My online stories
I've been working on my novel for thirteen years and it has evolved significantly during that time. Confidence and lack of it has been the reason why I've never completed this novel and moved on. I’ve created a video sharing the six steps I took to help push me forward. This includes sharing my work so I had accountability, tracking my progress and using index cards.
My notebooks are such an important part of my writing journey. I use them to plan my days, weeks and months, for journaling my writing process and online presence, for planning out my essays, non-fiction and YouTube videos - and yes, I have my favourite designs for each task! In this video I share how I've used my notebooks during January including a revamped planning system, journaling my thoughts as my YouTube channel gets close to monetisation and tracking my word count for increased productivity.
My log and tracker pages are not beautiful works of art as many bullet journals are but they have encouraged me to be more productive and I’ve really enjoyed filling in the different trackers.
I’m delighted with the progress I’ve made - particularly with my novel. In the video below I share exactly how many words I’ve written this month as well as how I got on with my non-fiction, my essay and what I’ve read.
Well, it’s been a long time coming but I’ve finally finished the editing of my novel so it’s ready for the next, and hopefully final, draft before I start sending it out to literary agents.
I have been editing this novel for years now but it’s only in the last six months or so that I’ve finally knuckled down and put some proper thought and time into the process.
I have a playlist on my YouTube channel all about this editing process and it starts with a video called Writing my novel | what happens after the first draft? In that video I set out to edit the first draft of my novel and why it had taken me so long to get to this point. And I’m talking years!
A number of videos on this playlist share the process as I set about doing an outline of my novel, do some proper plotting, where I break it down and identify plot holes and write each chapter on index cards. It’s been a fascinating process and I learnt a lot about what was missing from my book. And now I’ve taken it apart I need to start the process of re-building - of piecing it back together again and to include everything I learnt about my characters and learnt about the holes in the plot.
Finally I did a little vlog at the weekend where I undertook the research I needed to do…and now I can begin the re-write. The final draft.
When I set up a writing tracker and log book at the end of last year to chart my progress during 2020 I hadn’t anticipated how one particular spread in the journal would make me write every day. It wasn’t deliberate at all, I just included that page because I wanted to record which projects I worked on on a daily basis. It’s not even a neat, Pinterest-friendly spread. I just scribble inside a rectangle when I’ve worked on a project that day.
I hadn’t anticipated how I’d feel if there was a gap in the grid. If I hadn’t worked on my novel for a day. Or even, horror, for two days. I had pride. And wanted to make that column a solid mass of scribble. But I also didn’t want it to become a stick to beat myself with. So I decided to keep it simple. I’d write for between ten and thirty minutes a day on my novel. Once I’d done that I could reward myself with a scribbled in rectangle!
It’s a similar system to when, a number of years ago, myself and a group of writers, would aim to write one hundred words a day. Only one hundred. If we wanted to write more we could - but that was the minimum we had to aim for. And it worked. A regular writing practice became established.
I’ve achieved quite a bit during my time online in the last decade. The one thing I’ve struggled with, however, is fiction. I started my online presence in order to create a brand for myself when I pitched agents with my novel. But lack of confidence and fear manifesting in procrastination and a focus on other projects on and offline meant the novel never got completed.
So this is how I’m going to do it. By writing every day for between ten and thirty minutes - and recording my progress on my YouTube channel. There’s nothing like a bit of accountability to make you pick up the pen or open your laptop!
I made this video to chat about why I decided to undertake this project and I also reveal how many words I managed to write, using this process of up to thirty minutes, during the course of a week.
I’ll update you again in a month!
I’ve had my novel notes sitting on my desk for many a month. I have a clip full of index cards and more index cards, disorganised and loose, just kicking about. This disorganisation reflects my mind and it can get stressful and put me off working on my novel.
So during this quiet period between Christmas and New Year I’ve decided to get myself organised with my novel in progress. For a lovely hour I worked on organising my notes and it was so therapeutic. It’s not complete but already I feel inspired, I’ve come across ideas I’d forgotten about and just getting everything in a logical system makes me motivated for the writing to come. My mind has become clearer.
It's very easy when working on the BIG WRITING PROJECTS to feel you aren't achieving anything on a daily, weekly or, even, monthly basis. I often get to the end of a writing day and think - what have I done today? It’s a depressing feeling, especially as I feel I haven’t stopped all day.
Now I know for a fact this is sometimes because I spend time on tasks that aren’t important. I’m busy doing non-relevant things that don’t further me towards my goals. With time and practice this is happening less often but it can still happen. Then I get disheartened and I might then lose hours scrolling through social media. More time lost.
So for 2020 I've decided to create a bullet journal with a tracker and a writing log to record all the writing I do.
