Insecure Writers Support Group – January 2013

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Vikki Thompson

Firstly, thank you soooo much for all the entries on yesterday’s post. You guys are amazing! Fantastic stuff! I haven’t replied because I don’t want to influence the hubster in making his decision, so at the moment I’m keeping stum! When he makes his decision on Sunday I can then have my say lol. I’ll announce the winner next Monday (7th).

Right, now where were we…..I won’t be posting on Wednesdays normally, apart from once a month 🙂

IWSG Day, created by the brilliant Alex J Cavanaugh seems to come round so quickly every month, but I’m not complaining 😉

I don’t often share how I actually feel on my blog, so IWSG Day is an opportunity for me to have a day of self pity and wallowing lol.

Sooooo, I’ve just started the complete rewrite of But Not Forgotten, which is now The Last Word Cafe. I spent most of the Christmas break flitting from 3rd person to 1st person, weighing up the pro’s and cons, and basically making a decision….which I then changed a week later lol.

I started thinking about my own reading preferences, went back over the last few books that I’ve read. And it seems to be that I like reading first person POV, so it would make sense to write in it wouldn’t it? But, what made me decide to go for 3rd person was the fact that when I write in 1st person it just sounds like me. Who was it that said find what you’re good at and use that to your advantage? Someone in my Faber class told me she loved my voice or rather, my characters voices….Ok, well, if that’s the case it looks like the novel will be in 1st person and expect some very strong South East London (pronounced SOWF EAS LUNDUN) accents 🙂

So yep, the decision has been made (thank gawd!) and I’m now on day 3 and feeling nervous….because I so want it to work and I’m terrified that it won’t *bites finger nails*

Terrified seems like such a strong word, but it’s true. I want to come away from the Faber course feeling I’ve achieved something, that it was worth it. I will not fail and will have my novel completed by June. I’m trying to stay positive about the Agent pitch I’ll be doing in June….but, lol 😉 Still, I guess I should take comfort in the fact that last year the best piece of work (in our tutors opinion) wasn’t taken up by any of the agents!

I can do this can’t I? Or am I completely delusional? Lol

IWSG: NaNo Down, 50K to Go. (writingreadingandlife.com)
You Decide! 1st Person vs 3rd Person (ninetyninepercentgaming.wordpress.com)

Happy New Year! & A Giveaway

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Vikki Thompson

Courtesy of Stuart Miles freedigitalimages

It’s 2013! Wow, how did that happen?

I hope you all had a lovely night last night 🙂

But it’s not only New Year I’m celebrating…on the 1st of January 2012 I gave myself a challenge, to Blog every single day for a year, and today, I have achieved that! GO ME!!!

So to celebrate my success I’m offering a giveaway. As regular readers will know I am a huge fan of prompts, so any books I come across that are full of prompts go straight on my shelf 😉 This one, is a gooden!

I’m offering a free brand new copy to one lucky reader who can complete the following sentence……

Vikki rolled over and squinted at the bedside clock, it was 4am, but she’d been trying to sleep for hours.

What did I do next?

Sooooo, leave your answer in the comment box (one sentence will do) and I’ll get the hubster to pick a winner. I’m happy to send overseas by the way and I might even slip in a little extra something 😉

Awwwww, I’m going to miss blogging every day….. But it’ll take the pressure off 😉 Thank you so much for all your comments and likes over the past year. I’ve had a wonderful time. And to all my followers, thank you, most of you I don’t even know! Please leave a comment every once in a while so I can say “Hi” 🙂

Tell me, what was i doing at 4am? Try to keep it relatively clean people Lol

Everybody’s Doing It!

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Not one to be left out, heres a bonus post for you today, for those of you into stats!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 31,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 7 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

New Years Resolutions?

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Or should they be called goals?

No, no To Do List today….this is my 2nd week off 🙂

Ok, I make a list every year (don’t we all?) but I can’t share with you last years list as I don’t know what I’ve done with it lol. I thought I’d stuck it on my blog, but I didn’t 😦 I think that means we can safely assume that I didn’t stick to them lol

So, what am I planning this year?

1. Read a fiction book a week/a writing guide each month. I’m so fed up not being able to find the time to read, well, that’s what I tell myself, that I don’t have time 😦

2. Have at least 1 writing session per week “out” somewhere. Go to a coffee shop, or the library, anywhere to get me out if the house to write!

3. Tidy and declutter the house. *groan* but it really needs doing.

4. Continue with the diet. I lost a stone, but half of that has gone back on (what can i say, its Christmas! lol) but I need to keep going to get back to what I was in 2008 🙂

5. Go to the gym more. Isn’t that on everyone’s resolution list?

courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos

6. Write every day! I’m use to this, I’ve done it for a whole year already. Plus I’ve joined Sally Quilfords 100K in 100 Days Challenge.

7. Get WIP finished by the end of Faber course. First 5000 words of The Last Word Cafe needed for February.

8. Go out somewhere once a week. We use to do this, I’m not too sure why we stopped lol

9. Cut down the smoking. *gulp*

10. Keep a “Writing Journal.” Like Jill Dawson described.

I have a few other goals like drink more water, have a Peter Jones style Boxing Day once a month, plus cook more lol. But the 10 above are the ones I really wanna stick to 🙂

Wish me luck! What are your Resolutions/Goals for 2013?

If you’re off out partying tonight, have a good one. It’ll be a quiet one here on the sofa as hubby’s not very well. Not that we’d planned anything anyway lol 😉

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Two Most Common New Year’s Resolutions and How to Keep Them (herfitnesshut.com)
Goals and Resolutions…Part 1 (allthingsmidcoast.com)
While Thinking Of New Year Resolutions (sunnysodday.wordpress.com)
New Year’s Resolutions – think big and eat more chocolate (earlyinitiative.wordpress.com)
Points I’m Taking Into 2013 (journeytomoksha.wordpress.com)

New Blog Schedule

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

As from the first of January I’ll be changing the blog schedule (and the layout) and will only be posting 4 days a week. It’s gunna feel weird, as I’m so use to posting every day, but, it will free up my time to do other things.

So the new schedule looks like this:

Mondays: Plans for the week
Tuesdays: Faber until April
Wednesdays: Nope, sorry, day off. Apart from one post once a month, IWSG!
Thursdays: Fraid not.
Fridays: A random post.
Saturdays: Faber once a month until April and random stuff.
Sundays: I’ll be chilling 😉

Some of the random posts will be fiction, inspirations, reviews and I’ll even share some pages from my journal. I’ve been working on a timetable (which I may share at some stage). And so far I have filled 12 hours every day with stuff I need to do *gulp*

Awwwww, it’s the end of an era! 😦 What will I do with myself? lol. Probably start wading through this lot and trying to write a novel *snigger*

I’d just like to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to everyone who’s commented, liked, followed and read my blog. 2012 hasn’t been a bad year all told. There have been moments where I wanted to give up (blogging and writing), but I’m glad I stuck with it. I’ve met some fantastic people on this journey, and I’m so looking forward to sharing 2013 with you all 🙂

Don’t they say a change is as good as a holiday? 😉

Got any plans to change your Blog for 2013?

Don’t Break The Chain

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Continuing on from yesterday’s post about committing to daily writing I thought I’d share with you this wonderful resource 🙂

Jerry Seinfields Dont Break The Chain which I actually discovered last year.

Seinfeld’s method for success: Each January, he hangs a large year-at-a-glance calendar on his wall and, for every day he writes, he has the pleasure of drawing a big red “X” over that day.

Drawing those Xs is fun and rewarding, so he keeps doing it. Soon he creates a chain of red Xs.

The idea is to never break the chain.

This programs your body and mind to sit down and write daily – but it also motivates you to continue the beautiful string of big, red Xs. If you don’t write one day, you don’t get to draw the X.

It doesn’t matter what you write. Blogs, articles, fiction, your memoir. It can be anything, as long as you’re actively and daily pushing yourself and more importantly, writing every single day!

So if you want to give it a go (I will be again this year) you can download your copy of the calendar from the Writers Store here! It’s free of charge and once you’ve downloaded it once, you can just print it off every year.

I failed miserably with mine last year (I think I got to March lol) but that was probably because I didn’t have a desk or a wall I could stick it on (I was using my dining room). But this year, now I have my own little corner I have somewhere to put it 🙂

Fancy it?

The Daily Writer & A New Challenge

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Firstly, my apologies…..I am so behind with blog reading (about 3 days) but I will catch up over the weekend, I promise 🙂

On the 31st December I am due to finish using Judy Reeves book, A Writers Book Of Days which has been my companion throughout 2012. I’m a firm believer in a daily writing practice and I have no hesitation in saying that using Judy’s book has improved my writing ten fold. Yes, it’s been hard work at times. There have been days when I really haven’t felt like writing, there have been days when the prompt given didn’t really inspire me. But I still did it, and have written a piece for every single prompt in the book (well, ok, it’s not the 31st yet, but do you honestly think I’ll give up now? Lol). There are about 400 prompts in the book (the 365 plus bonus ones) and if you average it out as 500 words per prompt, plus my Nano work I reckon that in 2012 I wrote, approximately….220,000 words! 🙂

It was only after Nano that I realised that the book was actually coming to an end. When I turned that page and saw December. Now, I could just start all over again on January the 1st, but that’s not really a challenge is it? I want something new, something different. So, I’ve decided that during 2013 I will be working with this.

The Daily Writer by Fred White looks brilliant! I’m so excited to be starting another year round challenge (I don’t make life easy for myself do I?). I’m hoping there will be lots of inspiring ideas in this one that I can share 🙂

But to keep me on track with the WIP (The Last Word Cafe) I’ve joined Sally Quilfords 100K in 100 Days challenge. Which is to write 1000 words a day every day…piece of cake after Nano right? 😉 I did it last year but didn’t keep track of how many words I wrote every day, (and this year Sallys set up a FaceBook group!) so I’ll be more aware of my word count 🙂 It’s so hard when you hand write a lot though….so 2013 will see me using the MacBook Air for all my writing. I will kind of miss my notebooks, but I’m sure I’ll be able to fill them with lots of other stuff 🙂

Fancy joining me this year? committing to writing daily?

The Editing Process

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

To continue with the theme of editing this month I came across an excellent video on YouTube where writer David Farland gives a talk that describes his editing process.

Farland breaks his editing down into 6 separate processes/types of edit:

1. Triage
2. Voice Edit
3. Descriptive Edit
4. Shotgun
5. Syllabic
6. Line Edit

It’s a very interesting talk, and yes, it is long. So grab a coffee, your notebook and pen and enjoy. A lot of what he said made total sense to me, although the idea of editing my MS 6 times is a little daunting! Lol

I think I’m beginning to know where to start now. How about you?

Why I Use Kindle to Edit My Drafts (michaeljholley.com)
Learning to Love the Editing Process? (cultofajracewood.wordpress.com)

Boxing Day

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Boxing Day was traditionally the day that people gave their servants a Christmas Box, a small gift to recognise their loyalty and service.

As a child, I thought it literally meant that they had boxing matches on this day 😉 Most of my childhood was spent knowing that Boxing Day meant a large spread of buffet style food and a visit from family. A chance to all get together for a party!

As an adult, I’ve still kept the tradition of having a spread, but, as we don’t have family to invite round (all say awwwww lol) it’s turned into a relaxing day, almost a pyjama day! Lol.

It made me laugh when I first read Peter Jones book, How To Do Everything and Be Happy (which I HIGHLY recommend by the way) because he has adopted the idea of having a Boxing Day once a month, which I do try to do.

So today I’m going to spend the whole day reading 🙂 I’m not gunna even pick up a pen or go on my iPad…..if you see me online SHOUT AT ME!

See you on the other side!

courtesy of digitalart/freedigitalphotos

what are your plans for today, now that Christmas Day has been and gone?

I LOVE Santa

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Been up since just before 5am….. A combination between excitement and knowing there’s a lot to do today 😉 Unfortunately, it seems I’m the only one in our house today who was eager! So I spent the next 3 hours sodding about on Facebook and Twitter (which were quite dead as everyone was busy opening presents!) catching up with blog stuff and writing my prompt. Two cups of tea later and feeling pretty bored I finally had company.

As far as I’m concerned you should open your Christmas presents in the dark, don’t you think? It’s not the same when it’s daylight outside, that’s just wrong! Right, that’s it, next year I’m getting them all up earlier!

Not a great amount of presents under the tree this year because the kids ain’t kids anymore *deep sigh*

But, it does appear that I have been a very good girl! There was only 1 thing on my Christmas list this year and it seems that Santa* thought I deserved it 🙂

A MAC AIR! *squeals* It’s still in its box but I’ll be fiddling with it later 🙂