Blog Birthday

It's exactly a year since I took my first fear-filled step towards sharing my writing and I started this blog. Here is my first post (under the pen name of Hellojed). At the time I had written roughly 20% of the first draft of my first novel.

Since then I've:
Discovered other bloggers and writers who were always willing to share their hard-earned experiences with others.
Nervously left comments on blogs and was amazed and touched when they visited my blog and took the time to comment on my posts.
Found new friends that applauded my milestones and got me through my wobbles.
Subscribed to and enjoyed 61 blogs, first with Bloglines, then NewsGator, RSS Bandit and now Windows Live Mail.
Discovered Feedburner and developed an obsession with checking my subscriber and visitor count constantly.
Discovered Technorati and developed an obsession with checking my authority and rank, ended up removing their widget from my blog.
Did some Blogger hacking.
Finished the first draft of my novel.
Retrained and got my first temp job as a legal secretary. (Learning to touch type has definitely helped with my writing too.)
Joined NaBloPoMo.
Subsequently gave up blogging for a month due to overkill.
Came back and outed myself.
Finished work and started on the second draft of my novel.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my blog, subscribe to it and left a comment over the last year. As soon as I started blogging my daily word count shot up as a result of your support. To everyone who has a blog: keep sharing. To everyone who doesn't: get one!

And finally, here are five posts that I really enjoyed writing:

Character Research
Dangers of Drink
Good Friday Prohibition
Quality vs Quantity
and a recent one: Dear Muse

Muse Update

She's back - 1023 words so far.

Have some cleaning to do as my parents are visiting this weekend, they are both really laid back but I couldn't bear them to see the flat in this state.

I also put our various dining chairs on Freecycle - our table is now the folding kind so we bought six collapsable chairs from Habitat that we stow in our walk-in hot press. The old dining chairs are just taking up valuable space.

Addicted

Found this on JJ's blog:

74%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

It's 9 am and...I'm up and at the computer. Half the battle.

Dear Muse

How's it hanging? Or floating? Or whatever you do where you are.

Anyhoo...it's been a tough few days I admit. Out of the blue, after months of no contact, I expect you to turn up and just do your thing. (In my defence I've been very busy - secretarial work just doesn't rock my creative boat) So I understand why you're withholding the stardust at the moment.

I'm trying my best to accommodate your needs. As an example, I'm trying to start work early in the morning as I know you're at your twinkliest then. But I didn't figure on being wide awake until four am last night, dozing until one in the afternoon and missing my first Scribblers Corner, thus putting off our quality time for another week.

And when I worry about how long this rewrite will take, whether the savings will stretch that far and the unrealistic timelines I've drawn up, I know it drives you to gorge on chocolate ice-cream while lying prostrate on your sofa rather than musing with me.

But let's put this behind us and make a deal. If I get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow (i.e. 9 am) and start writing straight away, will you pay me a visit? No pressure, just for a catch up. We don't even need to talk shop.

Hope to see you then.

Yvonne

A Start

I started my rewrite today, managed exactly 1008 carefully chosen words before I started producing nonsense. Not a bad beginning...

I'm going to aim for 1000 well-crafted words a day for the time being and see how that goes. As I'm only keeping 10% of the original first draft for this story I'm determined to get it right this time, so that the next edit will be words changed here and there rather than a complete slash and burn!

As I only got five hours sleep last night I'm going for a nap. Good night.

Methodical

Started editing my first story today - a little nerve-wracking but surprisingly manageable.

I'm starting with structure edits. I've decided to drop a character from the first story and rearrange the overall sequence of events, so I've plotted a step-by-step guide for myself to follow. I'm also making notes on plot and characters so that I have something to reference when I start my rewrite. The time for free-writing is over, this stage is more methodical.

Better get back to it...

Writers Groups

I've taken a necessary step out of my comfort zone to start on my second draft. And as much as I love my hermit writer lifestyle, I think it is time for me to meet and work with other writers face to face. I've met some great writers online and I will always rely on them for help and inspiration, but I think a writers' group will add another prop to that support structure.

A few weeks ago Beth Morrissey told me about Women Writers in the New Ireland:

WWInI is a new initiative aimed at facilitating a dialogue between women writers in the New Ireland. The intention is to promote the creative work of women writers living in Ireland who are from migrant and new communities and to encourage contact between these writers and other women writers who were born in Ireland or who have lived here for a long time.

I'm attending my first meeting next Saturday at the Irish Writers Centre.

The Irish Writers Centre also runs Scribbers Corner, 1pm-2pm every week on Wednesdays, which sounds like an interesting way to get some creative juices flowing:

The aim is to gather writers together for a short writing session. Each week a different topic or theme will be given to the group and then those present will freewrite for 15 – 20 minutes. After this time each individual will be asked to read his or her work out. Please note that there will be no feedback on work created during these sessions. The aim of the group is to allow those present to hear other writers voices on a common topic in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

The Irish Writers Centre website also lists Dublin-based and national writers groups, including the New Writers Forum which meets at the centre every second Wednesday at 7pm.

I'm going along to my first Scribbers Corner next week, and I've emailed the New Writers Forum to find out if they have any spaces available for a newbie like me - hopefully they do.