Goals for June 2012

28 05 2012

I wasn’t in a good space at the beginning of May, so I forgot to update my goals.  So I thought I would take the opportunity now to update the goals for June.

So here is the update for the month:

1.  Revise and edit Medusa as a romance novel(!?!)

2.Edit “Of Kings Queens and Noblemen” – 1/2 way through read through.

3. Finish my Ice Planet Story

4. Edit Ice Planet – 1/2 way through

5. Edit the Gothic novel (Tobias and Arabella – aka the bloody gothic novel)

6. Finish writing “Son of God”

7. Edit Medusa’s Garden.

SoCNoC month is nearly upon us, and I am not too sure how to approach this.  I am considering doing HalfNoc (25k words) instead as work on revising Medusa, because once I remove most of the inappropriate comments, it will only be about 1/4 of the size it is now.  I have to make it spicier, get it more interesting and have a stunning handsome hero who is able to save Medusa and the day.  I am rather nervous about writing again, because I know that I haven’t had much success with it of late.  It isn’t writers block, it is more a feeling that my work just isn’t up to its usual standard.  I have until 31st July to rewrite Medusa, revise it and send it.

The other stories have all been passed in at the moment, not that I don’t want to work on them, but I really need to focus totally on Medusa.  So HalfNoc it will probably be.


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Medusa Rewrites

21 05 2012

A writer friend found me a submission place for Medusa’s Garden… except it is a romance site, and Medusa’s Garden has little romance, and the story is far from romantic.  So the girls organised a get together to discuss how I might be able to change the story.

Lets just say, I have written a story that I am happy with, but to make it a romance, it will require a lot of work – even though they say the backbone is there.  If I remove half of what they have suggested, then I will be doing some serious rewriting, something that I am finding rather daunting at the moment.

The rewrites involves Medusa and Perseus getting it on, and staying together in the end… and that is part of my problem, because we all know Medusa dies at the end and that Perseus marries Andromeda.  They have made some useful suggestions on how to make Medusa “die” and I can do that, but I can”t reconcile Perseus and Medusa marrying… unless I make Medusa into Andromeda – and how does that happen?  See my dilemma?

I have been working through this all weekend, and while I know that people like poetic license when it comes to retelling the tales, I originally wanted the story to reflect the human aspect of Medusa, her pain and betrayal.

Now, I have to turn Medusa into Andromeda – which will work, I think – and also make Athena, goddess of wisdom and womanly virtues into a jealous goddess.

Why am I struggling to take a simple story and rip it apart?  I guess because it took me a while to research and write the story, and then to have it basically turned on its head, at a time when I don’t feel very confident with my writing.

I have until 31st July to do this rewrite, so I have a bit of time.  But I have made a decision.  If it isn’t accepted as a romance, it is going back to the way it is, and I will eventually find a home for it, as I intended the story to be –  A story about betrayal of innocence.


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Categories : Writing, Life, Speculative Fiction, Fellow Authors

Medusa Poll

14 05 2012

I love polls, and here is an interesting question for you to ponder.

I have written Medusa’s Garden from a human point of view – there are the gods and goddesses, but Medusa is human.  But this doesn’t quite sit right with me.

After some discussion with a couple of friends, I have come up with the following options:

1.  Keep Medusa human (she can’t turn men to stone, only petrify them with her anger)

2. Make Medusa the magical mythical beast she has become (turn men to stone, snakes for hair)

3. Have Medusa have the ability to turn men’s hearts to stone (a combination of the two without the snakes for hair)

The poll will be up for three weeks, look forward to your thoughts.


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First Week, some progress

9 01 2012

Medusa by KJM

This week has been busy.  I have been raspberry picking most mornings, and then pottering in the gardens in the afternoon.

I have managed to slip in some time with the laptop, and have added a prologue to Medusa and started with the edit on Chapter one.  Unfortunately it has been rather slow going… and I can’t really explain why.  I guess it is because I have been reading the story through and thinking about how I can change it for the better.

I have gone through and highlighted all the target words (like was, has, has been, felt, knew, etc etc) and trying to eliminate them.  And because I know have a prologue about an earlier event when Medusa and Athena first met, I have to make sure that those references are made in the first chapter, otherwise it would sound odd!

I have also decided to change a part near the end of the story where Medusa turns men to stone with her looks, because I have tried keep Medusa as close to human as possible, and turning men to stone isn’t human!  But I do have a way of making sure that this kind of works.

My only problem is, it doesn’t really need to be called Medusa’s Garden any more because here Garden will no longer be filled with statues of men.  I am not sure what to do about that, but at least I have made a start.


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Back to the Grindstone

6 07 2011

Now that SoCNoC 2011 is over, it is time to get back into my normal writing routine.  Not that it is normal, but at least getting back into something that resembles a scheduled time each day to allow for writing.

And this week it starts.

I have two novels that need editing, a story that needs to be written and a story now sitting on the backburner, but still requires some thought.

Each day I am going to spend some time editing both stories.  One is quick and easy to edit (KQ&N) while the other is a little bit more labourious (Bloody Gothic Novel), so I will split them up, so I don’t feel I am doing the editing drag too much!

I will also spend some time working on Blood Gold, because I really want to get this story done.  At the moment I seem to be bogged down with court details, so I might need to just step back from that part and start working on the actual story instead.  I still need to find out about what printing presses were used in 1850′s NZ – if anyone out there does know, please let me know.

I also want to brainstorm my latest story, the Ice Planet because at present it is 51k, and I really want it to be 65 – 75k, so need to add some more tension and excitement into the mix.  Just how, I am not too sure, but I will think of something, especially if I brainstorm regularly every day.

There is also another novel that I put to one side ages ago, it is a series of short stories all linked together, so I might just resurrect that and work on one of the stories at a time, because it was a deep and meaningful kind of story and I would like to tell it.  But short stories aren’t my forte.  If I can get some feedback on these stories, then I can work at putting that novel together too.

I found a publisher the other day, which would fit in with my style of writing, so I guess the big push on editing is so that I can get something submitted to them.  All going well, perhaps by October or November I will have at least one of my novels ready!

And I haven’t forgotten about Medusa.  I need to work on this one, as it is a character based story, and I need to work on this before it will be ready, but I haven’t given up on it, so never fear my fellow and supportive writers.


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Categories : Life, Writing

Where have the words gone?…

29 07 2010
They have just vanished into thin air… gone.  I knew that they were around here somewhere, I looked under the cushions on the couch and found $2.30, but no words.  Even my son’s lego box held no words…  Where have they gone?

Because they aren’t in my head!

It is 4 weeks since I wrote anything substantial, and I can’t say that it isn’t because I haven’t been trying, I have. Its just that they seem to have run away to join the circus perhaps.  I have some very forceful characters in my head all clambering for space, time and words, but I have been holding off writing anything because a) I don’t want to blow my opportunity and b) I don’t want to write about them before I can.

Cloud formations

What do I mean by that?  I have these great stories and great characters.  If I write about them now, while they are still fresh in my mind, I will write until they are out, and then it will be nothing – I will put it to one side and end up with another uncompleted story.  I also like to have a timeframe for writing – October is Gothic Novel Month – October is when i will write my gothic novel.  I want to write my science fiction ice planet story over Christmas / New Year – I don’t want to start these stories before then or I will blow my load and the story will get lost in all of the crap I could write rather than the story I want to write.

Yeah, so I am venting.  It has been a frustrating time not writing, and I haven’t been beading either, so

doublewhammy!  I am thankful that next month I am editing, because at least it is something, and I will be editing the Medusa story that I wrote during June’s SoCNoC.

So, where are the words?  Apparently anywhere but around me at present, but rest assured, I will hunt them down and kill them!


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Story Grids…?

17 07 2010

Well to say that my short story writing has stalled is an understatement, it really doesn’t help that I have a child at home, who is now chicken poxed, and will have another week off school.  I have been looking around for inspiration, but I am tired and not really getting it at the moment.  As a result I am getting down on myself about it, and finding that I have to bead to have a release for my creativity (by the way – this has stalled too, because I don’t have the beads I need to complete the project I want to make!!!)

Looking for something to help, I surfed the web and found something called a story grid (check it out at Suite101.com) which, while it would work for a short story, is probably more in line with novel writing.  I read it, I read it again then put it to one side.

In desperation last night, I got it out.  I made up a template according to the instructions and it looks quite impressive, very simple and easy.

So in further desperation, I filled it out, based on a novel I want to write.  It fitted in nicely, although on hindsight some of my answers were just to fill gaps, but I can go back in there today and fill it out better.  Guess what.  I actually felt better for it once I had finished it.  Perhaps my agitation was more because of a novel that is just bursting to come out of me rather than the lack of short stories in my life at present.  The only problem is, I really don’t have time at this point to write a novel.  In August I plan on editing Medusa.  In September perhaps I could do it, but I have plans in October to write a Gothic Novel as part of Books Down Under which I had originally hoped this novel that I story gridded would do, but it is lending itself more to science fiction than to gothic, so I have to get my thinking cap on and see what I can come up with (thinking I might build on the gothic short stories I started for the Creativity Workshop).  This year seems to be lending itself to writing novels!

So this morning, I don’t feel quite so stressed out, in fact I am feeling strangely calm (the calm before the storm???) and actually looking forward to using this story grid more often.  In fact I might actually do it for the novels I have already written to see if there is anything I can improve on.  There are somethings I need to work on, like Conflict of Circumstance, Conflict of Personality, conflict of relationship, but they are the learning curves that make writing so much fun!


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Categories : Creativity Workshop, Speculative Fiction, Writing

Did You Win?

30 06 2010

Last Day of SoCNoC over at the KiwiWriters website

Wahoo – how many others out there have finished their novels?  Are you still going?  Keep up the good work.

Wow, it has been an intense month, with lots of activity, buzzing, writing and fun things happening.  Did you find the new chat feature?  What did you think of that?

If you did finish your novel, then congratulations.  It is something to be proud of.  All I can recommend now is have a month off and join us again in August for The End is Nigh challenge, when you can finish off a project, perhaps your SoCNoC novel needs editing?  This is the perfect opportunity to get it finished.

But don’t run away from the site yet!  We have lots of forums that we want people to fill up and join in conversations, use the chat facility to communicate any problems, have word wars.  Don’t just abandon our new look site because you have finished your novel.

The fun has just begun!


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SoCNoC Progress

24 06 2010

This is long overdue, but I thought I would finally write about SoCNoC – which is the South Cross Novel Competition.  The idea is to write a 50k novel in the month of June.  I have 7 days left (including today) and I am at 40334 words, and unfortunately, while I have one chapter left to go, I am estimating that the novel isn’t going to be any bigger than 42k at this stage.  But that is Ok, because I have another story / novel that I am working on, and while I have already done 1,200, I haven’t included them in my SoCNoC count because I wanted to use and finish Medusa’s Garden first.

I am happy with my story, it is mostly dialogue at this stage, and not much in the way of action or description – which I have been accused of overdoing in the past, so will be an interesting experience to read back through the novel and put in references and descriptions of the characters, like the goddess Athena, I imagine her to be at least 7 or 8 foot tall, an imposing figure, constantly dressed in armour and with an owl for company.

It will also be fun to introduce some darkness and sinisterness to the story, which is there in essence, but I want the story to be dark.  It is basically about betrayal of trust and wanting acceptance.    But I think that most of that will be done during the August “The End is Nigh” challenge on the KiwiWriters website.


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Just One Week to Go

23 06 2010

Week 4 Blog of SoCNoC Month at KiwiWriters

There are only 7 (or 8 ) days to go until you are finished.  Now is time for a reality check.  Have you been consistently writing over the last 23 days, or hitting it spasmodically when the desire hits you.  How many words have you got to go, are you going to achieve your goal?

Setting realistic goals is a biggie for me this year, I have a year plan written out regarding my writing.  I know what I want to accomplish and have broken it down into small achievable goals, which I have been consistently hitting each month.  So have you achieved your goal this month?  Some may have already finished and hit the 50k mark, don’t let them put you off.  This isn’t a race, it is a chance to put pen to paper (keys to paper or fingers to keyboard, depending on your preference) and work on that novel that has been bubbling away inside for ages.

With 7 days to go, are you going to finish your goal?  Are you going to have a finished product at the end of the month?  Or another half finished novel that will be put on the back burner?  Don’t get discouraged.  Keep writing, you don’t have to finish on 30th June, if you are still writing, keep writing.  Set aside a little time each day to get that novel finished!


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