This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Hurrah! It's Emily's 12th column on Novelicious. If you would like to learn more about Emily, you can pop over to her blog – I know she'd like to see you!
HOLIDAYS!
I’m on holiday this week. I’m away from my day job for a full 9 days! So I’m going to *try * to make the most of it. The plan is to write my novel and do very little else for these 9 days. I’ve no other plans for this holiday so I’ve no excuses for not doing any writing.
This year has been something of a non-event writing wise so far so I *have* to do something. It’s a bit much telling people I write novels when I don’t actually do write them. I’ve talked about this before – the lure of Facebook (Bejewelled 2 in particular!) and sitting around watching DVDs is far too easy. I have to get writing again. I even feel a bit of a fraud writing this column since I’ve not actually been writing my novels – what kind of wannabe author am I?
Basically, I think I’m just a lazy cow. And it’s horrible to admit that.
Even if I write about 500 words a day, I’d be happy with that. And 500 words isn’t that hard to achieve (especially considering this column is roughly 500 words!) I’ve heard other writers combating a lull in writing by writing for a certain amount of time each day or writing a specific number of words a day. I’m going to try to aim for 500 words but if it doesn’t happen then I’ll write for 30 minutes a day – that way I know I’m writing and if it’s 10 words or 500 words I add to the novel, at lease I’ve written SOMETHING and that’s what is important.
I still love the ideas I’ve got for my novels so that’s not a problem writing wise. I could understand my lack of writing if I didn’t love the ideas I had. I did wonder if that was a problem but I thought about them all again and I still love them and I still think there’s potential there for other people to love them too. I’ve been asked if I would like to put an extract here to see what sort of feedback I get. I’m not sure I have the guts to do that if I’m honest, but I suppose it would be useful to see if I’ve *got* something or my ideas are just plain rubbish. I’ll think about it and who knows… you might just get to read some of my work here.
So this holiday I’m going to make up for not writing anything much this year.
You can keep track of my progress on my blog. I might not update it every day (because I’ll be too busy writing! ;o)) but I will try to keep you all posted on how I get on this week. And please feel free to nag me if I don’t write anything. Sometimes getting a good kick up the behind is just what I need. Right, I’d better leave it there and get writing, huh? ;o)
Yours,
Emily Tootsweet :o)