In November I have mostly been writing. Writing, and not reading it back or editing or even correcting simple typos and words underlined automatically by Microsoft Word in red or green. No time. NO TIME! I shout to myself. I’m doing the NanoWrimo Novel-Writing Challenge.

Words are my friends, they are my enemy. I need to write more, more, more and the backspace button is not my friend. Pruning is not allowed. Quantity over quality is my aim. I think.

It’s not that I want to write crap and congratulate myself at the end when I (hopefully) have 50,000 words in a document, sitting smugly and boasting about my achievements. The idea is to break down the barriers to writing, to get SOMETHING down on the page, which can then be edited and re-drafted at a later date.

Analysis is the enemy of the novelist; too much agonising over choosing the correct word, crafting the most perfect sentence, or browsing the net in the name of crucial research. These things can be ironed out later. BASH IT OUT NOW and then you have a framework to play with.

I’ve heard some talk of a mass re-draft session kicking off in March each year, post Nano, post Christmas, post the depressions of January and the skurge of sales and diets and misery frozen in window panes nationwide. The re-draft is a challenge for the future.

For now, two weeks in, here are the 10 things Nano has taught me about myself as a writer:

1. I’m not a planner
2. I didn’t need to give up my job to write a novel
3. In fact I NEED TO HAVE A JOB to write a novel
4. I can squeeze writing into small blocks of time, like 500 words between Paisley Gilmour Street and Glasgow Central
5. I don’t need silence; in fact I thrive on background noise. It could be some classical tunes serenading me in the background (thanks Cara!), or my Mother chattering to my Auntie on the phone…
6. I am totally comfortable leaving the research until later (preferably to someone else)
7. I feel like writing is my life and my perfect career…BUT I’m glad I have come back to it at this juncture in my life
8. A novel is like an exam question – your mind is working out the answers while you are doing something else entirely
9. If I sit down to write, ideas channel through my finger-tips: I am a vessel for communication.
10. I have punctuation hang-ups since High School English, when I was accused of being a ‘comma splicer’. These are in the main, unfounded and should be wiped from memory.

Onwards with the journey.

18,000 words is not good enough for day 13….

1 Comment | In: Rebecca, Writing | tags: 000 words, 50, nano, nanowrimo, national novel writing month, novel writing challenge, writing. | #

After an inspiring and thought-provoking day at the Write Now Writing Conference at Strathclyde University - complete with delicious home-baking and coloured badges – I felt compelled to share this little gem that I ‘found’ last year using random words from my husband’s favourite computing magazine, Linux.

Found Poetry is such an interesting subject and a clever, accessible intro to the world of poetry which can sometimes seem an elitist club for the few who can master Haiku and Pantoums and the inexplicable ins and outs of rhythm, rhyme, assonance, alliteration and allegory.

The concept was first introduced to me when doing an online evening class in Creative Writing, also at Strathclyde.

The idea was to pick words/phrases at random from a magazine you wouldn’t normally read, and shape them, mould them and form them into something resembling a poem, all without thinking too much about it. It’s the ‘freeing up’ of the mind that is the focus, the process, rather than the end result. Though the end result can actually be rather interesting in itself…

The Back-Up

The back-up.

It’s exactly unclear. Rubbish!

Two connections I have witnessed:

Reboot. Gesture. Reboot.

Unclear? Exactly.

Make voice calls. Gesture. Reboot.

The foot won.

I have witnessed the back-up.

Two connections made me

think it’s exactly unclear.

The back-up.

No Comments | In: Lifestyle, Trends, Writing | tags: creative writing, creativity, found poetry, glasgow, linux, linux magazine, magazine, poems, poetry, random words, strathclyde university, university of strathclyde, words, write now, writing. | #

Rather a sad one today? The starter image spurred me into melancholic waters…

I am here again. The place I only go to in my mind. Jaded carpets encircle me, their once vivid prints lacklustre; sad. Low-hanging chandeliers threaten to drown me, swallow me in faltering halos of burnt sienna. As news headlines from centuries past sweep by my feet, the flotsam and jetsam of life, I feel the hard, chestnut-leather cold against my palms. This ballroom of my own conjuring was once alight with music, people, chatter, dancing. Only now my inner world turns sepia. It is fading, forgotten in a darkening labyrinth, falling. I am barren. I am nothing.

No Comments | In: Wannabe Journalist | tags: ballroom, competition, day four, fiction, microfiction, sepia, stylist, stylist magazine, writing. | #

[Stylist Microfiction Competition entry for today!]

Speeding downstairs, late for work again, I noticed a postcard on the mat. It was a sepia-toned white dog sitting dumbly on a café chair. I hated dogs. Who the hell sent me this crap?

“Darling Lucy, I’m in the City of Love. The City of Lights. Will you be my wife?”

It was raining outside and I couldn’t find my umbrella. Tired and having a definite Bad Hair Day, I wondered who this Lucy bitch was as I ripped up the postcard, discarding it in the council litter bin on the way to my bus stop.

No Comments | In: Wannabe Journalist | tags: competition, dog, fiction, magazine, microfiction, parisian, story, stylist, stylist competition, stylist magazine, writing. | #

So I missed the first few days…but am loving Stylist Magazine’s ‘Microfiction’ competition running for five working days until Tuesday 9th November.

Writing a 100-word story per day is a very achievable task, especially with pictorial assistance and theming. Discovering this fun challenge only an hour before the deadline, my offering was whipped up in approx 10 minutes…

Down In The Woods Today

The leaves were dead. Dead and brown and stinking of the dank forest floor. Weaving my way through the eerie soldiers of silver birch, I startled in wonderment at the scene before me.

“Hello Tom, what are you doing here?” I addressed the deer. “Mind you don’t cut your nose on that broken monitor!”

“I’ve lost my lighter” he replied, grumpy as usual.

“Yeah I’m so forgetful too. I left an important file by that tree”.

Collecting what I needed and wiping away the wetness from the leaves, I bade my farewell and slipped back through my Ikea wardrobe, home.

No Comments | In: Wannabe Journalist | tags: 100 word story, competition, magazine, microfiction, story, stylist, stylist magazine, writing. | #

Oh to have my own column SATC style! This is my online diary, wanton, wannabe fashion journalist stylee, of my yet-to-be-realised career dream. The first day of the rest of my life. What a cliche. I mean, everyone says that, except actual journalists who are constantly striving for original, witty intros, descriptions and middle bits, surfing along to the perfect denouement.

When you are a real journalist, each word, sentence, paragraph or unwitting simile has to convey a unique concept, untapped idea or irreverent joke. I want to be like them, writing about what I love. Fashion. I want to cover the shows, making clever references to vintage collections/modern art/urban culture, and intelligent commentary on the latest style, shape, colour, silhouette. The pre-shows, the real shows, the after-shows. I want to sit in the front row at the shows – I mean, anyone would KILL for that job, right? Working with Miranda Priestly of Runway fame, clickety-clacking with the other clackers, going to Paris…yes ok, The Devil Wears Prada is one of my favourite comedic fashion films.

All I can do is dream, masquerading as a pink-wigged mannequin named Penelope!

No Comments | In: Wannabe Journalist | tags: fashion shows, journalism, journalist, penelope, runway, the devil wears prada, writing. | #