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I just realized this and thought I'd share. Bit scary, really.
16 weeks - that's not much. I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be with the editing process of last year's novel, and I'll have to start planning this year's soon.
Did I say it's a bit scary? I take that back, it's actually very scary.
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This month's NaBloPoMo theme is home.
It is a pity that my writing priorities lie elsewhere at the moment, as home has always been a theme close to my heart, and is my #1 theme right now.
When I started writing I wasn't sure what my themes would be, and I found that discouraging as I had read somewhere that identifying your themes was important. I kept writing, though, and the more I wrote, the clearer it became what my themes are.
Themes are concepts that always find their ways into your stories. They are most likely concepts that you struggle with on some level, and you try to understand them or find an answer to them.
If you ask me where home is, I could give you a few answers. If you told me to pick one of those answers and stick with it I'd be stumped. I couldn't pick one. That's why home - and particularly the question what home is - will keep coming up in my stories, until I find the answer.
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The Foo Fighters!!!
I think it took a couple of days to sink in - I watched rock history in the making on Saturday night, I saw (half of) Led Zeppelin play to songs with the best rock band of the last 13 years, if not ever. The Foo Fighters gig in Wembley on Saturday was quite possible the best concert I will ever experience in my entire life.
I've been a massive fan of the Foos for ages, and I have wanted to see them live for about as long. Something always came up, though. When they played the O2 Arena in November last year, I couldn't go. Shortly after that the Wembley gig was announced and I knew that this was my shot to finally see them.
And man, did I pick the right concert there! 86,000 people, the Foos in top form rocking their socks off, and that encore. Now I am not a massive Led Zeppelin fan, but when Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones walked on stage, the shivers were chasing each other down my spine. How many more opportunities will be to see Led Zep live (it's a bit of a pity that Robert Plant couldn't be there, I have to admit)? Two, one, none at all? Who knows.
My personal highlights were some of the Foo classics, though. Singing along with an entire stadium full of people to all the songs, but especially to Breakout, Stacked Actors, My Hero, Everlong, Monkey Wrench, All My Life and Best Of You was AMAZING. Just the thoughts of My Hero - which turned into a collective Dave Grohl worship - and Everlong - greatest song ever - give me goose bumps.
Right after the show I said to myself, "Sonya, that's it - you have to give up rock concerts for good. This show just cannot be topped." Now I'm not so sure anymore that I will never go to another concert. Yet I can't see any other band replace the Foo Fighters as my rock gods. Shared on
Sometimes life is just too much to handle to keep this blog active: Vacation, new challenges at work, a novel to edit, the best band in the world to see - I shall call them Foo Zeppelin.
I'll get back to a more regular posting schedule when things have calmed down a little.
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I've had one of the dreaded "why oh why am I doing this to myself" days. I'm sure every fiction writer has them, even though I hope they'll occur less often after publication.
When the why of why blues hits me, I temporarily change sides and join the people who tell me that I will not make it as a writer and that I'd best concentrate on the career I could actually have. Since I moved to the UK for a much better job, they even have a genuine point, and sometimes I can't help thinking that I should focus all my energy on the day job
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A comment I wrote earlier on one of Morgan's posts made me look up a neat tool which will help writers who need to structure their writing to get their story out: yWriter.
I tried an earlier version of yWriter a few years ago and was quite impressed with it. With the help of this tool, you can organize your story in little bit-sized chunks. You can create and rearrange chapters, subdivide them into scenes, add information about viewpoint, goal, conflict and outcome and many other things
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I don't believe in writer's block. Sure, I've written myself in many a corner and had to find a way out again. I've also had moments when I would have preferred to wash the dishes to writing. I believe, however, that you can only get over these things by writing.
I am trying to apply this approach to editing, too. It does not work as well, though. When I don't want to write, I tell myself that I only have to write a few words. I just take it one sentence at a time, or, if I am having a really bad day, even just one word at a time
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No. 13 of Kerouac's 30 Essentials for Prose is: Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition.
I seem to have taken this in whole-heartedly. Punctuation especially is rather experimental at times. Which does not make editing easier. I must make a note to remind myself to use commas even when I'm tired.
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Turns out it is a lot easier to edit a novel that was planned before writing. My NaNo2007 novel was hardly planned at all, and it shows. There are huge gaps in the story, and some of the characters lack depth - they are shadows of real people, and the sun is going down on them.
You will always end up introducing characters to your story you never thought about before you actually started writing. I think it's a little problematic when there are to many of them, though. A good story is character-driven in my opinion, and you need strong characters for that. Some of my key characters are much to weak to move the story forward at this point
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There is lots of advice for aspiring writers - by successfully published writers, by editors and literary agents, and by people such as moi who'd like to join the first group one day. There are as many different approaches to writing as there are people writing about writing. There is one piece of advice, though, that you will find no matter where you look: If you want to make it as a writer, you have to write. Ideally every day.
So let's assume you do that. You sit down every day when you get home from the day job and write. Because you know it is the most important thing if you want to improve your skills. Does that mean you never get any time off
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Comment by Sonya 1
on What are your writing themes?
Writing Words
I know, themes can sound ridiculously pretentious. One of mine is: the relative nature of The Truth ...
I guess it doesn't matter if themes sound pretentious or silly, as long as they make you pick up that pen or turn on that computer and write.
Sonya