Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone - hope you have a great day! I shall be posting more in the future, I promise :D I see a 2010 resolution in the making...

May your day be merry and bright!

Names!

I have a basic idea of what my NaNo novel is going to be about. Now, I need character names! The main characters are a brother and a sister, and I think I'm going for Jesse for the brother. I'm struggling to think of a girl's name for his sister, so I'm throwing it to anyone who has any ideas...

Please?! :D

I also need a surname, ya know, if you think of any!

*Cross-Posted to 'Family Portrait' blog.*

Writing writing writing

So, I'm actually blogging again :D I'm sorry for the extended leave, I'm just useless. In writing news, Snap Shot has reached 56k, and I'm hoping to finish it by Christmas! Yay!

I may be updating my general blog a little more often than this as I start NaNo next week, so here's the link in case you want to take a look - http://veggie-teen.blogspot.com/

Best go and get some writing done!

Writer's Block

Perhaps I shouldn't set goals; since I posted this I have been suffering from writer's block (which I blogged about here) and so have not managed to do that well in writing.

The first chapter of FP has been edited twice, however - including a whole rewrite of the first paragraph. Quick excerpt time, I think: please let me know if you feel this would or wouldn't hook you as the first two paragraphs (possibly prologue) of a book, and why!

When she ended up climbing from her window sill to the first branch she could reach, Imogen Meyer felt no guilt. She’d never much liked living by the rules. Sure, it wasn’t the easiest exit route from her new home, but she didn’t fancy running into her new family, which she undoubtedly would if she took the traditional way out. Besides, she reckoned she needed the practice; it wouldn’t be long before the Kingsleys were doing her head in – she knew it.
It was only a short period of escapism – she didn’t want her new family to notice she was gone – but it was enough to satisfy her for one evening. The house felt stuffy, overcrowded. There were so many new people she had to get to know, and pretend to like; she wondered for a moment if all the hassle was worth it. Angrily she dismissed this thought; she knew it was worth it. As much as she hated the prospect of living in this house, with these people, she’d have done it twice over if her little sister had needed her to. Abby had always been the most important thing in Imogen’s life; Imogen was not going to let her down just because she was faced with a difficult decision.

And, my word count for this week (well, just over a week, since I set the goals on Friday and it's now Sunday): 4000 words. Half my goal, but the goal was really a stab in the dark - and I have had writer's block. Now that it's cured, however (see the blog post here for how I managed that!) I'm off to write! =]

Goals

Ok, so, a couple of writing blogs I read set out weekly goals every week, so I have decided to do the same thing - it seems like a sensible way of getting motivated, although I'm actually pretty motivated writing-wise at the minute! I wish some of that motivation could be for school work, but unfortunately it's not :s

It'll also give me a reason to blog twice weekly! So, my goals for the coming week - a little premature, I know, but hey - are:

8,000 words on Snap Shot.
Now, the amount I write a week varies ridiculously, so I'm not sure how I'm gonna get on with a set number of words to hit, but we'll see what happens!

Edit chapter one of Family Portrait
I have a lot of friends reading FP at the minute, so I'm waiting for any feedback, but I've got some great feedback on Absolute Write, so I think I'm going to attempt to improve Chapter One this week, and make it a more exciting opening to the book.

So, I'll let you know how I get on with those!

Titles

Long time, no post - too much going on! I have in my absence, however, come up with titles for the sequel and 3rd book (yes, I'm now planning a trilogy!) and so I shall reveal them here:

Family Portrait
Snap Shot
Camera Shy.

More updates soon!

Quick Update

Okay, so I have finished my first round of edits on Family Portrait! Basically, I read through the whole thing, making sure it made sense, changing words that seemed wrong and fixing punctuation/grammar/typing errors. It's now with a couple of 'beta' readers - some who I know in real life and some which I don't - and so I will let you know what they say! For now, I will let it rest for a while, perhaps using my time to study...or start a new book. I wonder which idea will win.. =]

Now, it's nearly 2am, I probably should go to sleep! Before I do, just a quick link - check out the Teens Writing for Teens (TWFT) blog, that I am now a part of =]