WRITING PLAN

Or Writing Strategy?
It's that time of year when many of us are thinking of the days and months ahead. For a writer this is a crucial time. Writing doesn't just happen as we all know, often at a cost, and a little time spent thinking about what you want to achieve in the next 12 months is time well spent. Many of you may have been caught up in the notion of making 'resolutions' only to let yourself down by the end of January. I've been reading a lot these past few days about why that just doesn't work. I used to be a resolution maker, thinking that the dreams I had on New Years Day were there for the taking. But the trouble was as with all dreams, is they don't just happen. A little like writing. There is nothing wrong with dreaming and if you're just happy with the thoughts then dream away. But if you want things to work, if you want writing success then there's a little bit of work to do and not just this week, for the other 51 weeks too. 


A couple of suggestions struck me when I was thinking about my writing plan this week. The first was about having a strategy, so having a means to an end, rather than thinking about the end. This of course means goals, some small chunks of action that will get you the big dream. I don't know why I'm surprised by this revelation, it's a method I used in my previous life, before I was a writer and it seemed to work then. The trouble is with us writers, we do tend to be a bit dreamy, sucking at the end of our pen, waiting for the muse... and if you're like me and a Pisces, then it's double trouble.
The second thing was about making the goals personal. So putting 'I will' in front of an action is much more active and personal to you that it makes it more obligatory. I know, I know. A lot of this is probably psycho-babble but if it works for you why not? Simon Whaley blogged this week on a similar subject of just getting on with the task in hand, for if you don't 'just do it' - it won't happen. And the results could be quite surprising. 


So whichever way you want to play it, repeat after me...
Don't Think Just Write!

SEASONS GREETINGS

Merry Christmas to you all and A Happy New Year. Taking a week off next week so see you all in 2011!




Don't Think Just Write

WRITING STRUGGLE

Muse On the Run
My muse has up and left this week. Maybe it' the cold weather, maybe she's just in need of a rest. I know we all get down times and I guess this is mine. I'm determined not to let it get to me so I've been sorting all my writing projects out, updating submissions and re-looking at all my 'works in progress' especially my Monday Muses at Writers Abroad. So sometimes it's good that the Muse goes missing as it gives us time to reflect on what we have done and what we can maybe do. So after a very frustrating three days I'm beginning to smile again even though she hasn't returned. She will, it's just part of a writers life. No point in complaining to you lot anyway, because you all know what its like. Just wanted to tell you, it's OK, I'm OK and I will be back writing. Why? Because I know I want to and therefore I will and I'll take a piece of my own advice which I share on each blog...
Don't Think Just Write!

FIRST EDITIONS

Emma by Jane Austen
I noted that in the latest edition of Writers News, a first edition of Jane Austen's novel 'Emma' is going up for auction at Sotheby's this month with an estimated £100,000 price tag. By nature, I'm a bit of a researcher so I thought I'd dig around a little on first editions. After all, it's a lot of money for one book, one very old book but one of great standing nevertheless. When I typed my query into Google, the first hit was a link to the Mail on-line dating back to June 2008. A first edition of this novel had then been sold at auction for a staggering £180,000. 
I continued to dig and discovered that although there is no record of how many first editions there would have been, it was probably no more than a thousand copies. 'Emma' has been heralded as one of Austen's finest works so it's no wonder that fans  of her work would pay a princely sum to get their hands on a copy, even if they could source one at a fifth of the price they go for at auction. It made me wonder who would be paying that kind of money and what did they expect in return? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps if you have that kind of resource available for a book which probably needs some kind of ongoing protection to preserve it, then you don't need to explain your motives. 
Why am I pondering the unponderable I hear you asking? Well as Writers Abroad has just published its first edition of short stories, it made me wonder if, in years to come, Sotheby's would be clambering to get hold of a prized copy. After all, to date, only 30 have been published, making them rarer than hens teeth. No? You don't agree? Perhaps not, but one can have dreams you know...


It's good to be back, by the way and I'm looking forward to celebrating the highs of 2010 and planning the future for 2011.


Don't Think Just Write

WRITER TURNED PUBLISHER

Writers Abroad Anthology in Print
Yes, that's right. The Writers Abroad Anthology of Short Stories can be purchased in hard copy (that's a real book to most of us) from Lulu. Although the Anthology is available for free download as an E book from the Writers Abroad Home Page, we couldn't resist the temptation to produce our very precious production in print. The exercise itself has been very interesting and despite some hair pulling moments a very pleasurable experience and one I wouldn't mind doing again. Lulu offers a 'print on demand' service and therefore doesn't have thousands of copies sat in some warehouse. This can make the end product a little more expensive than normal purchases but not much and we were also provided with a free ISBN number so can put it up on Amazon and other related sites. Lulu allows you to set a profit too, so you can make money out of your publications if you wish to. 


This isn't something we wanted to do as our Anthology was produced in support of National Short Story Week but that is food for thought. However, publishing through Lulu does have other issues you need to bear in mind, the biggest being that you have to also be the marketing department as well as the editor, designer and publisher. So if you want to make some return on your efforts (there is no other cost involved and of course Lulu takes a cut from all sales anyway) then you really need to consider this carefully. 
So if you want to purchase a copy follow this link to Lulu and please, tell me what you think!



Don't Think Just Write

NATIONAL SHORT STORY WEEK

Writers Abroad First Anthology Published

Yes, after months of reading stories from all around the world, written by ex-pat writers we have finalised our first Anthology of Short Stories. This has been an experience on many levels. Not only have we at Writers Abroad learnt a lot more about the craft of writing, we have also expanded our knowledge of the other parts of the process, like editing and publishing. Some of them have been painful lessons and the technological learning curve has been immense, but on the whole it has been one satisfying experience and one which I personally, would do all over again.

Overall we had 66 entries and have selected 29 of the finest stories which all went through a selection and editing process. All the stories are fictional but based on real life experiences as an ex pat. The collection total over 45 thousand words and the images for the front cover were supplied by Writers Abroad members. All of this in support of National Short Story Week which launched today. So pop on over to Writers Abroad and download your own PDF copy for free or flip through the whizzy on line version also available on our home page. 

Sit Back and Enjoy the Read!

Don't Think Just Write

WRITERS ABROAD

Is The Place to Be
Sorry all of you who do read this blog on a regular basis but I have been around, just lost my way a little bit. So apologies are in order.
Yesterday was the start of NaNoWriMo and there is a small group of us on Writers Abroad who have got the 'fever'. On the first day between the five of us we managed to pen ten thousand words (yes, 10,000 - that's an awful lot of zeros!) You can check out my  progress at my blog, Louise Charles.


One of my main projects at the moment is finalising our Anthology in support of National Short Story Week later this month. We had 66 stories from all corners of the world and have chosen 29 to appear in the final production. We have a total word count of just over 45,000 words and we have 29 super stories by authors at all stages of their writing life. It's been a learning curve to say the least and those that were chosen by our selection groups were for the following reasons;

1. Attention paid to the guidelines for submission, most importantly that they were short stories of fiction
2. A tale well told over a short period of time
3. Stories which made us laugh, cry or other but grabbed our reading attention

My thanks must go to Writers Abroad members who have been unfaltering in their support of this project and particularly the three who help with the overall management of the project. You know who you are! But it is not over yet. I have to produce the Ebook which will be available free to download from various sites. Also there are many of us who just long to hold the printed proper thing in our hands so I'm going to have ago at publishing it through Lulu. Which is a first for me and for that I owe a lot of thanks to a certain WA member who currently lives in Wales.

Finally, Writers Abroad in its on line form, is one year old this week, so its bubbly and cake all round. Happy Birthday Writers Abroad and thanks and good wishes for another year of writing success to all our members.

Don't Think Just Write