Trying to beat Writer’s Block

I am hoping to return to a somewhat regular blog schedule soon… but for now, I thought you might like to see my latest attempt to break the dreaded block.

I can feel the words bubbling just under my skin, itching to come out, but sometimes the most difficult thing for me is deciding what to write. And also daring to make the first mark on the page without judging the things I produce!

This evening I was listening to some beautiful music by Ásgeir, an Icelandic musician. I don’t understand Icelandic, so I have no idea if I was getting the intended emotion from most of his songs, but they’re gorgeous all the same. I decided to write whatever came to my mind just for the duration of that song, and here are the four snippets I produced. I’m thinking I can give this a try as a writing warm-up again in the future.

Glaeður – Ásgeir

This definitely comes from all the Loki fanfic I’ve been reading recently…

If I keep walking through these corridors, following you, will you turn again and look at me with that smile upon your face? Will you say things that sound like you’re irritated with me but the twinkle in your eye suggests the opposite? Will you trust me? Will I deserve it?

If I debase myself, falling for my whole life, becoming the lowest I can be, will you be the world that I conquer? Will you be enough for me? Will I be enough for you, or am I just another tool, to be discarded once used? Will it matter enough to me by then?

I have never been a quitter. I’ve survived everything that was thrown at me, I’ve rolled with every punch and taken every path to life. But if you turned away, I think I might close my eyes.

Sátt – Ásgeir

If I’m lucky something like this might end up in Drifting, the book I’m currently planning out! I’ve got to write the proposal and send it to my editor to see if she wants to contract it for book number 3!

My arms around you, we’re swaying in the moonlight. The sun’s warmth still radiates from your skin, I can smell it on your shoulders though the twilight breeze cools my back. My cheek is pressed to yours, so soft and round. I nuzzle you and you smile. I can feel your dimples pressed against my face.

Your hand is loosely clasped in mine. I should feel like I’m in a spotlight but instead it feels like I’m dancing out of the door, dancing right out onto the beach where the waves lap against our feet, bare to the sand. You’re here, and I can hardly believe you’re in my arms. I don’t think I’ll ever let you go. If I can read the annals of time and learn, I’d find out how to keep you here, your heart pressed against mine as the music swells. You smile and I can barely believe my luck.

Lifandi vatnið – Ásgeir

This started off as one thing and then became another. There is a LOT to unpack in this snippet. Yes, I am in therapy thanks. This may become part of a book that’s been buzzing around in my head, about the monster under the bed who rescues/kidnaps an abused child.

I never meant to hurt you. I can’t help my nature, I was born to betray and cause harm to those around me. To forge from the fires of my cruelty. To be the monster they must defeat in order to become the hero. That’s all I am, isn’t it? I am the creature beneath the bed. 

But there are monsters worse than I. The one that hurts you when I only threaten to do so, the one who pulls you from your sleep. I stand in the shadow and bear witness to your pain, and you catch my eye, reach out with every fibre of your being and I betray you by letting it fall short. I am not the hero.

One night you crawl from your bed and sob beneath it. You willingly come to my domain, the darkness you once feared above all. You crawl closer to me, your demon.

What can I do but take you in my arms and whisk you far away?

Hringsól – Ásgeir

I had a romance set in Kenya in mind for this one. Think Rafiki, maybe.

We can hold our heads high. We meet eyes and smile, link hands and walk onwards. I don’t feel like the world is looking at me quite so much because you’re at my side, though logically I know that they may be looking at me more for just that reason. We are illegal. We’re wrong.

I’ve never felt so right.

Target audience

I’ve been trying to work out what binds my work together and what kind of impact it’ll have on things like target audience and genre categories and so on.

Not Broken is my first novel to come out with Bold Strokes Books (it’s just gone to the printers this week!! Aaahh!!!) and like 3/4 of my books so far, has no magic or fantasy element.

However, looking forward, the vast majority of my 11 WIPs would count as urban fantasy, mostly set in regular life but with a fantastical flavour that serves to intensify trauma or mental health issues which can then be solved (mostly through the power of love because I’m a sappy git).

So if the next book I publish with BSB is an urban fantasy, does that screw around with people’s expectations of me? Does that make me hard to market? What really does tie my stuff together?

Hurt/comfort is a big thing. I don’t know if that’s a term outside of fanfic, but it is my JAM! The thing that really matters to me about a story is people being a little bit broken and finding that their jagged edges can fit together with another broken being. That’s what I hope for myself and everyone, after all.

I guess they’re all about mental health, really. Bring You Home was about grief and dealing with abuse. The Willing is about suicidal ideation and, er, abuse again. Starship Jenna is about dissociative disorders, and is based on my own condition.

I guess the common denominator of my stories is also abuse and dysfunctional families… I’m not sure that’s particularly marketable either!

Passing on NaNo

I was hoping to be able to do NaNo this year, although I have to admit I was also pretty apprehensive. It’s been a weird-ass year and I’ve found it very difficult to write much at all, but I figured maybe I just need to force it out for a month.

Well, work put a stop to that idea anyway. I’ve been asked to re-write the practical course I usually run for the A level biology independent candidates so that it’s more covid-safe. That’s going to take up a huge chunk of the first 2 weeks of November, and I’m sure there’ll be extras added afterwards to take up the second half of the month.

Usually I can make it work. I’ve actually run the practical courses while also completing NaNo in the past! But I think my mojo was a little more co-operative than it is now, and I don’t want to push it. Instead I’m going to try to stick to 200 words a day minimum, so while it might still mean forcing it out, it shouldn’t be too much like pulling teeth!

I’ll be cheering on all the other NaNo-ites from the sidelines!

Sometimes it’s just one of those weeks…

I’ve had quite enough of this thank you and goodnight

October is be good to yourself month!

I’ve finished and sent off my edits for Not Broken and now I think October should be a kind month. A self-care month! A month where I don’t berate myself for my pitiful word count.

I’m currently uploading Zero Degrees one chapter per week, and I’m planning to do a master post on tumblr to link to all the chapters there, because yeah… tumblr. Other than that I’m hoping to slowly ease myself into writing The Willing and a bit of fanfic. Work’s quite busy, though, and NaNo’s just around the corner, so I’m not going to be too worried if I don’t get around to it!

Getting Ready to Edit!

Well, getting ready to do a lot of things… but writing-wise, September is the month when I’ll receive all my Not Broken edits to complete by early December. I’m really nervous! I’m not sure what to expect, but I guess my worst case scenario is that they hate a particular plot point or a character and want major things to be changed! That would be so sad! I have to hope that that’s not the case, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken a chance on me in the first place!

Aloïs and I are also about to start writing a novel which we’ll be posting for free online. Honestly, I’m a bit nervous about that too, because I haven’t written in so long and I’m worried that I won’t be able to! Which is silly, I know, I’ve had many breaks from writing and haven’t magically lost the ability!

My kids are also going back to school, and while I’m excited for them, I know they’ll be stressed about the changes, and about returning to a routine they’ve been out of for five months! I’ve enjoyed having them at home, and they’ve been absolutely brilliant, and coped with this strange new world with so much grace, but I think they’ll be happy to get back into a school environment. They love it, and the school they’re in is really supportive.

And I’m hoping that when I’m alone for 6 hours a week-day I’ll be able to finish a train of thought or two! I haven’t wanted to dive into an imaginary world with them around, because I have to be mentally available for them all the time, just in case they need me. Which is fine, and that’s how it should be! I’m their mum first. But I do, honestly, look forward to having some time just to myself!

Building momentum

I’m still not writing much at the moment, though the system of writing whatever scenes come into my head is actually working quite well. On the other hand, at least it’s looking a little more like a summer holiday and less like weird 2020 limbo, as we’ve been visiting a couple of friends and took a trip to a beach this week!

I have managed to write maybe 2k in a variety of different notebooks. The advantage is that I’m focusing on scenes, feelings and action, not worrying about the logistics of getting the characters from one place to another.

Often, trying to get to these points, writing in a linear fashion, can be a bit stressful because now you’ve got to that big scene that’s been buzzing around your head, what if you get it wrong? There’s a lot of pressure on now because you’ve been building up to it for a while! This way, I dive straight into writing these. I’m not giving them as much of a chance to be forgotten or to stress over them.

When I re-write it on computer, no doubt it’ll be totally different, almost like writing a story from scratch with just a load of really detailed plot notes, scene ideas and dialogue or phrases I like. But then, I sort of expect my re-writes to be very different anyway, so why spend ages trying to make the original perfect? Just write the fun bits and when all the key scenes are down in one form or another, THEN write the whole thing from start to finish.

We’ll see how well it works when I’ve got one of these 6 WIPs to the next level!

Feeling scattered!

I’m not feeling great today, don’t worry, it’s not covid! But I’ve been trying to find ways of making it a little easier to write when my thoughts are so scattered. Not just because of feeling unwell, but because I can’t seem to concentrate on writing much these days!

I have a bunch of stories that come into my head in scattered scenes, and rather than forcing them to wait until I get to that point in writing the linear story, I’m trying to write those specific scenes as the urge hits me.

And to make it easier to sort out when I finally get around to putting all those scenes in order, I’m making an index at the back of all my notebooks based on the Save the Cat structure.

So far I’ve got some scenes for Drifting, Changeling and Passing… and that’s the first time I’ve written them all out like that and realised they all end in -ing! Oops!

Nano fail!

• 

I nearly got there! But it was like pulling teeth!

For the first time, I started a NaNo I couldn’t finish! Usually I have no trouble getting over the word count, but this time it just didn’t happen.

Because it was camp NaNo I set my own target. 35k is just over half of my usual aim for a month, but I fell short by 10k.

Thing is I could probably have forced it? I would probably have hated it though, and what’s the point in that? And on the plus side I now have 25k more of the Willing than I had before. And in the long run, that’s a pretty good win.

Writing accents

There’s silence for a long moment save for the sound of the spoon against the ceramic. I turn around and sip my tea. “So… what’s your name?”
“Matt,” he says. “Matt Wiśniewski.”
“I’m Talia McGregor.”
He huffs a laugh. “You really couldn’t be more Scottish if you tried, could you?”
I narrow my eyes and try to will the blush away, all sympathy evaporating in an instant. “No need to be an arse.” I’m just glad I hadn’t told him my birth name’s Morag.
He cackles. “Oh, say arse again! It sounds brilliant. Nah, say och aye!”
Little shit. I thump the rest of my tea on the counter and go to bed.

Talia just met a ghost and he’s already annoying her

The continuing woes of writing in first person! Talia is Glaswegian, Kitty and Matt both have generic southern accents (it’s not quite London and it’s not quite Oxfordshire-farmer… you know the kind?!)

My problem is that I’m very aware that Scottish people write in Scots, for some people it’s an important part of their cultural pride, for others it’s just… ‘that’s just how I write, why would I NOT?’ Talia is the latter, obviously she writes her academic work in English as she’s in Oxford uni, but she’ll write everything else in Scots. She obviously thinks in Scots.

BUT. To what extent do I write her POV in Scots? Because (a) some people find it hard to read and (b) it could come across as me taking the piss. And if I write in Scots for Talia, it would look weird if I didn’t write in a dialect for Kitty’s POV, but being sort-of-London-sort-of-Oxfordshire she doesn’t have a specific go-to dialect in the same way. She says ‘innit’, ‘that’s well boring’, and drops t’s and h’s here and there. She may say something like ‘I bin lookin’ for that fing of yours’ but she wouldn’t WRITE that. Not in the way that Talia would write ‘he’s doin ma heid in’. In other words, me writing Kitty’s accent would DEFINITELY be considered taking the piss.

So my solution is: I only write their accents if it’s the other person’s POV and they’re noticing it – Kitty notices Talia’s accent, so I write it a bit more clearly. Talia notices Kitty’s accent, so I write it when it’s her POV. Not too much, just here or there, and in Talia’s case, I’m more likely to write her dialogue in Scots when she’s emotional (she’s trying to fit in, bless her, and that goes out the window when she’s angry or scared.) I’d also write words that are more commonly used in Glasgow or in Oxfordshire in the POV of the relevant person… and seeing as I haven’t been to Glasgow in quite some time (I used to work off the coast of West Scotland) I sometimes have to go and find Glaswegian youtubers to listen to to remind me of the voice, rhythm and melody as well as the odd word here and there!

Basically, I’m back on my bullshit, making life difficult for myself again! Talia doesn’t have to be Glaswegian at all! I have no idea why she is! She just… ended up that way.