Mini Writing Retreats

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Vikki Thompson

The hubster plays a lot of chess. Matches for his club and our County which often take him to exotic destinations such as Hastings! Lol. My overseas readers probably won’t get that joke so I apologise…just Google Hastings 😉

I’ve been going through the calendar and it seems that on the following dates I will be home alone all day!

Saturday 12th January
Saturday 26th January
Saturday 2nd March
Saturday 24th March

I could just potter around, do a bit of housework, scrub the bath, catch up with some decluttering perhaps? Nah! Sod that! I’m going to have some Mini Writing Retreats 🙂 Ok, when you think of a writing retreat you think about going away somewhere, but, there’s nothing to stop you having one at home 🙂 As Judy Reeves says “Consider that a writing retreat is not necessarily a place, but a concept.” Good old Judy, I love her 🙂

A mini retreat can just be a day out of your normal life, where you just do what you want to do (writing wise), without all the pressure of home and family stuff. Ok, yes, I know I’m lucky. My kids aren’t little, they don’t need my constant care and attention. So if you have little kids get their dad to take them out, for the whole day! 😉

I did a couple last year and they’re great fun! Here’s what you do:

1. Gather together supplies. We’re talking chocolate, cake, Pringles, hot chocolate (these are just some of my faves by the way, but you’ve probably got your own). Alcohol is probably strumming it a bit, you don’t want to end up falling asleep at the keyboard 😉

2. Plan in advance what you’re going to write. Personally I like to use prompts. Why? Because I use my mini retreat days almost like a day of practice. A chance to get away from the project I’ve been working on for the last 3 months, allowing my creative juices to flow and my muse to be inspired.

3. Wave bye to the kids/husband/wife, shut the door and turn off the phone and computer. As far as the world is concerned you’re on retreat so don’t use it as a day for surfing the web, catching up with blogs or FaceBooking. No no no. If you really were on retreat, with no internet access, no phone reception, people wouldn’t be able to get hold of you then would they? So don’t let them now. Remember, mentally you are un-contactable 😉

4. Dress comfortably and start writing! And munching 😉 Simples!

My final tip for a mini retreat is to get yourself a copy of this baby!

Inside is a selection of cards each listing 20 prompts on different themes 🙂

Nooooo, don’t be silly, I’m not going to list some of them here, that wouldn’t be very fair on Judy now would it. But, if you really do fancy giving it a go, e mail me and I’ll help you out with some ideas….but I won’t reply today as I’m on retreat 😉

And that’s it! 🙂 I’m excited already! Poor hubby, he feels bad leaving me on my own all day on a weekend. I’ll cope I say with pouting lip as I push him out the door *sniggers* 😉

Fancy joining me? Have you ever had mini retreats?

DIY Writing Retreats (shelleywidhalm.wordpress.com)

50 Things

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Vikki Thompson

I am now officially 2 days behind with reading Blogs, about 3 days behind with e mails and poor old Bel (I’m so sorry honey) is still waiting for her prize. The last 2 days have been a mare and the next couple of days don’t look much better! I will catch up, even if I have to do an all nighter!

And now I’ve got that off me chest, some of my keen eyed readers may have noticed a new page thats appeared above? No? Ok, well I’m shamelessly stealing Paula Actons idea 😉

I have a 101 list, of all the things I want to do in life, a bucket list, but I very rarely tick anything off lol. So perhaps if I try to do 50 before I hit 50, I may stand a better chance? After all, I’ve got 5 years 5 months lol.

That’s 10 a year right? Ooooo, errrr, I think I better get moving! 😉

Courtesy of Keerati/freedigitalphotos

Go have a peek at my 50 Before 50 list and let me know if there’s any there you’ve done…. Would love to hear about your experiences or whether you have your own “bucket list”

My Bucket List (simplybrittaknee.wordpress.com)
Bucket List Mania (lauriesnowturner.com)
My 2013 Bucket List (mspaulazee.wordpress.com)
Writing Your Personal Bucket List (allstate.com)

Faber Session 14 – Showing Vs Telling

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Vikki Thompson

I’m a bit behind with replying to comments and e mails because I’ve been up London today. Will catch up tomorrow I promise.

My first session back at Faber since before Christmas 🙂 So it was latte, cake and I treated myself to a new book!

Today’s session was about show and tell, that age old adage that puts the fear of God in most writers 😉 Well, ok, perhaps that’s just me lol

Literary critics admire ‘show’ but really, how important is it?

Telling is a form of showing and bleeds over into subtext and dialogue and if you think about the greatest story ever told, The Bible, well, that’s all tell isn’t it?

No one would argue that ‘showing’ your reader that your character is sad is far more interesting than actually telling them so, but you can pull off ‘telling’ if you are confident in what you’re saying and your words are written well. Many authors use tell as part of their style. Roth, Franzen, Eugenides and Munro are all good examples.

We did 2 exercises where we had to set a scene and then use dialogue to convey an emotion our character was feeling. Here’s what I wrote:

Sue entered the room, her head down, shoulders hunched. She sighed as she picked up the remote from her sleeping husbands leg. Looking at the clock she frowned, it was 11.45pm. Outside the street was alive with party goers, the sound of laughter could just be heard above the drone of the action film that was playing to no one.

She kicked Johns leg.
“Ow! Er, what’s going on?”
“You were asleep.”
“No I wasn’t, I was just resting me eyes.”
“Yeah, like you do every night John.”
“No I don’t!”
Sue tutted. “I’m not going to argue with you, It’s New Years Eve, 2013 in less than 10 minutes.”
“So where’s the bubbly?”
“I didn’t buy any!”
John sat forward in his chair and looked up at his wife.
“You ok love? You always buy us a bottle of bubbly for New Years Eve.”
“Yeah, well perhaps I’m just fed up with it always being me?”
Sue picked up her cigarettes and lighter and stepping over Johns legs made her way back towards the kitchen doorway.
“Where you going love?”
“For a fag!”
“But it’s nearly midnight?”
Sue ignored him and slammed the kitchen door. Lighting her cigarette she mumbled “Happy fucking New Year.”

So what did I show you about Sue? What emotion was she feeling? Lets see if I was successful with my show 🙂

I came away feeling a little less paranoid about the whole show vs tell thingy. As writers we have enough to worry about as it is! 😉

So tell me…Do you think “modern” writers get too hung up on show and tell? Do you think it’s less important than it used to be?

I’m An RNA NWS Member!

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Vikki Thompson

Ok, that probably means absolutely nothing to most of you, in English, the translation is…

I’m a Romantic Novelists Association New Writer Scheme Member!

The RNA opens it’s doors for membership once a year to people who have previously been unpublished, under the New Writers Scheme. There are 250 places and each year they are oversubscribed. Checking their website yesterday morning it seems that all 250 places were full and they only started taking applications at 12.02am on the 2nd!

So what exactly does this mean? Well, I get a critique of my MS which then goes into a kind of competition and I’m entitled to attend all RNA events! 🙂

I guess I’ll be working on 2 novels this year then 😉

Are you a member of any “Associations”? Do you think there are benefits to belonging to “official” writers organisations?

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

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