November Round-Up

Happy Advent! I’ve been very lax in updating my blog, for which I can only apologise. I tend to use social media more and I need to stop relying on that so much. As a reminder, I’m on Threads and Bluesky, having deleted my X account on the 6th after that result. A friend of mine quit this week, saying it’s become a bin fire, so I don’t regret the decision to get the heck out.

What I’ve been writing

My November goal was 30K on Grand Theft Starship. I got to 11K before I was derailed in the best way.

Back in September, I sent the first 5K and a synopsis of A Certain Darkness to Northdox Press. Halfway through November, they requested the full. After squealing like a stuck pig, I remembered I was a third of the way through changing to first person and I needed to finish that before I sent it in. Cue what I called a “oh my god, I’ve a full request edit”. That’s gone back, plus a second agent query, and I’m back to waiting.

And writing, eventually. I’ve had Lenore and Volker in my head for most of the year, so it’s odd to sit down and not work on their story. Volker is very, very loud, lmao. Still, I do need to move on and I’ve Alden and Maddy waiting for me.

What I’ve been reading

What I’ve been watching

Strictly! My favourites are Chris and Dianne, then Sarah and Vito. But Chris leaves me breathless every week. The way he moves across the floor is frankly gorgeous.

I also enjoyed The Moonflower Murders, though I don’t think it was as good as The Magpie Murders. In a similar vein, the new spin-off from Death in Paradise – Return to Paradise – has started. This isn’t as grounded in the original show as Beyond Paradise, which is a shame, but I’m treating it as its own thing.

Last weekend, I rewatched the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials. Damn, they are good! Definitely better back-to-back as you catch the threads running through them.

Health problems

As I mentioned on social media, I’ve had a bit of a health scare this month. I’ve on-going lower pain that’s leaving my GP scratching her head as test after test came back negative. Until they didn’t. I’d a stool sample with high infection markers and a blood test showing a high white cell count. I’ve a family history of cancer and she decided to fast-track me, mostly to be on the safe side.

Thankfully, I do not have cancer. I didn’t realise how worried I was until I felt utter relief at hearing those words. I do have issues with my gallbladder that needs further investigation, and my arthritis has spread to my spine. This wasn’t a surprise, really. My lower back has been degenerating for a while. It means keeping a closer eye on certain symptoms that indicate a collapse, and probably surgery in the not-too-distant future. Another discussion with my GP, I guess.

Everything else!

November/December is a busy time for my choir and we’ve had several performances already. Our big one – at Manchester Cathedral – is on the 8th December. There are so many of us now that we’re having to do two performances! How cool is that?

Sing Space has several venues across the country, so if you love to sing and musical theatre, why don’t you find out if there’s one close to you? There are no auditions, just go as you are! It’s the most fun and my confidence has soared since starting.

That’s it for November – see you at the end of December!

A CERTAIN DARKNESS is drafted!

Yesterday, I finished the first draft of my paranormal romance A CERTAIN DARKNESS!

ACD began back in January as fanfic. The idea came from a weird, dark recess of my brain that combined a fairly well-known “neo-noir supernatural fiction” series and That Scene from the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice. I tried to ignore, I really did, but it wouldn’t leave me alone, so I wrote a chapter.

And then another.

Four chapters in, and it was so AU that only occasional mentions of the main characters connected it to the TV series. At that point – and with the original Volker being insistent – I decided to scratch off the serial numbers and write a novel.

Seven months and 67 thousand words later, said novel is complete. Unedited and unpolished, but complete. I might have had a little cry.

Because over the writing of ACD, I fell in love with Lenore and with Volker. I fell in love with their love story, and I’m so thrilled to have got to the end. To be one step closer to sharing them with the world.

Theer but no fear

Yesterday, the Age of Theer Kickstarter campaign launched and I, of course, backed it because over the past year, I’ve fallen so in love with roleplay gaming.

Dungeons & Dragons was something I was aware of growing up but never got involved in. It’s hard to when you are directly excluded/judged or you feel unsafe, and that was my experience as a female nerd. Not just in regard to D&D, but fandoms like Star Wars and even my beloved Doctor Who.

Don’t even get me started on comic books.

Shortly after I started writing, a huge fight blew up over gatekeeping in science fiction publishing. Women into sci fi shows were dubbed “fake geek girls”. We were – are – grilled about fandom minutiae and if we don’t “pass” we get ridiculed. As both a fan and a writer of sci fi I’ve come under attack from men who want to keep me out. Out of fandom. Out of publishing. They’ve wanted to take something I loved doing from me, calling me things that I can’t repeat and would prefer to forget.

So when I discovered Todd Stashwick during Star Trek Picard, his nerdery was a weird pull/push because usually guys that into sci fi/fantasy/whatever are the ones giving geek girls the side eye or outright hassling us. Safe to say, I approached with joviality masking a fair amount of caution.

Thankfully, it wasn’t warranted, but I think that worry, that caution, shows how badly my experiences affected me and, in a lot of ways, still do. It took finding WWDND and playing my first D&D game to properly light a fire in me.

But all this is why I’m backing Age of Theer – because the vibe that Todd Stashwick and David Nett wanted to cultivate is one that evokes the excitement of 70s/80s TTRPGs but excludes the gatekeeping that was so rife back then. Todd calls it “putting new wine into old bottles” and I love that idea so much.

I love that Theer has inclusivity built in from the very beginning. That everyone is welcome at the table. It’s somewhere I don’t feel unsafe or judged, and I cannot put into words how important that is to me.

And honestly, it just looks really fun.

What I learned doing the 24 Hour Novel challenge

I will caveat this post by saying there was no way on God’s green earth I was going to manage 50K in 24 hours. I went in with the slightly saner goal of 25K and even that was a stretch. I ended up with 14,158 words and a new perspective on writing. It’s the latter I’m going to talk about, for prosperity (lol).

I don’t need perfection

I’m a micro-editor. I will write a sentence or two and then twiddle with them. While this does result in a clean draft, said draft takes months. I’m not kidding. And I can lose momentum even on stories that I love to write – A Certain Darkness has stalled due to my need to have everything exactly right first time.

With the 24HN, I couldn’t do that and end up with a decent word count. I had to just write. The only thing I allowed myself was to correct typos. That was it.

I don’t need details

I have blank spaces where I wanted a good word and it wasn’t coming to me. Brackets and other placeholders galore. My FMC didn’t even get a surname until I declared the challenge done.

Getting out of my own way was so liberating. I’ve learned that I can get mired in the details and are they really necessary? No, Margaret, they are not.

I can write a whole story in 24 hours

It is the roughest draft I’ve ever written in my life, but the bones of an entire novel are in place. Bones that I can build on.

I used to believe that slow writing and picking at words was how I wrote. It took trying this challenge to push me out of that belief. It’s opened my eyes to what I can achieve, even with my neuro-spicy brain.

Moving forward

I’m relaxing today to give my brain a chance to cool off. Next step is to go through the story and note the action down into an outline, so I can see the rise and fall of the narrative. Developing the main characters, deepening the descriptions, and so on.

Which is all stuff I do as a rule, but usually during the rough draft. Doing it afterwards is a new and exciting thing.

3 tricks for getting shit writ

Us writers are neurotic beans. My house is never cleaner than when I’m trying to write. It’s useful procrastination but it’s still procrastination. See, I don’t really plan my books. I get a general idea, a few scenes and a couple of characters, then charge into writing like the Men of the West against the forces of Mordor.

However, I have three things that shift me from complete pantser to a somewhat organised plantser.

Thing 1: The Back Page Blurb

This is the summary on the back page of a book that sells it to readers. It’s also what appears on Amazon etc for the same purpose. It’s usually three or four paragraphs that introduces the character(s) and the main plotline up to the halfway point (or thereabouts).

I find writing this either before I start working on the story or early on forces me to think about the plot in loose terms and gets those nebulous ideas down on paper. I usually leave it in the Word document, at the top, so I can look back at it easily. Like any pre-writing, it’s not set in stone and can be tweaked as the story takes shape. And the bonus is I have something to put into agent/publisher pitches.

Thing 2: One Page Synopsis

A synopsis is something most writers love to hate. How do you condense 80,000 words (or thereabouts) into a couple of pages?! However, I find a quick and dirty run-down of my story to be very handy, especially when it comes to the infamous Sticky Middle.

What I’m talking about isn’t the polished document you send off. I’m meaning the sort of story you used to write at school on the subject “what we did on our holiday.” Lots of and thens and suddenlys. Really rough plot points that are subject to change as you write.

That said, I’ve learned to tweak this synopsis as I write, so by the time I’ve finished a first draft I’ve a usable, if rough, synopsis for my submission packages. As long as it goes up to and includes the end, it’s good enough to send.

Thing 3: Brackets

If an idea is the White Rabbit, then research is the Rabbit Hole. So easy to fall into and get lost in. So, Alice, what do you do when you hit something in your draft that needs research?

Brackets, my loves.

I use curly ones () to note down things I need to look up on the first edit, often highlighted into the bargain, and square ones [] as placeholders for names. The bonus of square brackets is you’re not going to use them for anything else, so a search-and-replace isn’t going to eff up your prose.

[CharacterA], [CharacterB], [Planet1] and so on litter my rough drafts. Not for main characters, for who the name is part of their characterisation, but minor ones and insignificant details. Sometimes a name will come to me as I’m writing and I’ll do the search-and-replace in the rough draft. Most times, though, I brainstorm once the story’s done and make a list.

The added bonus of writing with brackets is you can see how many times you’ve used that placeholder and designate research/world building accordingly. By which I mean that a planet/place your characters end up at a lot needs far more detail than one they’re at once or twice. This will save you so much time, I swear to glob.

That’s it!

I hope you find these tricks helpful. Maybe let me know in the comments?