Halloween

Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain to you all :-)

NaNoFiMo

I know it sounds like it could be a lawn-mowing championship but it's actually my very own version of the proper NaNoWriMo. The Fi is short for Finishing because I've already started it!

What I've decided to do is put the Prologue on hold for a month and make a start on the main part of the book. It's set in the present day so no worrying about the 'thees' and 'thous' *grin*. I've not written any of this yet, just lots of plans and research notes, so it's more in the spirit of the proper event.

I'm still going to post here whenever I can, I'm not going to turn into a hermit. I am going to try and cut down on my time spent on Forums like Outpost Gallifrey.

Wish me luck :-D

National Novel Writing Month

"NaNoWriMo is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."

I'm not doing this because I've already got this book on the go, but it sounds a real challange, and maybe quite a lot of fun too.

I failed

I only got 4 minors (you can get up to 15 and still pass) but I got 2 serious faults so it was automatic fail after the 1st one...which was about 3 minutes into the test!

I was going up a narrow street and I should have waited for a lorry coming in the opposite direction to pass me. I hit the kerb in my parallel park so that failed me too.

I was het-up before I even began, so I'm not really surprised, though obviously I'm gutted about it. When I pulled the lever inside the car to open the bonnet on my pre-test check I cut my finger and it wouldn't stop bleeding. I've got blood all over my trousers, the car side window, the floor in the toilets in the examining place (but I did wipe that up!) and pretty much everywhere else I went! They didn't have any plasters there, they're not allowed to in case someone has an allergic reaction, so my instructor went to the corner shop to buy some for me.

Still. it's not the end of the world, I can take it again.

Pictures and Words

I've been reading what I've written and I know I need to put in more descriptive detail. Not go overboard on the adjectives, just help visualise the scene a bit more. I want to try and give an idea of the 'sights and sounds' of the place.

It's strange, when I'm writing it seems like I'm seeing and hearing it as a film in my head, then I write down what I've seen. Does that happen to other people or is it just me being weird? *lol*

I've had some advice (thanks guys), and I've been trying the dialogue out loud, and I think I've pretty much decided to scrap most of the 'thees' and 'thys'. I know that's how they may have spoken but it seems very distracting. I think perhaps that a reader is more likely to be distracted by the archaic speech than notice that I'm using 'you' and 'yours' instead. It just doesn't seem to sound natural. I'll still put in some contemporary words and phrasing so hopefully it should stand out from the rest of the novel which is set in the present day.

Driving Test

It's got nothing to do the book, but I've just had my last proper driving lesson before my test on Thursday, and it didn't go that well.

All my manoeuvres went horribly wrong, normally I can at least do the Turn-in-the-Road but not today :-(

My instructor says not to worry about it, because I know I can do them, so I can only do better on Thursday. Which is true, I know, but I've just got to believe it.

Here you go - Methods of Burning

Quote 1
Three slightly different methods of burning were used. The first, consisted of using a heap of faggots piled around a wooden stake above which the prisoner was attached with chains or iron hoops. The British and Spanish Inquisition preferred this method as it had the greatest visual impact.

The second method, mostly used on witches, was to tie the condemned to the stake and heap faggots all round them, effectively hiding their sufferings from sight so that they died inside a wall of flames . It is said that Joan of Arc died by this method.

The third method, used in Germany and the Nordic countries, involved typing the prisoner to a near vertical ladder, the top of which was tied to a frame, and then swinging them down onto the fire.

Quote 2
The witch was strangled first, and then her corpse--or sometimes her unconscious or semiconscious body--was tied to a stake or dumped into a tar barrel and set afire. If the witch was not dead and managed to get out of the flames, onlookers shoved her back in.

Quote 3
Burning, by the way, didn't mean being burned alive. If you recanted (admitted you'd made a mistake and were sorry), you were killed beforehand, and then your body was consigned to the flames.

Quote 4
In France, Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland, almost all of the executed were garroted before the flames were lit.
~~~~
There seem to be several different ways. I think I'll use the first method, but some of my victims may be killed beforehand. *lol* I sound like a serial killer!

Lots of words

I'm so pleased with what I've written. In long-hand it looks quite a lot, story-wise I've not covered that much. Which is probably quite a good thing.

My very first First Draft of the Prologue was 769 words long (thank goodness for Word Count) *lol* but I knew it had to be longer than that. As I said in an earlier entry I want to write something that is emotionally strong enough to affect my readers. It's not exactly spoiling the end of it to reveal that Rachel (the accused woman) dies. I feel that for people to connect with her more they need to know her better, so writing in more detail will help that.

I'm still in the process of typing it up to see how much I've written, but I've already got 1200 words just in my ducking scene. I think there's at least that much in the torture scene so far and I've hardly started!

I'm here again...briefly

I'm off on holiday to Eastbourne for 5 days in..... 6 hours and 20 minutes. And I haven't gone to bed yet! I won't be back until Thursday night so it's likely I won't be able to post until Friday.

I'm determined to write some more TWH, especially in the afternoons. I'm going with my Mum and she tends to have an afternoon nap - perfect time to scribble :-D

I probably won't get to finish the Prologue but I'm going to have a darned good try!

See ya soon *waves*

I'm still here...

Sorry I've not written anything here for a few days, don't worry I've not given up on it :-) I've had a bit of a block on what to Blog about...which I suppose is worth an entry in itself.

I've not really written enough in my life to get 'proper' writer's block. I read about authors staring at a blank page, or nowadays probably more likely an empty screen, and they just can't write a single word. Nothing's there. When I'm trying to think of things to type and nothing's happening, it's usually just because I get distracted by things rather than I have an empty head.

In rand's blog he says that he wants "to be engrossed, undistracted, deep in the magical world of writing". That does sound wonderful. I think I need to spend more time at my word-processer instead of the machine that opens the door to the Whole Wide World.

What Do I Want?

I've been thinking about what I want from writing the book...

The first thing is - just to finish it! That would be a real achievement for me, so if that was as far as it got I'd still be happy.

But I know that if it does get finished I would desperately want someone to publish it. I would love to walk into a bookshop and see my book sitting on the shelves. And if that did happen, I'd be realistic about it. However much I dream about writing a bestseller for my first novel I know that's not likely to happen. The JK Rowlings of this world come along very rarely!

But my real desire sounds a bit odd I think...I want to make people cry.

I'm a right soppy mare about...well...everything! I cry at TV, films (I even cried at Terminator 2, I'm that bad!), pretty much anything you can think of. I've sobbed at books - and how embarrassing is that when you're sitting on a train!

I want people to laugh as well but I would love to write something powerful enough to make people cry.

Thee, thy, thou, thine

I've been working on the prologue and one of the things I want to make sure about is that it sounds (reasonably) authentic. I've written it in ordinary English to begin with, but obviously they spoke a bit differently in 17th century Essex. I want it to sound natural though, not silly. There isn't a Ye Olde Tea Shoppe on the village green.

I thought changing the 'you' and 'yours' throughout to 'thee' or 'thy' would work, and maybe throw in a couple of dialect words as well. But I hadn't realised it was more complicated that. I tried changing 'you' to 'thee' but it sounded wrong. I thought maybe putting in some 'thy' would help but I couldn't decide what should go where.

I started looking into it and it is more complicated that I thought. It's all to do with grammar. French and Latin grammar made sense at school, probably because I was learning the whole thing from scratch. English is already there, in my head, so talking about nominative, objective and possesive is just *whoosh* over my head!

Nominative: thou
Objective: thee
Possessive: thy (before a consonant, so "thy servant"), thine (before a vowel, so "to thine own self be true")

Which is all great. Now I know that if the 'you' is nominative it should be 'thou'. So I've just got to go and find out which of them are nominative and which are possessive!

Why "The Witches' Hammer" ?

I couldn't decide what to call my book for ages. My college lecturer said it was really important to choose a strong title that would catch people's attention and make them want to pick up the book to see what it was about. Do you think TWH works? Please tell me if you don't - all suggestions welcome :-)

I got it from a translation of a book called the Malleus Maleficarum which was published in 1486. It's one of the most influential Witch-hunting manuals of all times and describes the detection and punishment of witches. I wanted to get as much contemporary source material as I could. I've found various extracts on the Net but I wanted a complete copy so I bought it as an E-book on ebay for 99p - I thought that was a pretty good deal!

In my book the ghost of a 17th century witch-hunter terrorises a present-day family. Some of them are Wicca-type witches and together they are able to defeat and banish him, hence the 'hammering'.

The prologue of the book is set in the 17th century and a lot of my current research is studying contemporary accounts of the trials and torture of accused women (and men). It is fascinating, and some of it is quite disturbing. I can't be too graphic in the book. I've written the ducking scene, now I'm concentrating on the torture. And how bizarre is that sentence!

I've got a headache...

Late night next door with the neighbours. He works in Saudi Arabia and is over here for a couple of weeks so they invited us round for a party. They kept 'forcing' red wine on me and it would have been rude to decline. Scotch eggs and mini sausage rolls don't really soak up that much alcohol! Still, I can't really use that as an excuse completely because we came back home at @ 11 pm and I was up until nearly 3 am on the Net *very bad* especially when I'm working the next day!!

I'm writing this (on paper) at work at the start of a meeting. Everyone else is eating lunch but I'm not hungry so I'm doing this instead. Usually when I write at work I do it straight onto my email, ready to send at a moment's notice if my boss walks in! *lol*

I really will have to be careful that I don't spend all my time writing my blog instead of my book. I'm going to Eastbourne in a couple of weeks so I'm determined to only write TWH while I'm away.

Wiki, Wiki, Wiki

Oi! Oi! Oi!

The Wikipedia site, and various spin-offs, seems to have suddenly become very popular. It's an interesting concept, if you haven't come across it yet I'd definitely suggest going to have a look. It looks like an ordinary encyclopaedia site, but information can be added to it by anyone. There's always the danger that people will make stuff up, so it shouldn't be taken as completely accurate, but it is very informative, and I do have to be careful not to get sidetracked when I'm looking at it. There are lots of links to other sections on every page so if I start clicking on them I can be lost for the afternoon!

A friend started using a site called pbwiki for a project he's doing, and now I'm using it for my book. I had a bit of a disaster 6 months ago when my old PC died and I didn't have everything backed-up onto floppies. Thankfully I had hard-copies but it still meant I had to type it all in again. My pbwiki site means that I can store all my research and my writing online instead of on my hard-drive. They back up their site offline twice-hourly, and I regularly download a zipfile of my work as well to keep all the information on my PC just in case.

It's much better than having lots of Word documents on my computer because I can link pages to each other to keep everything tidy but easily accessible. The index page means I can find anything I need within seconds. It's very cool.

The site is password protected but if you give the password to someone they can contribute to it as well. That aspect isn't really useful for me, it depends what you're using the site for, and obviously you could only give it to people you trust otherwise they could go on and delete everything!!

I think it's giving me more incentive to write because I can see all the work I've already done straight away. It would be such a shame to waste it all by giving up.

Travel Writing

I've been away for the weekend to stay with my friends in Essex. I go down quite often, usually on the coach, and I'm always full of good intentions to write while I'm travelling. It takes quite a while to get there, 5 hours down on the coach (I have to change in Birmingham) and then an hour on the Underground from Victoria. The train is quicker but more expensive, and to be honest more of a hassle. It takes me nearly as long to travel out of London on the 3 tubes (or 2 tubes and a train) I need to use from Euston as it does to get down to London on the train in the first place!

My handwriting is bad at the best of times, and it looks like spidery shorthand when I write on the coach so I tend to make notes rather than try and write the story itself. Part of it takes place in London and, as I don't know the city at all, travelling through on the coach gives me a good opportunity to make notes on my surroundings.

I just write a few words about the people I see walking past; the shops, cafes and restaurants; the stone carvings on the old buildings that nobody notices; the parks and the traffic. Stuff like that.

Most of the story is based in Essex and I get to see the local countryside as well when I'm travelling through on the tube. It really surprised me the first time I used it when I went to stay with my friends. I always thought of the Underground as being...well...underground, but on the District Line (and probably the others too) once the tube reaches a certain point out of the main part of the City it appears above ground and carries on just like a normal train.

I'd really like to visit Manningtree in Essex where Matthew Hopkins, the so-called Witchfinder General, lived in 1644. He was responsible for several hundred woman being executed after they were accused of witchcraft. I haven't been able to persuade my friends yet that it would be a good place for a grand day out, and I don't know why!! Maybe next summer we can go there and have a picnic.