Monthly Archives: October 2014

Why I’ve decided to give NaNoWriMo a miss this year

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NaNoWriMoI have now been a NaNo or Camp NaNoWriMo winner three times in two years and each time I met my goal, I was ecstatic with the great feeling of achievement. However, I have had to take the reluctant decision not to take part in this year’s NaNoWriMo and as much as it pains me, I know it’s the right thing to do.

Last year, I wrote 50,000 words of my second novel during November and I followed the suggested rules to the letter by just sticking to the very vague outline I’d written and by never stopping to edit. I wrote 1,667 words minimum every day and by the end of the month, I had virtually a whole story. I couldn’t come back to it until April of this year though but I picked up where I’d left off to take part in April’s Camp NaNoWriMo and by the time that was finished, I was at 80,000 words. A couple of months later, I sent it to my Kindle for a read through. I was very pleased with the quality of what I’d written but the story was a mess and since then, I have been putting off getting down to sorting it out because I felt like I had no idea where to begin. And this is why I have decided not to do NaNo next month because if I do, I will end up with another messy story that I will spend most of next year trying to sort out.

Now that I have done three NaNos/Camps, I have realised that I am a writer who needs to plan first because when I don’t, I go off on so many tangents that the story I end up with is so far from what I wanted that I feel powerless almost to put it right. I just can’t go through that again. So instead, I am reading books and articles to help me do a proper outline for my second book which is what I should have done before starting it last November but I was impatient and the start date was looming. I feel just the same again. I have so many ideas that I’d like to get going on but I need to spend time plotting them out first before writing rather than rehashing the whole thing afterwards.

So back to book 2. I have a pretty good first draft which is a good start and the story idea is still a good one, I think. I have gone through all my chapters, summarising what I actually wrote in each scene as opposed to what I planned to write in my vague outline and I can see much more clearly now where the story has gone off the rails. I was reading an article on Janice Hardy’s Fiction University blog yesterday called NaNoWriMo Prep: Planning Your Novel’s Beginning and it was so helpful that I printed it out to use as a checklist for what I have already written. Yes, I’m doing it back to front but at least I’m going to do it to help me check the strength of my story. There are two further articles on her blog about the middle and the end as well which I will also look at. I’m going to finish reading K.M.Weiland’s book ‘Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success’ which I’ve been finding very helpful and then I’m going to get on and finish this first draft. I’m aiming to do that by the end of the year so that I can send it to beta readers and the RNA (the Romantic Novelists’ Association) early in the New Year.

I hope then that by the time I think again about book 3, I will know how to write a decent outline before I even start to write the story. To all those of you doing NaNoWriMo next month, I wish you the best of luck and hope that this time next year, I will be ready to join you again with a detailed outline in my hand! Thank you for reading and please do leave me a comment about your NaNo experiences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few proofreading tips to improve your manuscript

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courtesy of flickr.com

After last week’s post, I had many comments giving me advice on how to reduce the costs associated with self-publishing. One suggestion was that in time, I might be able to miss out the final professional edit but that I should never miss out the final professional proofread. I have pondered this over the past week and concluded that for the time being, I’m going to have to pay for all the professional help I can afford because as a new writer, I just don’t know enough yet to be sure of my writing.

However, I did recently start a course of training with the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Admittedly, it is only the beginners’ course in Proofreading that I’ve been doing but what I know for sure as a result of doing this course, is that I would make a very good proofreader (if you will allow me to blow my own trumpet just this once 😉 ) As a teacher in my day job, I already feel like I spend a lot of my time proofreading anyway when I’m marking children’s books and I have always been good at SPAG (that’s Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar to the uninitiated!) My husband’s advice has been that maybe in time, I might feel confident enough to do the proofreading myself, although I know there will be loads of you out there saying ‘No! You can’t do your own proofreading!’ I hear you and I understand.

Anyway, it got me thinking about some of the grammatical things I still find hard after all these years and I thought they would make a good blog post for today. These are a few things that you can do to improve your own manuscript before you send it off to the proofreader, making their job easier and maybe saving you a few pennies along the way.

1. When to use a colon

According to the Oxford Dictionary, there are three main uses of a colon:

  • Between two main clauses, where the second explains or follows on from the first.

By running the marathon, he achieved his goal: to raise £500 for Cancer Research.

  • To introduce a list:

You will need the following ingredients to make your cake: butter, flour, sugar and eggs.

  • Before a quotation and sometimes before direct speech.

The poster stated: ‘Your country needs you!’

 

2. When to use a semi-colon

The main job of a semi-colon is to show a break that is stronger than a comma but not as strong as a full-stop. It is used between two main clauses that are too closely related to be made into separate sentences but would still make sense on their own:

France is my favourite holiday destination; the weather is reliable and the food is delicious.

You can also use a semi-colon instead of commas in a more complex list:

Our holiday itinerary is as follows: three days in Memphis, including a visit to Graceland; three days in Nashville, seeing all the sights, especially The Country Music Hall of Fame; three days in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and a final day in Gatlinburg.

 

3. Punctuating Direct Speech

In the UK, we usually teach children to use double inverted commas around speech. However, many style guides recommend using single inverted commas for direct speech. Either is acceptable but you must choose one style or the other and stick to it:

‘I find all these punctuation rules so confusing,’ she said.

‘Me too!’ he cried.

“I find all these punctuation rules so confusing,” she said.

“Me too!” he cried.

You must always start a new line for each new speaker and the final piece of punctuation at the end of the speech, for example, a comma, full stop, question or exclamation mark, must come inside the inverted commas.

 

4. The Oxford or serial comma

Before I started writing, I had never come across this and I’m not sure whether I should feel ashamed about that or not! I’ve probably seen it in lots of writing over the years but just not noticed it. Anyway, if you’ve never come across it either, let me explain. The Oxford comma is an optional comma used for clarification before the word ‘and’ at the end of a list:

I went to the shops and I bought apples for my apple crumble, pears for the tart I want to make tomorrow, and raspberries.

 

One of the things a proofreader will want to know when they start working with you is what your style preferences are and they may ask you if you have a style sheet for them to work with. If you don’t, most will create one for you and check your preferences before they get started. This will allow them to maintain consistency throughout your document.

I have only touched on a few points today and of course, there are many other things a proofreader will look at for you but I hope you find these useful in your writing. I find the Oxford Dictionaries website very easy to understand for grammar issues if there is anything else you want to check up on. Happy writing and please do leave me a message in the comments about your grammar concerns. Thanks for reading as always 🙂