Writing Ray - How I Write

This year is my year to write like I've never done before. The last time I seriously wrote for more than an afternoon was my Nanowrimo attempt of 2010 (y'all who followed my blog back then know what happened after that) and I want to finally get a whole story out of my head and onto paper and/or computer screen.

So far in the past month I have managed to write just over 19,000 words on a Fantasy story that had been slow-brewing for a while in my mind. I've almost done a quarter of the story maybe although there is still a loong way to go with it. If folk are interested in reading snippets then I'm not sure what to do cos everything I've written so far is from about a third of the way through the story up towards serious spoilerific sections. Hell I may have to start writing a beginning. *sigh*

But I kinda wanted to talk a little about how I actually write and the odd little things I need while I'm writing. I know a lot of authors post pics and whatnot of their writing spaces and talk about their routines so why the feck shouldn't I?

Mah writin' prooocess 
Ok so if you didn't just read that with a Scottish accent then I don't even know what you're doing here, sheesh. *ahem*
I have come to realise that with my writing I simply cannot write linearly - basically I come up with the idea for the climatic third of the story and then have to figure out the feck I got there. The first scene I wrote on my current WIP is from around the end of the first third of the book and is the first time my two POV characters meet. It basically kicks off the main journey of the story in a rather dramatic style but I've yet to plot out what the hell got my MCs to that point in the first place. I have vague ideas for my male MC but my female MC is currently being a cheeky lass and not bothering to let me know what she's been up to.

I also have found that I plan out scenes in my head as if I was a film director, replaying little shots of a scene over and over as I work out the details and dialogue. Eventually I may actually get those scenes out into proper words but until then it's rather a favourite pre-sleep activity to play out a scene in my head, I have a climatic scene from a different fantasy story that I've been mulling over for something like four years which I often play out. My brain is a crazy place.

I do most of my planning and plotting (for this WIP anyway) in a plain journal that I got a few birthdays back and also in a yellow legal pad I bought while I was in Florida in either 2011 or 2012. For some reason I've only used pencil in the legal pad and my Parker Jotter in the journal and I've taken to lugging them around with me recently in case I get a free moment to scribble something. It's alerted a few people at work to what I'm doing so I have to be all coy and hope they never try to nick the notebooks off me.

The main body of writing I'm doing with this rather fabby word-processing program that I discovered when I did Nanowrimo. It's called Q10 and is a free program that you can download here and it's so awesome; it has a great uncluttered interface and you can program it to autosave your work, set alarms to do wordsprints and there are spellcheckers as well. But the best thing and obviously the main reason I got it was because it makes typewriters noises as you write. Amright?

I do then transfer the text document into Word to check spelling and shout at my computer as it complains about my word and grammatical choices (fuck you I don't care what you think of my verb usage Word). Eventually as I get more scenes done and work out the overall order of the story I'll start combining the word docs into one MASTER FILE which will be rather fun to watch the word count grow and grow.

Now this post is getting rather long and I reckon that I should leave the other quirks of my writing process for another day. If anyone *is* interested in knowing more about what I'm working on please leave me a comment and I shall try to see what snippets I could put up without risking spoiling stuff.

Have a Good Saturday afternoon!
Ray

Read more...

January has been one of those months...

Where all you've wanted to do is wallow in the nostalgia of books you've already read at least twice before, or as the case is with some of my reads in January fourorfivetimesIdunno. As I've had additional goals for what I do with my time I'm strangely not all that bothered and despite my claim to re-read less this year I reckon it's going to happen just as much as it always does because 2014 is the year that ALL THE SERIES seem to be ending!

I mean the Shatter Me series is nearly over (my copy of Ignite Me is already on its sexy way here so *dances*), the last Mortal Instruments book is out in May, the last Daughter of Smoke & Bone book is out in April, the last Blood of Eden book is due out in April, the last Slated book is going to be out and the next freaking Throne of Glass book is out in September-ish, not to bloody mention Unmade by that evil madame Sarah Rees Brennan! The last Grisha book AND ISLA AND THE FREAKING HAPPILY EVER AFTER!! I mean that's a lot of series finishing and some of them I am probably to re-read ahead of the final book's release so I've already lined myself up for about 15 re-reads just from those lot.

But anyway I digress as always. I should probably confess to my shameful reading from January. Only 11 books and literally only *ONE* book was a first-time read.

January
1. The Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce (1/1/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
2. Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce (2/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
3. Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder (4/1/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
4. Scent of Magic by Maria V. Snyder (4/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
5. Taste of Darkness by Maria V. Synder (6/1/2014 PM) NEW READ WUT?
6. First Test by Tamora Pierce (13/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
7. Page by Tamora Pierce (15/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
8. Squire by Tamora Pierce (16/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
9. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (20/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
10. Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi (20/1/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
11. Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce (26/1/2014 AM) *RE-READ*

I think this month is very indicative of which three awesome gals are some of my absolute favourite authors, I mean I don't know if you can spot the pattern but I assure you it's there. *shifty eyes*

*coughs* But anyway that's what I read in January! Now a wee bit later today or possibly tomorrow depending on what my grumpy self can be bothered to do y'all may get a post will more info about my 2014 Write a Fucking Book project (that's not it's actual name but it's a good Motivational point). So keep your lamps peeled for that!

Laters
Ray

Read more...

Writing Ray - an Adventure for 2014

So what most people probably don't know about me is that in addition to being a reading junkie I also like to write. Words are generally what I'm good at except when I go through phases of being utterly incapable of stringing them together for certain purposes (see the lack of reviews I've written these past two years).

Now I wouldn't call myself a writer by any stretch of the imagination since I've never actually finished writing a story; but I do spend a fair amount of time thinking and day-dreaming about stories and plotting out scenes in my head. I have loads of notebooks half-filled with scene snippets, character profiles, and other notes relating to five or six different story ideas yet to date I've not completed or even properly drafted one of them.

However I would like 2014 to be different. This year I want to finish *one* story. I don't want to give myself a super-strict time limit like with Nanowrimo since that might put me under so much pressure on top of what other work commitments I have at any given time that I will probably end up losing my motivation entirely. But I do want to at least finish something for once. Whether that just be an horrific first draft or something more revised and edited- anything is better than half-started nothings.

I should make it clear that I don't necessarily want to finish a story *just* to get it published. While that would be fucking awesome I have enough of sense of reality that I can't expect that to just happen. I want to finish this story for ME so that I can have that sense of pride in myself - like "Fuck Yea I wrote a book, it's probably pretty shitty right now but dammit I love my characters and I finished it!"

Too often I've started a project all fired up only to get disheartened after a month and stick it in a drawer and forget about it. I need to see this through. THE WHOLE FUCKING WAY. That means even if I have days when I can't write for shit and I want to jack it all in I just have to let it breathe for a few days, listen to some more music and come back to it with fresh eyes.

So far I'm doing pretty good with it - I've written something like 10,000 words in just the past two weeks and I have a reasonable idea as to where this story is going. Obviously I'm a looooong way off being done, there's whole swathes of the story that I haven't worked out yet and I'm getting rather fixated on writing one my MC's POV over the other.

I gotta be careful that I don't the same thing as I did with my Nanowrimo story back in 2010 when I basically put writing over everything including my Uni work which effectively was the tipping point towards me dropping out altogether. I have two different qualifications on the go at the moment plus a full-time job and my boyfriend who has to live with me so I can't sink too far into writing that I forget everything everything else.

Well that's about it for now, if anyone is interested in what I'm working on then please leave a comment  and I may post bits or waffle about my characters for you. If you follow me on Twitter you're likely to get lots of spam about my writing shenanigans and my on-going infatuation with the Frozen soundtrack as my writing music (it's already getting out of hand and I only bought it two days ago).

Laters,
Ray

Read more...

Surprise Top 13 of 2013 and 2014 Reading Goals

Surprise Bitches, bet you thought you'd seen the last of me...

Yes well I know it's not unheard of for me to just vanish into the aether and then not reappear for 2 years but I think that just adds to my charm n'est pas?

So I return in the New Year with a plan to slowly reintegrate myself into a more active participatory role in the book community and this time I have Gifs! (gods all bless Tumblr).

Top 13 Reads of 2013
Since no one has any idea what I read last year (except those few whom I actually communicate with through other mediums) I thought I'd start with a list of my favourite reads of 2013. This list won't include any re-reads or multiple books by the same author. Also in no order of favouritism.

Angelfall by Susan Ee 

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell  

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Unravel Me - Tahereh Mafi

Clockwork Princess - Cassandra Clare

Etiquette and Espionage - Gail Carriger

Just One Day - Gayle Forman

This Song will Save your Life - Leila Sales

Siege and Storm - Leigh Bardugo

Untold - Sarah Rees Brennan

Battle Magic - Tamora Pierce

The 5th Wave - Rick Yancey

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami

Reading Goals for 2014

I kinda failed with some of my goals from last year so hopefully I can succeed with this year's.

1. Read at least 150 books

2. Read at least 1 non-fiction book a month

3. Read at least 1 classic book a month

4. Read more from my TBR pile than re-reads

5. Get back into the habit of filling my reading journal properly

6. Try to get back into book community (see already trying with this one!)

What goals are all you lovely folk setting for yourselves in 2014? 

Hopefully y'all will see more from me soon - alas now I have to go be domestic, ironing calls!

Ray

Read more...

New Name, New URL, same old me

In the interests of not panicking folk who may come looking for old blog posts (surprisingly it still happens) I thought I ought to post so there something with this new URL and hope like hell that you can still reach the old posts by searching.

During my horrifically long absence from the blogasphere I have mostly been based over on my Youtube channel doing mostly Books Read and Acquired vlogs (Playlist of those videos here) but recently I have also changed the name of channel due to Youtube's incessant nagging about having a proper name to the less confusing Ray Reads!

Now I am not saying that this post is foretelling a return to blogging, god only knows why I am tinkering with all this stuff anyway but because I have meddled I had better let you guys knows in case some people see a new name pop up in their blog readers and wonder "who the hell did I follow?", that's if this shows up at all what with the URL change.

Gah now this is getting rambling and non-sensical (I'm super sleepy and in need of my bed) so I shall finish up here.

Never say never to future posts but I can't make any promises.
Ray

Read more...

So I kinda suck at Read-a-thons

Good evening all you lovely people, it's a tad embarrassing coming back here after supposedly starting a readathon last Monday and realising that I just, sort of stopped by Thursday. While I did get some reading done that day (Started on the Repossession by Sam Hawksmoor) events conspired against me and I just didn't get round to updating the blog that day. Then the weekend arrived along with that wonderfully lovely specimen of awesomeness (Also known as my boyfriend, Mark :D) and all blogging went out the window and was replaced by Doctor Who marathons and copious amounts of Cricket (Alas not the Bell variety).

Hilariously I did get a bit more of the Repossession read on Saturday morning while I was volunteering at my local library. I've been helping with the Summer Reading Challenge for les enfants and there was quite a hefty lull so one of the librarians asked if I wanted a magazine to look through, I said thanks but I've got it covered and whipped the book out of my handbag. I'd got it with me just in case although I felt very odd about bringing my own book to a freaking library but eventually got over the weirdness and zoned out. Thankfully there were not many other kids during the two hours I was there.

So my Readathon was somewhat curtailed but it was really great to be able to sit and actually read since July was a very low yield reading month. I think I blitzed about 5 6 books in the first week of August which already has equalled July so I'm hoping to get through a fair bit more before we hit September (although srsly what the frack? I'm gonna be 22 around the start of October and that's getting scarily close!).

The final tally for my Readathon was as follows;
Frostfire by Zoe Marriott - 45 pgs. 4 stars
Slated by Teri Terry - 327 pgs. 5 stars
How to Marry a Marquis by Julia Quinn - 375 pgs. 4 stars
Fat Cat by Robin Brande - 327 pgs. 4.5 stars

I think it is rather fabulous that I managed to read four completely different genres of books that almost perfectly sums up the majority of my book collection; Fantasy, Dystopia, Historical and Contemporary. Yea I do have a lot of "classics" but seriously when have I last read a good chunk of those?

I do actually want to write reviews for all the books I've read so far this month (including at least one from the end of last month) so maybe I shall get uber productive and post a review a day for a week or more sensibly post two a week so they last me a bit longer since who knows when I might write another?!

Well this has been a rather lengthy ramble about my inability to finish another project (C'est la vie non?)
But I shall now bid thee adieu.

Yours wistfully
LadyV

Read more...

Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-thon Days 2 & 3 Update

The Summer Wrap Up Read-A-Thon is hosted by Jennifer at Some Like It Paranormal and Jude at In Between.

So update time! I didn't actually switch on my computer all day yesterday so I wasn't able to post my update for Tuesday and since I only really read in the wee hours of Wednesday morning it would have been a fairly tiddly update.

What I'm Reading: Currently on the Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer. Started it yesterday but not sure if I'll read more today.
What I've Already Read:

 Number of Pages read today: 0 (as of 1pm)
Total number of Pages Read: 1209
Total books read: 4
Non-Reading Activity: Today I've got to go be a helpful and supportive sister as my lil' sis is going to take her Driving Theory test this afternoon *crosses everything* but I will get some time to read in the car while I wait. Then later it's ironing at Gran's time again - possible chance for reading again

I will update things more later on but I have to dash and get ready to actually go out since I've been idling far too long. Plus I need to eat something for lunch!

Yours Leisurely,
LadyV

Read more...