Play me another song

 Written 25th November.....

I’m writing this offline on Black Friday.

Why?

Because we were supposed to move into our lovely new house on the 21^st October, then a week after, then a week after, and so on.

Here I am, still, in our shoddy flat, surrounded by half packed boxes, one eye on this blog, one eye on my phone.

At least, thank God, there is an endless supply of tea.

I am grateful for all the things which don’t require internet; music, Scrivener, heat.

My new house has internet, lucky house.

So as all those Black Friday deals indifferently pass me by, it is with considerable trepidation and dread that I realise exactly what I can fill my zero byte time with – NaNoWriMo.

Let’s see, by the end of today, to be on track, I should have 41,675. Currently I have 35,822. Plenty of room for improvement I’m sure you’ll agree.

But even on this low day, sulking in my pyjama’s I want to raise a toast, to NaNo, to that slippery 50,000 demand. Because instead of being the burden it was looking likely to be, starting when we moved, tearing me away from painting and purchasing, it has instead been a friend in the gloom. 

As I have sat and left yet another voicemail, been informed of a further set-back, hoped and despaired, NaNo has been a persistent nudge in my ribs, ‘Well, I guess you better write then.’ And so I would drop through the bottom of this real, aggravating world, straight into my created one, for an hour here and there, for half a day. 

The insanity of NaNo has somehow kept me sane.

There is something therapeutic and soothing about giving in to your internal voice, trusting it to yabber on and on across the page, believing it is leading you somewhere, teaching you patience. 

Speeding up access to this dark world of mine, is my ever faithful playlist, created purely to support my novel; the mood, atmosphere, the characters. It is 80 ever shuffled songs which help me sink in. Later on in the editing process I may choose to split these down my chapter, tailor them. I know plenty of writers who need absolute silence. For me, the songs are portals.

I’m going to go away and lean on my friend again now, see where I end up. I’ll leave you with a few snapshots of my soundtrack.

Getting dark

Day 11 of NaNoWriMo, and for the first time this month, I'm on track. This involved two marathon writing sessions over the last few days, and (predictably) towards the end of these exhausting stints, my writing was more confident, accessible, and more promising.

Each November around the mid-way point of this challenge my brain likes to say, 'See, this is what it's like to actually be a writer, words showing up.' And I despair at the previous eleven months of myself where I ran away and hid from the page. November is about waking up, reigniting, recognising that this is what it takes.

I started this blog to track my process, to see what I would try and fail at, what would work and wouldn't work within the myriad of approaches I've been taught and told about by others. Turns out my process is erratic, and boy is it drawn out. My process is getting wildly excited about a method one day, only to yawn at it the next. It's furious periods of writing followed by rolling haystacks.

Yesterday, deep in the fug of the world I'm creating I realised something else - that something I often consider a flaw in myself contributes wonderfully to my writing. That is my tendency to look ahead in a very detailed anxious way in day to day life. I tell myself often negative and extreme stories and struggle to pull myself back from the fiction. Such as:

Tomorrow I have to confront Jane on this problem. I bet Jane will take it badly. I bet Jane will blame me. And then John will overhear and get involved. I hate when John gets involved, that's just like him. God, I'm annoyed at John and Jane.

And then I genuinely have to spend some time unpicking that, reminding myself that it hasn't actually happened, and there's no one to be mad at.

Maybe everyone does this.

Anyway, it's funny that this trait is so present when I'm writing. I'm in my head with the characters and the room like a stage director, thinking, what if the worst thing then happened, what if he doesn't forgive his brother, what would that feel like, or what if the brother was angry? In other words, I'm able to forward plan, or imagine many outcomes and follow the emotion of them.

So, a pain in real life, a triumph for my fiction.

What else am I doing in this NaNo bubble? Reading, a lot. Mostly thrillers about missing girls, only truly relaxing into the books once I've established that they're not too similar to mine. I'm trying to learn, pick holes, find ideas. I'm also reading 'We need to talk about grief,' by Annie Broadbent. My novel requires that I go dark, so I'm going. I just have to remember to come up for air every now and again, my eyes full of water, and step away. I found grim subjects easier to sit with then I was younger, but they get to me more these days and I have to accept that.

Otherwise, you know, you might end up going a bit odd and bursting into tears at your writing retreat after reading the line, 'She liked fruit tea.'

Happy NaNo'ing!

The End

Yesterday I attended a writing workshop, part of the Chester Literature Festival - 'How to finish your novel' with Laura Barnett.

Usually I've read at least something from the author, but feeling like the subject was bang on the money with where I was, I booked it and eagerly anticipated.

This is where our wonderful English language has fun with semantics. I'd interpreted it as a session for people who were slowly chugging to the end of the track, desperate for a few final pushes. But it actually focused more generally on endings as a concept, what type of ending a reader might expect from a genre, being unafraid to consider several, wildly different endings, what an ending should serve up; satisfaction, a tidying of loose ends etc.

Unlike my previous novels, this one has an end, organic and imagioned during a frantic explanation  to my husband in a London pub. A true, aha moment (how rare those are). The second draft of my book has utterly revolved around my precious ending. I'm so dedicated to it that I've changed almost the entire book just so that this final chapter can live.

So whenever the workshop suggested that we reconsider the ending, I fell into a wheezy panic attack at the prospect. This was not Laura's fault. It is my fault for continuing to sign myself up to event after event, without squeezing any writing in-between. It's my fault for continuing to reach out for help, and tricks, and discussion, when what I really need to do is sit down, one eye on my roadmap, and crack the hell on.

Thanks in part to The Clockhouse retreat, where after six days of graft my map arose, and to Srivener (which I'll touch on loosely later, but will be no doubt singing the praises of for many blogs to come), the way before me is sign posted and lit.

So it must be fate that NaNoWriMo is just around the corner. On the 1st of November, I'm going to force my sorry-excuse-for-a-writer self to the page, and bash out the day's required word count - 1667 words to be exact. And then on the 2nd. And again on the 3rd. And with any luck, come November's chilly close, I will find myself with a complete second draft at 90,000 words.

So briefly, but with so much love - Scrivener. How has it taken me so long to discover this beautiful, beautiful outstretched helping hand? It's been mentioned  a few times over the years but like the idiot I am, I barely took notice. Then I saw that if you complete NaNo (that is sail over the finish line with 50,000 words), you get 50% off Scrivener, so I took a peek.

I watched a brief tutorial and impatiently imported my Word doc novel. Firstly, it happily kept my track changes - all the comments and highlights. Then I saw that I could add sections throughout (marking chapters if you want, or subplots - anything really), and jump around them easily, no longer painstakingly scrolling through in pursuit of  a key scene. And, there's an index card view where you can add notes to all those lovely sections - which I've typed my chapter map into.

I'm keen to hear about how everyone else uses it, as I've only scratched the surface, but it's already put my novel back into a soft, rosy light.

On Retreat - Arvon - The Clockhouse - Day 6

On the last long afternoon of my retreat we explored the grounds a little more - discovering a large allotment - we fought with the insects for raspberries. The greenhouse was full of wild tomatoes, grapes and wasps. When we realised that tiny spiders were running across our shoes, we happily went back to the writing.

Around lunchtime, I finished planning the second half of my novel after three days. The realisation that I was staring at the bare bones, up on the wall, and I just had to colour in between the lines, was indescribable. I ran to get Sheena, dragged her into my room and said, 'Look, there's my book!'

Thinking that my brain needed a break, I spent the afternoon researching, reading the true story of a woman who's daughter went missing. Three months later they discover that her body was under the bath in her own house, the whole time.

Pretty difficult stuff. But I drank my coffee and spoke to my family and cracked on with a flashback chapter.

I knew that I was feeling strange when I went down for dinner. I guess I'd spent six days trying to imagine what it would be like to lose a child. And for the most part I was able to hold the reality of that horror and my fictional book separately in my head.

After eating, discussing things we'd been good at growing up, we gathered for the final night of reading. I couldn't get through my chapter. I had underestimated the toll of days reading about a little boy eventually found on a mountain ledge, the ones never found, the girl under the bath. It also only hit me during the reading that I had touched upon something painfully personal (though this isn's the place to go into it).

Amazingly (trust me, this is rare), I eventually managed to get it together, make a few jokes and enjoy the rest of the time. This in mostly thanks to how great the other writers were; not making me feel embarrassed. In fact, making me feel like they understood.

In the morning, as I tried to remove the Super Tack (a.k.a chewing gum) from the walls, I felt like a big mess of sad and elated. A week had been cleared to give me the time to get on with being a writer and little else. I'd forgotten I had a job, I'd allocated myself a tiny window at the beginning and end of each day for emails, Facebook and my digital writing group. To an array of requests and tasks and things asking for me to do them I'd said, 'You can wait.'

And it really was wonderful.

On Retreat - Arvon - The Clockhouse - Day 5

Hurst

There's a spider made of hair in my sock
And one in the bathroom, which converses with a fly
Long dead

There's a spider where wood meets wall
And another in my mind, which places mouth on memory
And webs

There's a forest god in a drinking glass
And one that dances when the steam hits

And one birthed in the cave of a lamp

There's a spider asleep in the downy folds of my bed
Who has more right to them than I - to spin a dream

~


I don't usually write poetry, but this one arrived this morning.

It's the last full day. Instead of a desperate urge to produce and demonstrate time well spent in pages, I feel strangely happy with the mix of it all - the walks and tea breaks, the cutting of paper and reading under a blanket.

Last night we shared again. Laura got the fire going and the house smelled like November.

We laughed for hours. We talked about insects and dwarf frogs and goldfish who betrayed us, and cemeteries and burial, and our own work - from years back, or from now, and we listened.

They helped me to figure out how I could play with time, weaving in the flashbacks. And in a moment my novel shifted into something else, something better. I struggled to sleep. Each night, after sharpening my mind on our conversations, sharing and a day of my book, I sleep worse than the last.

We drove into Craven Arms for super tack (as it turns out) and hayfever pills. Marvelled at the local butchers which was a man in a van by the side of a country road.

I stuck my plot to the wall where it can't blow away.

I finished my missing children PI book on my study sofa, grateful for the small and large ways it has influenced my story.

I am learning to live with the spiders.

On Retreat - Arvon - The Clockhouse - Day 4

I spent a lot of yesterday sitting on the floor of my study, arranging pieces of torn paper. I needed to find half my book. So I wrote down all of my remaining ideas; scribbled in notebooks, typed up in an unnamed file, swimming about in my head. I had three different colours, sizes of square and categories:

-Big ideas
-Chapters
-Tiny things

Then I took the pile, sat on the carpet, surveyed them and sipped my tea. I arranged them into their individual group. Then I started to look for families - chapters which could sit within big ideas, tiny things which could cling onto chapters. Finally I looked for the order I wanted to tell them in; spent a while picking up and placing down, swapping and sliding.

A few didn't fit anywhere, but I felt like I needed to write them, had already attempted a few, and saved them in a file titled, 'Oddities.' What they all have in common, and it took a while for this to register, is they are all flashbacks, from the before of the book. No, they don't work with the body of what I have. No, I didn't plan on creating them. And, yes, I have no idea if I can find them a logical, defensible space, or they will be thrown to the murdered darlings pile.

This is before I energetically swung open the door of my study and annihilated them with a gust:

Today, I'll go in search of Blu-tack and fix the book to the wall. It's not finished. When it is, I'll write it down. For now I like the bizarre and only way it exists.

All the hours eaten up by plotting and charting. I read through twenty chapters and made notes on each in answer to the question, 'What actually happens?' I looked at each character in turn and bullet pointed their journey. I was quickly getting too far away, too zoomed out, and needed to check in and see how they were travelling.

I also took an old chapter, written during the white heat of NaNoWriMo, November 15, and re-worked it. Plot wise, I needed it, but the original execution didn't work at all. I printed it, marked what I like, what made me laugh, what was trying to make me laugh and painfully, heavily, failed to.
Then I sat down and tried to start with that. I realised how much better I knew my characters now, on this second re-telling. I had a deeper understanding of what they'd been through and the inner workings of their minds.

This draft was better, cleaner. And the idea of taking the same approach again seemed less scary - highlight where it sings, mercilessly cull the duff notes, fill in the gaps.

And once more, with feeling.

I also visited the pond with Sheena in my pyjama bottoms (my jeans are still drying from our cross-country adventure). We ate kinder eggs, pointed out weird bugs, debated how much money it would take from the other, to willingly cannonball in.

Later, we ate baked cheesecake and talked about the magic state of childhood.

On Retreat - Arvon - The Clockhouse - Day 3

It's much colder today. The sun isn't coming out. It's a day for thick jumpers.

Yesterday I woke up early, again, without an alarm. I woke up excited. Usually mornings feel like they're against me, but here, it's a different reality - because every moment is mine. My only role is 'Writer'. The simplicity of it is like a much awaited deep breath.

After writing my blog, I headed down to breakfast. I ate a lot. In Chester, I am greedy and I mindlessly consume. Here, I am an engine and I tip in fuel. The food doesn't matter. The words matter.

We write timed exercises. I fill two pages on the prompt, 'Freedom smells like...' I decide it smells like suncream shiny and greasy across shoulders, flowers heady and bowed under the weight of their own pollen and a pathetic bubble of strawberry bubble gum. I write about a one night stand and a phone number etched into the wood of a toilet cubicle door. I write about a girl searching for her mother.

In the afternoon we decide to go for a short, easy walk, but are quickly lost. We are nettle stung, over heated, brook jumping, private land invaders. We sneak around bulls and hide from men in tractors. We emerge hours later, paddle in a Ford and sip elderflower fizz, making up imaginary childhoods for colleagues.

Back to writing. I produce a few new chapters out of sync - the ones I want to write. Its hard but somehow it works. My cheeks are flushed and my shoulders ache and the words are showing up. I realise that half my novel is still unplanned, unknown. This is somehow a surprise. But ideas for plots and people are coming to me from a range of sources. Keep going.

More wine. More reading. I share an unedited piece, all at once terrified and delighted. 'Be shit,' I tell myself. 'Let yourself be shit, and let that be okay. Fix it later.' The writing is better than I hoped. Or maybe I am just kinder to myself than I imagined.

More discussions - an argument has broken out at the tutored retreat next door; Black writers furious at the idea of a white person writing about how life is as a black person. The group is split and charged. Apparently this is called, 'Trespass.' We mull this over. Jane talks about a poet who writes a lot about sexual abuse, and the assumption that she had been abused. She tries to put words to discovering that the writer had never actually experienced anything like this. We talk about wearing different hats, and different skin, and how limited we would be if we only wrote about our own small lives.

At midnight, we crowd around the dishwasher trying to get it to work. Confused. Beaten. Five approaches later, the water floods in.

On Retreat - Arvon - The Clockhouse - Day 2

For as long as my back can take it, I pile the cushions up and sit in the window. I'm not sure that's the intention, but the sills are deep and I like building a nest. I sit there with my coffee and notebook, and watch other solo writers walk the grounds, trying to unknot some tangle in their plot or find inspiration around the pond. Sometimes they look up and I wave and smile like an idiot. Sometimes wasps fly into my forehead and I fall off, back into the room.

The silence is punctuated with baa-ing sheep.

Yesterday's breakfast exercises were both painful and necessary. I ended up writing about my Dad buying my my favourite book, crying on the National Express, a girl who finds a skeleton in her brother's room and a woman who can't have children. Words were dragged out, clinging on, petulant things.

Something changed during the day. I spent most of it reading the autobiography of a Private Investigator of missing people cases. After a few hours of reading, I knew how one of my useless, destined for the red pen and the chop characters, was going to suddenly become indispensable and interesting. I discovered a way to raise the ante. I randomly wrote the sentence, 'Flashlights in the dark, like low stars.'

In the afternoon I wrote an easy chapter where my character Poppy has just gone missing, and the locals organise a search party. I say easy, because it was there. The words didn't fight me, they wanted to arrive. There was no evidence of labour. I had broken through the pain. I didn't know how long it would last. One thing I've known for a while is that in order to do this, I have to be comfortable with all types of writing and manage to push through; shit writing which it embarrasses me to produce, lazy writing when I'm too tired, artificial writing which even I don't believe in. I have to trudge through, allow it, accept it, wait for better. Because it's often only by giving into that that I eventually reach a sun-filled clearing. The warm up is vital, but I usually quit during it.

At night, we drank wine and shared. I was comfortable but nervous. Jane is an incredible poet. We are all in such different places - she is relaxed and assured in her voice. I am battling with mine. Sheena is just starting to experiment with hers. Laura is staring up at the mountain of her book and prepping for the climb. What did we talk about; can creative writing be taught, tamagotchis, rap, Brexit, the quality of our sleep, habits, exasperation, Ophelia.

I went to bed, late, tipsy, checked in with my novel. The last sentence I'd written sober, 'An old pair of willies don his feet.'

On Retreat - Arvon - The Clockhouse - Day 1

During the day, you can only hear birds. At night it's completely silent and black.

It's very strange to actually be here, after months of mulling over how I would use the time. I awkwardly set up my desk, neatly pushing pens into line, notepads to the left, then just stepped away from it all, scared.

Yesterday, fear was allowed. We arrived around 4pm, greeted with cake, and sat together in the library/lounge talking about our projects, enjoying being surrounded by shiny, new books. Dinner was a cheese board followed by fresh bread and soups from a local Chef. I called my husband, delighted at the prospect of an evening of wine, face mask and a long bath. He chided me, 'You know this isn't a holiday right?'

Yes, but I'd forgotten. It's unnatural to find yourself living with a group of strangers in a magical setting and push against the urge to talk and socialise, and crowd together.

After dinner I managed an hour or so of writing in my Study, atmospheric playlist filling the room, fussing with the various lamps for the perfect amount of light. But I was nursing an over-excited headache, a few hours of travel and generally overwhelmed. So I forgave myself and went to sleep, promising that it would all start tomorrow.

So far, so good. I've flung the windows open; the hills beyond the forest are almost lost in morning mist. I've prepared a list of goals, broken up around meals. At 10am I'll head down to the kitchen, and sit down with my friend Sheena, over a gargantuan pot of coffee and breakfast. We're going to share our plans for the day, and roll out a few writing exercises, like stretching before the run. I loosely intend to write this blog and fresh writing in the morning, research and edit in the afternoon, and pick up the writing again in the evening, into the early hours if possible. That seems to be the time my mind is the most relaxed and open, letting the gold words fall out.

Perhaps tonight we will gather around the wood fire and share our work with flushed cheeks. Or perhaps, like last night, we will eagerly consume our dinner and debate the merits of a writing group, our favourite authors, and the differences between poetry and prose.

Laura, a novelist herself, certainly agrees with me that the novel is a beast, a looming monster. We both despair at how to approach taming the thing, but at the same time know there's nothing else we could be doing, nothing else which would cook up the same bizarrely delighful mingling of fulfilment and challenge.

Here's a few pictures:

Better late than never

Word by lazy word, my novel is coming back to me. My characters are starting to yawn and stretch out in my head. I'm re-visiting the problems, re-reading the parts which convinced me I was on to something better than my usual. I'm writing; a sentence here and there, erasing a comma, changing a name, a painful restoration of the flow.

I always tend to write more in the winter. It's darker, more magical. The cold and desire to stay indoors helps the fiction. So yes, I'm looking forward to the leaves dying and the frost taking over. Somehow I have started trying again, to mark out a path as a writer.

Tomorrow I'm at Gladfest, a small literature festival, on a novel planning session with an admired author - Francesca Haig.

Then it's the writing retreat at the Clockhouse for six days later this month. I'll have a ridiculous amount of time on my hands to make some headway with this stubborn book. My first commitment is to produce a blog on here at the end of every day, tracking my progress (or lack thereof).

Then October, the Chester Literature Festival, where my story will be read out as part of our Chester Writer's Gothic event - http://www.storyhouse.com/events/gothic-chester-writers/
Yes, that does mean that I actually finished a short story this year. I'm surprised too. I've even submitted it for a competition.

November sees another NaNoWriMo (Novel in a month challenge) where I have to decide if I'm going to find a way to write 50,000 words of this novel (perhaps branching out, exploring character and different plot lines) or take a break and create another beast. More than anything I'm excited for the Kick off party, the weekly lock ins, hysterical and tired in coffee shops. Chester is my home now and I'm excited to meet the writers (125 of them gave it a go last year).

My point is, that I'm trying. It's not something I do that often. Currently I'm trying to obsessively plan how to make the most of my six isolated days in the forest. Any ideas?

'Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.' - Erica Jong

Hello wall

It's not just been months since I've written a blog, it's been months since I've written full stop. And there are no excuses; I haven't been especially busy, or tired, or without inspiration. I just chose everything above it, everything that was easier.

I am addicted to little wins, quick moments of achievement and validation. I am no good at the drawn out journey, the patience required to see something through. That's why I have so many unfinished books and blab on about wanting to be a writer, with nothing in my way but myself.

Today has been fully my own and I have, as per usual:
-Hidden away in the creations of others - books and TV.
-Made honey and peach popsicles.
-Thought about how I should write a million times and failed to.

And now, instead of cracking on, I'm writing here. Why? It's easier. It's a quick win. In twenty minutes or less I will have something tangible; a tick off the list, a small but complete chunk. A novel isn't like that. A novel stretches on like some endless, untameable river. You can't see the end. You just have to keep swimming. Or, you can be me for the last few months, and simply tread water.

The good news? I'm still in it. I am about to pick up my old journals and sift through them for any good lines which might inform the journals of one of my characters. I'm still locked into a six day writing retreat in September, and somewhere, once I'm able to get past my own mass of bullshit and sheer laziness, I can still see the book.

The bloody book. Waiting for me to figure out how to return. Looks like it's going to be one tiny step at a time, one tiny word at a time. That will have to do.

Hitting the books

How much research should you do when creating a fictional world, and how much should you leave to your imagination?

I think it depends on how confident you are with your themes. And I certainly have one, which I thankfully have no direct experience with - suicide. This isn't directly addressed in my book but it is an undercurrent. I approached it with as much assumption as I could muster, but knew that at some point I was going to have to inject some serious reading.

I also have a spiky sister relationship - I didn't feel quite as out of my depth with this one - but still had limited personal experience to draw on.

I looked to Amazon for everything I could dig up on sisters and suicide, and after reading the free samples, loaded up my kindle with those that caught my interest.

At this point, my husband told me that the very fact that I was researching indicated that I was more serious about this book than the others. It was desperately what I needed to hear - that others noted the gear shift which just might suggest that this is the one.

To date, I think I've only spent four or so hours reading those books. Mainly because the suicide theme is captured in diary entries which weave through the book. I decided to leave them out for a while - working on a full 2nd draft of the main story. After which, I will focus entirely on the diary, until, finally, I can seamlessly (wishful thinking) twist the two together.

Yet the little research I have done, has already inspired, such as (it may help to add that my character dies in water):

-There are often periods of furious activity pre-suicide.

-Diary entries of those that commit suicide often become less complex, shorter sentences and more self-orientated.

-Hamlet quote - '...When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like they bore her up...'

The mermaid idea was something I loved instantly - a girl mesmerised by the sea, drawn to it, scared to walk in for fear that she wouldn't want to walk out. That she had romanticised the idea of death.

Dark stuff! But nonetheless a place I had to visit in order to come back with a fully realised character.

More than anything, I started to collect websites to check out, diaries to read - I already have Sylvia Plath's journals from 1950-1962, eagerly purchased after reading 'The Bell Jar.' It's a huge collection of entries, and, much like trying to climb a landslide, I've only previously taken on thirty pages or so before feeling overwhelmed and sliding back down. The physical weight of that book is something alone.

Now that it was more relevant than ever, it would have to be digested. Alongside looking into Anne Sexton, Freud's theory on suicide and David Lester's, 'The 'I' of the storm'.

It's incredible, the ideas which can be generated from a line, or that a slip of dialogue can sew up a huge hole in your plot. Researching is new to me, but I'm already converted. And it's another way to break up the looming monster of a novel; alternating between new writing, re-writing, reading, editing, and researching - expanding on what you're trying to zoom in on.

The bare bones

Now that I had a clear view of the mess in front of me (sort of) I was desperate to untangle. Luckily we'd purchased a massive whiteboard to plan our wedding on, which was brilliant for the next stage. I propped the board up, and used my chapter mapping to put every major event on a post it note in the order it occurred in the novel (even if I knew it would be scrapped.)

At first it looked like this:

It prompted me to think about the timeline of my novel. The inciting incident is that a girl has been missing for 6 months. This didn't seem current enough, so I reduced it to 3 months. Even then, I thought, there's no new evidence, the most exciting part of this book is in the past, and they just talk about it until the last quarter when there's a discovery. So I took that discovery, and I opened the book with it.

It was very easy to pick a post it note up and stick it somewhere else.

But what this meant in reality, was a massive re-structure and even more aspects which now wouldn't work.

For some reason this made me laugh, loudly, for a substantial amount of time.

Then I got back to work.

I reconsidered every event; the order of it, the logic, the transition into the next. I screwed up the ones I hated. I added bridges. I scribbled out and re-wrote. From the Public Edit I attended a few weeks back, there was one piece of advice which really stuck, 'Put the events in your novel in their most dramatic order.' And I used this to guide my re-plotting.

I knew that I needed to decide on the duration, and a month fitted. I chopped the story up into one of four weeks. by splitting up the board:

I added a few thoughts as they occurred and made some big changes, such as:

- I swapped two character's personalities and subplots. I thought it would be more interesting and refreshing if the Dad was teary and struggling, and the Mum was cold and cutting.

-Introduced new characters so that my current ones had friends and jobs, instead of just this intense world with five people.

-I drafted in where the reader would get the big reveals. The book is based on secrets, and I needed to drip feed them through - making sure they were rearing their heads at the right time.

The length was an issue; I had a beginning and end, with the middle spanning 50,000 words. I needed to stretch this to at least 80,000 without the extra 30,000 coming across as desperate polyfiller.

When I looked up from this I'd lost four hours, but gained the skeleton of my book - a fair exchange.

Chapped

Oh the joy of Chapter Mapping - the exact point where I usually get bored, frustrated with the monotony of it, feeling that I am once again in school, trying to coax my learning resistant brain into working.

This is where the work really begins, and exactly why I usually jump ship. It. Takes. Ages.

Only this time, as I went along, re-reading each chapter, stripping it to the bare bones, I wasn't resisting. I was still scared, intimidated and confused, but alongside the usual emotions, strangely dedicated, geeking out on the process. Predictably, my notes got shorter, comments less useful, and fields were skipped as I worked through, but I had the gist. And the gist is what I needed.

I should point out, that at this stage, I'm using the word 'chapter' very loosely, because the first draft is not written with clear breaks. I decide to chop it up where the location changes, or something significant peters off.

I've included an example below. I abbreviate all my characters to their first initial for ease:

Chapter:	14
Tense/Narration:	H-First
Characters:	C
Summary:	H thinks about the big, cruel fight with P. C is rehearsing her lines with H. Relationship improves, C seems to warm to H. Learn that P had talent/wasted potential.
Main plot/action:	Hinting towards the ugliness of the last P and H meet.
Sub plots:	C and H relationship.
Character notes:	H as eager to win C over still. H showing regret for last words spoken to P.
Thoughts:	P set at 30 and working in a coffee shop. P as a talented artists - not used. Probably delete this one or move - ends really cliche. Would be funny if this relationship (H&C) improved as H&D disintegrated. Further argument to why should be third person, as H monologue goes against novel end.

Some of these maps are chunky, some are sparse, some feature big question marks in the field 'Main plot/action', making it glaringly obvious that the scene is fluff. Many contain pretty useless, vague remarks, which suggest either that the chapter is bad, or I'm not focused enough and it needs a re-visit.

I also have diary entries running through the novel, and decide to mark them as separate chapters for the time being.

Once completed, I took my time reading over it, absorbing what I'd flagged, particularly what I'd included in the 'Thoughts' field.

The biggest splinter was the tense. The first draft was in first person, but my ending would only work in 3rd person. The ending is a twist, a reveal (hopefully), involving the protagonist, so I can't really have her feigning no knowledge of the secret throughout the novel. A more experienced or daring writer might enjoy this challenge, but I wanted her to have a genuine, raw voice and didn't see a way around it.

The prospect of having to re-write every chapter from a new perspective was daunting enough, but it wasn't even that straight forward. I had terrible chapters, pointless chapters, several exploring a subplot that I knew I would drop, bizarre jumps in time, no sense of character, and frequent varieties of the conclusions, 'Nothing happens here', and 'Doesn't make sense.'

This sees me into January 2016.

The End

'This is as far as I usually get.'

That thought held me in December 2015. Aside from a few re-reads, half-hearted attempts at chapter mapping and a grammar edit, nothing more was usually achieved from this point.

Incomplete novels tended to be printed and stuffed in a folder, to gather dust on a high shelf with the others, and remind me that editing just wasn't my thing.

I'd managed to get a few short-stories and poems published - because their lengths seemed manageable. But the effort involved in tackling a novel, well, it quickly becomes a slippery, non-sensical thing that overwhelms. I never knew where to start with a task of that size. And, crucially (I now realise) I never had a clue how any of them ended.

It's definitely the right start for me - free writing for a month on a loose idea, and fixing it up later, but the 50,000 word target never saw me to the finish line, and was mostly just middle bits - entertaining possibilities lacking direction or structure.

Three weeks into NaNo 15, I was sat in a pub with my Husband, discussing TAWT (My novel - There Are Worse Things), realising that I was especially animated about it all. He politely listened whilst I tried to explain the gist, contradicting myself, rewinding, and descending into madness. I then scared him with my eureka moment, suddenly aware, I know how this ends.

It felt like coming home. Some restless part of me sighed and slept.

I couldn't wait to get back to my laptop and write my way to it.

This meant that when I looked upon my malnourished book with the usual fear, I at least had a spotlight on the last scene; I knew where my protagonist ended up, and why, and how that would look. I just needed to figure out how they arrived there. I would need to get to know my shallow, copy cat characters to the point where I carried them around with me in my head. I would need to pull out all the clumsy stitches and start over. But finally, I had a foggy destination.

I also realised in February 16, that I wanted to achieve this in a year. By February 17, I will have several copies of my book professionally bound and distributed to those I can rely on to gently point out the cracks, before I prepare to send to publishers.

My twelve month journey kicked off with some intensive Chapter Mapping.

The Magic Kindle

I love the smell of paper and the weight of a book in my hand.

I love judging a book by its cover.

When I walk into a book shop or a library, my head goes quiet. I don't want to talk to anyone, or think about anything. There's just a sense that I am home, stunned, and in complete awe.

Before I had friends, I had books.

When those friendships imploded, or weren't quite enough, I had books.

And before I knew that I wanted to write them myself, I inhaled them.

To my mother's horror (and she still mentions it) I once, upon being told that I needed to look up from the page and spend more time with everyone, protested, 'But books are more important than family.'

Perhaps not the healthiest of perspectives, but luckily, or unluckily I grew up, and life got in the way. Jobs, relationships, decisions, the outside world, they all pushed books into a smaller, less prevalent place.

I could no longer have five or six on the go in different rooms of the house, to be picked up when I entered, then forgotten until I found myself back there. I didn't have the time, but even worse, I didn't have the brain capacity. I can no longer hold so many stories in my head. It's hard enough to keep up with the intricacies of one.

The main thing I was convinced I would never relinquish was the physical books themselves, adamant there wasn't an eReader out there which could tempt me away from them - spine to spine, colourful and present on my shelves.

But I caved, for the most part. Why? Well, sure it is much more convenient than lugging eight thick books to Thailand with you, but if I'm honest, I was bought. Oh the money you save. You might think that as an aspiring writer, my priority would be to give more money to the author, to support them, to pay the full whack for what it took many of them five years or more to generate.

You'd be wrong.

In this case, the greedy reader and bargain hunter in me have teamed up and won. I still allow myself the occasionally splurge. And when we move in a few weeks, the majority of our boxes will contain books. But the future looks Kindle.

What I am proud of, in contrast, is the discovery that I can upload my own writing, as if it were as published and successful as the others it now sits alongside. It feels like a cheat, like a fast track. When I read it, the editing part of me sits back, assuming it's not needed, not relevant, leaving only the reader to enjoy (or not in parts) the journey.

This is how I found myself giddy with the possibility of my novel. I cannot recommend this tactic enough. After reading it once (bearing in mind that at this point it's a stunted, underdeveloped little thing - 50,000 words), I re-read it and made one list (examples below):

Immediate Thoughts
-Harriet’s working life makes no sense - timeline.
-No one has any friends - weird.
-Charlotte is a cliche.
-Too much ‘in head’ writing.

In total, I recorded 18 significant issues with the first draft. And I knew that this was a kind sum, and that dozens more would reveal themselves during the substantial re-writing. I knew that I hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of plot, and structure, and the quality of the chosen words. But they were the starting point I needed, in December 2015.

Nano and the lull

Admittedly, me trying to get words on a page last week was just about as far away from Kerouac's feverish output as you can get. But I did force myself to sit down on occasion and do it anyway.

There's always something salvageable, even if it's only a string of three words from an hour. Even if it's a tangent, which with enough attention, can spread out into a subplot.

I'm convinced that after the Public Edit  tomorrow, and my writing group on Wednesday, I'll be back in the creative headspace. It's often just a top up of writing chatter that I need to set me back on track.

Whilst I am very much wading through the sludge, I want to do a check in of progress so far, going back to November 15.

Every November for the past six years, I have taken part in NaNoWriMo, a national challenge to write 50,000 words (a very short book) in a month. When I tell people I've completed this in five out of the six years, they typically say, 'Great, what did you win?!' And I reply, 'Nothing, well, five books I guess.' They are very confused indeed.

Without fail, I despise Week 1, fall enthusiastically behind in Weeks 2, and 3, turn into an over-caffeinated, sleep deprived, frightening thing in Week 4, and emerge very dazed, the light hurting my eyes, yet victorious on day 30.

The elation does not last long. At first, I greedily dine out on replying to the question, 'What have you been up to?' with 'I finished a novel in a month.' I then quickly add that it's messy, and confused, and sort of, well awful, and manage to talk myself out of any real hope for it.

My 2014 book was left to stew for a few weeks, then uploaded to my Kindle. An approach I can't recommend enough, if, like me, you can trick yourself into seeing it as any other book, downloadable from Amazon. It affords me a welcome distance, and I become an almost independent reader. Unfortunately, this did allow me to see that despite the odd nice line, my efforts to construct a dystopian world had fallen a little flat, and the effort it would take to inflate it, seemed too daunting.

I abandoned it to the slush pile, and, true to form, experienced another December - October of pushing the writer part of me into a dark corner and trying not to think about it.

November 15 - My sixth Nano. The only difference with this year when compared to the others, was that I had even less of an idea of what I wanted to write about. Up until a few days before, my entire novel was to revolve around the line, 'My mother decided to die in my favourite place.' This didn't end up launching my book, or even featuring. In fact, no mothers were harmed during the writing of this novel.

It's blurry, but a story suggested itself to me, in a genre I'd never attempted - murder mystery. I had nothing to lose - true of every attempt. I spent four weeks making it up, hating it, loving it, hissing at my shallow characters, tangling myself up in an unruly, nonsensical plot, changing names which began to grate and celebrating epiphanies.

This time, reading it back on my Kindle, I was pleasantly surprised. Was it still bad? Of course it was. You really have to lower your expectations of yourself during speed writing. The difference is that for a change, I wanted to fix it, and I felt it would be worth the significant time required to shine it up.

And so, it began.

Excuses

I have to fess up and admit that I've achieved very little in the past week.

Two of my flaws which regularly intervene with me getting words on the page:

1. Quickly breaking what appeared to be a solid habit.
2. Deciding that I'm way too tired to produce anything of value.

Granted, as far of my excuses go, prepping for moving house and city is pretty high up there. But you'll be amazed at how good I am at convincing myself that spending two hours searching for a vintage writing desk in Chester, is a better use of my time than cracking on with the novel.

Even though I know that hanging around talking with other writers spurs my creativity, I shunned it last week in favour of box sets and comfort food. The effort of tapping away at keys and asking my imagination to produce a world, just seemed like way too much.

Of course I tell myself things to make it fine:

1. Your life is too mentally overwhelming right now for writing.
2.You'll write so much in Chester, that this break doesn't matter.

Sometimes writing is just like a job; you don't want to show up.

In some ways, that's encouraging, because I'm acknowledging that it can be hard work, that it can't always be an easy rush of words, inner smugness and tea. In other ways treating it like a job helps me let myself off the hook, dishing out an endless amount of indulgent sick days and clock watching.

Every two weeks I have a full week day off to focus on my writing. The majority of these days over the past few years have been eaten up with lay ins, reading, guitar practice, seeing friends, and travelling to see my family. All worthwhile in their own way, but certainly not the intention of my once purposeful salary sacrifice.

2016 saw me start to actually use these days; rising early, setting out plans, letting loose with a red pen. But once again I'm watching the poor little defenceless things disappear through March on moving house and packing boxes.

That's inevitable. What I know I have to do, is what many other writers do out there, make room for it alongside the 9-5, push it into the weekend, persuade my tired brain to put the time in.

And so, I'm slowly ramping back up, squeezing in the odd half hour before work, and picking up my laptop instead of the remote.

I'm working my way through 'A Writer's Book of Days,' one of the truly useful guides out there. The first quarter is heavy on insisting that you plan time to write, just as you would plan dinner with a friend, or a dentist check up - book it and honour it.

I guess (unless you're very lucky) no one's going to have a go at you for not writing. The only penalty is that deep rooted feeling of failure, knowing that you can do better.

It's a choice then, only your choice - when are you going to care enough to shut up and just get on with it?

Going Public

I'm going to jump around in time a bit in these blogs and talk about whatever it happens to be that I'm currently wrestling with or enamored by.

Today, it's the Public Edit at Bloomsbury Publishing (https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/events/the-national-academy-of-writing-public-edit-emma-healey).

The gist is, you submit a piece of work in advance into a lottery. Two pieces are then selected, to be projected for all to see, whilst the writer, Richard Beard, runs a fine tooth comb through line by precious line.

Later, a successful author takes you through their writing process - and a interesting one this month - the London underground sang of little else for much of last year - Emma Healy - Author of Elizabeth is Missing.

The bit that has me in self-doubting knots is the submission. On the one hand, what a fantastic opportunity for a writer who's decided that they really need to hear it, who has readied themselves for the strike - what's horrific? What's cliche? Where is the rot? Then hopefully, somewhere amongst all of the criticism, where am I shining?

There's a bit of me that's not convinced I am prepared, and especially not if there's nothing salvageable. Isn't that the very reason I've been shying away from writing for the past few years, buoying my idea of myself as a writer on a few measly publications in my much younger days?

What if the already weak flame of my belief is extinguished right there in that room, for all to witness? What if after all of this talk, I really am intended for admin and supporting the much more tangible dreams of others?

And breathe.

Or you know, I could just be a coward and fail to submit anything, sit back in the crowd, and continue as I have for so long now, completely without effort.

I'm not going to let that happen.

Why? Because I'm proud of this novel, I know I have a lot to learn, and I really am, thoroughly dissatisfied with the idea that performing admin is the best of me.

There's a lot of things which have helped me float up to this confidence recently - all of which I'll be mulling over in future blogs.

Even if the licking of wounds is required, I'm going to submit the first chapter of my novel and ready myself. I've seen Richard Beard in action and he's brilliant; after a while of listening to his thought process as he's reviewing the text, you find yourself swept up, suddenly able to see the flaws for yourself.

Sure, having your own work stripped naked in front of strangers might not be pleasant, but it is necessary, helpful and ultimately worthwhile, even if you disagree with a few points here and there. Hopefully I still believe this after the fact.

Wish me luck.

Osmosis

In January 2016 I loaded a large, messy clump of writing (If I'm being kind) onto my Kindle and read.

And it struck me, as it never has before at that stage - this book could actually be good. In it's current state, it really wasn't, in fact, it was terrible. But the potential was noted. There was just enough of a tangible plot and just enough passable dialogue amidst the cliches.

Two months on from this realisation and I am finally giving my writing the room it always needed. I am feeling my way around in the dark for what it could be, and the brief flashes of light which illuminate it all, give me hope.

Better still, I finally have enough thoughts (wrong or right) about the all-consuming, torturous, wonderful pursuit of trying to rescue a good novel from a shaky body of work. I have absolutely no idea if I'll make it, if my confidence in this book is ill conceived, or even if, true to form, I'll invent another life-ending obstacle.

Be what may, I'm going to keep going. And I'm going to share my approach, mistakes and hopefully (and however small) victories here. Perhaps like me, you produce your best through osmosis, soaking up every possible source, ensuring you're surrounded, before tentatively trying it out for yourself.

Who knows, this just might serve as a blueprint, be it a limited personal one or also one which can be useful to others. Or maybe each one of the novelly little bastards requires a different treatment, which will continue to flummox and challenge us during every attempt. What a delightful prospect.