So... I guess it's been a while, huh? Apologies and all that. Must be time for a brief update...

Creativity Workshop
Sadly, my last blog post was the last time I did anything directly related to the workshop. Other things took over, and although I would very much like to go back and work my way through the last few weeks of the workshop at some point I had to put it aside. That snarky mercenary is still in my head though, and I doubt she's going anywhere! I suspect she may end up with her own novel at some point, but she'll have to wait a while.

The Amulet of Sìochàin
I finished my story bible, eventually. It was useful, I think. I know the name of the town in the novel now, anyway. It may prove more useful in the future, if I ever get round to writing the sequel. Either way, I'm glad I did it, but it did seem to take forever. I'm now (finally) on line edits, and they seem to be taking even longer. But I've sped up in the last week or so - until this week I was having to limit myself to doing 15 minutes at a time, because it just seemed so tedious. This week though I've worked on it every day, taking advantage of extra pockets of time where I've had them, and I'm now on page 228 of 373. I can't tell you how long I've been working on it, but it's been weeks, and yet in the last week or so I've probably doubled my page count. This means that if I can get through nine pages a day for the rest of October I will be done in time to start NaNoWriMo. Talking of which...

NaNoWriMo
I told myself that if I hadn't finished my line edits by November, I wouldn't be allowed to do NaNo this year. I've participated in and completed it for the last three years, so that would be bad. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll really have the time to complete it this November anyway, but I want to give it a shot at least. Apart from anything else, I really need an excuse to write something else. I've been working on these revisions since January. Okay, they were extensive and required lots of new scenes, but apart from a couple of short stories I haven't written anything new since I finished last year's NaNoWriMo book. I have a one-sentence summary of the book I want to write. I'm really really hoping I finish these line edits in time to do just a little bit more plotting though.

Goals
So, goals. I'm never very good at these, but it seems a good time to make them all the same.
Finish Amulet line edits by 31st October Participate in (and win) NaNoWriMo Complete NaNoWriMo novel (this will probably take me through to January) Type up Amulet line edits Do a final read through, put together a decent query letter and start sending it out Start on The Bonded edits (last year's NaNoWriMo book - love the concept, know it's going to need just as much editing as Amulet) and get it ready to submit to agent/book doctor at the Festival of Writing Attend Festival of Writing (end of March) And that's as far ahead as I can bear to look.

So, once again Tuesday's come around and I haven't yet posted my review of last week or started work on this week's story. I'm getting things done, but slowly, and I'm having trouble keeping my head in story-world when I'm not actively working on it. This is true of both my short stories and my novel at the moment. But like I said - I am making progress. It just doesn't really feel like it.

Last week I got my short story done in just two sessions. I wrote it by hand again, and it was two sides of A4. (No idea what that is in words, but my writing is fairly small.) The story surprised me by being quite dark but very much contemporary. Since this block is all about relationships, it explored an old friendship, and I think it was fairly successful, but not in the way I expected. It became more about the loss of a friendship than the experience of one. It was certainly new territory for me though, and although I'm not completely happy with the ending I think the central story is fairly solid.

When I'm not actually working on anything writing-related, my mind seems to be a million miles away - I seem to be very detached from it at the moment. With the novel, I'm not surprised, since at the moment I'm doing a slow read-through, using my iPhone (which I'm not too keen on as a reading experience, but it's less hassle than carting a lever arch file around with me). As I mentioned last week, I'm making notes about character and setting to make sure it's all consistent, and it's definitely the most tedious part of this revision so far. I'm about a third of the way through, but I'm finally beginning to pick up speed and I'm hoping I'll get through the rest relatively quickly.

I think one thing I'm learning in this block is that there's a reason I choose to write fantasy. I think - I'm not completely sure, but I think - that part of the reason I'm not engaging properly with the short stories is the fact that they are so different to what usually sets my imagination off. I'm still getting the words down, and I'm still fairly happy with what I'm producing, but the stories just don't seem to excite me in the same way. I may be imagining things - it may just be that the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a slog all round. But it's an interesting thought. Either way, I'm really glad I'm trying this - I think it's fair to say I probably wouldn't have bothered to spread my wings in this way without the help of the workshop. And who knows - maybe this week will be different. If I ever come up with an idea, that is.

I'm behind on the exercises, but I am working my way through the various posts. I'm now on the last page of my second notebook - mainly because I ended up writing the week before last's story in it, but I have been doing my idea generation exercises too.

So I'm still here. I'm still in. I'm just plodding behind a little bit, that's all. :)

Well, I actually got my short story done last week, which was a definite plus. I have no idea how long it is, since I wrote it by hand, but it contained no magic whatsoever and I think it dealt fairly well with the mother/son relationship I was trying to explore. Okay, so the situation they were in was a little out of the ordinary, which wasn't quite the plan, but it worked. It was actually one of my morning idea generation exercises that sparked the plot, which was quite exciting. I then used the wagon wheel concept described by Rachael Hale to develop the concept. I was really pleased with how well the tools worked together, and I'm hoping to use the same method this week.

Unfortunately this week is getting off to a slow start. I spent the weekend with my parents, and haven't yet got back into my routines - I'm getting lots of housework and general organising done, but apart from 30 minutes yesterday working on my story bible I haven't done anything writing related since Saturday. Hoping to get that problem addressed later today.

The story bible (or series bible if you prefer) is proving useful, however. Prompted by this post over at Deadline Dames, I decided it would be a good idea to get one together. If I do ever get a chance to write the second book, it will be invaluable - but right now it's giving me a really thorough grasp of a few inconsistencies, in my settings in particular. I've worked through six chapters so far. There's a bit of a way to go, but once I've done that (and the exercise on settings too) I should be ready to get on with line edits. (But then, I've said that so many times already that I'm not holding my breath.)

This week's short story is rather vague so far, since I haven't even thought about it properly yet. I'm thinking I'll try exploring a relationship between two old friends this week - but if my idea generation exercises point me somewhere else, I think I'll go with it.

So, I said I was going to be working on those exercises on integral setting, right? Yeah. Well, I started to. I did the first exercise (I chose ancient Athens, incidentally) and found it really interesting - I think Merrilee's post really got some important points through for me. And then yesterday I started on the second, and it looked promising - I decided to do it for the novel I'm currently revising, since it's so fresh in my head. But I didn't get very far. I was going to continue with it this morning, but... well. Somehow I ended up in plotting mode for the second book in the series, and this is what I ended up with:

Essentially, I suppose they're mainly character sheets, with notes on the issues they're all facing and some of the most important things they'll have to do. I had been planning to do some collaging this week, but at the moment I don't have access to a particularly good printer so I haven't been able to do that yet (although I have found a few interesting pictures that I'll be using). But this may well have been the more productive option. I don't yet have my inciting incident, but I do have a good idea of my character goals and motivations (which is very rare for me at this stage) as well as some of the key events plotted out. I know where they're starting from, I know where they're going, and I know some of the places they need to visit along the way.

It was probably the most exhilirating plotting session I've ever had - I was buzzing long before I sat down with my pencil and paper. I learnt some things about the bad guys I hadn't realised before, and I realised that one of the relationships I loved so much in the first book isn't going to survive this one. There were a couple of things I came across that I am going to have to feed back in as I go through and do my (hopefully) final revision on the first book, but that's all to the good - nothing major, more foreshadowing than anything, but important all the same.

I'm excited about this book. I have no intention of starting to actually write it any time soon though - I'll get a more linear plan in place, and then I'll put it away. My current plan is to finish this revision and send it out, and then start working on the revisions for last year's NaNoWriMo book. It takes place in a completely different world, and it's one which I'm itching to get back to. That way, if things go really well, I have a plan for book two of the world of Amulet ready to go; if they don't, I have a whole other book and concept that I can bring up to scratch and start sending out. It does mean that I'm not going to be able to start work on a new book just yet, but I guess this is the year of extensive revisions, and that's okay. Last year I finished one first draft and then a week later jumped straight into the next, so it's only to be expected! If I can get Bonded revised by November, then maybe I'll get to work on another first draft for NaNoWriMo - but that's still some way off, and I don't want to rush anything.

Creativity Workshop Week Seven: Coming Up
This week, though, I need to get back into the workshop. Firstly, that means getting the second exercise on setting done and dusted - I have a feeling it will be useful to have that done before I jump back into the third draft. I think I'm going to put the third exercise aside for now and come back to it for the third block of the workshop, which is going to be about setting.

The block which I'm now in, although a week late, is about relationships. I'm really hoping my plotting frenzy continues tomorrow so I can get some solid ideas, but we'll see! I originally planned to explore four kinds of relationship, but with only three weeks that's a little more difficult, so I'm cutting out the housemates story. This week, I want to try the mother and son relationship - it seems appropriate, since we're spending time with both my parents and my in-laws over the course of this week! I think this is going to be a challenge for me, since, for obvious reasons, I have never been a son, and have yet to be a mother. But it will no doubt be interesting. All I know about the story so far is that it's set in a small town. Tomorrow, hopefully, I will learn a bit more about it.

Yes. Finally. I got to the end of the second draft. It came in at a total word count of 103394, which I'm very happy with. So now I'm going to put it to bed for a week, and leave it alone. I may play about with some collaging for another novel idea, but then again, I may not. I might just concentrate on the Creativity Workshop for a few days. Then, at the end of next week, I'll print off my manuscript again and start making the smaller changes - moving words around rather than whole scenes.

I'm fairly confident that the structure is pretty much all in place now - there may be a few small modifications to make, but overall, I think the story itself is now in pretty decent shape. It's taken me far longer than I anticipated to reach this point, but honestly, that's okay. What's that saying - anything worth doing well is worth taking your time over? Well, I've certainly done the latter. Hopefully the first part is at least vaguely applicable too.

So, with that done, I actually have the time to address the questions Merrilee posed in her How are you doing? post, and now seems like a pretty appropriate time to do so. Even if it has taken me two days to do it.

1. Creativity

1a. Am I doing my daily creativity exercises?
I had been doing really well at this, but when I stopped working on my short stories, I also stopped doing the idea generation exercises every morning. It only took me a few days to realise that I actually really missed doing it. I haven't yet had anything overly remarkable appear on the pages of my notebook from them, but they were getting me into a generally more creative frame of mind, and after a few days of not doing them I realised my other writing was suffering because of it. So now I'm back on the wagon, so to speak.

1b. How full is my notebook?
I finished my first one, and I'm a few pages into the second one. Okay, they're only Pop Notes books, but they're perfect for carrying around with me, and there are 50 pages in each one. I'm using them for my idea generation, and also for taking notes on blog posts - mainly the ones from the workshop, but also from other blogs I follow when something of particular interest comes up. When Merrilee has set exercises to do, I've used it for those as well.

1c. Do I look around me and collect inspiration as I go about my day?
I think so, some of the time, but it's usually from objects and places rather than people. I need to work harder at people watching and using those observations - I suspect my character development would really benefit from that.

1d. Am I looking for inspiration, instead of waiting for it to appear?
I've noticed that my gaze will fall on something, and I'm almost automatically asking myself the "What if...?" questions Merrilee mentioned on her More ideas than you can write blog post. That feels pretty good, and I'm really very happy about it.

2. Focus

2a. Am I examining ideas that excite me?
Not really, to be honest. But then I have been trying to focus hard on my revisions, so maybe this will start to change now.

2b. Have I found a particular genre or topic that really means something to me?
Fantasy is my genre of choice, always has been. Lately I've found myself working family issues into my stories a lot, and I do find that fascinating.

2c. Is my exploration leading me to new outlets for my creativity, or do I feel like I am going in circles?
Hmm, not sure about the new outlets, unless short stories in general count. And they're not entirely new. But I don't feel like I'm going in circles - I have felt lately as if I'm on a neverending path with my revisions, but that's different. I knew I was moving forward, it was just slow.

2d. Am I finding it easier to concentrate on a project on-demand, or do I get distracted easily?
I'm usually pretty good about sitting down to write, but I do tend to work in spurts - I'll write a scene and then go and check Facebook/Twitter/blogs for a while. I'd like to work on writing for longer periods at a time - I know I can do it, but I'm not doing it regularly enough. Timing myself helps - I guess I need to start increasing the length of time on Write or Die!

3. Productivity

3a. How many stories have I started?
Three so far.

3b. How many stories have I completed?
I've completed first drafts of all three, though they will need editing - especially the third one, which rambled and meandered a lot! This is the second week I've skipped, but every week I've tried, I have managed to finish the story.

3c. Am I writing as often as I could be?
Probably not, but I am writing nearly every day. The last week or so I've been skipping my evening sessions, which is bad - and silly too, since I feel so much better when I do fit them in.

3d. Do I bring the story to mind every day, even when I’m not writing?
I've definitely been doing this with my novel - I think I was doing it with the short stories too, but can't honestly remember!

4. Goals

4a. Am I meeting my goals?
I think overall I am. As I've said, it took longer than expected to meet my novel goal, but it's done now. And I made a conscious decision not to push myself to do the short stories for this week and last, so I don't really feel like I've failed at that.

4b. Do I remember what my goals are?
I think so!

4c. Do my goals reflect my desires and where I want to go as a writer?
Yes, I think they do - my overriding goal is to get my novel to the query stage, and my goals for the Creativity Workshop are all about exploring different avenues and techniques to see what works for me.

4d. Am I keeping my goals in mind whenever I get excited by a new project?
This hasn't really come up so far - there are too many things already in the works. But I am keeping my goals in mind as I decide which parts to focus on.

There. I think that's a long enough post for now. Today I'm going to start work on some of Merrilee's exercises on integral settings. Tomorrow, who knows. I'm taking it easy for a couple if days!

Towards the end of last week, after completing my third short story for the Creativity Workshop, I realised two things: one, that my chances of completing my second draft before the 31st May were next to none, and two, that I'd already achieved what I'd set out to try and do in the first block. I'd explored objective POV in my first story, and weeks two and three explored first person viewpoints of two of my characters. I'd already told most of the story (and had creeped myself out considerably in the process with my shapeshifter killing maniac), and so I decided to take Week Five off and concentrate on my revisions.

It went well for the first couple of days - on Monday I added 8K, and on Tuesday I added another 6K. I'm now up to 91K in total, which is about 20K more than my first draft. I think the structure's much stronger, and I'm pretty happy with my characters. I still have a few more scenes to fix and write though - the second half of this week has been less productive. This morning I got up to write and realised that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind, so I've been finding new pictures for my Daily Photo Prompt blog instead.

Merrilee put up a great blog about writer's block, and for me, this is how it usually manifests itself. If I force myself to try and write, I'll get frustrated with myself, so I've learnt that it's usually about needing something specific. Often it's because I haven't been getting enough creative input (not reading enough, mainly), or simply because I'm too tired. This time, I think it's the latter - I had a dreadful night's sleep for no good reason. I usually find that being productive in other ways can help me quite a lot in getting past this, so I think this morning will be dedicated to housework. The laundry's already done, the kitchen is next in line for a cleaning, and then I'll try and get a bit of writing done.

I've rarely found myself blocked because of the actual story itself, but it has happened - in the first draft of Amulet, I wrote a particular scene and then just couldn't get past it. It took me a couple of days to figure out that while my hero might be a bit of a bad guy on the outside, I'd taken his evil tendencies a few steps too far until he was behaving wildly out of character. For one of the first times ever, I scrapped that whole scene in the middle of the first draft and wrote what actually needed to happen instead. I'm a big believer in writing through to the end of that first draft, but sometimes, it just can't happen. I have also found from time to time that I'm really not as much of a pantser as I once thought - sometimes, I just need to brainstorm until I figure out what needs to happen next.

So. This week, I haven't been working on a short story, and I'm happy about that. I couldn't have given it any kind of decent attention, and the story I was planning just didn't interest me that much anymore since I already knew everything about it from the other three stories in this block. Next week, I think I'm going to wing it a bit. At first I was very frustrated not to have reached my goal, but I'm over that now - I realised quickly that there were a whole lot of reasons why the second draft done was taking longer than I'd planned, and so I'm just going to get it done as soon as I can. I think it still needs to take priority for me at the moment though, so I may take this week just as a planning week, with my goal for the second block being to produce three short stories again. It depends - if I manage to get to the end of this draft in the next few days, I'll be right back on my AlphaSmart working on another story. But I want to give myself the space I need to finish this draft.

So, that's where I am. And until I'm done with this draft, I'll probably be a bit quiet. Could be three days, could be a couple of weeks - but I'll let you know. ;)

So, last week I mentioned how the fact that I hadn't been reading much seemed to be affecting my writing. This week, I definitely fixed the not-reading thing, by spending all day Friday and most of Saturday with a terrible headache which made me incapable of doing anything useful. I remember being told when I was younger that I shouldn't read when I have a headache, but I find that fixing my eyes on something like that can help. So, over Friday and Saturday I devoured four and a half books. First I finished The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (loved it, except that I didn't realise until I got to the end that it was the first in a series - and the next one's not available until August 2011!), and then I gave in to the headache and indulged in some paranormal romance books. I think the steady reading once I started The Name of the Wind did help, but I have yet to work out how helpful the full day and a half were!

Week Three: In Review
The week started out well and by Thursday I had hit the 3K mark on this week's short story. I was writing first person for the first time in a while, and was delighted to find that I slipped into the character's voice quite easily. The story took a couple of not-quite-planned twists, but for the most part it developed as I expected, and I like it. Skipping Friday threw me out of the zone a bit, and since I was still very headachey when I finished the story on Saturday I'm fairly sure that last bit isn't quite up to standard. Still, no point worrying about that now - I'll look at it again when the workshop's over!

Merrilee's post this week was on organisation, which was interesting. I began to read it with some trepidation, worrying about what I might need to do, but actually it made me feel pretty good about myself. I have a room which is pretty much dedicated solely to my writing (although sadly I don't get to use it nearly as much as I'd like), and on the computer I have a folder called Writing which has separate folders for each writing course I've taken, each novel I've worked on, short stories and various other aspects. The only part of the writing space I'm not so sure about it the one inside my head, but I think that's just me being silly - I do think about my writing a lot, especially when I'm travelling.

My paper filing is minimal, but I do have a sort of system in progress. My last novel has a box file; my current one is split between a couple of folders and a lever arch file. If I was at home more, they'd stay together, but when I'm travelling I just take the lever arch (the MS) and the most recent notes. Short stories... well, until now I haven't need to file those, really. Maybe something to look at in the future. Then I track my progress using Duotrope's Digest and Farook's writing counters, as well as a couple of spreadsheets that I update from time to time.

Once again, I didn't get as much revision done as I would have liked this week. I've done a lot of planning, and have notes on a good ten scenes that I need to write, but haven't actually done much in the way of editing or writing. Still, I honestly think I can get this done by the 31st May if I buckle down a bit. I meant to spend most of today on it, but, well, I got distracted. I wrote a couple of scenes, and planned some more, but having said I'd spend the whole day on it inevitably meant that I wasted most of it. It's now 16:30, and I think I'm going to need to get the timer out for some motivation. No, actually, this is serious - I'm going to resort to Write or Die. If I can get 2K of new words today, I'll be happy.

I've continued with the idea generation exercise each morning (except Friday) and have a few more interesting ideas. I did try going back to the ideas later in the day, but it didn't really work for me. I'm not sure why. But I do think it's helping me - random thoughts and ideas are sparking with much more frequency throughout the day, and that's a great feeling.

Week Four: Coming Up
This week is another 1st person story. I hope it will be a bit of a challenge - the character I'm looking at is making some decisions that I personally could never see myself making, so I think I'll find that difficult. I found slipping back into 1st person this week relatively easy, but I suspect that's because the character in question was similar in many ways to some others I've written in the past, at least in terms of general attitudes. This week that will be different, so hopefully it will stretch me a little more.

So, it's pretty much the same plan as last week. No planning needed, so tomorrow I'll jump straight in to the third story and see where it takes me. But I'll keep on with the idea generation exercise, and revising needs to become more of a priority if I'm going to keep to my target. Wish me luck.

It's been another mad week for me, having slept in three different counties over the course of the last seven days, but all in all, it's been positive writing-wise. Although I haven't always felt very positive about it.

Week Two: In Review
This week's goal was to write in an entirely objective POV. I actually found it a little bit easier than I'd expected, but with a caveat - writing without a character POV makes me write short. My story covered a longer period of time than I'd anticipated, but it only came in at 2332 words.

I got all my planning done in my little notebook on the Monday, so I started the actual writing on Tuesday. Writing about 500 words a day (which I was very happy with) I finished the story on Friday. That left me Saturday to do an initial edit, and I have to say I quite like it. I don't think I'll do anything with it necessarily, but I think one of the other three parts to this block might have potential. The story itself feels pretty solid, and I think I met my goal as far as the POV goes - I've just discovered that while it was a useful exercise, I definitely prefer having a character POV, however deep or distant that might be. I think I did reasonably well at communicating my characters' feelings and so on as much as possible through body language and so on, but it's not the same and I'm quite excited now about actually experiencing the story through them.

Some of the story didn't pan out quite as I'd expected, but that turned out for the best and gives me a LOT to work with on the next three stories. Well, two of them at least. The third... well, I'll get to that in a minute.

I found Merrilee's idea generation exercise really useful, and have spent ten minutes doing that each morning. Some of the ideas I've had have been rather dull, but others have been quite interesting, and if I didn't already have two novels to revise and another three to plot I might be looking at them differently. I have yet to actually return to any of my ideas later in the day, however, and I want to make a point of doing that this week.

In terms of other writing, I managed to get at least 30 minutes of revisions done each day, so I'm definitely counting that as a success. The novel is seriously dragging on now - technically I know I'm working through it much faster than I was, but it just feels like the last 10K or so have been going on forever. However, I think this is partly because I've made the same mistake as I've made before - a few weeks ago I finished a book, and since then I haven't picked up another one. That's fine for a week or two, but I'm realising that actually, I need that additional creative input. Watching TV can help sometimes, but ideally I need to read. I think I need to get back into listening to podcast fiction - I spend so much time travelling, and because I get motion sickness I can't read while I'm in the car or on the bus, so audiobooks seem like a good way to go. The fact is, though, I always get far more excited about a physical book than I do about fiction in any other format. So today I've started reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - the back cover copy had me completely hooked when I read it in Waterstones a few months ago, but somehow I haven't got around to reading it until now. So I'll report back next week on how that affects my revisions!

Week Three: Coming Up
This week is supposed to be the first of my 1st person POV stories. I have a bit of a problem with this, however. The character I was intending to use didn't excite me much at all, and really is just an observer in the story - to be honest, he probably needs to go. So that leaves me with something of a dilemma. I did, however, encounter a character I hadn't anticipated at all, and she's much more interesting. It will kind of mess up my plan, which was to steadily zero in further and further week by week to the heart of the main shapeshifter's story, but technically it will fulfil my brief. And she has a whole secret life of her own which really intrigues me, so I think I'll have to follow up on that. Gregory, the old fisherman I was planning to write about, will just have to stay in his boat on his own. I think.

So. Monday and Tuesday will be designated for planning, as before, but I don't really expect to take up both of those days. (Not if I can figure out who to write about, anyway.) Once I start writing, I'll stick with a daily minimum of 500 words (or 30 minutes, depending on constraints) until I'm done, unless I haven't finished by the end of the week, in which case I'll set it aside until after the workshop.

In terms of idea generation, I want to keep on doing my daily ten minutes, but I want to add a review habit to that later in the day - maybe in the evening just before bed. The kernels of ideas are there, but I suspect going back to them again will give things an extra dimension.

I plan to stick with a minimum of 30 minutes of revision each day. I'd like to up this, really, but I just don't have the time at the moment. I have fifteen days to finish this draft if I'm going to keep to my goal. I don't much like my chances, but I won't give up on it until I hit midnight on the 31st!

As part of the amazing post on idea generation over at Merrilee's blog, there was an exercise involving three picture prompts. Picture prompts have never really seemed to work for me in the past, but this time around, with Merrilee's helpful pointers, I was amazed at how well I got on.


First up was this picture of two people doing... something. This was the picture I had the most trouble with - I found if very difficult to think around the picture. Having actual people in it made me focus in too much, and I struggled to think beyond "what are they talking about?" and found it a but frustrating. Still, I managed a few ideas - here are my top three.
Husband and wife, she's quite posh and snobby while he's much more working class. They're arguing about something, but he's making it worse by making cruel remarks about her voice/clothes/attitude, as he always does when they fight. His ring is a secret signal that he's high up in an underground group. She knows this and is arguing with him about something the group have done but he's very dismissive, and signals to the followers around him that he wants her taken away. He's telling a story about someone who was involved in some kind of fraud and then lost his job a few weeks ago - she realises that he's talking about her husband, who has as far as she knows been going to work as usual.

This was my favourite of the three images. It was both general enough to give me lots to work with and relatable enough to give me some very specific things to catch hold of.  These were my favourites of the ideas I came up with:
There's a small village on the coast which is inhabited by a kind of merpeople - they can live on the land but they need access to the sea on a regular basis. But there's another kind of merpeople, who only live in the sea and are therefore scornful of those who make their lives on the land. When the people of the village go down to the sea, they're often teased and bullied by those who live there - it's an ongoing rivalry on the brink of war. A few years ago two little boys drowned playing in the water. Since then the village has been bowed under the weight of this tragedy. One woman, who was only twelve when the boys died, wants to move on with her life and head out into the world, but her family and the rest of the village are shocked at her callousness and are determined to make her stay. There's a family of eight living in a tiny house on the coast which is falling down and full of damp. The mother has to stay at home to look after the children, the father's a fisherman who simply doesn't make enough money but is too proud to consider doing something else. When the eldest son gets a job after school, his mother is able to actually give the children decent meals - but the father is so disgusted that he stops speaking to the boy, putting the whole family under further terrible strain.

My first thought when I saw this was "time vortex"! My husband's was "Gallifreyan symbol". So how none of my actual ideas related to Doctor Who, I really don't know, but somehow they didn't. I liked this picture - it was a bit of a challenge and I found that several of my ideas were quite closely related, but there was a lot of scope here.
There's a kind of wild magic that's particularly complex and incredibly dangerous to those who choose to wield it - very few are actually capable of controlling it, and those who fail are completely swallowed up by it. However, those who can do so are able to rule completely - nobody can challenge them because of the enormous power at their disposal. But when the power dries up, people begin to rebel, and what was a harsh but liveable dictatorship becomes life-threatening chaos. There's a string of murders happening, and at each crime scene a piece of art is left behind. They all bear the hallmarks of a famous artist and each of the victims is connected to that artist in some way - but the artist was the first victim. A team of sorcerors have woven together a complex spell, designed to consume their enemies and wreak havoc. By its very nature, however, the spell needs to be fed with life, and if it is not satisfied quickly, it takes one of the sorcerors involved in its casting. With each sorceror it consumes, it becomes more and more difficult to control. In light of Merrilee's suggestion that we do this every day, I've been using this site, 365 Pictures, for the last couple of days, spending ten minutes in the morning just using one picture to generate ideas. But I'd expected there to be more of this kind of thing, and I'm already finding this a little frustrating - there are some pictures that just don't work so well for me, so having alternative places to look seems like a good idea. There are lots of writing prompts out there, but I've struggled to find daily picture prompts anywhere else. Because this way of working is already proving so helpful for me, I've decided to take matters into my own hands and have set up this site. I'll be aiming to get a picture up there each day, with related prompt questions for those who find those particularly helpful.

It's been a funny sort of a week for me, with the usual madcap travelling as well as car trouble and the distraction of the General Election, so things haven't been as structured and disciplined as I'd like. But I've got things done, and I'm getting ready to start on this week's goals.

Week One: In Review
I made a good start on the Icebreaker exercise when it was first posted, but never quite managed to finish it. I have yet to comment on everyone's blogs, but I'm getting there. I enjoyed the He Says, She Says post on creativity, although I read it quite late one night so perhaps didn't get the full benefit of it. I meant to go back to it the next day, but never quite got around to that.

I started making notes in my little notebook regarding my goals on Thursday, and by Friday evening I managed to have a fairly solid list set out. I felt a bit uncertain as I sat down to write the post, but in the process of typing it up the ideas came together much more clearly, and I'm quite happy with them as they are.

I did also manage to get some editing done on Amulet, but not as much as I'd like. It's still slow, sometimes a bit painful, but it's progress all the same.

Week Two: Coming Up
My goal for this block is to explore POV, and in order to do this I'm starting with an entirely objective account of an event. That means that my first task this week is to figure out just what this event is and who's involved. Once I have a better idea of that, I can start writing. It's going to be a challenge to not view the scene through any of the characters' eyes, but I'm looking forward to it.

So, Monday and Tuesday, I plan. By Wednesday at the latest, I want to be writing. I don't have a clear idea of a word count in mind - I'll just write the story and see how long it goes. If I'm not finished by Saturday, I'll put it aside until the end of the workshop. On Sunday I'll post my review of the week.

I desperately want to ensure that I don't lose sight of my novel, however, so I'm planning to dedicate my morning sessions to the workshop and my evenings to the novel. I haven't been getting two sessions a day in as often as I like to, so I'm hoping this will push me to do that.

So here goes - tomorrow, we dive in, and I meet my shapeshifting hero for the first time. Should be fun.

Having been thoroughly distracted by the General Election here in the UK, I'm posting my goals a little later than planned - but it's still Friday for me, so I think it's okay. ;)

This wasn't the easiest task in the world (which of course bodes really well, since this is just the warm up) but I'm fairly pleased with them as they are. I think I now have a pretty clear idea of what I want to achieve, and I'm quite excited about starting to write these stories.

Block One
Goal: Explore different points of view
Genre: Urban fantasy

One of the issues I mentioned in my issues and interests post was that I seem to be slightly stuck in 3rd person POV. I'd like to explore both 1st person and 3rd person objective POVs and see how they turn out for me - it's been a while since I wrote in 1st person, and I'm not sure I've ever tried writing an entirely objective POV in fiction. The word objective, along with the concept of the Eyewitness television series my husband keeps telling me to watch, made me think it would be interesting to explore these different points of view within the context of one particular event. As a result, that will be the link between these four stories.

I'm going with urban fantasy for this section. I think the event will take place at night in the middle of a city, not too busy but with a few bystanders, and will probably involve a shapeshifter performing some kind of rescue. (It will not be a werewolf, and there will be no vampires. This may only be for my own eyes, but there's enough werewolf/vampire fiction out there already. I'm thinking maybe the shapeshifter will be some kind of bird, but once I put pen to paper anything could happen.)

So, that will be the key event that ties the four stories. Then they will each be in a different POV. In Week One, I want to try 3rd person objective - detached observation, what happened, how it happened. This is mainly for experimental purposes, but I want to try and ensure that I don't touch any of the characters' thoughts at this stage. This will also give me a skeleton for the following three stories. Then weeks two to four will each be from the point of view of a different character on the scene - I'll find out more about those in Week One, and then spend the first day or so of each week exploring those characters before starting to write. (In Week One I'll spend that time figuring out what actually happens - either that, or I'll jump right in like the pantser I sometimes am and find out with everyone else.) These three stories may not necessarily be set in precisely the same time frame as the first, since they may look at the effects of the event rather than the event itself, but the event will still be the catalyst.

Block Two
Goal: Explore different relationship dynamics
Genre: Contemporary

This block will actually touch on two points. The one I actually mentioned in my issues and interests post was that I wanted to explore different genres, in particular those which didn't involve magic. I'm already trying urban fantasy in Block One, but this is a rather more radical departure. I'd say it's more of an interest than an issue, since I genuinely love writing fantasy, but nevertheless this may be a bit of a challenge.

Still, the issue I'm really focusing on here is relationship dynamics. (So if I end up with some fairy dust in there after all, that's okay. Really.) I'd never really thought about it until I saw Eliza's post on her issues and interests, but none of my characters really have any friends - certainly not at the start of my stories. They rarely have any close family either, and if they do, those family members don't tend to feature in the story much. I seem to struggle to write anything without incorporating some kind of romantic relationship, but other than that, most of my characters' relationships aren't really very meaningful.

I don't have quite such a clear idea of the stories for this block yet, although I'm sure I'll get there. However, I do have four relationship types I'd like to explore:
mother and son friends since childhood housemates student and mentor I want to aim for a mix of male and female characters, and I also want to ensure that all the relationships are platonic. Again, I'll spend the first day or so of each week exploring the characters, but for this block I'll also need to spend some of that time working out the story dynamics. However I want to make sure I'm actually writing by the Wednesday of each week.

I do know that I want this series to be set in a small town. I may also use the idea of a linking event here if I feel the need for some additional focus (although shapeshifting superheroes are definitely out of the question). However I hope that won't be necessary - I'd like to be able to keep the link as simple as location for this block.

Block Three:
Goal: To incorporate more description of setting without info-dumping, and to ensure that the setting is important to the story
Genre: Fantasy

The major issue I'd like to work on over the course of the workshop is my fear of using too much description. I've got to the point where I shy away from anything at all, so that a lot of the time I don't give any real impression of the setting of the scene or story in question. I want to work on feeding more description into my work, and I think a good way of trying to do that is by working on ensuring that my settings are important to the stories.

For this one I'm going with my traditional stomping ground and throwing myself back into traditional fantasy. I think I've definitely been influenced by Merrilee's goal post, in which she mentions that her first block will explore heroic females - there's a band of mercenaries in my head now, and they seem to be led by a particularly bossy (and rather snarky) dark-headed female. I don't know her name yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. (If she's as insistent as I suspect she might be, I may have to bump this series up to Block Two, but I'm going to try and resist that.)

So for this block, it'll be the characters who link the series. Their stories will take place in four different locations, which at this stage
will most likely be the following:
A harbour/shoreline - They need a boat, I think. Not sure they have a clue how to sail her though. In the mountains - Cold, weird altitudes, short tempers, should be interesting. On a farm - How do you defend a farm when the cattle are all over the place? At the inn - I foresee a drunken brawl. I think the biggest challenge here will be remembering to keep focusing on the setting rather than letting the characters run away with the script. For Week One of this block I'll have to spend the first couple of days learning about the characters as well as figuring out the story, but in subsequent weeks I'll already have the character information to hand, so hopefully won't need as long to prepare.

And I think that's everything. I hope it is, anyway, because this is a ridiculously long post. Sorry about that. :)

Because I'm a bit mad, I've signed up for a twelve week Creativity Workshop over at Merrilee Faber's blog, Not Enough Words. The workshop hasn't started yet, but in the run-up I'm thinking about where I want to focus my attention over that time. I'm having a bit of trouble with this, but here we go all the same...

Short Stories
I've written a couple of short stories, one of which I really liked, but I don't really give myself the time to explore the possibilities of short stories. I always have a novel in progress, and so all my writing time gets dedicated to that. This isn't necessarily a problem, but occasionally I struggle to move on with the WIP, and I think it would be better if rather than just not writing I was better able to work on something different. I'm not brave enough to try and tackle two novels at once, but I think I could cope with working on a short story from time to time. This is something that the workshop as a whole ought to be pretty helpful with, rather than a particular issue to focus on, since I'll be working on a new short story each week. Since I'm revising at the moment, this seems like a good time to try this theory out - I'd be a little more cautious if I was in the middle of a first draft, but I'm looking at this as a kind of test. If I can make it work with revisions, hopefully I can make it work with first drafts too.

Idea Generation
Another one that's likely to be dealt with merely by doing the workshop, I suspect, but important nonetheless. It's not that I don't have ideas, but I don't seem to have very many of them. The ones I have usually seem pretty good - I have potential plots for the next two books in the Amulet trilogy and one for a completely separate idea in the back of my head - but if I'm going to start trying to write more short stories then that simply isn't good enough. I suppose really the problem is more specifically ideas for short stories. Merrilee said that "A short story is just a climax scene without all the buildup," and I really like that way of looking at it. Unfortunately, most of the time I don't know the climax of my story ideas until I get to it, so I guess we'll see how that goes.

POV
I always write from the same POV, third person limited, but with multiple POV characters. I have one POV character per scene and everything within that scene is told from that person's POV. I'd like to experiment with this a bit - merely out of curiosity, I'd like to try third person objective, and so stop myself from being able to talk about anything that's not actually said or done. I have a feeling this will make me think about things rather differently, and although I highly doubt I'd ever want to use this kind of narrative in most of my work, I do think it'll be a very interesting exercise. I'd also like to play with first person narratives - when I first started writing, I used this a lot, but I haven't tried it in a while and think it might be helpful for experimenting with the ever-problematic 'show don't tell'.

Description
My problem is that I don't put enough in. I've heard the 'no info dump' and 'show don't tell' rules so many times that I think I'm kind of scared to put anything in that isn't actually action and dialogue. (Well, and internal musings, but that's a whole other problem.) I'd like to experiment with working description in to my writing, trying to get that balance right.

Magic
A few people doing this workshop have mentioned that they want to play with the use of magic a bit more. For me, the problem is the opposite. Perhaps it'll prove different with short stories, but I seem to be incapable of coming up with novel plots that don't involve magic. That's okay - I love fantasy, and I'm pretty sure it's what I want to be writing - but I would like to use this opportunity to try something a little different.

Setting
Linked to the last point, really - everything I write is set in another world. Usually leaning towards the traditional medieval-type fantasy setting. I'm not really sure why. This is another point that isn't exactly causing a problem, but that I'd like to explore. Maybe some urban fantasy. Or, heaven forbid, some straight contemporary drama. Anything's possible, right?

Those are my initial thoughts. The first two aren't really things to focus on, since they'll be addressed through the workshop anyway, and of the others the only one that I really see as a problem is the description. So that's definitely one to work on. The others - POV, magic, setting - they're all things to play with, things to explore. And this seems like the perfect time to do that.