for everyone that their families have inspired their writing in one way or another. It couldn’t really be any other way – families are a big part of our lives and our lives inpsire us, don’t they? I feel particularly with our families, it’s easy to forget that the way our families are have shaped us and not only us but the way we write. Sometimes, especially if our family background is difficult, we would rather forget them. But like it or not our writing is shaped by family.

If you would like to join in Thursday’s Children, just post on your blog whatever inspires your writing. Then add your name to this linky. Thanks to Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Kristina Perez for hosting.