This Week I have been mostly...

Editing - my sister sent the film script she's made from a novella called Whirlwind Marriage. I think she's done a great job, but the spell checker on her Final Draft is set to US usage, and she has never mastered the fine art of punctuation, so there's lots to do.

Have also been to a PGCE interview workshop, to make sure of the best chance of a place, spent a lot of time making a GANTT chart for college and less time on a budget, because I can do them. My share of the project work is about finished now! Hurray. Although there's a finance assignment coming up soon. Boo!

Have also been to a maths class. I've been thinking about why I have to go to maths in order to be able to write more, and there does seem to be a kind of poetic justice to it. I said I wanted an education, and the universe has obligingly made sure I get a good one.

And no, I haven't written a word this week. I have put in my order for a DVD of a construction project that went horribly wrong - I think (suitably altered of course) it will make a good background for this novel. I find business settings fantastic for novels. Whirlwind Marriage came about because of a documentary I watched - Trouble at the Top or Blood on the Carpet or one of those strands. It was about rival sausage manufacturers. Industrial espionage was rife and they hated each other. I started to think: what if a couple fell in love and then discovered one of them worked for one sausage company and the other had a good job in the second company?

Maybe next week I'll get time to watch the programme and decide exactly which of my characters is going to work where. It will be better.

Good Progress

I improved chapter one (I often go back and do this, because the story has to fit in with where I now know it is going) and blocked out to the end of chapter three today. Nearly 200o words. Wonderful. Yesterday I'd have killed anyone who tried to make me work, today I'd have knifed anyone who interrupted me. Odd how the mind works.

John Gardener in his book on writing a novel says that you shouldn't write anything but your books - no letters to the paper, no notes to friends, but to save all your energy for your work. It does make sense, but I think I've been getting on better since I started keeping this blog - probably from a sense of shame! I don't want to admit to not working!

At the weekend my sister showed me the first part of my book, which she had turned into a film script using Final Draft software - it looked so wonderful! Somebody said the best way for a British writer to sell a film was to have a bestseller, and I truly believe that - but it can't hurt to have a script knocking about - paperbacks have such short shelf lives these days. How else could anyone see it?

My email is dead. A quick look on the Internet informed me that the 'enter your network password' bug is well known. I tried three of the many cures on offer, but they haven't worked. I might have to call my IT savvy friend and hope he's willing to come over.

I Need a Holiday

Writing is hard work - and it's just as hard if you're good or you're bad - it takes me exactly the same amount of effort to write a book that earns nothing, or a few pennies, as it takes other people to write best sellers.

What's triggered this sudden avalanche of gloom? My Virgin statement. Admittedly it's about 10 years ago now, but I wrote two erotic novels for their Black Lace imprint. The royalty statement came today - and I owe them £2.97. Add this to my ALCS result of £11.90, and I'm averaging even less than my usual penny an hour.

I'm stuck in the poverty trap of needing to have a day job, which takes time, energy and attention, which slows my writing, so I don't earn enough money to support myself, so I have to have a day job, which...

But, day jobs do have advantages, and one of them is paid leave. I can have a whole, glorious week at home, with pay! And, over the last ten years, what with foreign sales and reprints, my Black Lace titles did pretty well. So, I'll have a holiday and cheer up. I might look into getting Final Draft software as a kind of holiday project, oh, and do my books. I know they've extended the deadline, but they still need doing.

750 words today. Jen Black sent her critique of chapter two back, so I rewrote that again and then began chapter three - where the hero walks in. I know who he is now - he's the site manager of the only well-run site in the company.

Weekend Off & Updates

Friday I wrote another 500 words, but then I made the mistake of allowing my computer to install the updates it's been whinging about for days now - afterwards I couldn't get into Blogger, find my Google toolbar (both solved now) but I still need to find my picture wizard! Next time it can whinge! I like everything where I can find it.

The 500 words was a rewrite after feedback from my sister - which has much improved the scene where the car gets attacked by voodoo - well you try writing one! It's not easy, especially the heroine must think all the odd events are due to other, normal causes at this point.

My sister has decided she likes scriptwriting - she has Final Draft software now and is really going for it. She sent me her children's novel to critique and the first chapter, which she'd done as a script, then rewritten back into a book, was fabulous - the improvement was quantum. I might have to invest in Final Draft - partly because I've sent her a romantic comedy (Whirlwind Wedding, my favourite of the romances I've written)to see if she can turn it into a film script, but also because I want my own writing to improve that much!

When I looked for this cover, I realised that the editor had changed the title to Whirlwind Marriage. I still think of it as WW.