Day 1

Task 1:

By the end of 2020, what do you want to have produced? Is it a novel, a short story collection, a screenplay, a bunch of flash or poetry? Is it just one good short story? Or do you just want to experiment with words and see what you've got in you?

How much do you want to write per week, per fortnight, per month? Is that realistic? What do you need to change in order to do it? What are you prepared to change to do it?

If you have any time left from answering those questions, quickly jot down some notes that will form the bones of your acceptance speech for when you win the Costa First Novel Award.

Here I go, writing again. (It seems appropriate to start with a quote from one of my favourite writers.) I would like to be able to get to a place where I can create a complex plot with an A and B story that interconnect and weave together. I also want to write something new. The story that has been banging around in my brain for the last decade now feels stale so i think i want to try and write the kind of thing I like to read; so hopefully something a little bit funny, a little bit fantasy-y and a little bit wise. I think i will probably start with a short story ideally without a trite ending. 

Ideally I would like to write for about half an hour a night. I haven’t really thought about it in terms of amounts, of word counts - I have more focussed on trying to write something that makes me happy as my novel has been making me sad. I know the best way to learn to write is simply to do it and I think I need to free myself up and start something fresh. I would also like to learn how to edit. 

I don’t really need to change that much to write. I can waste plenty of time watching telly being jealous of other people’s writing but that’s not very healthy so I will try to carve out half an hour (or what ever the email tells me to after the kids have gone to bed to do my writing whist S cleans the kitchen. Except on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are bastards.  

I think I might create a new section on my blog and chuck these posts up there. I’m not going to give it any preamble or publicity but  I pay for the bloody thing so I may as well use it. 

My word ten minutes is a surprisingly long time isn’t it?

I haven’t really thought about doing an acceptance speech for the booker or whatever, which is odd because I wrote my Oscar speech years ago and I’ve never really wanted to act. That’s cultural hegemony for you I suppose. Also I think the clothes are often better at the Oscars but the people are better at the Booker.