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"Losing the Plot"
OK, so here I am, just over the half way mark.
First off, my writer’s wall has sprouted out fresh limbs.
I now have a yearly planner as well as the monthly one. That sure is exciting, even though I have nothing else to plan for beyond September. Not yet, at least.
I have also appealed to my asthetic side and printed out some mock up covers I made a while ago, with a gentle reminder beneath:
Don’t you have a job to do?
Don’t you have something to write?*
Both it and the covers are at eye-level, meaning they’re the first thing I see when said eyes wonder towards the window and the charming rural view, reminding me there’s something I should be working on.
And up at the top was a print out from Thursday, when my new laser printer arrived and I wanted to print something out as a test. The words are important, plus they’re REALLY BIG and therefore hard to miss.
On the actual writing front, it’s been going OK. I’ve had a few personal issues I can’t go into for legal reasons (no, really), but I still think I can finish on target.
You might have noticed that on the 12th of September, the word count took a flying leap from 35k to 64k. While I’d like to pretend this was the result of some time-bending phenomenon that allowed me an additional fortnight to produce a meatier word count, I’m sure it comes as no surprise that this was not the case.
Since this book essentially a skeletal rewrite of a draft from 2006, there are some scenes from the original that are still relevant. So I threw them in as well. All 30,000 words of them. Will I regret this later? Probably. Hence why now from the 25th to the 30th, I have time set aside for revision.
And that’s where I’ll be in that last week, sitting in the dark, stitching these scenes together with ink and sweat, screaming: “Why won’t you just FIT, damn you!”
* Yes, that is a Demolition Man reference. Simon Phoenix is DA BOMB.
“Don’t you have a job to do? Don’t you have someone to kill?”
From the mind that brought you How to “Write Like a God“, Penrefe Presents “How to Be a Writer in 3 Easy Steps”:
- Write
- Write
- Write
Good luck!
I’ve been reading a lot my favourite writers’ blogs recently, the majority of which tell me it’s important to create a platform for myself, and to create a blog that people will relate to, instead of incessantly talking about myself for posts on end.
And I don’t want to talk about myself for any longer than is absolutely necessary; I’m not even that interesting.
The blogs I read tell me to pass on my worldly advice instead, so that other readers (and writers) may find my blog interesting, to realise that writing in itself isn’t interesting (and yes, I will agree with that, a writer telling me how many words of their unknown and unfinished latest piece is of no interest to me…oh my, did I just create a paradox?). I am meant to blog about my niche, whatever it is that I good at, and to share it with the world at large.
My niche? Well, I’m a mid-twenties writer with an interest in vampires and lingering on the verge of alcoholism. Come join me, won’t you?!
Here’s my step-by-step guide to writing your next literary masterpiece, Penrefe-style.
- Grab a glass of your favourite alcoholic beverage.
- Drink it.
- Grab yourself a second glass.
- Open up your favourite Word Processing application.
- Write the first few paragraphs of unimaginable greatness.
- Reward yourself with finishing the second drink.
- Grab yourself a third drink.
- Question your purpose in life.
- Have another drink.
- Watch an episode of ‘Friends’, while continuing your amazing writing style. Maybe incorporate some Friends jokes into your own material. It’ll be fine; it’s not protected by copyright, anyway!
- Pause to call your best friend/parent/boss, to tell them about how you’re an amazing writer and you’re going to be famous and that you don’t need them anymore.
- Hang up.
- Write a few lines/paragraphs of something truly prolific, something with a lot of blood and guts, or some kind of spiritual awakening, something that you will read back to yourself when sober (what do you mean you’re not sober now?) and wonder who the hell snuck onto your computer and wrote it.
- Camouflage the greatness with a mountain of illegible and nonsensical nonsense.
- Continue to write and drink in this pattern until the distance between your face and the keyboard can be measured with a penny.
- Fall asleep, with the option of going to your bed or nearby pile of cushions, if you can make the distance.
- Wake up.
- Make yourself a coffee (or tea, if you’re particularly British), with a side of paracetamol.
- Turn on your computer (whether you slept on it or the cushions, the computer will have known it wasn’t needed at that point last night and turned itself off, while wondering what it must’ve done in a previous life to have ended up in your possession).
- Read over your literary masterpiece.
- Be amazed by the handful of good paragraphs in amongst pure shit.
- Call everyone your phone says you called last night and apologise, remembering to keep your apology generic, since you probably don’t remember at this stage what you said.
- Have another brew.
- Lather, rinse, and repeat.
Hope this helps you all on the road to literary greatness!
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