Anna Aden Writes

 Novel-In-Progress & Writer's Block I'm now writing the final 25% part of the novel-in-progress draft. I've done one outline and why I thought it would be easy escapes me when this process has nearly taken me two years to get here. Actually, nearly two and half if you count the dithering about.  And a small fortune if you think of the editing courses, from Holly Lisle's  Edit Your Novel, Faber Academy's version of Edit Your Novel and finally Jericho's Writer's version of  Edit Your Novel. I guess I was looking for a simple solution and in the end I had to to what I was avoiding, and rewrite the story from scratch, and this I started in January 2020.  It was my mother who suggested, I actually had writer's block with this novel, and I agreed. I realised that during the Faber Academy course but I'd always wanted to go on the Jericho Writer's one so I signed up.  Writing though writing block has been a tough and boring and tedious process. Howev...

I've changed the title to Destination Publication since that's the main goal. Last Week update I wrote twenty pages of the new segment and it's pretty hot. Then only thing is now I either have to edit on paper or type up my notes. I'm more inclined to type up my notes. As to the editing lesson, I'm putting that on hold for now until I get a lesson that resonates with me. All writers write differently and since I've been writing for decades - though not for publication, I'm inclined to think I know what's best for me. I hand write because I flow better and there is less chance of a distraction. It's hard to go on social media or read up on something. Actually that's not strictly too. I got distracted by side stories, so I did manage to outline the villain's story. Sometimes, I have secondary antagonists  or characters that are redeemable or have a story so I tend to outline those. Typically this novel is centred around a family of men...

Last week's lesson was a complete miss as you probably know. So I'm in the twelfth week of my How to Edit your Novel course by Holly Lisle and I'm still making up my mind about it. Overall the course is good but a few bits come over repetitive as a result, so I've bailed out on doing a few lessons. As time passes. I realised if I was going to meet my deadline, I'd have to refer to other material outside the course and I did. If I was doing this course for fun or without a deadline, I probably would have being more patient but with deadline ahead I couldn't afford to go beyond 12 weeks to get a Eureka moment. So I went digging for all my old writing and editing books and managed to diagnose the problem with my story. What was the problem? I had missed out an important part of the story. Literally jumped over this part. Even though my story passed all the Holly Lisle tests on theme, plot and subplots - I kept feeling there was something missing. So after...

My desk is probably due a good scrub down to get rid of the pencil marks but let's roll. In the upper left hand side is  a bottle of Pukka organic castor oil, I use this as a hair treatment. A friend and former colleague suggested it was good. It sits on my desk because normally in a rush, I tend to use the living room mirror to do my hair. Don't ask why. I just realised I have a mirror in every room apart from the kitchen. What does that say about me? Next to it is a container with scenes summary of my story, some masking tape and a complimentary post-its from Netgallery - I got this from a book fair. I needed the masking tape to seal some mail before posting. Yes, I still use snail mail. The greenish-blue tube contains some hand cream. I think that is a ringlet curly curler...Don't ask why...I have no idea. After that is a jewellery box - it contained a pair of gifted ear rings from Sis. A padlock which I tired to use for the gym but was too small.  My handy ca...

This week's lesson on plot  is another miss for me. Though it's a very good course, it is over stretched, or maybe perhaps useful for beginners, rather than experienced writers. It's a personal opinion so in the last ten weeks and for this week, only half the lessons have been of value to me. I found lessons one to five useful, some parts of six and seven, but not enough to warrant doing any writing, and I opted out of eight and nine because I felt they were repetitive of the earlier lessons. I'm now on part two, lesson ten was a miss. It was about tackling story and theme again it felt repetitive from earlier lessons and the work was just because. HOWEVER very valid for the BEGINNER writer. If I was a beginner, I'd have thrown myself into the exercise but at this point, no. This is on plots and reworking plot. I'm taking a miss because the advice is very generic - pretty much the stuff in my how-to-write books and other writing notes which I can use....

So I finally cleared my desk. The dark spots are from pencil and sketching at my desk, so it probably needs a good scrub but I couldn't find my duster. I cleared my desk to start on my next lesson of editing which I didn't do because I thought it was busy work. Yes, it seems out of all the lessons the last ones have been rather disappointing from my point of view. It is probably very good for some but I find it a lot of busy work of stripping something to rebuild it again. However I guess it's a valid method but not for me. Week ten of editing and I haven't done much. The course focuses on story structure which I already have. So I'm holding out for lesson 12 where I deal with plots. And if that doesn't work then it will probably from lessons 15. However, I'm definitely looking forward to lesson eighteen onwards when I get the real deal for myself. However because I've been disappointed for the last few weeks probably I've being considering o...

I didn't do much of last week's lesson because I thought it was too tedious and it was better saved to another part of the course - that may be lesson 11. This week is about world-building. IN LESSON SEVEN: You’ll learn how to triage your world. I've gone through the lesson notes and it seems complicated.  Basically I have to go through all the settings in my book which is fine. Since it's a contemporary setting, I may not have that much to do in terms of world building.  We'll see.

Waterstones bookshop on Tottenham Court Road To lighten the boring nature of this editing I decide to feature a bookstore. So today I'm looking at Waterstones on Tottenham Court road. I was in the Westend and it caught my attention, I do have a regular bookshop I use as well as Amazon. But the staff here are super-friendly and took the time out of explain books covers and packaging. You know I self-publish so I went on a fact finding mission. I think there is a coffeehouse upstairs but I was running an errand so couldn't stop for one. The last week's editing lesson on conflict   I think a cute picture of two kittens will help motivate me. Though the course material was excellent, I've started to lag on the course. It's not hard just boring. For five weeks now, I've been going through the same material looking for different elements so the week before last it was plots, last week it was conflict and I'm finding it boring even thoug...

Discovered Hatchards - London's oldest bookstore Yes, shame on me for not knowing about this bookstore but please, I do go to Waterstones, Foyles, Daunts - back in the day Dillon and I don't live in Green Park or Mayfair *sniff, sniff* only kidding but it was nice to discover this.  So let's get on with my blog narrative.  I was walking down Green Park, and discovered Hatchards, an old bookshop or booksellers as the UK bookshops have rebranded themselves. Normally when I go to Green Park and walk towards Piccadilly Circus, I normally just go to the posh Waterstones, or I'm rushing to the underground or running some errand.  I've never really looked at any of the shops but it was a pleasant discovery.  I probably just noticed it because I was walking slowly,  taking my time, looking for interesting stuff for my Saturday - My London Hood posts.  I think it's owned by Waterstones - well Waterstones has taken it over, only because it ha...

This is editing day where I catch up on all my writing drama. It's how the daily blogging began until I found another project Synopsis of Leyton & Angelica I've got a few of these but decided this for today. Note the book is in 3rd person POV. LEYTON THOMAS is one beautiful, fine-looking man. Simply irresistible but comes with warnings. I've had a one night stand with a parole thug, now I'm sleeping with a billionaire CEO. I'm falling for him fast . But I have secrets in my past that can destroyed this if it gets serious. Will destroy this. Maybe I should just stay in my own lane and leave the past alone. But it will mean losing Leyton.... Catch up on week three Completing last week's lesson was challenging for many reasons - first it was tedious, second I had a lot on off-line and third I was trying to do the blog plan. I realised I've missed out quite a few scenes, there are lots of jumps, and it's messy. I also made a big mi...