So I came across this little piece of brilliance today and thought I’d share it with you:
What a simple, fantastic and clever way to show how sentence structure can alter the way a person feels when reading!
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the content of your writing (which of course is super important too!) but how easy it may be to forget the importance of how that content is formatted!
Sing for me writing! Sing!
Last night I was struggling with my writing (I’ve now reached 56,163 words in the third book of my fantasy YA series! Woohoo!) but I came to a halt and couldn’t find my way forward. So I went to bed (my brain was pretty frazzled from a busy day!) and this morning a voila! The problem I was struggling with had somehow been worked out in my mind.
Perhaps it was just getting a little persepective, or maybe it was just a well rested brain that was ultimately the key but either way a good night’s sleep can make all the difference!
What helps you when you get stuck writing?
Thanks for reading!
I have a little pinterest board devoted to inspiration quotes for writing (isn’t pinterest the greatest?).
Some days I just feel so hopeless about my work (I’ll never be published! No one will like my novels anyway! A slug could literally write better books! Why world why!? ) – these kinds of days are pretty damn depressing
So I thought I’d start sharing some of my favourite quotes with you and hopefully they’ll inspie you as they have me…
Today I share with you three of my go-to quotes for those days when I’m holding a flaming lighter beneath my work and a little voice says “Hey you, do you really wanna burn three years worth of notes?”
And I scream, “YES! Burn suckeeeer!”
But they hold up their little paw (I imagine this friend as a furry little creature – and yes, I am crazy) and point me towards my quotes page on pinterests
So here they are (I’ll display them as a countdown to my favourite to build some tension…drum roll…):
3)
Thank you Ben Franklin for this fantastic, simple piece of advice. I try to live my life this way. I wittle away the days writing frantically and then I plan adventurous holidays where I can strtech my own metaphorical wings and live life to the full and see incredible things. Life is worth living and experiencing and writing is there to turn these experiences into stories that might just resonate with others one day…
2)
Beautiful, wonderful W.B Yeats really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to writing. A lot of his work was inspired by heartache and unrequited love – the poor guy! But what a gift he has given to us all by turning his pain into words and inspiring us to use our own personal experiences to make our writing more powerful.
And finally…
1)
Okay so this isn’t a quote about writing I apologise! And I also apologise for alienating the men from this quote but I have a personal attachment to this one. I visited the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis last year and spotted this quote on the way out emblazoned across all kinds of merchandise. I didn’t actually purchase anything because it was the end of my trip and I was tight for cash but I’ve regretted it ever since because that quote just stuck in my mind.
After the emotional rollercoaster that is the museum (and I can’t recommend it highly enough if you ever get the opportunity to go) but as a woman this quote just hit home with me and reminds me every day of the struggles women have faced throughout history (and still do in many countries). It’s shocking to think that, not even that long ago, women would have been looked down on for writing and authors like Mary Ann Evans (with well-known pen name George Eliot) wrote an essay entitled ‘Silly Novels by Lady Novelists’ to make sure her work was taken seriously (deep breath girls).
Even J.K Rowling said that she abreviated her name on the cover of the Harry Potter books so boys wouldn’t be put off of reading it! I think JK put the end to that nonsense! But that was only, what, fifteen years ago?
So ladies write for all the women who couldn’t! And show the world what they were missing!
As always, thanks so much for reading! I always love hearing your feedback so even if the only thing that pops into your mind as you read this is ‘I really fancy tacos for dinner…mm yeahh with salsa, sour cream, guacamole. Oh, do I have guacamole? I’m sure I do…yeah definately’ pop it in the comments box!
So I thought I’d do a post on the ups and downs of a writer’s journey – but then I thought! How about relate that to another epic journey! And what’s more epic than The Lord of the Rings?
So here goes…
One day a little voice in your head nags at you telling you to write a book. You love reading! Challenge accepted!
You don’t know the way just yet…but it can’t be that hard right?
Then you come up with that idea (you know the one that possesses your very soul!?) and you just can’t stop thinking about it! You can’t share it with anyone yet though because it’s just too special…
Then you start writing. It’s all going pretty smoothly. You had the start thought out already anyway! This is easy!
And then you hit a block. You can’t pass it. It seems insurmountable! The words just won’t come!
You spend hours, days, weeks even! Thinking about how to move on! You doubt yourself! You just can’t see a way forward, but then…
You finish your first draft and are pretty damn smug with yourself but then you start reading through it…
The rewriting begins! It’s a long process (you didn’t realise how long!). You can’t organise your thoughts, the project seems too large to ever complete!
But somehow you make it! You finish the novel! Now all that’s left is to ask a friend to read it. They finish it and tell you it’s great, they loved it! But how can you trust them? They would say that, wouldn’t they? They don’t wanna hurt your feelings…
But then you look through your novel one more time and…it’s alright! It reads well! You love the characters! It’s the story you fell in love with in the beginning!
You made it!
I hope you enjoyed this post! Good luck with your writing – and remember if a hobbit can destroy the one ring…you can definately write a book worth reading
Okay so I’m not actually cat woman but I would come pretty darn close in a ‘who’s the most like cat woman in the real world’ competition. I mean, seriously, I’d at least get a runner up prize!
I work in a boarding cattery which is the family business. I literally live in ‘lol cat’ land. Do you know how many times a day I see a cat do something weird? Hundreds.
Cats really are weird! Look how weird this one is who’s staying in the cattery at the moment:
I mean, look at that foot!
Cats are no-nonsense, egotisitical, fussy, fickle little beings! And why do they get away with it? Because they’re so damn cute!
Okay cats aren’t to everyones taste and there does seem to be the two extremes of despising cats or simply loving them so much that all you do all day is watch videos of cats falling over or sleeping upside down or saving children from dogs (bet you’ve seen that one!)
So here is a glimpse into my cat filled world:
I also work with a rescue group and take the homeless kitties to their new homes. It’s so rewarding! I love seeing how the cats grow in confidence with us and get especially attached to those who have been truly neglected or abused.
I spend a lot of time helping these cats trust humans again until they are ready to meet someone who wants to offer them a home. It’s truly touching to then recieve photos of the cats in their new lives, often lazing in the sunshine or curled up on their new owners lap who loves them unconditionally, just as they were meant to be loved…
Witnessing the two extremes of human nature, unconditional love verses an abusive nature, how can this not influence my writing?
Thanks for reading! I hope you learnt a little bit more about my life outside of writing!
I love this meme!
First things first – DON’T GIVE UP! Full stop. Exclamation mark. Hashtag!
If you’re reading my blog then you probably aren’t at the stage of giving up completely but I can imagine you teetering on a tightrope with your arms swinging wildly. So I say again don’t give up!
Writing a novel is hard. If it was easy everyone would do it! But you’re not everyone.
If you’ve gotten this far then your novel is almost certainly something that you have felt or still do feel incredibly passionate about. If you’ve lost that sense of excitement try to list three things that got you feeling that way in the beginning.
Here are three of mine for my novel Creeping Shadow:
1. The fantasy world I fell in love with – magic, a lethal curse, a death-defying task, forbidden love! (I still get excited about these things now!) What drives you is your passion. Find it! Name it! Put a ring on it!
2. Mystery – I am a big fan of twists and one of the things that drove me towards the end of Creeping Shadow was ‘the big reveal’. I couldn’t wait for my characters to discover that big shocker at the end! It’s a good technique. If you don’t have a twist then how about just a bit of a suprise? Have a think about your characters and storyline, is there any details you could hold back until the end? – whatever you do the end needs to be climatic afterall it’s what the rest of the story is leading towards!
3. And perhaps the biggest factor of all – my characters. I LOVE my characters. Love love love! Think about yours (particularly your protaganist) and ask yourself how you feel about them. If the answer isn’t that you want to shout their names from the rooftops, hire out a town crier to tell everyone about them or bring them to life frankenstein-style and marry them in Las Vegas (too far?) then you need to do some serious character development. Some people benefit from character profiling but I personally just take time to imagine them in different scenarios. I think about the most exciting moments in my story and play out the scenes, heightening the stakes and even imagining terrible things happening to them and their loves ones (I know, I know I’m an imaginary murderer) but try it! It should really tug at your heart strings when those characters mean something to you and it’s helped me come up with some fantastic moments I can adapt for my novels!
So if you’ve given this a go and you still feel like giving up on your novel then you’re probably in a pretty dark place by now (finger on the dial button for takeaway? Angrily stroking your cat who, let’s face it, has had enough of your pestering? Watching your go-to feel-good film and sobbing loudly thinking you could never come up with a story as good as that one?) – believe me when I say I’ve been there!
But what you need to do (and by all means take time to scoff that takeaway, try to win back your pets love and skip back to the start of that comfort film amd watch it again before doing this) is continue writing, one word at a time. If you’re stuck trying to fill a gap between one scene and the next just skip it! You can fill it in later. I’ve done this countless times and, trust me, when you go back to it at a future date you’ll find it easy to fill that space. Just focus on getting a first draft done. Focus on getting to the end. Don’t worry about how well it reads, the spelling, the fact that you mentioned a character walked into a scene then forgot about them for three hundred pages! Don’t worry! The first draft is made for fixing.
And the final resort: Write the end of your book and work backwards. (That’s right break all the damn rules!)
The middle is always the hardest. You’ve run out of gas from you’re high speed, super exciting beginning that you’ve had cartwheeling inside your mind forever and you can see the end in the distance like a tiny dot on the horizon. But this is not a race. That dot can be closer than you think. So, if all else fails, write the end and I bet you it will spark a hundred new ideas for the middle.
And one final thing to encourage you…
The moment that you finish your first draft feels like this:
That’s right…still don’t wanna finish it? More fool you…More. Fool. You.
Hello!
So what am I doing here and why should you care?
Well!
I’m working on a YA fantasy series called The Rise of Isaac
I’ve currently written, rewritten, torn-up, pieced back together with cellotape and finally finished (*bites knuckles*) the first book in the series…wait for it… Creeping Shadow!
I’ve also got a very close draft of my second book Bleeding Snow and am currently writing the third installment Turning Tide.
So where are these books and why can’t I buy them!? – I hear you cry
I am going to be releasing Creeping Shadow later this year and am hoping (desperately!) to gather some interest before the launch.
Check out my pages:
Ely’s Notes are based on the character Ely Fox and (I hope) will give an intriguing insight into the fantasy world I have in store – all pictures and diagrams are of my design!
Also have a look at my page Upcoming Fantasy Series for a blurb of the first book and let me know what you think!
Caroline Peckham 