Tag: writing

A WIPpet for Wednesday

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 25 Comments

OK, so not the most fantastic of titles but it’s the best I could do. I hope this WIPpet finds you well and getting into the swing of 2014.

For this week’s WIPpet Wednesday I thought I’d share with you 15 words from chapter 1 of my current WIP Reunion. Like many of my fellow WIPpeteers, I’m finding it hard to… well find parts to share that don’t give away half the plot.

So this week I’m keeping it short but sweet. This line is further on in the same chapter from last week’s excerpt. Anna is thinking about the people she might see at the school reunion.

It would be good to see Lizzie and Rachel again, but they wouldn’t necessarily go.

I will try and be less stingy with the excerpt next week! Looking forward to reading yours.

Wanna join in the WIPpet Wednesday fun? No problem – just share an excerpt from your current WIP on your blog. Make sure it relates to the date somehow. Then go here to add your details to the list. And you’re off!

Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting! 🙂

The Ta-Da Award

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 12 Comments

ta-da

The lovely, talented ReGi McClain has kindly nominated me for a new blog award called The Ta-Da award. I have to answer ten questions, which you’ll see below, and nominate some people to give the award to.

Since I’m really lazy, and most of my contacts are very busy people, I’m not going to nominate anyone. But here as promised are the questions and my answers:

1. What was the best experience you had on purpose last year?
Going down to my cousin’s wedding in Cornwall (it’s the most south western area of the UK) and spending time with my extended family. It gave me the chance to dress up which I don’t often do. We went to a pub for the reception and a random man at the bar told me I dressed well!! Surprising, but sweet!

2. What was the best experience you stumbled into last year?
Meeting another author and blogger (apart from Kate Frost) Jade Reyner face to face who I hadn’t met before. OK so it was kind of planned, but I didn’t expect to be able to meet her when I first got in touch with her via our blogs and Twitter. It was so lovely to meet another blogger who lives in my area of the UK – she’s wonderful which wasn’t necessarily a given! – and it means there are 3 of us now who can meet up together.

3. What was your greatest intentional accomplishment last year?
Self-publishing my debut novel The Inheritance. It took a long while to get to the point of self-publishing it but it has been worth every single second of effort to get to that point. I’ve learnt so much and really enjoyed the experience.

4. What was your greatest unplanned accomplishment last year?
I reached my 100th post on WordPress on the 18th December! So I was really happy about that and it was totally unplanned. Seems unbelievable that I’ve done that many posts as I only started in March last year.

5. Did you spend some time with someone you adore last year?
Yes, I spent plenty of time with my wonderful husband Ian who I totally, completely and utterly adore!

6. Were you nice to someone you don’t like last year?
I’m not sure actually. Possibly but thankfully I don’t generally come into that much contact with people I really don’t like. Usually though if I’m with someone I don’t like I try to at least be polite.

7. What was the most amazing thing you learned last year?
Finding out that I’d had nearly 9500 free downloads of The Inheritance when I did my free promotion for it. (Not sure if this answer counts but it’s what you’re getting!)

8. Who did you teach last year and what (G-rated thing) did you teach them?
I taught my dog not to nip at me when I’m drying him off after walks/when he comes in from the garden.

9. What events did you attend last year?
I went to a couple of book launches with my good friend and fellow WIPpeteer Kate Frost. They were good times, although the second one was held at the beginning of August, we were in a cramped bookshop and it was VERY hot and sticky. Yuk!

10. Did you travel anywhere? Even just downtown?
Hubby, dog and I travelled to south west Wales in April for a week long holiday in a cottage on a farm. It was great!

So there you have it. I hope you’re all having a fabulous weekend. Catch you later. 🙂

My 1st WIPpet Wednesday of the new year!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 24 Comments

Hi all! Hope you had a fantastic Christmas and New Year and that you haven’t eaten or drunk too much!! 😉 I have to admit, I put on a bit of weight which I’m not happy about. 😦 I’m trying to tackle it by healthier eating. So we shall see if I can lose a bit again.

Anyway, on to the WIPpet Wednesday excerpt. It’s the 8th January today, so just to be annoying I’m going to take you back to chapter 1 and give you 8 lines from my current WIP Reunion. At this point in the story, Anna is at home working. She’s a full time writer (ah, bliss) and she’s just picking up the day’s post (or mail to you American folks!!) which has arrived.

A couple of envelopes were identical, she noticed with a frown, rectangular and plain brown. One was addressed to her, the other to Melissa. The post mark was Holmsborough.

She opened hers and quickly read what it said. It was an invitation to a school reunion – her secondary school. It was going to be held at the school itself and would happen in a couple of months’ time.

Immediately her mind transported her back to her painfully unhappy school days. She saw again the school corridor and herself rushing down it, trying to get away from the catcalls and taunts she’d had to endure on a daily basis.

So there you go. I look forward to reading your comments and I will certainly check out other WIPpeteers’ offerings.

If you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, it’s easy. Simply post an excerpt of what you’re currently working on writing-wise which relates in some way to the date. Then add your name to this linky. And you’re done.

Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting!

 

Writing every day in January

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 11 Comments

I’m not sure I’ll be able to stick to this, but my aim is to write every single day this month, even if it’s only for 20 minutes or less. I’ve been inspired by this article that suggests making a realistic New Year’s resolution regarding writing – to write for 20 minutes a day every day in January or less if you can’t manage it.

I think it’s such a fantastic idea and I’ll explain why. In recent years I’ve been writing more and more, particularly in the past year or so since I’ve joined Twitter, started a WordPress blog and have been in contact with, and even met some, other writers.

But I still struggle to write every day. I’m not an especially busy person, so in many ways I have it really good and there’s not much excuse not to write. I find that life takes over, working, walking the dog and looking after him, housework etc. And as I was saying to my husband today, as much as I enjoy writing it’s work – it is hard work and it’s not always easy as I’ve been finding lately as I work on my current WIP. I don’t know if you guys ever feel like that about it, but that’s how it is for me.

Having said that, I love it and I have more and more incentives to keep writing, not least all my online writer friends. You keep me going and I really appreciate it! And as I said that’s inspired me to write more.

So far in these first few days of January I’ve managed to write every day, although not for that long each time. But I should add that in recent months on a number of occasions I’ve managed over 1000 words in one day, which is good for me, so it’s not like I’m constantly slacking!

What are your thoughts on writing every day? Do you struggle to do it or is it something that comes naturally? I’d love to hear from you. 🙂

A brief WIPpet Wednesday

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 23 Comments

Hi all.

This is going to have to be quick as I haven’t got a huge amount of time today. But I hope you’re all well and not too stressed out by the pre-Christmas rush.

My WIPpet this week is a tease (again!). I’m sharing 21 words from chapter 12 of my work in progress.  My maths works like this: 18 for the 18th + 2 + 1 (from 2013) = 21 I’ll let you figure out the rest!!

The scene I’m sharing is from Reunion and it follows directly on from last week’s.  Anna is trying not to think about her experience with Will a week ago.

Anyway she should try and forget about Will and think about Peter instead.  He was coming down to see her tomorrow.

I’m guessing we’re not doing WIPpet Wednesday next week seeing as it’ll be Christmas Day.  Yay!  (for Christmas Day, not because I don’t want to connect with you guys via WIPpet Wednesday!!)  I hope you all have a wonderful time.

To be a part of WIPpet Wednesday just post on your blog an excerpt of whatever you’re working on writing-wise. Just make sure it relates in some way to the date. Then add your name to this linky.  Thanks goes to K. L. Schwengel for hosting.

All that’s left to say is Merry Christmas to you all!! And I just realised that this is my 100th post on my blog!! So yay for that too. 😀

To Scrivener or not to Scrivener??

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 18 Comments

Scrivener

I wanted to comment on my experiments with Scrivener and what I’m making of it.

Back in September I downloaded a free trial of Scrivener to see what I thought of it. Since then I’ve been a bit of a chicken and I’ve barely looked at it. Although I had made some headway with the tutorial, I was finding it very complex and a lot to take in.

My husband suggested I just forget the tutorial and simply play around with it to get a feel for what it’s like. I couldn’t even work out how to get past the tutorial; he had to show me lol. Anyway today I was having a proper go for the first time.

And I have to say I’m unsure about it. My husband’s offered to buy it for me for Christmas if I’d like it. But like I say I’m in two minds about it. Yes it’s very clever and allows you to do all sorts of things to assist your writing, such as making it easier to plan by having easy access to all your ideas and thoughts on different aspects of your story.

It also enables you to navigate much more easily between the different parts of your work, so that if you need to go back and amend things or refer to passages you’ve already written in a chapter way back, it doesn’t take forever. That’s the idea anyway.

But I didn’t get that far today. I barely did anything – at least it felt that way even though I spent quite a long time playing around with it. I’m definitely going to keep plugging away at it to see if I could get used to it. The thing is though I found myself getting rid of things I didn’t mean to get rid of and then not being able to access them again.

Scrivener just seems so vast in terms of what it allows you as the author to do. And so complicated! People have said to me that Word is easy by comparison and that’s so true. It’s like I really REALLY want to love Scrivener. I can see the potentially enormous benefits of it to my writing.

But if I can’t get to grips with it, even the basic stuff then there’s going to be a problem. My friend and fellow author Jade Reyner uses it and has written about her problems with it here and here. She’s getting on all right with it now I think.

I just hope that if I give it a bit longer before my free trial runs out, that I can maybe make some headway with it and perhaps just perhaps get used enough to using it that I can say ‘yep, Scrivener’s definitely for me’.

Or maybe it’s a case of square peg, round hole…

What are your thoughts on Scrivener? Have you/do you use it and if so what do you make of it?

Editing whilst writing first draft

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 6 Comments

For practically the first time since starting this blog, I’m not putting an image with the blog post.  Honestly I just can’t be bothered, it’s too time consuming and there are other things I want to do this evening apart from blogging.

The title of this post is fairly self explanatory.  I’ve been working at my current WIP for a while today and yet I haven’t got much to show for it in terms of a word count.  That’s because I’ve been going through what I’ve already written and trying to iron out inconsistencies.

You might say I should leave that for when I edit the first draft.  But the thing is my memory isn’t always fantastic and I just want to make sure I make what I’ve written make sense before I forget exactly what it was I wanted to correct.  (OK, yes I am aware I’m repeating the word ‘make’ too much!!)  My MC is a writer herself – a much more successful one than me so I guess you could say I’m living vicariously through her!

She’s writing a novel but my problem was my inconsistencies about exactly which stage she is at with it at different points in the story.  And believe me, my storytelling was all over the place when it came to my character’s novel.  At some points she’d just finished it, at other points she was still making notes for a plan for it.  Anyway, you get my drift.

So I felt I really needed to alter it now while what I’ve been writing is still fresh in my mind.  Trouble was I kept having to scroll up and down the page in Word to search for what I wanted to amend.  Apparently Scrivener is meant to be an excellent programme for authors, particularly for times just like this.  I downloaded a free trial of it which I haven’t made much use of yet – I keep meaning to have a go with it properly but haven’t got round to it yet.

Word is simple yes, but it doesn’t do much for you in this situation.   I really need to be able to access information quickly without having to go back and forth getting completely lost.

How about you?  Do you edit a bit before finishing your first draft?  And have you tried/do you have Scrivener?  If so, what are your thoughts?  I’d love to hear them. 🙂

When the words just won’t come

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 21 Comments

Words

I will be honest with you that the title of this blog post isn’t entirely true of my writing right now, although it has been in the past.

But I have been finding that the flow of my WIP is slowing at the moment. Before I began writing I made a comprehensive plan of the plot and in which direction I wanted my story to head.

Of course in actually coming to write it things change and I’ve found that the characters I’d planned have evolved and taken new paths. That’s all well and good. But sometimes you get to a stage in writing a story where things just go a bit stale.

As I said I know where I want to take my story ultimately but I want it to flow seamlessly, with one scene merging into the next so that the narrative doesn’t feel forced.

Right now I’m feeling my writing’s a bit barren. I’ve had a lot of things to focus on apart from this WIP because among other things,as you may have seen from other posts, I’ve been promoting the publication of my debut novel The Inheritance. So I’ve had plenty of distractions.

That’s not the real reason for this dryness in my writing though, I don’t think. I just need to somehow regain a bit of momentum with it, to really tell the story and focus on the general plan I originally came up with and not get too bogged down in dialogue between characters which doesn’t go anywhere.

When I’ve got past this difficult stage of trying to sew the story together seamlessly somehow and I eventually finish the first draft, I’m actually looking forward to sending it out to beta readers and getting their opinions on what’s working and not working, particularly in this part of the story.

Ultimately I want to be able to finish and publish this story by the end of next year but I’m not sure I’ll manage it. Especially seeing as writing a new post for my blog feels a lot easier than moving the action in my WIP along with no visible seams!

What do you do when you’re finding it hard to find the right words to carry a plot forward?