Tag Archives: Stephen King

Reflections from York FoW part 2: Books, Books, Glorious Books!

7 Apr

One of the fabulous (and unexpected) perks of the York FoW were the tremendous goody bags that each festival goer was given.

These weren’t your usual “pen, notepad and handful of leaflets” goody bags.  No, these sparkly wonders were much more goody-filled.

Along with current copies of industry magazines including The Bookseller and Writing Magazine, there were several books.  Yes, really – actual books!

Those attending the Gala Dinner got even more books – a pair of books greeted us as our ‘favour’ at each place setting.  It was a book lovers heaven.

So, what with the goody bag books, the Gala Dinner books, and the three books I bought from the Festival Bookshop, I came away with eleven new books.  And a much heavier suitcase!

The eleven books I’ve added to my reading list are:

1. Debi Alper’s Trading Tatiana (Orion).  I bought this  because I adored her first book.

2. Toby Frost’s Space Captain Smith (Myrmidon). I bought this because I heard the author read an excerpt and it was totally laugh-out-loud hilarious.

3. Nicola Morgan‘s Wasted (Walker).  I bought this because I’ve heard brilliant stuff about it, and I love the author’s blog.

4. Stephen King‘s Different Seasons (Hodder)

5. Turning the Tide by Christine Stovell (Choc Lit)

6. I have waited, and you have come by Martine McDonagh (MyriaEditions)

7. Florence & Giles by John Harding (blue door)

8. The Juggler by Sebastian Beaumont (Myrmidon)

9. The Blood Lance by Craig Smith (Myrmidon)

10. Once, Two Islands by Dawn Garisch (Myrmidon)

11. The Stonecutter by Camilla Lackberg (Harper)

They’re a good mix of genres, and I’m looking forward to exploring new books by some of my favorite authors, as well as books by authors I’ve not yet read.

I can’t wait!

Aiming high: how many words a day?

6 Sep

Words-per-day.  Just about every book about writing tells you it’s good to have a target.  Something to aim for.  Something that helps you step away from Twitter, YouTube and all the other fabulous, shiny distractions available and write, actually write, your novel.

But what should that word count be?

Well, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiction) states professional writers usually produce 500 to 1,000 words a day.   But, this doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone.  In the Guardian article Ten Rules for Writing Fiction (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/10-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-two ) Sarah Waters gives her daily minimum as 1000 – sandwiched between Graham Greene’s 500 and Jean Plaidy’s 5,000.   And, of course, Stephen King is well known for his 7-days-a-week daily target of 2,000 words.

But these are professional writers, what about us aspiring authors?

For myself, writing between full-time work and other commitments, I average around 400 a day during the week, with extra at the weekend (depending on how social I am).  Pretty good, right?

Wrong.  On the dynamic twitter feed #amwriting I see people achieving way, way more.  1,000 words, 2,000 words and above are all common place.  It makes me feel quite inadequate!

So, I decided to set myself a stretch goal.  I’ve taken a deep breath and signed up for NatNoWriMo.

If you’ve not already heard of it NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month to give its full name, is an annual event that’s been running since 1999.  The goal, and it’s a big one, is to write a novel in a month.  Sounds impossible right?  But last year 167,150 around the globe took part.  32,173 even succeeded.

The aim is to write 50,000 words in a month.  November to be precise.  There’s a load of advice and guidance on their website http://www.nanowrimo.org and online forums galore.  All available for free, to help us budding writers keep going through the pain barrier as our exhausted fingers begin to fuse to the keyboard.

And exhausted we will be.  Splitting the goal into a daily target, in November I’ll be aiming to average 1,666 words a day, that’s roughly 12,500 per week.

So, stock up on the groceries, unplug the telly and hold the phones.  NaNoWriMo … I’m ready!

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