#TemptationTuesday - Inside All Night Long

 It's Tuesday so here's a little bit of temptation.

Here's something from one of my NaNoWriMo projects a couple of years ago All Night Long. Christina Hughes-Ellis has been scared by the man she loved after he is killed on their wedding day. His secret life unravels and Chrissie has lots of questions and no way of getting answers. Her fiancee was already married? She was his mistress? Three years later after a national media scandal she's still the talk of her town so Chrissie has no intention of entering into another relationship. Certainly not with a married man, and certainly not with the man married to Canada's most famous television personality.

All Night Long

“CANUK Flight C U K zero six one L to Victoria, will all passengers proceed to gate thirty six”

A swell of sadness pooled inside Chrissie’s stomach. He had to leave and go back to that horrible mess waiting for him. She headed towards the sofa where Miles was hiding at the back of the store.

Everything around her faded into the background. His loafer-clad feet dangled over the arm rests and the book she'd handed to him rested open on his stomach. But his dark lashes fanned his cheeks as he slept and his chest rose and fell in a relax rhythm.

A fire burned deep in Chrissie's stomach just from the mere sight of him. It singed the air from her lungs. Short, shallow breaths sucked in and out as she approached the sofa. Girl, get a grip!  Her mind screamed, though her heart raced. Somehow, Crissie had to figure out how to control this inappropriate teenage crush. Miles was having an incredibly hard time and this was how she had gotten into trouble the last time. All she had to do was wake him up, get him out of the store and on to the plane without him figuring out that he had an effect on her.

Introducing Tinsel and Tiaras: NaNo - WIP

Well, my 30 days of literary abandon well and truly went bust. I managed a pitiful 1,500 words. As you can see my plan of using the 30 minutes bus ride to University to write on my Blackberry didn't work.


What did happen however was I came up with a fabulous new plot for a Christmas themed NaNo-Novel currently titled Tinsel and Tiaras. I'm currently working out the kinks to be able to spend my Christmas break writing this. 


Looking forward to it. NaNo has come late for me this year I think :-)  


Erin

NaNoWriMo: 1-50k in 30days???

Is it really that time of year again?

The weather here in England has only just turned miserable in the last few days, I think I can be forgiven for not believing we're in the middle of October already! National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) is just around the corner! Eeek! How exciting!

NaNoWriMo is about just sitting down and writing, its about getting the words on the page. Forget all about the fluff and the pomp thats what December is for! November..is 30 days and 30 nights of literary abandonment ... November is just for the pure joy of writing.

So here were are...  Mid October and the start of autumn. The leaves are turning, its started to rain and the wind's picked up. Its a perfect excuse for snuggling in the warmth with pen and paper and start planning for NaNoWriMo. If you're contemplating taking on the challenge this year I'd definately recommend some sort of planning. I completed NaNoWriMo in 09. I planned Devine Intervention down to the smallest of detail and hit 50k in 23 days. In 2010 I decided to write All Night Long just a few days before. There wasn't much planning and I hit 50k 5mins before midnight 30th November. It was like cramming for a really important exam. 

I definately recommend getting an early start. I was getting up 2 hours earlier every day to do my NaNo writing. 1,667 words a day isn't very much. If you can get as many words written as possible to get yourself a head start then you allow for days when you won't be able to write. In 2009, I became a team leader in my 2nd week of NaNo. I was already at 25k before that happened because I knew the extra responsibility was going to affect my time. This year I'm at university and all of my end of module assignments are due in at the end of November. Those obviously get priority. So I'm going to utilise Blackberry Word2Go on my bus ride to and from uni.

Completing NaNo is a wonderful feeling. Its a challenge that you set yourself and knowing that no matter what life throws in your way you've been able complete it, that's worth a smile.

Erin

Posts you may have missed:

A Review of NaNoWriMo 2010

NaNoWriMo - Summary

Other NaNoWriMo Posts

Read an extract from Devine Intervention and All Night Long at www.erincawood.co.uk

A Review of Nanowrimo 2010

My followers told me about NaNoWriMo in 2009. Its 30 days and 30 nights of literary abandonment. Anything goes as long as you hit a target of 50,000 words. Last years event bore the fruits of Devine Intervention, which has now developed in the last twelve months into a series. If I thought achieving this goal with a temporary promotion, additional responsibilities and very sick grandmother was easy in 2009 then surely 2010 was going to be a walk in the park. 

Far from it. 2010's attempt at National Novel Writing Month hadn't even entered my head until the middle of October. I'd finished my redraft of Life's A Ball? and listening to a line in I think it was a Saturdays song and suddenly I had an idea for a character who worked the night shift and All Night Long was born. But I was days away from flying to Cuba and had decided to leave my netbook at home just incase I had any problems with the Cuban authorities.

I began All Night Long with nothing more than an idea for a character who worked the night shift in an airport bookstore and she was going to fall for a customer. Last year I learned that Freemind is the essential planning tool for something as crazy as writing a novel in 30 days. The month started well, I was fully rested from the holiday and had evening and weekends to myself I was well ahead of scheduled. But as we went into the second week I began working shifts and then suffered a migraines. Suddenly I was struggling to hit my daily target. The migraine set me back not only in terms of nanowrimo but also I don't get sick pay, and my performance against my targets are affected. I needed to put in the extra hours to catch up at work, earn back the loss of income... nano was becoming lower and lower on the list. by day 29 I'd suffered a second migraine and was 5,000 words off target. That's when I remembered I'd promised my niece and nephews a cake for their school fair.

Day 30, I'm up and I'm writing, a cool 2,000 words before I head to work for a 9pm finish, the first part of my lunch break was spent heading to the buy the ingrediants for both a christmas cake and a sponge cake. I still have know idea what I'm going to do until I'm standing at the cake and nut supplier in the market. That's when it hit me. I'm going to make a Christmas Tree. I get home at 9:10pm whip together the fruit cake ingrediants and almost die when I see it takes 4hours to cook. By now I have just over two and half hours to write 3,000 words. I've done it before I tell myself. 11:55pm: I update my status on the Nanowrimo website. My breath catches as I await the word calculator: I sigh with relief 50,033 words. But there's now rest for the wicked.... I've a sponge cake to bake, decorate and get to school by 12:00 noon tomorrow.

I got less than 5 hours sleep that night but I loved it! Bring on Nanowrimo 2011

Erin

Read the poem Fighting A Losing Battle and more Poems written by Erin Cawood at erincawood.co.uk.

NaNoWriMo - Summary

"Throw all caution to the wind" they say. National Novel Writer's Month is about not having to worry about the technical processes that are required in novel writing.

This is the first time I've done NaNoWriMo and I've followed the advice handed out by the many people out there. I spent a month planning my novel Divine Intervention. In fact I spent so much time preparing and planning that I thought if I didn’t stop planning, my plans would become the story.

Yet once the time came, and I set my alarm for six a.m. Sunday 1st November 2009, found it incredibly difficult to write the novel. The first few thousand words just rolled off the mind and puff ... it was all gone and I suddenly felt this incredible pressure. I had to write 50,000 words in the next 30days.

Beyond my writing space my life was a little crazy anyway, I was about to start a temporary promotion at work and I knew that towards the end of the month there would be little time left to write.

I guess you could say I - like many other people - am afraid of failure. My refusal to fail at National Novel Writing Month has turned Divine Intervention into unspeakable mess, the voice of Gabrielle is bland, and her exciting life as a guardian angel is not so riveting. My secondary characters are flat and my hero, Kyle, he would cower in a corner crying "please don’t hit me" if you some much as raised your voice at him. ...

Mmm.... A lot of work to do I guess. (Ha-ha understatement!)

On reflection, where I haven't enjoyed the pressure of getting up at 5:30 writing for an hour before going to work, working sometimes almost 12 hours and then coming home to write some more ... I have learnt that I am not a planner when it comes to writing. Knowing my characters strengths and their flaws, knowing their mannerisms and their lives inside out at the beginning doesn’t work for me. My characters grow with the plot and it's their growth that shapes the narrative voice.

I have plans for Divine Intervention. I am caught between two choices of “for whom? And where?” for what I do with it when the novel is completed. I’ll be looking at this from a business prospective rather that a creative prospective and once the audience and market is decided, Gabrielle and Kyle’s story will begin again.



Erin

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It's All About Change

October throws me back into a time of collecting horse chestnuts for playing conkers, or throwing handfuls of sycamore seeds into the air and watching them spiral their way to the ground like little helicopters.

It’s that time of year again where we bundle up the summer blankets in favour of the thicker warmer quilts. We dig into the back of closets and pull out the winter wardrobe and we wake up the heating system from its lazy summer sleep.

It’s that time of year where the world around us begins to change day by day right before our very eyes. The skies are a hive of activity as the birds begin to gather and migrate. The deer begin the annual rutting season and the trees turn from a wash of green to a splattering of red, oranges and yellows as the temperature plummets from summer warmth to cold enough to see your breath.

It’s that time of year again where the country goes a little pink crazy in support of breast cancer awareness month and the kids are doubly spoiled not only enjoy their first holiday of the new school year but also kicking off the run up to the festive period with a little trick or a lot of treats.

Even the time changes and we gain an extra hour of precious sleep as the clocks go back to signal the end of British Summer Time. Yes, its that time of year again. It’s autumn.

For me, This October is all about change. The shortening of day light hours means I am no longer able to walk to and from work. The month starts with a change of pace from my usually hectic life with a week of R&R. I’ll also be trading in all of my additional duties at the nine to five and refocusing on my long term goals.

The biggest change for the writer in me is the move away from my current work in progress (The Bridgewater Falls Series) for the next couple of months. I have finished Life’s A Ball (Book 2) and aim to strengthen the story by taking a step back, focusing my attention elsewhere for a little while and then go back to see what problems lie beneath.

In the meantime, I will be focusing up on the National Novel Writers Month. I will be taking part in NaNoWriMo and challenging my self to write a 50,000 words (175 pages) novel within the 30 days of November. October is the chance for me to work out the plot and the characters of what is currently known as Mystic Mayhem.

You can keep up to date with my NaNoWriMo progress here.

Erin

More about Mystic Mayhem at erincawood.co.uk.