'Give me a daisy a day dear...'

or so the old song goes.

I was listening to a Radio show the other day and they were discussing
books and writing.
Now I had missed the start of the show because of that pesky interrupter of
all things fun - paid work - so I didn't catch who was speaking.
But one of them said that to get a character to come to life you must have
the right name.
Once the right name lands on your desk you can get cracking.

This was a few days ago and I gave it no thought because I thought it was a
bit mad to be honest until...
(Drum Roll Please)
'Daisy' landed on my desk (really the inside of my skull).
You see I had this character in mind,
an older lady
I could see her house
her daily routine
her sense of humour
but I couldn't settle on a first name for her.
I had her surname but I wanted a girls name that would suit her.
And then Bingo! (or rather Daisy ) landed.
And its just perfect.
She's a bit of a scut so I didn't want anything too weighty
and because she's in her seventies it couldn't be a modern name.
And now that I have that she's absolutely bubbling with life and demanding
to be written.
so I'm off to do that.
How's your day going?

All hail NaNo. NaNo is Dead.

Well for another year anyway.
The eleven months until the next NaNo is our opportunity to polish off the work we have on hand.

I am glad that I found my way into NaNo. I didn't win. But I didn't loose either.
I learned that
1) I need a routine. (Daawh!)
2) I need a computer that isn't used for surfing youtube and google translate by boy and girl child.
3) I need a place to write where my Hubster can't glance at the screen and shout from accross the room. 'Is that a monologue?'

I got stuck in and now I have an idea for a novel.
I have the beginning down on paper. I have the skeleton for the whole story in my head. Its just a matter of getting it all on paper.
Then I need to polish it up a bit. Make sure the characters are interesting enough to catch peoples interest (how do I do that?)
Its only a simple love story with a few twists and turns. I have my photo's of my leading men and my leading lady. So far so good.
I have to admit its the furthest I have gone yet with a story.
I have no where near the 50k word count. But I don't feel like a failure.
So go me.
Until next year.

Writing Tips from Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle said:

1 Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk,
especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.


2 Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space,
or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph ­–


3 Until you get to Page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the
quality. Do feel anxiety – it's the job.


4 Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it.
Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he
started writing it. The rest must have been easy.


5 Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don't go near the
online bookies – unless it's research.


6 Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind
the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words
that come into your head will do fine, eg "horse", "ran", "said".


7 Do, occasionally, give in to temptation. Wash the kitchen floor, hang out
the washing. It's research.


8 Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. I was
working on a novel about a band called the Partitions. Then I decided to
call them the Commitments.


9 Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet.


10 Do spend a few minutes a day working on the cover biog – "He divides his
time between Kabul and Tierra del Fuego." But then get back to work.

Wednesdays Witterings.

Today I thought I would give all your writers out there the benefit of some
writerly advice from the sage herself Anne Enright

This was previously published somewhere else and I just thought it was very
good. I thought I would put that disclaimer in there before anyone decided
to sue.

It's not like Anne and I go to have coffee and a cake and she said let me
give you some writerly tips.

1 The first 12 years are the worst.

2 The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful,
typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.

3 Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

4 Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about
the world. Find a place to stand.

5 Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality
is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or
how "made up": what matters is its necessity.

6 Try to be accurate about stuff.

7 Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you ­
finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self
is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with
yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.

8 You can also do all that with whiskey.

9 Have fun.

10 Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not ­
counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your
temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.