I can't believe it's come around so quickly. I wanted to look back at my first three chapters - as that's one part of everyone's books we will definitely be discussing - and spruce them up a little bit. Get rid of any unnecessary words and useless information and so on...
Over the last few days, I've been reading On Writing by Stephen King and that in itself has been a huge help. I haven't read any King for a while and it only served to remind me what a fabulous writer he really is.
It isn't a novel as such, more a collection of thoughts and advice on writing. He was mowed down in 1999 by a car and while he was recuperating he wrote this book, which is also part-autobiographical. What I love most about him is he completely cuts the bullshit and gives it to you straight. If you want to be a writer, you need to read and write as much as you possibly can. At one point he said something like
I'm a fairly slow reader but I get through about seventy or eighty books a year.
This threw me slightly, not least because this is him reading SLOWLY! I'm on my twenty-fifth so far for 2014, therefore I'd better hurry up, eh?? Saying that, we'll have to read and critique each other's works during the course, so maybe I can count them as another fourteen books...? #WishfulThinking
Seriously though, if anyone out there is thinking of getting in to writing, I would highly recommend this book. He talks of grammar, what you need in your "toolbox" and also suggests other books to help you. It's made me want to read The Shining and Carrie all over again!!
This week I entered a competition run by Grazia magazine - the First Chapter Competition. Rachel Joyce (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry) has started the first chapter of a book, just a paragraph or so, and my job was to complete it in under a thousand words. I've spent the last couple of weeks doing that and I'm pretty happy with the finished product. I sent it off first to my lovely mentor Miranda Dickinson who gave me some brilliant constructive notes, so I edited away on Sunday evening and sent it off first thing on Monday morning. I was so nervous putting it in the envelope - like sending my baby away to University, possibly to be drawn all over with red pen!
I'm glad I did it though. Even if I don't win (prize is story published in Grazia magazine and an invite to the event at the Royal Festival Hall where I'll go on stage to collect my award, oh and £1,000 but balls to the money, I'd like the award!!) I'm really pleased to be pushing forward so strongly with the writing. It makes me feel like I'm doing something productive.
Well, that's all for me for now! No doubt I'll blog after the first session tomorrow (gaaaaah!!) - wish me oodles of luck if you can! Seriously, so nervous.
EG xxx
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