It takes commitment to write a novel, in fact, it takes a gutsy performance and a whole lot of staying power. It also means rising to the challenge at every opportunity and gritting your teeth and hardening your resolve when family or friends try to tempt you away from your writing.

Writing might be a wonderfully creative pursuit and when the words flow, it becomes the best feeling in the world, but it’s all too easy to give up when it gets tough. To avoid this happening, it’s essential to plan out your novel in advance. I did a lot of my planning while undertaking the most mundane of chores, it was amazing how creative I could be to escape momentarily from thinking about housework duties. I also walked a lot and could mull out new ideas and plot intricate details as I went. Thinking is the writer’s best friend. It enables you to consider all the possibilities – to stretch your imagination, to determine the best possible starting point.

In my case, planning was an absolute necessity. I had decided that I would set up the website, chart my progress and write the novel in only 4 weeks. If I had just allowed the creative process to determine where the story and characters led me, I would have been in serious trouble with the deadline.  The story is always going to take you in slightly new directions, the characters – if you have done your job well, will always flaunt your authority and make you consider your plot and sub-layers so that they can grow. But that’s fine. You start at a good point, create that solid foundation and then just keep going.

In a creative sense, you have to be able to rise to the challenge if you want to succeed. It’s a mammoth task I know, but, if you break it down into manageable segments, it’s not as impossible as it might feel at times. You don’t have to write your novel in a month, but whatever goals you set yourself for the finishing point, calculate your daily word count.

It may seem an uphill struggle but let me tell you, when you reach the peak and are finishing those last few words, there is nothing like that feeling of relief and pride when you know you’ve achieved and even surpassed your goals.

Now onto the next novel….

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After September’s death, my idea was that Arianne would fly from her home town of Salisbury to Ceret, where I was currently living. It made sense to set it in two places that I knew really well and, being on the spot meant that I could soak up the atmosphere of the small French town, writing with greater conviction.  In my mind, a distressed Arianne was going to do her utmost to find out more about the death of her friend, to uncover the killer and to try and retrace her last fateful steps.

This meant that I needed to create a cemetery scene, somewhere where Arianne could go to mourn her friend properly and to say goodbye. I kept imagining how someone would react to the news of a brutal murder, it would seem impossibly hard to accept and it would take time for the reality to sink in.

I was surprised that the cemetery felt very different to ones I had visited in England, on the face of it, an area filled with dead bodies may not seem so different but the atmosphere felt strangely soothing and the place was even welcoming. The only sinister aspect was the row of mausoleums that lined the entrance but the grave stones had been placed with precision and the area had a light, comforting feel. Having seen other cemeteries in France now, they all seem cared for and even inviting.

Although the graveyard scenes were not really about relaying all of the details to the reader, my quick trip to the graveyard did help me to write with greater conviction because I could picture the scene so clearly in my mind. It allowed me to focus on the really important part of the written scene, that of Arianne’s connection with September and the raw emotions as finally having to accept the truth.

It’s worth making the effort to research all fictional claims, as well as accuracy, it can help you to bring the scene to life more vividly.

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When I started writing my novel Who Killed September Falls, I had the image of my two main characters firmly planted in my mind. I knew that I wanted September to be wildly beautiful but flawed within her own personality and she had to have the perfect foil, Arianne Tawnison who was the loyal friend, the side-kick who recognised her role within the friendship but who gave willingly and gained much as a result. I wanted September, (Sepi) to have a Latin heritage although she was British, so she could be feisty, passionate and indiscreet, and by contrast, Arianne was sensible, sensitive and transparently honest.

I am a firm believer that you should write about what you know or have experienced, and base your story on solid foundations, pushing back the barriers in ways that stretch the imagination, extending those characters, yet still allowing them to be natural and realistic in their thoughts, feelings and actions.

By the time I came to write my novel, I had lived and breathed both characters for quite some time and had played out various scenarios in my mind. I knew the novel was going to be a murder mystery, but it couldn’t just be that. It had to be about the people who played their part. The characters had to be larger than life, they had to  be emotional, to be able to feel raw pain and to be unable to hide it.

I  also wanted to break down the stereotype that many people have of us Brits, and I say this tongue in cheek because I am sure that there is a definite perception of the  stiff upper lip and that we muster on despite intense heartbreak and emotional turmoil, our lips may quiver slightly but that’s all.  In my mind, I just knew that Arianne wasn’t going to be able to be that tough. She was facing the shock and terror of hearing that her best friend had been brutally murdered. I put myself in that situation wondering what I would feel, how I would cope, questioning how I could recover from such terrible news. As I sat contemplating my writing plan, there was no doubt that I was going to put her through the mill and she was going to feel alone, isolated in her grief and would shed never-ending tears the more that she learned. Arianne suffered the pain of suspected betrayal, faced acute fear and experienced the purity of love which served to comfort and shield her, but throughout, she stuck to her mission with dogged determination and resilience.

I suppose writing those types of scenes made me really consider my own emotions. I don’t like to cry in public and I have never liked to show if someone has hurt me, so I had to turn the tables on Arianne and make life so raw for her that she had to grieve and experience the multitude of emotions that threatens to envelop when someone close to you dies. As she cried, I sat at my desk and cried too. Since the novel was published, I have had many people tell me that there were times in the novel when they cried over the intensity of the emotions and I’ve had others tell me that Arianne certainly didn’t seem like their idea of a British woman and that she seemed to really struggle to get over her loss, so maybe I achieved what I set out to do.

My novel became the murder-mystery with emotion. I created a slice of real life and took two very different women, threw them both into a very dark place which resulted in dire consequences and created a complex mystery with a myriad of twists and turns that took Arianne into emotional places and situations in which she floundered. My ethos was that no-one truly knows how to deal with grief in real life, so I wanted to capture all those dark emotions as a result.

When I started writing my novel, I had no idea of how powerful those emotional scenes would be for me as the writer. I think that Arianne Tawnison really came to life for me because I stripped back the barriers and allowed those raw emotions to live. I think that breaking down the stereotype also enabled me to move more freely in a creative sense. Although September experienced hatred and tragedy, Arianne has evolved and her character has become so powerful that she lives on in a fictional sense in my latest series, Secrets at Cranridge Manor. It’s good to be able to bring her back from those dark depths and to give her something new to focus on.

So when you start writing your novel, consider carefully where you want your characters to end up. How can you break down barriers to make your characters believable? They need to feel real to you so that you can portray them convincingly to others and if they are strong enough, you may be able to breathe life into them at a later date.

Interested in reading Who Killed September Falls?

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Or take a look at the new series starring Arianne Tawnison…

Buy Part One here:

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

photo credit: MarLeah Joy via photopin cc

Here is  a quick extract:

September Falls Chapter1 Extract

Any comments? Let me know what you think.

contact@whokilledseptemberfalls.com

Darkness invaded every corner of the studio, creeping along the walls. Shafts of moonlight glinted teasingly through the large skylights holding the shadows as bay, spotlighting the scene in the middle of the room as September recoiled in horror at the carnage in front of her. Six months of hard work destroyed, vivid brush strokes cut off in their prime taunted her as her eyes captured the broken shards of glass from the delicate watercolours whilst the main acts of vandalism were evident in the large canvases. There was no mistaking the angry knife strokes that slashed from top to bottom.

‘Who could hate me so much?’ She choked back the scalding tears, her mind racing back through the anonymous gifts that had been left on her doorstep and then finally, the photo of her naked in the shower that had come just that morning. Somewhere, there was a clue as to who was responsible, but this campaign of revenge and control had to stop. It had to stop right now. Her jaw set “Right, you bastard, whoever you are, you want a war, you’ve got one!’

As her fingers traced the ragged edges that revealed the savagery and intent of the perpetrator, a slow, creaking sound behind her brought her senses flooding back and she turned slowly, muscles taught and trembling, anger and fear washing over her in waves….

Read the full prologue here: http://whokilledseptemberfalls.com/prologue

On facebook? ‘Comment and Like’ our fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/WhoKilledSeptemberFalls

http://whokilledseptemberfalls.com/prologue/

Whilst it’s always a good thing I think, to give time and effort to your writing, I don’t really have the time to do too much of that, but I can’t really afford not to either. My initial plan of writing so many words per day is proving more difficult than originally imagined and this is because ‘life’ gets in the way. Now I have been pretty dedicated in my approach, in fact have pretty much shut myself away from the world as much as possible and only really emerged for one day last week. But of course, there are distractions everywhere and because the creative writing challenge that I have set is so tough, one of the biggest distractions- if I allow it, would be me because it is a greater pressure when you know your ultimate goal and professional reputation is on the line.

Fear is a big factor within writing realms. Even if you are out of the spotlight and have no-one stood over you- counting down the days on the calendar, any self-imposed creative goal puts pressure on the individual to deliver. I have been teaching creative writing techniques for years and many of my students were unpublished at that time and I categorically told them that they had to send their work out into the big wide world for review,  but I can certainly understand the fear that held them back. But in writing terms, if you don’t take the plunge and let other people see your work, you never improve and you never get known.

As regards my characters, they are coming to life and I have found the best way to breathe life into them is to think about them and how they react, trying to hear their voices, and sense their development before going to sleep. You know that moment when your brain is still buzzing from a busy day and sleep is evasive, I have found that a way to quieten it is to allow the characters to interact and to play out a few potential scenarios so that I have a plan that can be incorporated for the next day. In the coming days, I have to take the plot forward and to pick up the pace, that’s my plan of action and whilst I am shut away in my  house furiously typing, it enables me to get that bit closer to success and to completing my ‘writing my novel in a month’ challenge.

Annette Young

Did you miss the first blog post in the series? Read it here.

Don’t forget to sign up for the email/RSS feed (to the right of this page) and have the next post sent directly to you.

The Creative Writing Challenge Begins

I can’t quite believe that my creative writing challenge is here already. The last 6-8 weeks have just flown by with the preparation of the website and the press release and I am only now starting to think ‘what on earth am I doing?’.
Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I stand by my decision to set myself this crazy challenge and I do think that it is good to stretch yourself creatively and to really push those boundaries.

I’m certainly going to be doing that. Writing two books in a month is going to be tough but, I think it is possible and I really want to prove to my writing students both past and present, to all my subscribers of the Creative Competitor Newsletter and to any writer who wants to get their novel published sooner rather than later, that setting tough deadlines are a positive. They might be hard work, but they serve to increase focus and enable you to achieve far more than you would think possible.

When the alarm clock went off this morning, I have to admit I inwardly groaned as it is a nerve-wracking time for me. But on the other hand, with those nerves firmly squashed, I know that I am mentally prepared for this creative writing challenge. As much as I like to have plenty of time when writing creatively, I know that when my back is against the wall and time is short, I can rely on myself to produce my best work. The actual plot for ‘Who Killed September Falls?’ is still a bit hazy which is a concern considering I have to start writing it today but the idea complete with twists and turns and maybe a few red herrings is still formulating in my mind. It is different as regards my how to book ‘Write a Novel in  a Month’ because I have a much clearer vision as to how I write it and the information that will be included.

My first task of the day has been to set up the rss feed so that it will be easier for people to follow my ‘warts and all’ journey over the next 30 days. I haven’t had much dealings with Feedburner so wanted to make sure that it was working OK and fingers crossed, it seems to be fine.  To be honest, it was easy but I’m not THE most technical person in the world so always have to focus a little more on stuff like that. Later today, I will set up an email news facility via Feedburner for those who prefer to receive information this way. That’s the main techy bit today, just some SEO work to follow.

Luckily in previous weeks, I was able to find a little bit of time to work on the website and am glad that the foundations are in place but, having had a look this morning, I have realised that there is so much to do still.  I still have to finish a drawing of one of the characters and I am considering adding a new character too. Over the last few days, I have been mentally warming to a character who was on my original peripheral set of characters but I now think that he could add an extra dimension to the book, so there is a distinct possibility that he will be making an appearance on the site soon. I also need to start working on September Fall’s diary inserts which will give all a greater insight into the complexities of this character.

This morning, I started my ‘how to book’ which will map all of the stages and which will become a blueprint for anyone wanting to set aside a month to write their novel. It’s not going to just chart my successes though, it’s going to reveal all the do’s and don’ts and I suspect it will be a big learning curve for me and I will pass on this information for others. It will also contain the time management aspects, the organisational processes as well as the creative writing techniques I use to ensure that my book is compelling and well-written. I may stumble through a few creative pitfalls en-route to the finishing line but this information can save anyone else from doing the same.

Next step today is to start marketing the website through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn etc and if you want to help me get the word out there about the writing challenge or my forthcoming books, it will be much appreciated and you can do so by using any of the social networking links further down this page.

If you want to keep up-to-date with my writing challenge, please sign up for the rss feed http://whokilledseptemberfalls.com/category/annettes-blog/feed/or newsletter feed in due course and I will be back in a couple of days to update you on my progress whether I am still excited by my creative writing challenge or have started pulling my hair out!

Keep your fingers crossed.

Until then, it’s time to get writing.

Annette Young