Getting Started

I've signed up for the Southern Cross Novel Challenge (aka SoCNoC) over at Kiwiwriters to give me a reboot for the writing. I was in a daring mood & having read the fine print, thought "yes this is for me - the Everest of the writing world", then thought "maybe I should start small" & downgraded the quest to the HalfNoc (25,000 words in a month), given that I havent got past 2,000 previously. How to eat an elephant - one bite at a time.

So Ive read a few of the participants linked sites, read the 'how to' of the challenge, put the icon thingy on the blog, put the laundry on, the dryer on, had a couple of cups of coffee, stopped to watch BBC's Heartbeat (for research & ideas), phoned big sister in England, and so Im good to go. No more procrastination!! which I know a lot about having read Marilee Faber's blog 'notenoughwords'. If Im honest the last two hours have been about procrastination, including having to get the teen to turn the base down on the stereo out in the garage so it didnt reverberate through my bones 20 metres away in the house. I think some women would agree that getting the washing through the dryer etc is procrastination if you dont have a family needing dry clothes for school/work etc - but if I dont do it I feel like I can't settle in to what I want to really do. The bathroom cleaning & vacuming will wait for another time, maybe till the dust bunnies are so large a simple side-step wont be enough to get around them, when they are so large they block the doorways & windows & take on a life of their own, like something out of Doctor Who.

I'm too late to join Merilee's creativity workshop so I'm sticking to the HalfNoc and will hang for dear life on the guidance of some of the saged writers - some of who are half my age and sound so full of knowlege & experience of the whole writing thing. Ive not got to the 'certainty' stage which dogs me each time I set out to pen (key) the story. So here is what I am certain about:

Protagonist: Middle-aged female
POV: Third person
Setting: City servicing rural region

I have read books which must number in the thousands, yet when it gets down to writing or analysing fiction writing, so much is taken for granted by the reader -especially one who wants to write. So I'm reading a new purchase called Make a Scene (Jordan E Rosenfeld) because I need to distinguish the scenes, learn structure. This follows on from my pawing over 20 Master Plots and how to build them (Ronald B. Tobias) which was helpful but without someone to discuss my 'idea' with, Im not quite sure whether I am writing a 'discovery' plot, or 'tranformation' plot, or 'underdog' plot, so there you go - while they were fascinating reads, I dont know enough about my story to be able to label it one of these. What I do know is that it's really like the very english "village" or "community" type books like Helen Simonsen's or Joanna Trollope, or even Miss Read stories because these are what I enjoy reading, a nice vacation from the real world, with a bit of steel & humour along the way. Anyway Ive got more reading to do to get some homework done before 1/6/2010. So Im off to KiwiWriters.org again. Thank heavens its raining so Im stuck inside!!