The Weekend Past & The Week Ahead

This is a very busy period of time, last week I worked all week which meant I had a ton of stock piled jobs in the writing world and around my home. I posted what needed to be done on Friday and had high hopes of doing it all – simply not enough hours, or not enough I could stay awake for at least!

There are only a few outstanding jobs as I move forward into the next busy week – I am working half the week plus I have 1 – 3 spoken word events (1 for sure I am reading at!) I also have a workshop in Oxford, a poetry performance and a reunion with old friends in their new house.

I am sure the list of jobs will be added to. I need to use Monday evening (poss Tues night – late), Wednesday daytime and possibly evening, and then possibly some of Thursday and Friday!

 

 

 Poetry

I want to catch up on the PAD poetry challenge – already a day behind again.

I need to get my set ready for tomorrow. I am performing at the ORT café again in a Remembrance Sunday event called Poet’s for Peace. I have written a few new poems (from the PAD challenge) but there are also some websites I want to visit and read and then write some more poetry specifically for my set. I will need to spend some time later reading over these poems, preparing and rehearsing.

I also need to get my poetry ready for my set on Thursday night – which was booked back in October and now is going to be my 7th appearance (not my 2nd as I first thought it would be.)

 Admin

I need to email Emma my poem for next weekend’s workshop in Oxford. (I missed last night’s deadline due to the connectivity issue!)

I need to check my emails as I haven’t all week! (Work) PARTLY DONE

 Blogging

I need to catch up in Blogland. (Epic FAIL)

 Writing

I want to get ahead on Wrimo writing to compensate for next week – next week I am working 3 days, I have 2 performance events, a stanza meeting and a workshop and performance in Oxford. I know there will be little time to reach 1667 targets and I will be happy to produce 800-1000 a day. Which means today and tomorrow I really need to overwrite. by the end of next week I expect to be on target for the 30th November and not beyond (as I have been since the start of the challenge!)

I have also just discovered it is the Marathon Writing Day for Nanowrimo today!

I also managed to sign up for the Picture book challenge –  PiBoldMo last week, the site gave me error messages but I received an email offering registration (which closed on the 7th November) so I have to catch up with what is going on in this challenge – basically a month thinking up 30 different picture book ideas. I found out about it when I did my Children’s Picture Book Writing Course back in May.

 

 Reading

I also need to spend some time reading my way through a poetry magazine which I borrowed from stanza two meetings ago and was meant to give back last month and forgot.

I also (finally) subscribed to my writing magazine, I have been buying it all year, but since moving house there are no stockists over here. It also saves me money. £15.00 a year, that’s a poetry book, performance or a bit of petrol money for events in 2014 already banked…. which is great because I totally over spent this year’s budget by twice as much again! Of course I hope to win it all back in some poetry prize in 2014. My new magazine arrived in the post a few days ago and is still in it’s sealed packet!

I also need to start reading Hooked – the writing book James leant me at the 42 Event last month!

 

I DIDN’T HAVE TIME FOR ANY OF THAT READING – I SPENT A FEW HOURS READING THE END OF MY CURRENT NOVEL.

 Life

It is also a friend’s birthday this weekend so I am out tomorrow and need to go gift shopping today, and there are other friends I am meeting up with today in between running errands in town, sorting out household monies and doing a bit of cleaning up at home.

So a busy weekend – looks like I needed that mammoth sleep!

2013 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 10

2013 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 10

Ten days is kind of a big deal for this poetry challenge. I mean, we’re talking double-digit days now. The big “one-zero.” Yeah, ten!

For today’s prompt, write a poem incorporating something sweet. Maybe a cake or pie. Possibly a candy bar or pixie stick (you know, that paper straw with delicious sugar inside–mmm). Or move it sweetly in another direction.

Robert Lee Brewer

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and a bit of a sugar junkie who especially favors tangy candies (like Sweet Tarts, Appleheads, and Skittles), though he can also go for chocolate, caramel, and vanilla. His mouth waters just thinking about all the sugary goodness in the world.

Funny that this should come up because the friend we met at the bar yesterday afternoon is a master baker – we are trying to get him to open a shop! He made this gorgeous creation that I was tempted to write about last night too! He included homemade cookie dough and Oreo’s (product placement please send me some!) as well as gooey good chocolate. It was an immense, highly layered extravaganza and the sugar rush off one small slice of that cake… well!

The staff all shared it and loved it too and Mr G and I myself were given the remaining cake slices to bring home! It helped me through last night’s Nano write – as I was falling asleep and I will have some for late night pudding tonight! MMMMMMMM! It is tempting to eat it whilst writing about it – but I may get sticky, messy fingers on the keys. So instead, I will imagine it! 🙂

HmmmmmmummmmmmmmHmmmmammmmmmm!

Today’s poem is called Cake Man and will be taken with me to the Oxford Emmapress workshop next weekend for some work!

Day 10 NaNoWriMo – 20K Smashed!

I originally posted this morning – Post Marathon Cool Down NaNo

I have written today’s Nano in three parts – as I attended a Poets for Peace event this afternoon and dropped in on a birthday friend!

Happy Birthday Liz!

This morning I managed 1289 words before getting ready for my Poetry set.

I have written in two sittings this evening – just before tea – a wonderful allotment grown pumpkin curry take 2 (less chilli) made by the delectable Mr G. and finished just now – laptop balanced on very full and happy stomach. I managed another 891 words bringing today’s total to

and my actual word count total to 20193!

I HAVE SMASHED 20K  on a weekend that was kicked off by reaching 15K!

I am delighted. My personal challenge this weekend was to break 20K and I have still managed to go out spend an afternoon with friends, catch up on my sleep, attend a Poetry for Peace event, visit a birthday friend and finish reading my novel as well as writing just over 5000 words and writing 4 new poems!

WOW!

Words Written Today = 2,180

Target Word Count 50,000

Total Words Written = 20,193

Words Remaining = 29,807 (see I said this would be below 30,000 before the end of the weekend!)

 

 

Day 10 NaNoWriMo Post Marathon Cool Down

Yesterday saw the first NaNo Marathon, I believe they raised over $7000 in donations. I managed a daily word count in less than 2 hours and broke 18000 words.

Today I am busy. It is Remembrance Sunday and I am performing at Poet’s for Peace and after this event need to visit a friend for her birthday – open house, I also need to make it to a food shop to buy lunch for tomorrow at work …. and get ready.

I have an hour or so to do most of that.

I started my nano write this morning and managed 1289 words, I am pleased with this but had to stop to get ready for today. am hoping I will have time to add more later and will update this blog post.

I plan to crack 20,000 words today!

Words Written Today = 1,289

Target Word Count 50,000

Target Average Words Per Day 1,667

Total Words Written = 19,302

Words Remaining = 30,698 (This will be less than 30000 later today!)

Poet’s For Peace – Remembrance Sunday

I am honoured to be able to mark this Remembrance Sunday with Poetry and words. After all the processions and services this morning a group of poet’s and hopefully some audience are meeting at the Ort Café to perform poetry about peace, for peace.

 

It was a fantastic relaxed event and I even managed to buy one of the white Peace Poppies (pictured), I had only written 4 poems for this event, all of them have been created from the PAD challenge this month. There was time to read more so I logged onto the blog and found a suitable challenge poem I wrote for Picture it and Write and adapted another challenge poem to centre around an injured soldier instead of a youth in angst and pain.

Of course the real message is the promotion of peace, and in a small corner of the world, we managed that today, through our words and the words of the Great War Poets.

Peace be with you all x

Lest We Forget – Remembrance

For all those who fell on blooded fields,

We remember.

 

For those lives given to save our own,

We remember.

 

For the boys who return men,

We remember.

 

For those who fought for our freedom,

We remember.

 

In stone,

In petals,

In prayer.

We remember.

 REMEMBRANCE DAY 2013

Top TIPS for Wrimos – NaNoWriMo

During the NaNo Marathon (yesterday, 9th November) I watched  LOTS of live streaming from the Google Hang Out – mainly to placate my guilt from not writing much as I spent the afternoon and evening with friends we’d not seen for a while and to feel part of the nano community as I missed the regional meet/ write in/ live marathon.

For those of you who didn’t run or watch and for those of you who did, here are some inspirational tips now we have passed the 30% barrier!

TOP TIPS

on getting stuck….try

 

Chocolate

Taking a break

do something not novel related

Go back to it

Start at a different point

Some writers add a challenge word

Take a shower

Murder your inner editor

Chat or forums twitter – ask for help maybe someone out there has an idea

Look at cat pictures or something else on the internet every 15minutes or 100 words

Search random photos and add a scene about them

Dream sequences

Caffeine

Go to the library

People watch

Give yourself some inspiration for 10-15 minutes

Go for a walk

Take a timer 15-20 minutes

Go to the regional in person event – bunch of people trying to do the same thing

Word wars

Sprints

Have snacks handy

watch Google + hangouts

Go somewhere where all you can do is write

 

On hitting the wall;

keep writing and …

pray

sprint –  5 minutes as many words as you can

include certain things in the manuscript – wrimos pick key words/ objects etc

Ask ‘What would your character do if no-one was watching?’ & write!