Creative Flow

Hi all,
Hope everyone's had a fantastic Christmas and is looking forward to the New Year. I've been taking and enforced break from writing while I spend time with my daughter, Amber, husband Mike and all our relatives. It's been great fun but it's hard to pick up the creative flow of where I left off. I read in one of my many how to write a novel books that it's god to finish a period of writing mid-sentence when you're on a roll as it makes it easier to get going again.
Anyone else got any tips for keeping going when you're writing a novel?
SK

Bravery or stupidity/the skill of the rewrite

It was all going so well. I hadn't managed to complete the Nanowrimo challenge of writing a 50,000-word novel in a month but I'd almost made my own personal target [25K words by the time I break up for Christmas]. Then, I had one of those eureka moments. Unfortunately, the eureka moment meant that while I could see how to get my novel to reach a comfortable 60,000-words it also meant that I had to restart almost from scratch binning the 20,000-words I'd written so far.
Actually, that's not strictly true. I've merely saved it as a draft version in a separate file. It does fit into the overall scheme of things but I realised that in my desire to write the 'killer introduction' I'd always dreamed of I'd actually missed out a crucial part of the plot.
I find this one of the toughest challenges with creative writing. As a journalist in my 'day job' I have to write short succinct phrases and squeeze words into the space provided. However, this isn't always the case with creative writing. I wonder how does one tell the difference between a valid description and waffle?
If you want to compare the new extract with the old, click here http://www.savefile.com/files/353328. I'd appreciate comments on how the two compare.

Cover art

It's very premature of me as I'm barely a third of a way through my latest so-called book, but I had a great idea for the cover art and managed to merge two high-resolution images together from the web. On a positive note it's spurring me on to finish the project a bit as I can see a glimpse of the finished result. Anyone else got any thoughts on cover art/book covers in general and what makes a good or a bad one? What sort of artwork makes you pick a book off the shelf? Any thoughts on my own design (right?) - and yes, for the eagle-eyed among you that is a fried egg in the sky.

To blog...

....or not to blog. That is the question. A friend forwarded me a link from the BBC, today, containing blogging statistics (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6178611.stm). The article claims that 200 million blogs are now lying dormant on the web. It's easy to see how it happens. I'm relatively new to blogging and was hoping that this weblog would help drive people to my Lulu site plugging my self-published books. However, after a week I'm starting to feel pretty lonely here in cyberspace as so far I've received zero comments on my blog.

Is there anybody out there or am I about to become dormant blog 200 million and one?

Why write?

Of course, you're not always writing for others. I find the whole process of writing is very therapeutic. It helps me to make sense of my life and the world around me.
I'm a firm believer in the power of the written word and think it's what sets us apart from the animal kingdom; our thirst for knowledge and self-improvement, the desire to comprehend the world around us? Books such as Alice Walker's, The Color Purple (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Color-Purple-Alice-Walker/dp/0753818922/sr=1-1/qid=1165910769/ref=sr_1_1/026-6757065-3248457?ie=UTF8&s=books), have changed the world.

Anyone else got thoughts on why they write, or other books that have changed your life/cultural ideas?

Writing for whom?

As a journalist, in my day job, one of the first rules you learn is to REMEMBER YOUR READER. All publishing companies spend a lot of money researching what their readers like and trying to meet their demands. It's a lot tougher doing that, however, as a first time novelist. You know what you like and who you think you're writing for but it's tough to get a real picture of that person in your head.
I try to write the kind of thing I think I like to read. Anyone have any suggestions about how to focus the reader in your mind?

Next novel - an extract

Here's an extract of the current work in progress. I'd appreciate people's thoughts/comments on whether it makes them want to read more. To get a copy of the PDF file click here http://www.savefile.com/files/328768

Yay 14K

Just broke the 14,000-word barrier, which means that the curse of 13 has lifted. Starting to doubt whether the latest 'novel' is up to scratch, though, which is making writing tough going. Just searched on some newly-published novels and they all look far more credible than my own.
Anyone else got views on how you know whether your novel's a go-er or not and also how to stay motivated?

Book no 2

While I was on maternity leave I became obsessed with the idea of getting a book published. I'd had this idea kicking around for a while, before we had Amber. We'd tried for a long time to get pregnant, and I wanted to write about that. Then I started seeing magpies everywhere I went, I remembered the rhyme - one for sorrow...and decided that there must be a story in there somewhere. Anyway, I bought a book about magpies and within it, it said that magies were considered to have shamanic properties....then I bought a book about shaman.

The result is A Magpie's Tale, my first novel.

Feedburner

Trying to get some traffic to my blog so publicising my feedburner account http://feeds.feedburner.com/Wannabeapaperbackwriter

10 o'clock unblock

Managed to find inspiration around 10am this morning while Amber was taking her nap. Actually, I find it helps to focus my mind knowing that I have such a limited time to write. Really want to break the 14K barrier this week-end if at all possible. I'm superstitious and at the moment I'm stuck in Chapter 13 and at around 13,000-words.
Anyone else got any weird writing superstitions?

Nine o'clock block

It's a quarter past nine, at night and I've just been editing my latest 'epic' again. Haven't worked on it for a week or two since I failed the Nanowrimo (http://www.nanowrimo.org) challenge to write a novel in a month and sadly, I've lost momentum. I guess I need to sleep on it. My best ideas come when 'm a couple of seconds from sleep. Unfortunately, I've generally forgotten them by the time that morning comes.

The Seven Wonders

I recently spent 10 months on maternity leave...and my brain melted. Well, not quite but while a newborn occupies a lot of time they don't require too much brainpower.
To keep my brain ticking over and, in the hope that I'd hit the Big Time (a.k.a. JK Rowling) I decided I'd write a children's story. Inspiration struck, when I was at home on the sofa feeding Amber. Her old toy trunk is inscribed with the initials C.S - I don't know what they stand for...and I started to wonder.
For some reason Central Station popped into my head. But what would Central Station be and where...
I made it the central point of space and time from where Alex was granted Seven Wonders. These wonders saw her travel to the heart of the amazon rainforest, the depths of London's sewer system and the dark side of the moon....

http://stores.lulu.com/sarahkidner