Spent a couple of hours working on the short stories but somehow only wrote 100 or so words. It's hard to get going sometimes and I really have to force myself to work towards the the goal of getting these books published.

Being connected to the internet is one of the biggest distractions we as writers have and it's amazing what we'll find to look at when we're meant to be doing something useful. Today I was distracted by the following:

1. looking for a new keyboard

2. looking for ways not to get distracted, which found me on the NanWriMo website

3. reading the Write or Die website

4. a rather daunting list of how many words I need to write to call my book a novel, short story or whatever else.

5. Google reader with more links to more blogs than I realistically need.

But although it wan't much today, it was something. So whatever else you do today, sit in front of screen and keyboard and write something.

The beginning

Everybody has a novel in them or so I hear. Mine has been waiting to come out for sometime, rather like an overdue baby. This one, (or will it be twins?) has been gestating for at least 15 years and somewhere along the way, not only did it change gender but species as well.

Like many people I started and stopped and started again often without a plan or sense of direction. This fine if you can do it, but what I realised is that I can't. I need to plan out my novel in order to give it a sense of direction otherwise it simply runs out of steam.

But even before that I needed to get over my fear of rejection. I was afraid that once I had finished my opus I would get rejected by publishers and agents alike. Strange for someone who makes a living out of writing (I'm a copywriter) but there you go. And then I came across an interesting blog by Joe Konrath who, whilst being published by publishers, also makes a decent living out of self publishing his work on Amazon, so that's the route I'm going to take. Once complete this book will be professionally edited and have a decent book cover, I'm simply bypassing the unnecessary gatekeepers and going it alone.

So now I have two books on the go, one is murder mystery and the other is a collection of short stories about peoples' day dreams.

One of the problems with plotting is that it isn't writing, although it requires a lot of effort, so I have my book of daydreams on the go at the same time.

The murder mystery is getting plotted as I write and the characterisations are developing all the time, and when I need a break from thinking too much I just get on and write about the daydreams.

So for now, that's as far as I've got. I hope to complete writing these books by June and have them ready for release by September. So if anyone is reading this you'll be the first to know when they're available.

I'm going to keep writing.