Tag Archives: research

4 Days Left…

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The Parent's House

The Parent’s Home

I’m starting to get that nervous feeling like I get the week before a show opens.  Now that I know I only have 4 days left of lounging about, and in 4 days I will be starting my novel, I’m feeling nervous that I’ll sit down to write, and nothing will come of it.  Just like when a show is about to open, and my biggest fear is that I won’t remember any of my lines.  I’ve thought and thought about this book for the past 4 months, and here we are almost in ACTION time, and I can’t help but feel that thought of “What if I don’t finish it?  Or even worse, what if I don’t start it?”

The truth is, I know I will, and I know it will be good.  I have done so much research, I have laid in bed every night going over and over the plot in my mind, and I have lived it.  How else to prepare?

I will have to find out.  I am also very excited to be starting a life.  We have been in that space between life and non-life for too long that drinking has become off limits.  I think I have so much bottled up inside of me that everytime I have even one drink, I get this incredible sensation to hit something or scream at the top of my lungs – and, quite frankly, this is not a good way to make new friends in a foreign country.

So, writing will become my way of living – through the characters, their thoughts, and their actions.  You better believe, they are going to be full of life, full of heart, and just…well, just FULL – not in the eating constantly way, but in the way that gives someone a rounded existence.  I think just having an objective again, a reason to wake up in the morning, une raison d’etre will be enough to jump start this.  Heck, just living alone will be enough to celebrate with a good opening chapter in my book!

Today is Thursday (half way through Thursday) – just have to get through Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday – wake up around 10AM, drink tea, eat apple, go for run. Shower, get dressed, respond to some emails, and watch Music and Lyrics while eating some lunch.  Then what?  Talk to some people on Skype, and hopefully dinner will be ready by then…

Saturday – Jock’s car arrives!!!! Maybe go for a spin? Do some running, and eat take away with boyfriend’s parents.

Sunday – PACKING!!! And more packing and more packing and more….maybe run, maybe be bored, and day dream about the next day of freedom, weight loss and writing…Sunday roast will be cooked by boyfriend’s mother.

I think this is highly doable!!

On another note, what is the UK thinking by monitoring Facebook sites??  Thanks Eileen for sending this – I’m deleting my profile…it’s all a bit creepy for me.

Jock just got back from running, and has all my laundry in his hands (I guess he started a load on his way out?).  He’s so good – and I should be getting back to my boring next couple of days anyway.  Ho Hum.

The Beginning of the Beginning

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I started writing last night.  I got a bug at about 2AM and I couldn’t go to sleep because I had a sudden realization of how the book will begin.

I’ve been doing all this research on authors writing the same sort of stories I plan on writing, and just am reading as much as I can to figure out what I feel works and doesn’t.  Although I know the subject I’m going to write about, I had no idea where to begin, and I felt research would help guide me in the right direction.  It’s amazing how many young female authors there are that are really popular right now.

I think the biggest piece of advice was found on Cecelia Ahern’s website.  I ordered a book of hers online called Thanks for the Memories, and when I received it, I realized she was the author of P.S. I Love You, which happens to be one of my favorite moves of all time.  I didn’t even know that was a book, let alone a young female author had written it!  Not only did she write that, but she is also the creator of Samantha Who? starring Christina Applegate.  It’s so nice to see women who are multi-talented, and bringing strong female leads to the cinema and television.  Right, so this is the advice she writes to aspiring writers about how to start a book:

“Find the environment that suits you to write. Silence is an inspiration to me. Space is so important. Left alone for an hour, my mind starts to create. Scenes begin to fill the empty spaces and the sounds of those scenes and characters voices fill the silences. My belief is that if you wake up in the morning, or in the middle of the night, and all you want to do is write, then you’re a writer. There is no magic formula to being a writer and there is no magic formula to writing a book. It’s something that comes from deep inside that cannot be taught in any writing class….

You have to introduce your characters, you have to set up the story, you have to embark on the story, travel through the story, allow your characters to often lead the way, then you reach your destination that should feel right without having taken any short cuts or U-turns or circles and then end it when the journey’s complete.
I think that aspiring writers should find their own voice, don’t try to repeat what is already done because it seems to be successful, do your own thing. Don’t be afraid to do something different.”

I am so excited to have my own space and my own silence to find that time.  It seems to me that writing is a lot like acting, only you get to find more than one character at a time.  I can not wait to really get into the journey.  Just as in acting there are no shortcuts, it seems that writing will teach me again to go through the journey one step at a time.  We are so often probed to get a result, get a product…when will I learn that it’s the process that counts?