As for today, Kay and I are in FG currently (with Ian, who just turned up!) and we won’t be here a great deal longer as Kay has been up for over 24 hours! YIKES. 

We know this summer has been a bit crazy in terms of the meets but things should even out once we’re into October. So get ready for some cool writing exercises and discussions next month. 

OCTOBER.
Monday 1st: NO MEET. 
Monday 15th. 
Monday 29th. National Novel Writing Month Planning Pre-Party!

NOVEMBER: NANOWRIMO.
Monday 5th.
Monday 12th.
Monday 19th.
Monday 26th.

DECEMBER.
Monday 3rd: TGIO (Thank God It’s Over party)

After the first meet in December we’ll be taking a break until the New Year to rest those writing brains (and what’s left of your poor fingers and brains). Any problems with these dates or any questions let us know and we’ll be there for you! 

H & K.

See you all soon

kay

Important Note (that should probably have it’s own post): Today’s meet is technically going to be a little shorter than usual, you’re more than welcome to stay until closing in the cafe as usual but I’m going to be zipping off to catch the bus home just before six as I’m lazy and don’t want to walk home. Especially if I’m about to cross the final threshold in this ten-month project of Doom (a warranted capital D there, I think). I’m here right at this moment though, tapping away. 

H.

Hope you’re well. Obviously because today is a Bank Holiday there’s no meet again, but we’ll be restarting as normal on the 3rd of September which is next week.

The Derby NaNo group is having a Plotting and Planning meet for NaNo on the 1st of October at the Brunswick Inn, 7-9pm for people who are interested. It should be fun! We’ll be doing something similar a little closer to the time as well, so we’ll let you know a bit more closer to the time.

Have a great weeks guys, see you soon!

todays meet has been cancelled. we hope to have one soon, but due to work and personal commitments we are unable to do today.

Just a quick message about this months meets, they will be held on the 16th and the 30th.

See you all on the 16th.

Scribble HQ.

While I haven’t been taking part this month I have had my own goal: to finish my November 2011 NaNoWriMo novel before the end of June (mainly so that I can collect the illustrious prize of five free printed copies from Create Space!) and let me tell you I have not, as of yet, reached it.

This is nothing but my own fault. I have procrastinated and picked at my novel, bellyached and shirked.  Now I have a cold to boot. So I am sitting in bed with my laptop, about to make the final push for the end of my novel’s first complete draft and I have this to say to those who are still up to the wire with their NaNo: YOU CAN DO IT. Sorry for the caps, it felt like a capslock moment. But the sentiment is honest! I believe that with enough tea and painkillers I can reach a drug-addled conclusion to this monstrous, life devouring thing I call my novel, and you can get to your fifty-thousand words! Knuckle down! Ignore Wimbledon! Get crack-a-lackin’!

I’m so sorry, that was the cold meds kicking in. Nevertheless, all keyboards/pens/dictaphones(?): Go Go Go!

See you in July!

Heather.

I have read a lot of lists recently. There’s an article where authors were asked for their personal do’s and don’ts and I sat here and read a lot of them shaking my head and tutting and rolling my eyes at these so-called rules all the different authors have. I’ve come to a conclusion as a result: aside from shoring up my opinion that a) lists are great things and b) that everyone makes their own for a reason, I have a new found conviction that no one can tell you how to be a writer. No one.

This “rule” stuck out to me particularly:

3 Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But “said” is far less intrusive than “grumbled”, “gasped”, “cautioned”, “lied”. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated” and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.

Now, I see this around a lot and to a certain extent I agree that often ‘s/he said’ is much more direct and less attention grabbing than anything else, allowing the dialogue itself room to breathe, but I really, honestly, do not subscribe to the idea that you can never use another word to describe the way that someone is talking. Dialogue cannot carry itself all the time. So much communication is down to body language and expression in the voice or face and so ‘s/he said’ doesn’t always translate the way I want it to. To me a peppering of descriptors around dialogue is essential. I want to know when someone’s voice turns to a whisper, that one word slid in to replace a boring old ‘said’ can tell me so much more about the mood of a scene, it can offer so much more than simply getting out of the way of the dialogue as quickly as possible. I want to know about the emotional or physical well-being of a character, because the words they might be using could be the most innocuous things ever, it could be a simple ‘Okay’ or ‘Fine, thanks,’ and to have someone whisper that instead of simply say it can add something great to a scene, a little bit of flavour that I find extremely necessary. I want to feel the scene as much as read it, I want it right there at the ends of my nerves, not just in my head.

By contrast Margaret Atwood’s tips are, naturally, fantastic, so go read those, quick quick!

There are, however, ten tips that I do follow religiously. Well, not religiously, and there are actually more than ten in total  but these ten in particular are the ones I have pinned to the wall above my writing desk so that when I’m gazing listlessly about in the middle of a paragraph that I’m not sure how to end I have something thought-provoking and inspiring (to me) to look at.

1. Write the sentence, not just the story.

More than many tips this one has stuck with me. Whenever I’m writing I try very hard to think about the sentence I’m constructing, I like to keep in my mind the rhythm of a paragraph or a spurt of dialogue; each sentence is a story in itself really, each sentence should have purpose otherwise it is simply dead weight and useless to the narrative, to me and to the characters. Every sentence must describe something, someone or somewhere, give reason or rhyme. I am ny no means saying I always succeed, in fact I know for certain there is a lot of dead weight in my novel that I’m going to have to cut and it is going to sting to do it, but there it is. I chose this after all, as Margaret Atwood points out brilliantly, so I ought not to whine. Of course I’m not going to list all ten of these tips, instead here’s a handy link to one of my favourite lists of tips: 10 Writing Tips That Can Help Anyone.

So there you go. It’s the 16th of June, just over halfway through the first Camp NaNoWriMo of 2012, good luck to those brave souls amongst us who are tackling the mighty goal of fifty thousand words, I hope this posts and my obsession with lists big and small has been a nice little break for your brain if not particularly helpful or inspiring. Now hop to it, and know that I believe in you!

Heather.

See you all tomorrow.

You can sign up here       http://campnanowrimo.org/