Hence the quick update now.

The “page to fame” competition fizzled out to a rather uninspiring end I’m afraid. After 258 ratings and 37% wanting to see the story elevated, I received my “kiss off” email telling me that the algorithm said no.

It has been a good experience though. There was no interaction with anyone who was reviewing the submission, so I don’t have anything from there to learn from, but I have however had time to think and as I watched I realised the errors in the submission which may have affected its chances of success. So out of the competition I learned that time is our friend and that if we are to rush our writing and editing processes, then it won’t be as good as if we take time to think.

Sounds simple, but it’s true.

The other adventure of recent weeks has been with my writing and the novel idea I’m working on. I have to be honest and say that I am still a far distance from anything I can write properly, however, I decided to just sit and write one day and the story took a whole different direction and one that I really like. So things are looking positive.

I know the main thing I need to work on is the main character, Sam. She far from real at the moment and is certainly 2 dimensional compared with Helen (who has haunted me all these years).  I need to really work on Sam and get to know her, and I’m sure from there, the story will form.

If you remember a few posts back, I spoke about how I was finding the whole bits of paper and notebooks and scraps of ideas quite off putting? The untidiness and disorganization of it all was actually distracting me from writing. Since then I have been trying out some writing tools which are available for the computer and these seem to help a little.

Mywritingnook.com

This is essentially just some webs pace which allows you to write and organize from anywhere which has an internet connection. It’s really simple just a text editor with word count and dictionary, but that’s essentially all you need.

Storybook

“Storybook” is a database essentially that allows you to structure your work and form your thoughts and ideas. It’s quite good at helping you see where you are going without prompting you in anyway. So allows you to create freely without any interference.

I have tried similar software programs but have found them to interfere in some way with my “way of doing things” and so they became a hindrance rather than a help.

The only negative I could say about using “Storybook” is that it is installed on your computer and so doesn’t really offer that “writing on the go” feeling. But I would still recommend it thoroughly.

Anyways… I guess I should stop gibbering on and get back to work  :0)

Well, what do I have?

The honest truth is not that much. I’ve been keeping an eye on the ratings and percentages on a daily basis and I haven’t yet got the hang of how it works. I haven’t been able to find any advice on what the rating is that would put you through to the next round, for example – 100 ratings and 50% wanting you to progress. So I am not sure what to expect, however something I have noticed which is confusing me is that the ratings on my entry have been changing daily and the ratings and percentages don’t always seem to match.  One may go up but the other doesn’t change or even a couple of times I’ve noticed the amount of rating s actually go down?

I only know one other writer who entered this competition and on speaking with them, I was surprised to find out that they were actually told a couple of weeks after entering that “the algorithm used didn’t like him” (well words to that effect).

So I guess we will just have to wait and see.

How I stand at the moment…

Well I came across this competition on the webook site – Page to Fame. The basics of it are…

“Popular books go through four rounds—after the first page, writers submit the first chapter, then 50 pages, then the complete manuscript. Each time a book gets elevated to the next round, a participating literary agent reviews the work. Your ratings let literary agents and publishers know what real readers want to see on the shelves—and your favorite pages could become the best-sellers of tomorrow!

At each stage, the submissions will be reviewed by litery agents.”

Sounds like a good way to get some non-biased feedback, so I have had a go and submitted the first page of “Harvester”, the book idea I’m working on.

The idea is nowhere near ready yet, let alone any writing I have done, so I am not submitting this with a hope of getting to the next round, but I am keen to receive feedback and to learn to cope with feedback in a positive way. After all, it’s hard to take any form of criticism for something you have put so much work into.

So hopefully this will be an exercise to help me grow as a writer.

Readers so far – 18    Submissions to the next round – 23%

I had first devised the idea of the character 2 years ago, but have never been able to finish her story, in any format and for the last two years, I have been incredibly unproductive.

It has just come to me, I am now writing, but that writing doesn’t involve Helen, the haunting character. I just seem to be writing and hadn’t even realised she had left me alone.

So is this a sign?

Is this the story I am meant to be writing?

Let’s hope so.  Let’s hope Sam can carry on and be herself and tell her own story, and then hopefully Helen’s will come as easily and we can free her.

It’s starting to take shape and I’m finding that the plotting and structuring I resented so much to begin with is now actually helping me piece things together.

I’m working with 3 main characters; the lead, the romantic opposite and the opposition to the lead. I’m also working with each of these characters having their own subplot which ties in around the books main plot.

It’s slow, but I feel like it’s worth it, things are slowly taking shape and becoming less blurry round the edges.

Who knows, maybe one day we will see this novel on a book shelf.

I’ve found that researching on how to plot and plan has really helped.

Information coming from all different places has helped me see many different view points on this and allowed me to pick and choose to create a method which seems to be working for me.

I keep getting little visions of a scene…. so I write it down, record the actions and reactions of that scene, the emotions and dialogue and then store it away until I can place it together.

Being such a computer geek, I am finding the manual working on this to be the hardest thing. If I could do all this on a computer it would make thing so much faster, but I haven’t seen a computer programme out there which does what I want yet. :0(

I thought I’d post a few of the useful sites and tools I’ve found online when I’ve needed help. Hopefully they will help inspire someone else.

Short Story Writing

The best piece of advice I found, was about writing a short story and the author has managed to condense everything you will have been told and heard into a couple of lines…

• Put a man up a tree…
• Throw rocks at him…
• Get him down!

As I said, very simple, but straight to the point.

Basically

1. Put your character in a situation
2. Make it worse
3. Get them out of the situation

It really is as simple as that. How good your story comes down to your idea and your writing ability.

You can read more about this approach at  write101 .

Writing A Novel

I found this website and thought it was worth a mention as an inspiration for potential novelists.

It has a list of useful tools which you may find useful to help you keep organised as well as some advice and positive inspiration.

Useful Tools

The BBC

Don’t forget places like the BBC website which always has some great online learning .

How to write a novel.

This is fun. Very simple guidance on the basics of getting started with your character, structure etc.

I was originally writing Helen as a writer who was suffering from writers’ block with the burgeoning romance being her “cure”. An archetypal romance, however the romance I have read is very, very different from the “Mills & Boon” type romance stories around and I just couldn’t comfortably write in that style.

Since then, the story moved on… Helen was still a writer, but had completed her first novel and was in the process of edits.
She meets someone and falls in love, but through the book, the love interest falls away. Helen had to find a way to repair the damage the book had done.

Again, however things have moved on, I’m now toying with a slightly more paranormal style approach – very different to what I have done before, but I have to be honest. This one feels better.

I’ll keep you up to date.

Well I have something similar, not a story which is haunting me, but a character and no matter what I do, I just can’t get rid of her. I’ve tried short stories, but I can’t seem to write anything that isn’t her story.

The problem is,  I’m not finished creating her story yet.

So I’m writing a blog in the hope that it will help me to excorcise Helen and finally get her story written and her ghost freed.

I’ll update this blog at various times with anything I find useful to me or which might be to others. I’ll also talk alittle about what I’m going through with writing.

I guess really I’m just wanting to talk…