An Anthem For Mywyn

I’ve talked before about soundtracking my projects. Music helps me focus – on the mood of the scene I’m writing, on the characters and their particular pasts and motivations, and on the story as a whole.

I’ve had a good collection of instrumental music for a while, being a bit of a film buff, and a film score enthusiast, and I topped up my instrumental tracks with my birthday money, investing nearly £50 in some new CDs, both film scores and purely instrumental artists. But while I love to write to instrumental stuff, and think about the story to it, nothing beats summing up moods and characters with a song with words.

Usually I have a few tracks in mind at the start of my soundtracking process – usually from the music I’ve been listening to a lot of lately. I’m sure this is much to do with it being in the forefront of my mind, but I’m equally sure that a small part of my subconscious is shaped by the music I listen to while I’m planning stories. The music and lyrics get jumbled up in the melting pot of ideas, and it’s no surprise really when a certain track perfectly matches a certain character.

But sometimes I like to listen to my iTunes on random, and though most of the time I’ll be skipping the rubbish that comes on – like the vintage cheese album that I burned because my Mum wanted some of the tracks on her wedding playlist and since haven’t deleted – occasionally I’ll come across an absolute gem that just perfectly fits the story.

For the current project, that gem was a Hard Fi song.

Anyone who knows my sister Ivy even a little knows that she is a huge Hard Fi fan. I’ve never rated them particularly – I’m sure influenced by Ivy’s devotion to them. She loves stuff so much it makes it hard for me to reconcile finding them mediocre, and therefore a huge disappointment. She did the same thing with Russell Howard. I’ve never found him as funny and lovely as she does, so I find myself thinking he’s not actually funny at all. But he is, I have since discovered, when watching him without Ivy in the room.

Anyway, I don’t have any Hard Fi albums, so this song comes from a compilation CD that I believe I bought in Tescos on a whim for about 3 quid because I liked the Damien Rice song on it… (you really didn’t need to know that) …and it’s one of their more mellow tracks. I wouldn’t say it particularly applies to one character, or one scene, but it does capture something of the tone of the story, and a place where all of the characters find themselves at one point or another. Some find it sooner than others, some stay there for longer, and none of them stay there forever (for it would be a very depressing story if they did) but that place is this song:

And now to finish my words for the month! Can’t believe how fast it’s gone, or that I’m keeping up to be quite honest. One month and a bit to go.

Word Count: 30000

Quote: She gave her a hard look then. ‘Do not make me list the many times you have rushed into something stupid.’

Early Starts (MYWYN Week 4 Part 2)

I did a class at university that was all about writing habits, and the ‘process’ of the craft. Being the sort of person who thought the writing process involved two stages: 1. Sit down at computer 2. Write, I didn’t really subscribe to the idea of a whole class dedicated to this fine art. It made writing 1500 word essays on the topic rather difficult. I think I invented some pretentious waffle about writing on canal boats.

But the problem with University courses on writing is this: by and large the student life isn’t really ‘life’ at all. You get up when you want, go to bed when you want, occasionally turn up to lectures and perhaps hold down a 15 hours a week part time job. It’s a fantastic time because you have so few commitments it gives you the space to find yourself and figure out who you want to be. Then twice a year you have to knuckle down and do assignments/exams, and then you have a whole summer of essentially nothing before the process starts all over again.

It’s not exactly the same when you leave that environment…

I’m lucky in the sense that the Boyfriend has a steady, reliable job that he’s not likely to lose. It pays reasonably well, and we could survive on his wage alone. It wouldn’t be a nice life, but we could manage. I didn’t want to do that though, so despite my long term dream to be a writer, I went out and pursued a career of my own. Writing went from being a focus to something I had to fit around everything else. And last year, and most of this year, it really did suffer because of this. I started things, didn’t finish them, wrote maybe a couple hundred words a week, and that was on a good week, and generally felt bad about not finding more time.

MYWYN has given me that focus back, and I’ve realised that the writer’s process I so scoffed at at University has become much more important. I know full well that I can waste hours on facebook and twitter, reading blogs and generally procrastinating during my allotted ‘writing’ time. When that time is so limited, I really have to make the most of it. Part of that, I’ve found, is knowing when to make that time.

I’ve taken to getting up early.

The Boyfriend is very supportive of everything I do, but doesn’t understand the writing. He doesn’t read much, and is very concerned with the practical. What is the point of writing when the chance of receiving any acclaim, recognition, or monetary reward is so slim? It’s a waste of time. And part of me does agree with that, but a louder part wants to carry on regardless. This is where the Boyfriend and I cease to see eye to eye. And by that I mean he watches me typing away with a bemused look on his face while I dance around in an imaginary world where people have superpowers, hunt ghosts and make witty comebacks without thinking about it for five minutes.

To avoid this impacting on our relationship and the time we spend together, and because I’ve found I’m generally more productive first thing in the morning, I’ve taken to getting up too early for work and sitting down for twenty minutes or so before I go. On a good day, I can get 500 words down in 20 minutes, which leaves me with only half my daily count to do when I get home tired and wanting nothing more than to procrastinate and watch Primeval for the fourth time.

This morning I woke up at about half five. This is abnormal, and largely due to the fact that I spent most of yesterday in bed, nearly asleep, feeling sorry for myself because I was poorly. I got up about an hour later, thinking it would be about half seven. I can’t see the clock when I don’t have my glasses on. Which obviously I don’t when I’m in bed… Six thirty is not the time I would have chosen to get up on a Bank Holiday when I don’t have to go to work, but it gave me two hours of writing time before the Boyfriend woke up and we started our day together. I got over 2000 words done and have almost caught up with myself.

So, despite the fact that six thirty is not the time I would have chosen to get up on a Bank Holiday, I’m feeling rather good about myself today, helped by the fact that I no longer feel like my brain has been replaced by cotton wool.

Back in my uni days, when I rarely saw any time before eleven, I would never have thought my writing process would involve six thirty in the morning!

Word Count: 27,200

Quote: For someone who could make such economical use of his features to convey feeling, his eyes gave no clue as to what he was thinking.

MYWYN Week Four

Despite my best efforts, I’ve still not managed to catch up with myself after last week’s slow progress. Things have been ticking over steadily, though, and I’m no further behind that I was before. I’ve also reached the nice milestone of twenty five thousand words.

The story is progressing smoothly, and though I’m worried it starts too slow, that there’s too much dialogue, not enough description or explanations about the world set up, I’m switching off the voice in my head that says ‘GO BACK AND FIX THAT’ in favour of pressing on. I’ve finished the first three chapters, and have mostly done the next three, though chapter four is doing my head in at the moment, so I’ve left it for now. Within chapter four, a big revelation is given, and I’m struggling to make it dramatic. All that’s happening at the moment is one character trying to put off talking to another. They’ve been going round in circles for a while now, and I can’t seem to write myself out of it at the moment.

That is the advantage of Scrivener, though. With the little scene tabs, I can leave it behind, move on to the next chapter, without confusing myself or losing the unfinished scene. In fact, I think if I take nothing more from this experience than Scrivener, then I’ll be more than happy. I don’t know how I used to write without it.

So, instead of writing the big reveal, I’ve opted for some character driven discussion in chapter five, in which one character tries to get another to talk about her problems. The character in question isn’t terribly forthcoming with her issues, being the sort of person who likes to deal with things by herself.

I’m not sure this scene is packing the emotional punch I want it to, but at least the words are flowing a little easier than the previous scene, which wouldn’t flow even if I tried to force it with a heavy, blunt instrument. And when you have to write 80k in 80 days, pushing on is what matters, isn’t it?

Word Count: 25000ish

Quote: ‘A professional therapist couldn’t break through the defences you keep up, my dear. I am under no illusions about my skill.’

Something Frivolous

So, it was my birthday the other day. Being the now ancient age of twenty-three, presents isn’t really something I expect anymore, but I was fortunate enough to get a fantastic selection of DVDs from my Godfather. He was given the brief of ‘research DVDs’ for my MYWYN project and managed to find a massive selection of future dystopia films with a racing theme. I didn’t realise there were so many out there! Okay, most are from the seventies, but I am hugely looking forwards to watching them, as is my mum, who wants to have a nostalgic film-fest.

I was also fortunate enough to get some birthday money, accompanied by the instruction to spend it on ‘something frivolous’. Today I went shopping with sibling number three, Charlie, to spend some of it. I spent some of it before I even left on CDs from Amazon. Mostly film soundtracks, again to accompany my MYWYN project. Since Spotify went rubbish, I’ve been craving some new instrumental tunes to write to. I got the Inception soundtrack, the Prince of Persia soundtrack and some Ludovico Einaudi CDs I’ve been eyeballing for months.

Charlie and I aren’t exactly the most natural pairing when it comes to shopping. Normally I’d take Taylor, as we have very similar tastes and attitudes when it comes to shopping, but she was busy with Mr Taylor, so Charlie stepped up to the role of being dragged all round the shops by me as I whinge  about how nothing fits and how I want to buy more shoes, but can’t.

And I’m really glad I did, because we had a fab time at the Jane Norman sale. I got two tops and Charlie found a gorgeous dress. We also perused the books in the WH Smiths 15% off sale and I was able to recommend the Hunger Games to her. She had her nose absolutely glued in it later when I went round her house later, so I think she’s enjoying it. I got myself a double treat with Where She Went by Gayle Forman and Defiance by Lili St Crow. So excited about reading both. Just have to choose which to start with now

So CDs, clothes and books – things I have plenty of, things I don’t need any more of, but things I love to have more of! If that doesn’t qualify as frivolous, then what does?

MYWYN Week Three?

So much for my weekly update post. Been so busy actually writing, I’ve not caught up with the blog for a while.

So, things are going okay. Due to an exceptionally busy past few days, I’m something like 3000 words behind, but I’ve been spending my spare moments getting better acquainted with some characters – particularly a very complex character who has just met up with some of the other major characters. She’s a character with two distinctly different sides. On the one hand, she’s a nice girl who cares about her friends and would do anything to look after them, but on the other hand, that ‘anything’ stretches to some pretty dodgy things. Within a few pages of her first appearance, she’s been arrested for the seventeenth time.

While perusing the internet, I came across this list of grunge brushes and, after spending forever downloading most of them, I had to try them out. I often make photoshopped pictures of characters to help me remember what they look like and get to know them a bit better, so I decided to do so for this character, attempting to represent her two sides with some grungy brushes. Then, because I was having so much fun, I decided to do one for a character who doesn’t even feature (beyond a brief mention) in the book I’m writing for the MYWYN project, but would play a major role in the sequel (if I ever make it that far).

Here are the original images:

And here are the finished images:

Demonstrating her softer side, this is Caitlin as she would normally appear…

…and this is Cait in kick-ass mode. (Okay, the gun is a bit of a stretch, but after photoshopping out the unconscious men, I got a bit bored of fighting with my dodgy clone stamp brush – it doesn’t work very well on my copy of photoshop for some reason)

And lastly, a very vampy looking Katherine, who, as I said, isn’t even in the first book really. But the flower grunge brushes that I downloaded were just crying out for black and red sexy background making.

To put these together I mostly used layering of various different grunge brushes, with some clone stamping to remove unconscious blokes and a bit of hair and eye colour tampering. Katherine’s lipstick involved a bit of colour manipulation. To get the backgrounds not to cover up the people, it was a case of layering and careful application of the eraser brush. Which takes a very, very long time. Especially when your photoshop is equally unfond of the eraser brush as it is of the clone stamp brush. All in all though, I’m very pleased with the results. And with that procrastination over, I should probably get back to actually writing…

Word Count: 18,000

Quote: ‘Young lady, from this impressive record in front of me, I would say that you are more than familiar with your rights.’

On Writing Grief

This MYWYN project is proving challenging. In a good way. Taking myself out of my writerly YA, 1st person narrative comfort zone is teaching me a lot. First that I write way too much dialogue. Second that it’s okay to leave that to fix on a second draft. Necessary, in fact.

I’ve been jumping around a lot in the narrative – in part because of the nature of the MYWYN challenge. 1000 words a day in chronological word order is hard. 1000 words a day on fresh scenes – much easier. I’ll go back and stitch them together when I’m further into the challenge and not so dead on my feet. (just spelled that ‘feat’, proving how incompetent I am at just about anything at the moment) Scrivener is a great writing tool for this – so easy to move scenes around, find where you left them and generally be spontaneous about which section you feel like writing today. How did I ever get by without it? (And what will I do when my 30 day trial runs out?? Birthday soon, phew!)

So, a recent scene I chose to tackle was a scene in which one of the main characters is informed by another main character that their friend has been killed. I’ve written about characters who have been through grief – one character that stands out lost half her family in a car accident. But grief past tense (yes, grief is with us forever, but it’s certainly more removed, more reflective years later) is a very different animal to grief present tense. The immediacy, the power of it, the shock, the pain, the disbelief. It’s difficult to capture, particularly as I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to experience little grief.

I come from a young family. The only relative I’ve lost in recent history is my Greatnan, and though I was very sad to lose her, she was ninety eight. Grief wouldn’t be the right word to describe my emotions about it – she had a great life, with a huge family she loved dearly, and she was ready to join her husband who passed away some years before I was born.

My aunt was only in her thirties, early forties at the oldest, when she passed away, and I’m sure the tragedy of this would have affected me much deeper had I been a bit older at the time. My memories of this vivacious, beautiful woman are sadly almost inextricable from what I remember people telling me about her. I grieve for the memories we never had the chance to create together as a family, but again, it’s a different sort of grief.

I’ve never had my heartbroken. Boyfriend, that is not an invitation to give me such life experience!

To put myself in the mindset of someone grieving (present tense) I had to draw on everything I’ve ever read, seen, listened to. That’s why it’s so important as a writer to read, because the closest I’ve ever come to true present tense grief is when a character I love is killed, or experiences grief for themselves. A well written account can evoke those feelings in a reader.

I’m probably a long way off evoking those feelings in anyone else. In truth, the scene is only short – the dead friend is not a very important character, and the main character grieving him is soon far too wrapped up in the conspiracy to spare much thought for grief. But I hope it at least comes across as accurate. I’ll have to wait until the project is finished and in the hands of my trusty proofreader before I find out.

I have made her cry before.

MYWYN Week One (And A Bit)

I was fully intending on writing a bit about my first week of the 80K80days writing challenge (known now as #MYWYN on Twitter) I posted about before. The entirely acceptable (in my opinion) truth is that I got a bit carried away with actually writing the project to write about it.

So, while I wait for the Boyfriend to return from his friend’s, I will tell you about my first 9 days of the MYWYN challenge.

I worried it would be hard for me to get back into the writing habit. Work is as hard work as ever, with things really kicking off for the next three weeks (and for the past two) before a relatively easy (emphasis on the ‘relatively’ bit) run for the rest of June/July. So starting on the first of May wasn’t ideal for me, but I ploughed ahead anyway.

I’m writing a story I’ve planned meticulously, and it’s helping immensely. I’ve been a halfhearted planner in the past, and struggled to finish things. If the novel I write for this challenge is a pile of rubbish, I will at least take this away from it  - always plan. Even though I’ve already deviated from the meticulous plan, the ‘where do I go next?’ question is always already answered.

I’m over 10,000 words in to the book now, but perhaps only one and two halves of a chapter in. Yes, two chapters, but two of the ‘halves’ are in separate chapters. I’ve been jumping around a bit – freed to do so by the meticulous plan.

So far I’ve discovered a character I hadn’t previously thought of as funny does, in fact, have a good sense of humour, that the beginning needed to change completely, the introduction of another character had to happen earlier, and that she’s a bit of a bad mouthed motormouth, not just the motormouth she was before. Things are changing and evolving all the time, and that’s so exciting. I always thought writing to a meticulous plan wouldn’t be exciting like that, but I’ve learned too that there is always something else to discover.

The writing isn’t great, but it’s not as bad as I thought it might be. I’m getting into the flow of it a little now, which helps, and starting to find the voices of the characters, the tone of the narration, the style of the narrative. It’s all coming together in a way I’m very optimistic about.

Of course, it’s easy to say that about the first 10,000 words, even up to the first 20,000. It’s 20-60,000 that are hard. They’re coming up fast.

Fortunately, at this rate, I’ll hit 20,000 in about two weeks time, which means it will be just in time for my relatively easy period at work, giving me more time to think about what I’m writing and plough through writer’s block. Here’s to hoping I’ll still be this optimistic when I get there!

Project: Future Dystopia Urban Fantasy Murder Mystery (best way I can define it)

Age Range: Adult (new territory for me)

Quote:  ‘You can’t just disappear a case,’ she said, more than ire in her voice. A note of fear, he thought. ‘And you certainly can’t disappear my client.’

B Is For Ballroom Dancing Followed By Beer At The Brewery

Due to a necessary cancellation two weeks ago now, we were late getting started with our B date. Last time it was Mum and her husband suffering the ill health. This time round, the Boyfriend and I were not in the best of health. He, despite getting ten hours sleep last night (much to my ire, I only managed five), was exhausted after a long week at work and due to his course assignments being due in very soon. I was fighting off an infection and perhaps consequently, perhaps incidentally, running on a very high temperature (hence the bad night). We both deemed ourselves well enough to date though, and for eleven a.m. headed down to a local village hall for the Ballroom portion of the day.

I’ve talked about the dance classes the Boyfriend and I take. It’s labelled ballroom dancing, but it actually includes a bit of Latin and other dance styles which names escape me. The teacher isn’t great, and we have no where to practise between lessons, so it feels at the moment like we aren’t getting anywhere fast. Therefore part of the deal with the B date was to brush up on our ballroom (et. al) skills.

Well, we minced our way through the Quickstep, tortured the Waltz and couldn’t even remember the Rumba, but we did do pretty well on the Tango. It’s always been our dance. We like the rigidity of it, I think. It’s all very snappy and tight, not graceful and flowy like some of the other dance routines. Plus we like stamping. We also did a run through of a very terrible samba and our infamous rock and roll routine we did for Mum’s wedding with Taylor and Mr Taylor, over a year ago now. By this point I was almost at melting point and much in need of the Buxton water and chocolate Button (see what we did there?) refreshments.

After two hours of dancing, we headed home to the local Brewery for a beer. Needing to avoid the alcohol, I went for a cranBerry juice (what? it at least has a B in it) while the Boyfriend, Mum and her husband enjoyed a locally brewed beer. Deciding we were hungry we had Button mushrooms in garlic and er… vegetable pie. With Brown sauce, on Beige plates (as Mum got rather overly excited about!) I was going to round the meal off with Banoffee pie, but by the time I’d eaten my vegetable pie, I was so full I couldn’t have managed it.

It was an excellent day with great company and wonderful conversation. Proof that something as simple borrowing a hall for a couple of hours can really add a bit of spice to your weekend (even if you aren’t in the best of health!) It’s also the last date we’ll be doubling up on – at least til the mystery ‘F’ date Mum has planned for us when we get there. In a few weeks time the Boyfriend and I are off to Carden Spa near Cheshire Oaks for our C date. Can’t wait!

30 Day Book Challenge Day 30

Day Thirty – Favourite Coffee Table Book

What’s a coffee table book? We had this on our table for a while: 101 Really Bad Ideas by Dave Skinner.

Summary From Goodreads

Ever thought about doing something you shouldn’t? Luckily, so have Dave Skinner and cartoonist Henry Paker, and their suggestions include: Don’t arm wrestle a pirate …Don’t trust anyone with a pixellated face …Don’t play sudoku on acid …And don’t go bowling with zombies101 hilarious ideas that will result in severe embarrassment, excruciating pain, or an untimely death, handily thought up and illustrated by someone else.

30 Day Book Challenge Day 29

Day Twenty-Nine – Book You Are Currently Reading

Currently reading Die For Me by Amy Plum. It’s okay.

Summary From Goodreads

My life had always been blissfully, wonderfully normal. But it only took one moment to change everything.

Suddenly, my sister, Georgia, and I were orphans. We put our lives into storage and moved to Paris to live with my grandparents. And I knew my shattered heart, my shattered life, would never feel normal again. Then I met Vincent.

Mysterious, sexy, and unnervingly charming, Vincent Delacroix appeared out of nowhere and swept me off my feet. Just like that, I was in danger of losing my heart all over again. But I was ready to let it happen.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Because Vincent is no normal human. He has a terrifying destiny, one that puts his life at risk every day. He also has enemies . . . immortal, murderous enemies who are determined to destroy him and all of his kind.

While I’m fighting to piece together the remnants of my life, can I risk putting my heart—as well as my life and my family’s—in jeopardy for a chance at love?