Choosing the perfect notebook

 I am in the mood to start writing something new. In order to make a start on this new idea, I need to find the perfect notebook. Is anyone else this way with stationery? I feel like the notebook needs to match the mood and vibe of my new story idea.

I have a lot of notebooks that I have collected over the years, notebooks I have been saving for potential stories but are currently utterly unwritten in.

I decided to look through them and try and see which one best suits my story idea.

This is probably one of the oldest notebooks I own. I purchased it on holiday as a child (I can’t even remember where I got it now) because it reminded me of Boooook from Hocus Pocus. This one needs something magical to be written in it. 

I bought this one for when I was travelling around Italy and I have done a lot of travelling since but still have not christened its pages. I still feel that it needs something worldly, travel-based in it. I will save it for when we are able to do that again.

 I can’t even remember where and when I got this notebook. I thought it looked like a Tardis and the diary River Song has in Doctor Who. I feel like I need to save this to document more personal/ life events. It doesn’t feel like a notebook for stories.

This leaves me with notebook number 4. My Van Gogh one. And for what I am planning to write, I think this one is perfect!

Query Avoidance

 I have started tentatively querying the story that I wrote this year.

What I mean by this is:

- I am spending hours researching and preparing my documents and cover letters for agents.

-All of these documents and cover letters are all lined up in a folder, waiting to be sent.

-I am procrastinating and putting off sending them by coming up with the odd excuse as to why now isn’t the best time to send.

-And occasionally, nervously hitting the send button on the odd few that I do summon the courage with.

I don’t know what it is, but it is so scary to query an agent! I never feel ready, I constantly doubt my work and I also feel so frustrated with myself that I have spent all this time creating something (and I want to be a writer so much), that why can’t I just take the plunge and just do it?

So, I will be honest, this blog post right now is just another form of query- avoidance. I have determined that I will send at least 3 queries I have pre-prepared in the next hour, and here I am writing this…

I have also started planning another story because that’s the bit I enjoy. The planning and the creating, and I feel so much happier in my non-judgemental creative bubble rather than scrutinizing over every word of a query letter.

Does anyone else feel like this when it gets to the time when they start querying? What do you do to motivate yourself to do it? Does anyone have any tips on how to be more confident with querying? I would love to hear them. Please comment below.

Ten Signs You Are Obsessed With Literature

 1.Your house is full of references to various books/ plays/ poems. On mugs, cushions, bookmarks, t-shirts…everything seems to have some nod towards a classic or two.

2. You get withdrawal symptoms if you haven’t read a book for a week.

3.You are simultaneously intrigued and horrified at the thought of your favourite text being turned into a movie.

4. You compare people you meet and situations to book characters/ plots. “He better not turn full Macbeth over that.” “I’m not going to do a Penelope and wait around forever.” The moment there is snow- “It looks like Narnia!”

5. Your pets are named after your favourite characters.

6. Your children are named after your favourite characters/ if you don’t have children your ‘favourite name lists’ definitely is just a list of your favourite characters.

7. When you think back to a wonderful moment in your life, you can remember exactly what book you were reading at the time.

8. When you think back to a terrible moment in your life, you can remember exactly what book you were reading at the time.

9. Whenever anyone quotes literature in a film, you turn to the person sitting next to you and name the writer, the book/play/poem and occasionally the page number/ scene. 

10. You just can’t stop looking for hidden meaning… in everything.

All in all, I am so glad that I was introduced to reading at a young age and that I have had opportunity and encouragement to pursue my love for literature throughout my life- wouldn’t change it for the world 😊

When is the best time to query an agent?

 In my excitement of finally feeling “ready”/ “ready as I will ever be” to query my dream agent, I sent my cover email and first three chapters at 4pm on a Friday night. Now, on reflection, I am not sure if this was very wise. Fridays are probably not best days to send query letters and certainly not towards the close of a day- especially if I want to get noticed. Anyone’s mind would be on the weekend ahead rather than another query which will undoubtedly end up in the slush pile.

But I am having difficulty with finding that perfect time to query. My job requires my attention from 8 am until 5pm (or later) every day during the week. I only have time for a quick 15-minute lunch, and when I am in school, I am often supervising students over my breaks and lunches. I barely have 5 minutes to use the toilet, let alone construct and send a query email. There is no good time in the week to send a query, leaving me only with afternoons and weekends which, I feel, heighten the changes of my query being missed. Now, I am not making excuses, I know there are many reasons why an agent might decide to discard and not pursue a query letter, but I can’t help but think that timing is one of them.

When do you recommend sending out query letters? What day of the week? Time of day? What do you recommend in terms of getting noticed? I would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below.

How will I know when my manuscript is ready?

 I dedicated some time to my manuscript this weekend. I did the painstakingly arduous task of editing (apologies if you are someone who enjoys this) and spent a few hours on Sunday re-reading through the entire re-draft. I always find it weird reading my own work. Sometimes it almost feels like it is written by someone else and sometimes it really does feel like it is written by me (and a little bit cringey as a result). I like it when I come across a bit that I think works really well but I hate the bits that still feel a bit forced, as if I was including them to purely move from one moment in the novel to the other. I also feel like I am not the best at ending chapters. It never feels natural. Perhaps I should look through my favourite books and look at how their chapters end?

To give myself a break from the editing, I decided to write my synopsis. Having to decide what key moments and strip it back to its basics without losing the key essence of it all is never an easy feat. But I suppose it is a great exercise in really getting to know your book and really thinking about the meaning and message you want to convey.

I am hoping to start sending my first few chapters to agents in the next few weeks, but taking that step is always a terrifying one! I always feel like the manuscript is never quite ready no matter how long I spend on it. I can’t go on making tweaks forever. I will have to find a point where I do feel happy with it and then take that plunge.

I would love to know where you are up to in your writing process and what the experience is like for you. Any comments are welcome below.  

Small Successes

I have decided that the best way to motivate myself this January is to celebrate the small successes. On the 1^st of January, I had dreams of spending multiple hours editing and redrafting my manuscript with the view of being ready to start thinking about submitting to agents mid-January. I am willing to accept that this isn’t going to happen.

However, what I have done (and what needs to be celebrated) is that I have entered a short story competition and have found another that I would also like to enter. I also spent an afternoon last weekend editing my manuscript and, although it still has a long way to go, there is definite progress there.

So, well done me. I wonder what I will be able to achieve this weekend 😊

Writing Routines

 Let’s be honest, I haven’t done a single thing towards my writing since I last blogged. I could use the excuse of the ‘last minute’ lockdown a day into the school term and getting used to an entire different way of teaching in just four short days (and I think that would be a valid one), but if I really was going to stick to my resolution, I could have made the time.

I think the issue is routine. Obviously, I had to get used to an entirely new routine in a short period of time with irregularities (such as a parents evening from home) throwing me out of my usual way of things. I hadn’t factored in how I could squeeze writing into my week. Something I could stick to. So that is exactly what I need to do. Now I (sort of) know how my weeks are going to look, I need to plan in some writing time and stick to it. Last lockdown I had the leisure of full days to write whenever I fancied. I haven’t that luxury anymore, so I need to be much more rigid with my writing time.

I would love to find out the routines of other writers (if they stick to a routine at all). Is it better to write in the mornings or evenings? Weekday or weekend? For a length of time or short bursts? What would suit me best and be most productive for me? Let me know if you have a ‘writing routine’ and what it looks like below 😊