In which I have a revelation

This is the story of how I realized that one of my very favourite things was ruining my life. OK, that's being kind of dramatic, but it's really not far from the truth. It all started when Iwatched this video by the ever awesome Charlieissocoollike.

So maybe you watched this video and thought, 'Yeah, duh! EVERYONE knows that.' I watched this video and realized that Twitter is evil. Or at least, seriously bad for me. My addiction (and I do think it's an addiction) had become so extreme that I was checking Twitter after every sentence I wrote. This is clearly not a very efficient way of achieving your (measly) word count target of 1000 words a day.

I started the new book on Tuesday and I wrote 1000 words. This took me all day, what with all the Twitter/FB/email/other random internet stuff.

Same deal on Wednesday and Thursday. I wrote some words, but I was flailing. It felt like I'd started the story in the wrong place, I had no idea who the characters were... it. was. all. disjointed. and. a. bit. crap.

Then I watched Charlie and KAPOW! I realized I could shut down Twitter. A miraculous discovery, don't you think? So that's exactly what I did. For a whole hour yesterday morning. I'm not going to lie, I was kind of twitchy at first. (And when I say 'kind of', I mean 'VERY'.) But I persevered and wrote some words. Then I wrote some more. And before I knew it, an hour had passed and I'd written just over 1000 words. Yes, my entire day's word count in a single hour and the story had started to flooooooooow. So I went back on Twitter for half an hour. It was still there. I hadn't missed anything. The world hadn't ended. I went dark for another hour, which resulted in another 1000 words. Two days' work in two hours. Man, I felt like a right muppet. I was all 'So THIS is how writers manage get their work done! Why didn't anyone tell me?!'

That's how I used to write, pre-Twitter. AND MY GOODNESS IT FELT GOOD. I've done the same thing this morning - another 1k down. I might go for another hour soon. It's hopefully the start of a new regime for me. Even if I don't do it every day, at least I know it's possible. And that's enough.

So, thanks Charlie! And thanks to the brilliant Kaz Mahoney, who's hosting the Spring into Summer writing challenge over on her blog. I'm woefully behind on the word count for the challenge, since I started nine days late. But it doesn't matter. It's nice to hang out with people who are trying to churn out the words, just like me.

Writing can be a lonely business, which is probably why lots of us love Twitter so much. We get to hang out with our colleagues with the added bonus of not having to change out of your jammies if you don't want to. But I need to find some balance in my life if I'm going to make a career of this writing malarkey, and this week I feel one step closer to doing exactly that.

If you feel like joining me in the whole 'switching off Twitter to get stuff done' thing, the hashtag is #goingdark. Come... join me on the dark side. You know you want to.

This post was brought to you by The School of the Bleeding Obvious. Thanks for listening.

Tuesday randomness

1. I'm done with TORN... for now. YAAAAAAAAY! I changed a character name, pruned many pointless sentences and swapped some words around. It took approximately FOREVER.

2. This picture of Ethan Embry sort of reminds me of my favourite character in TORN. The hair's not quite right and the eyes are the wrong colour, but apart from that...

3. I'm starting  a new book today. Oh yes indeedy. Please note: I had no intention of starting a new book when I woke up this morning, but these things happen.

4. I have found this song to be strangely inspiring. Don't ask why.

5. My awesome publisher Quercus was named Publisher of the Year last night at the Bookseller Industry Awards. Well played, Quercus.

6. Did I mention I'm starting a new book TODAY?! Holy moly.

What are you up to on this random Tuesday?

SICK!

Or rather, I HAVE to work today, but I can't quite summon up the energy to blog. Sorry. I'm still trawling through the ms for TORN making many, many teeny-tiny changes. And to think I very nearly didn't bother reading through it again... shame on me.

If anyone wants to recommend some horror films for me, that would be muchly appreciated. For some reason they're the only things that make me feel better right now. Odd.

Evil plan: foiled!

Back to the real world with a bump after the excitement of the royal wedding. For me, the weekend was a glorious combination of: smoked salmon, cake, Cava, cocktails in teacups, royal faces mounted on chopsticks (don't ask), reading the papers, dressing up as a sailor, reading more papers and sitting in the sunshine eating a baked potato. Busy times indeed.

Last week I received my edits for TORN. They didn't make me cry or throw a tantrum or set anything on fire. So that was a good start. Just a few tweaks here and there and I should be finished by the end of the day. There was one little section that gave me pause. When I originally wrote it I thought it was a) entirely pointless but b) pretty damn charming. As far as I was concerned, the charm outweighed the pointlessness and with any luck it might just sneak through into the final book. After all, no one would really pay attention to three sentences out of 75,000 words. I was wrong. My editor (gently) suggested that I get rid of the aforementioned sentences. Busted.

My evil plan was foiled, dammit. Re-reading the section now, it's clear to me that it's not even particularly charming. Charmless AND pointless is never a good combo. So I guess what I'm saying is maybe you shouldn't try to sneak things into your manuscript just because you think they're charming or clever or an in-joke between you and... er... you. Make sure everything you write HAS A POINT.

Have you ever been found guilty of this unspeakable crime? Do tell...

Music!

Last week I ran a contest on Twitter, asking people to tell me about a song that perfectly encapsulates ENTANGLED. There were a lot of awesome entries, which made me very happy.

Here is the winning song (chosen by @discolemonkayy), followed by a couple of my other favourites. What do you think? Any more to add?

Big fat punch in the face

I received some bad news on Friday. It was writing-related, but that's pretty much all I can say. It felt a lot like this:

That's Rocky Balboa getting punch in the face, in case you didn't know. Apologies for the grossness of the photo (especially that bloody saliva), but this picture really does illustrate EXACTLY how I felt on Friday. I was knocked sideways in a way I didn't quite expect. I put this down to the fact that I was hoping (expecting, even) the news to be good. Now I'm normally a glass-half-empty sort of person, so this optimism was totally out of character. I have learned my lesson and am returning to my pessimistic ways ASAP.

I'm feeling OK about it now., by the way. I scraped myself off the floor, dusted myself down, checked I hadn't lost any teeth.

Life can keep punching me in the face but I'm going to keep on getting up. Every single time. So there. *blows raspberry at life*

Taking your own advice

People sometimes ask me for writing advice. And I'm happy to give it, for what it's worth. I've always been all, 'Hey! Don't worry about your first draft being crappy. All first drafts are crappy. Power on through to the end and worry about fixing stuff later. That's what the second draft is for!' Pretty decent, not-at-all-grounbreaking advice, wouldn't you agree?

But yesterday I realized I haven't exactly been practising what I preach. I've been lucky, in that the first drafts for my first two books were not crappy (and I do put this down to luck). I didn't have to rewrite whole chunks/excise characters who weren't pulling their weight/throw massive swathes of text out the window. Like I said, LUCKY. So it was all very easy for me to tell people not to worry about things like that during the first draft, because I hadn't had to do it. Ever.

Things are a little bit different with New Top Sekrit Project. I am writing so far outside my comfort zone that I can't even see my comfort zone (not even with binoculars). And it's fun and scary and HAAAAAARD. I'm 13k in and already I can tell that so many things are going to have to change in the second draft, and that the second draft is going to involve a hell of a lot of thinking. Trouble is, thinking hurts my brain (much in the same way that coming up with titles hurts my brain... Clearly my brain is very sensitive). The temptation to try to sort things out now is proving very, very hard to resist. But if I do that, there's a strong possibility that the amount of work that needs to be done will scare me silly and I'll end up not bothering to finish the book. And that would make me a quitter. (Actually, I've always been a bit of a quitter in other areas of my life, but not in writing. Not yet. And I don't intend to start now.)

So... I'm taking my own advice. Powering through the first draft. Not looking back over my shoulder. Ignoring the bits that stink worse than bin juice. It's kind of frightening.

Have you ever given advice and then realized that YOU'RE the one who should be listening to it? Makes you feel a bit stupid, no?