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! =]

*smiles*

Okay, it's late and I should be asleep as I have work early tomorrow, but I had to post... I've finished! The first draft of Family Portrait is now complete =] I am very very happy - it's been a long time! I will probably be too hyped to sleep, but oh well!

I have done a word count of everything I've written for this book, and it's ended up at over 91,000 words. However, I decided tonight that a section I wrote just didn't quite work, and ruined the book a bit, and so the first version now stands at around 86,000 words. But I already have a sequel planned out, so all the cut bits will most porbably end up in there.

Right, I must sleep. Just had to post it!

90,000 words!

Well, last night I hit 90,000 words in my novel. It's getting to be a pretty long Young Adult novel! A friend of mine who looks through it all for me and checks for any obvious errors is banning me from going over 95k, but I think I should be alright - only two chapters left to write, I reckon! Very close to tying up the loose ends now (well, not all of them, as I've already started planning a sequel!) and I'm quite excited that I will have finished writing a book - even if it needs to be seriously edited and revised!

Tonight I plan to work on it more, and so you never know, I may be posting here pretty soon saying the first draft is done. When I get into it, I tend to go pretty mad! I've been keeping a daily word count, and realised that I have written 10,000 words in the last nine days. A ninth of my book in nine days! It's probably good I go through periods of writing quite a bit, because then I also go through periods of having no time at all to write - although, with exams coming up, this should really be one of those times! Still, it seems like the home stretch now...I sort of want to get to the end of the first draft!

I will do a synopsis of the story in a blog post soon, but for now, I'm going to post another little excerpt:

Before Joshua had even seen it coming, Devon was responding to the attempted punch - and his was certainly more successful.

Two sisters gasped. Two brothers fought. Two mothers exited their homes and looked on in horror, as the two boys who were clearly no strangers to fighting continued to pummel, dodge and taunt one another. Over their shouts, and Mary-Ann and Mae’s worried calls, no-one heard Cecilia muttering to herself, before turning her back on the fight and walking back to the house, intent on phoning the police.

“I told you no good would come from hanging around with Kingsley scum.”

Extract and new word count

Ok, so I've updated the ticker thing again (it was a choice once more between homework and writing, and I chose writing!) and I thought I'd post an extract. This is a part that I've just written, and it's from near the end of the novel, featuring the main character Mary-Ann, and her boyfriend, Devon.

And it was then, in that precise second, with the rain crashing down over her, the door in front of her, and her heart pounding harder than it ever had before, that she realised that she didn’t care: what he’d done, what he might do – it didn’t affect her, it didn’t bother her. She loved him. She could live with anything he’d said, anything people said about him – with her past, she was hardly an angel herself – and she could live happily. All she knew, even more so with every beat of her heart, every pulse of blood travelling at break-neck speed through her veins, was that she could not live without him. This was it – what people told of, what films portrayed, what the masses could only dream of: true, unrequited, unconditional…love. Yes, she’d said she loved him before, and at the time she thought she’d meant it, but it was now that she realised she couldn’t have meant it: how can you mean something if you don’t even fully understand it? And she hadn’t then – but she did now.

Her young age, lack of experience, these were not the reasons for the intensity of this feeling, and she knew it. This was not just lust. It had been lust, yes – that first day, when she had sat next to him, and her thoughts had been dominated by his looks: that was lust. When she’d first kissed him, it was lust-fuelled, but already it was turning into something more. And now…there was lust there, of course there was, physical attraction certainly figured in love. But this crashing, crushing wave of emotion, where she knew that that there was no way she could cope if she wasn’t with him, didn’t have his voice to look forward to, or his arms to comfort her – didn’t have his calming, soothing words when things went wrong, or his dark humour that brightened up her days – why, then it would all be pointless. Getting away with everything she’d gotten away with, putting up with the Kingsleys, spending all this time with Devon, all pointless if, after falling in love with him, she ended up breaking up with him…

“DEVON!” It was not the only sound that rattled through Wiltshire: her fist, raining down upon the door, accompanied it. “DEVON!” she screamed once more, her brain screaming it too, not able to think about what would happen if he didn’t answer…he had to, she needed him to. She hadn’t realised it before, but somewhere along the line she’d become totally dependent on him: his life and hers, she wasn’t sure they could be separate, that she could distinguish them any more. She needed him like she needed air to breath – and she wasn’t giving up without a fight. Whatever faced them in the future, she was fighting for it. And then the door wrenched open.

And here's the updated word count!

Why, oh why?

Why is it that when faced with doing homework and writing a novel, I always, always, seem to choose the novel option? I reckon it's the same for most teens who are trying to write a book, but I have to say, it's down-right difficult: I have an essay to do tonight, but insead I'm writing another chapter. Well, no, I was writing another chapter, but then I thought 'I really shouldn't be doing this', so I stopped writing the chapter, and instead...wrote on this blog. Yes, teen authors do not make the best students, I have found!




I thought this ticker was quite cool, so I'll be posting it to chart my progress. As you can see, it's goin well! I've said I'm aiming for 90,000, because I reckon that's what it'll end up at: 90,000 just won't cut it! I have reached the 85,000 mark, and so am hoping to be finished on ym first draft soon! My aim is June 1st, so I will let you know how I get on with that.

I've found a great site called Absolute Write - any budding authors should definitley check it out!

Right, I'm off to do some homework - oh, hell, why lie: I'm going to finish chapter thrity-two. =]