Write By The Sea had a wonderful evening on Thursday, with local crime writer Charlie Gallagher. After quite a few years as a serving police officer, Charlie is living the dream and writing full time. What did we cover? It would probably be easier to ask what we DIDN’T cover, but to give you a flavour…life as an author with and without a literary agent, the process of editing (not to be confused with proof reading), Point of View and Narrative Voice, genre and getting your books onto Audible, which is a rapidly growing sector of the market. Watch out for future Write By The Sea events.
I would like to take this opportunity of thanking The Grand for allowing us to hold our events in their spacious Tudor room. All our events will now be here, starting at 7pm. You may bring your own refreshments but tea and coffee will be available for a donation if possible.
For those of you that don’t know, NaNoWriMo is a month-long writing challenge that takes place every year in November. The challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, which works out to about 1,666 words a day.
With such an intense daily word count, the idea is that you are solely focusing on getting that crappy first draft down on paper. No rewriting. No editing. Those are things that come later. For now, you just write the story. And, if you’re writing 50,000 words in a month, a lot of those words are going to be crappy. And that is okay. It’s good, even.
Word count
Prepare Your Writing Environment
Where will you write? How will you write?
Decide this now, before November gets into full swing, and you’ll be setting yourself up for success.
In the interest of speed, most NaNoers choose to type their manuscripts—there are a few brave souls who write longhand, but not many, the choice is yours and what you feel comfortable doing.
Set up your computer so that you have good ergonomics and aren’t risking carpal tunnel syndrome or other issues from typing so much in a harmful way. Review these great stretches for writers and take the time to use them every hour or so, or when you start and finish a writing session.
Try to find a calm, quiet place to do your writing. If possible, set up a dedicated writing nook so that you can psychologically get into the mindset to focus on your writing whenever you go there. It’ll help you get more done!
Prepare Your People
Prepping to do NaNo the right way isn’t just a matter of getting your space set up—you’ll also need to prepare the people in your life for the challenge you’re about to undertake.
Have a frank discussion with your family, close friends, and maybe even your boss or co-workers about what you’re planning.
Let them know that you may not be available as much as usual, and that you’ll need more advance warning of events and activities that they want you to participate in.
At work, try to plan ahead so that you have extra lead time for crucial projects and don’t drop the ball because you’re busy thinking about and writing your novel. Let your co-workers know that you won’t be joining them for lunch most days, but make plans to stay engaged.
Let your family know they’ll have to take on more for themselves this month—you might not be packing all the lunches, walking the dog, and vacuuming everything every day.
Some NaNoers have found that November is a great time to teach their families to contribute more around the house; by being clear about the need to write and treating NaNo like a job or other key responsibility, they’re able to get other members of the household to contribute more. After November, you can keep up that momentum and use the newfound time to edit your book or write another one! Never feel guilty about writing, use your passion to push ahead and do what you would like to do during November.
Do Your Pre-Writing Work
The timer for NaNoWriMo starts at midnight on November 1—but that doesn’t mean that you can’t prep for it in advance.
A lot of the work of writing a novel actually happens before you write the first word of prose.
That’s not breaking the rules—you’re not cheating by outlining and creating character maps, inspiration boards, etc. before November 1. You just can’t start writing the actual narrative until then.
What kinds of things can you prepare in advance?
Choosing a genre
Brainstorming and mind mapping ideas
Creating a general plot arc
Character profiles
Names, backstory, motivations, archetypes
Worldbuilding
Setting, time, place, charting any sci-fi or fantastical elements
Scene notes
What are some key scenes that you’ll need to write to get from Point A to Point Z?
You can also work on determining your ideal reader and how you’re going to meet reader expectations during this pre-writing phase, which will help when you’re editing, publishing, and marketing the book later.
Expand characters and explore their goals
Describing your characters might be the most important part of preparing for your month-long writing adventure. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Character is plot, plot is character.” Consider:
What do your characters look like?
What are they curious about?
What do they love? What breaks their heart? What do they want? Why?
What is her core belief about herself?
What is his core belief about others?
What is her key fault?
What or who gets in the way of her getting what she wants?
Set the scene
Here are 5 tips to plan and link individual scenes to create structured story arcs:
Start with what you want your scene to reveal (purpose) …
Decide conflicts or unknowns to plant in your scene. …
Think about who your scene will involve. …
Brainstorm further developments. …
Group scene ideas into larger units.
The average scene should be between 1,000 to 2,000 words.
Create conflict
Your Protagonist
More than anything in the world, my protagonist wants:
But he/she is afraid of:
And his/her greatest weakness is (is it something like “falling in love too easily” or “crossbows”?):
Physical Antagonist Complete this section if you have a physical antagonist.
More than anything in the world, my antagonist wants (this can be as simple as humiliating the protagonist or something a little more ambitious like world domination):
My antagonist’s “beef” with the protagonist is:
My antagonist is afraid of (long-haired bunnies?):
His/her/its greatest weakness is:
Abstract Antagonist Complete this section if you have an abstract antagonist.
The antagonist in my novel is not a living, breathing being. It is:
If my protagonist does not battle against this antagonist, it will eventually (ruin his or her life or cause death?):
My protagonist is battling against this antagonist by:
Outline your story
Are you a pantser or a plotter or combo platter? If you’re a pantser, you might think plots are the work of the devil, sent to make stories feel wooden and contrived. If you’re a plotter, you may wonder how anyone finishes a book without a detailed TripTik. For those of you doing NaNoWriMo, think about creating a loose outline: what strange and mysterious things will happen as your character seeks his fortune or the secrets of her past? As Ray Bradbury wrote, “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”
Set Challenges and Rewards
As you head towards your NaNo goals, you may find yourself slowing down at points, stuck on what comes next or just plain unmotivated to keep writing at such a crazy pace.
How do you get over the hump?
Set challenges and rewards!
Humans are naturally motivated by competition, so make meeting your word count a game.
Try doing a Word Sprint, either on your own or with a friend who’s also doing NaNoWriMo; you can even find sprint partners in the NaNo forums.
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Above all enjoy the month, have fun, meet fellow writers, join Facebook or Twitter groups, pop along to our weekly get-togethers, chill out when not writing, please do not get stressed about your number count as just writing is enough.
The writing group had a very different event last week which proved to be very interesting, there are many forms of spiritualism and we only really touched on a couple. We had the lovely Carly Rose who actually came to our very first meetings and had been writing a book for a few years. After going through some traumatic events she found herself at the point of following her beliefs and also writing a book about healing.
Carly Rose
Carly Rose is the podcast host for The White Witch Podcast and an author who lives with the sea at the end of her road in Folkestone, Kent with her daughter Amelie, french bulldog Bowie and witch’s black cat Tarot. As a kid Carly never wanted to be a princess always wanted to be a witch, her mum Leonie is a closet green witch and honours many traditional pagan ways, combined with her grandparents moving from South London to Bodmin in Cornwall with school holidays packed off to stay with trips to Bodmin Moor, famous for its druid stone circles, talk of the fae and Cornish piskies along with the odd visit to the Boscastle Witches Museum all sparked a love for the craft which has never left Carly.
Carly loves aspects of the craft that link to green and hedgewitch practices such as working with native herbs and plants and shamanic rituals. With the podcast and her first book, The White Witch’s Book of Healing, Carly aims through her work to keep some of the old ways very much alive and known of but to demystify how you can integrate some of these practices into your craft and turn to witchcraft to support your spiritual and mental well being. Something that has been so very vital and beneficial within Carly’s own life.
Carly’s first book shines a light on navigating the dark night of the soul, deconstructs shadow work, soul loss and soul retrieval, inner child work and reparenting yourself, shamanic journeying and deciphers working with deities and ancestors within your practice. This book offers up spell work and rituals relating to gods and goddesses, ancestral magick, processing grief, heartbreak, cord-cutting, self-love and confidence, through to bringing in the new using the witches pyramid. Journal and divination prompts are scattered throughout this book to help you work through your deepest of soul wounds.
The White Witches Book of Healing offers nourishing and encouraging support through a blend of nurturing self-care ideas combined with more disciplined processes that can build a foundation for personal self-transformation.
Mary was our second speaker, who talked about how she writes down what she hears from the spirit world. Some of her examples were very clear and precise which gave everyone something to think about.
Since when have you reached out to the sky and asked for help? Why do humans look to the sky for inspiration? I believe that deep in all of us there is a fundamental belief that there is another energy or life beyond our scope of understanding? If only we could access it, our questions might get answered, or some comfort provided. Mary Leadbetter, a practising Medium and Spiritual healer shares some of her channelled writing, which is given to her like dictation. Some of the pieces are philosophical: some are from individuals who relate their earthly life and explain about life in another dimension. If you are in need of comfort, or of some explanation about the world beyond, then this little book could supply some answers.
We also had Anna from Magpie Emporium who bought a small selection of her wares, which I must say were so good. Pick the crystal you would like in a necklace or have a couple on a bracelet. Lots of things for the witches amongst us plus Tarot cards and many many more wonderful gifts, which would make great Christmas presents.
One of our members, Carol Grimes was singing at this event so a few of the group went along to support her.
Vegan food that looked very appetising. There were some poems by Anthony White also stories and films about the work being done. Hopefully they raised some money in their blind bids. A nice evening and something a bit different.
What a brilliant weekend we had at Hythe Live, this is the test run in our very own author tent! We had readings from many authors, you may even spot some famous faces. Our members sold their books also a good amount of networking went on all over the weekend.
There was also a great assortment of stalls to keep everyone happy and I hear the booze tents did really well. There was another stage for the bands to play all day then in the evenings the other marque was opened up for jazz and music nights.
There were writing, poem and fancy dress competitions and one of our youngest members looked great, she comes with her dad to our meetings.
Debby and Matthew did an amazing job of organising all this so it went off without any problems, well done and a huge thank you from all the group.
It’s the last day today, what a super weekend it has been down at Hythe. We have had many authors popping along to sell their books and chat to readers. We have been selling our last anthology called GHOSTS BY THE SEA and promoting our next book that is out soon, it is available free on kindle unlimited.
Debby takes the award for best seller, for her own book and the groups books. Come along and get your free bookmark and learn about the writing group, they do say everyone has a story in them but even a poem is great plus you might see your own words in our next book.
So many great stalls, loved the Bubbly one, then you have Matthew selling cherry cider, that sounds delicious. Super tasting ice coffee and many food stalls.
Rather than cancel the scheduled “Evening with Shakespeare”, which was meant to be held at The Hideaway cafe, on the occasion of the 456th anniversary of his birth on 23rd April, it was converted into a meeting on the Zoom virtual meeting platform.
Hosted by Tony Quarrington, it proved an enjoyable couple of hours of readings from the Bard himself, reminiscences about how attendees first encountered Shakespeare at school or in the theatre, and a more general and inevitable discussion around how everyone was coping in the Coronavirus climate.
In addition to Tony, four other members of the writing group – John Leman Riley, Caroline Frances Boorman and Debby and Matthew Jones took part, along with Stuart and Valerie Sheach from the Quarterhouse Book Group (of which Tony, John and Caroline are also members), Trevor DeVooght from the Write Space writing group and Frank Butler, a friend of Tony’s from Dunton Green.
Whilst everyone was getting settled, Matthew conducted a short Shakespeare quiz which was won by Caroline, or John, or Tony, or probably all three – it didn’t really matter, but it was a lot of fun.
The following pieces from Shakespeare were read:
The tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow speech from Macbeth by John
Sonnet 18 (Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer’s Day) by Caroline
The St Crispin’s Day speech (We few, we happy few, we band of brothers) from Henry V by Trevor
Sonnet 116 (Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds) by Tony
Stuart and Valerie regaled us too with a pantomime (their word) version of Act 3, Scene 7 from King Lear, where Gloucester’s eye is plucked out by Cornwall.
Tony concluded the readings with Prospero’s Our Revels Now Are Ended speech from The Tempest, followed with a piece by the theatre critic, Bernard Levin, about the number of phrases we use today that we owe to Shakespeare (Frank had also mentioned this earlier).
It was agreed that the meeting had been a success and that it should become a regular feature, at least during the current lockdown and until “normality” is restored and we can meet again in person. Tony undertook to arrange a further meeting for the following Thursday (30th) and asked participants to suggest the format and subject matter.
Please contact Tony for the details of Thursdays Zoom chat.
Kerry is a local best selling author from Dymchurch, I think you would describe her books as gritty crime or as she says “you have to be a bit wicked to write them”. I must say I am looking forward to reading one of Kerry’s books, which I will review on my blog under reviews at Karen’s World.
Kerry was due to attend the group as one of our visiting authors before we were all sent home for lockdown but hopefully we will see her later in the year.
First of all thank you to the one’s that attended the group meeting and I am very sorry that I could not get there. I have a problem with my heart and now blood pressure that thinks it’s a yow yow. Hopefully they will sort this out soon as do not really want to spend any more time in the hospital with the current situation. Thank you Hannah for taking notes.
Please take care all of you, there will be no Thursday morning writing at The Hideaway for the foreseeable future. The Wellbeing centre is also closed.
Kerry Barnes author event Thursday 19th March
After speaking to Kerry we have decided to cancel this event, we will re-book Kerry for later in the year.
The event at The Beacon has been postponed until the 15th & 16th August, this will be an even bigger event which will include workshops and an outside area. So please keep the dates free. Anyone that booked and paid for their table it can be transferred to the new dates. There will also be a Christmas event over two days at the beginning of December, dates to be confirmed. You can each decide which events you would like to attend if not wanting to do all of them.
The Chambers loved the event last year so they would like another one on 18th October which will be on a Sunday 11am to 6pm. Sci-fi, crime and ? to be decided, any ideas? I would like it to be children’s but it is finding enough childrens authors, if you know of any then please ask them and get their details for the next meeting.
The Folkestone Rotary are very kindly buying us our roll up banner, everyone agreed with the design and I will put picture at the end. They have requested a talk for one of their meetings so if that is this month then Tony Quarrington will deliver it, if anyone wants to go with him you are more than welcome or if you would like to send a letter for him to read out about what you think of the group etc then please do. Contact Tony at tonyquarrington@msn.com
Our Ghostly Anthology is going ahead with printing in September, ready to sell in October. The stories from the Living Advent will be included, these can be increased or adapted if required. We need some more ghostly stories set in Folkestone of between 1500 and 5000 words. There will be about 15 stories plus the 5 from advent calendar. Please spread the word to your writerly friends, if you want any more information then please email Andy at MARCHIE77@googlemail.com Maybe Hannah Palmer could do a poster and leaflet when she has time as I know she is really busy at the moment. I will contact Hannah Nickolls to see if she would like to do some illustrations for the inside. I am looking for a good ghostly photo for the cover of our book, so keep your cameras ready for that one special photo. The closing date for stories will be 31st July. Then we have August to pick the 15 stories and arrange design ready for printing in September.
During this hard time of living with this coronavirus you can always share your work here, asking for feedback if wanted, plus write your ghostly stories about Folkestone. At the next group meeting on 2nd April you can share your own work if you require feedback or write a short crime piece of about 150 words. If we cannot hold the meeting we can do it on-line. Please do not feel isolated as we are all here for each other.
On 23rd April there will be a Shakespeare Evening organised by Tony with music, food, posters. For your task think about what he would make of his birthday in 2020, his presents, the party, or even imagine you are him. You can read a saying, quote or poem that he wrote. This sounds like a very entertaining evening and we can all hope that this goes ahead, I will keep you informed.
Stay healthy everyone and hope to see you all soon.
We have plenty of space for more artists as there is plenty of wall space to fill.
It is with great pleasure that I have Chris and Liz from The Chambers doing the bar and food. You relax and eat or drink while listening to some live background music.
