Inspirational weekend words...

Where on earth does the time go? One minute you're relaxing in front of the new season of Luke Cage on Netflix on a Saturday night, and the next you're staring blearily at your computer screen, gulping down your coffee and wondering how Monday rolled around so fast.

But I have some inspirational words to share with you today to help you through the Monday blues!

First up, I saw this thread on Twitter over the weekend:

This is my favourite thing I've read in a long time. It made me smile so much, and I just had to share it with you all. It's so so true - there are bloggers that I've known since I first started my blog, and recently, I've seen a few of them winning awards, being shortlisted and getting published, and you know what? I'm so so proud of each and every one of them. They might not know it, but to me, they are all rising stars, and I hope they all know how much I look up to them, and how much I'm cheering for them. Seriously - if you ever feel like throwing in the towel, just read the above and know that to someone, somewhere, you are their star.

Secondly, I also found this article from The Guardian on Sunday morning:

Paula Hawkins: an unexpected ending to writer’s dark journey

If you have a minute, or if you're looking for something to read at work at lunchtime, make sure you read the whole thing. The Girl on the Train was Hawkins' fourth novel - she wrote it when she was short of cash and wanted to write something different from her normal romcoms. And look what happened - it just goes to show what might happen if you don't give up on you dreams. I'm not saying everyone will become the next Hawkins (as nice as that would be!) but if you write what you want to write, you never know what might come along. 

The other reason I love this article is because Hawkins didn't give up when things were going badly - she rebooted herself, got rid of her pseudonym, wrote under her real name and wrote what she wanted to write. Even if you think you don't have another chance, even if you think you've 'blown your only chance of getting published' somehow or that you're writing the wrong things - don't give up. It's never the end of the journey - so long as you're alive and you can still write, your writing career can be whatever you want it to be.

Although I didn't get to work on my WIP over the weekend (it was finally time to write out our wedding thank you cards), these two things really cheered me up, and resolved my determination to keep writing no matter what. I hope they've inspired you, as much as they inspired me, but just in case you need some more writing inspiration, here's some photos from our Sunday morning walk:

And here's some from the sunrise this morning - it was worth getting up at 6.30am on a Monday morning just to see this:

Have a great week! See you all on Wednesday for IWSG!

What do you think of the tweets/article? Have you come across any articles or tweets that have ever inspired you to write, or not give up on your dreams? How was your weekend?

Bitten by the writing bug...

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen over the weekend I was struck by inspiration for a certain scene while I was taking a shower (what is it about showers and being hit with inspiration to write?? Is it because you can't physically get to a computer/pen and paper??). I wasn't planning on doing much writing over the weekend as I wasn't feeling my best, but I thought I might as well write it down and see what happened.

All I can say is wow.

I don't know what's been going on in my subconscious brain, but once I wrote that scene I just couldn't stop. All weekend I've been thinking about this particular character and his story. I've been mapping out his world, other major characters have popped into my head (almost) fully formed, and incredibly, I already know how I want the story to end. I spent most of my free time on Sunday doing research into the kind of world I want to set this story in and making up names for the different places. It was insane.

Last night I couldn't sleep - mainly because I was too warm (there's something I never thought I'd say in December), but also because this character literally wouldn't get out of my brain. So I started writing - again. My laptop wasn't to hand so I wrote out another scene on my phone, as well as making as many notes as I could, while my brain fired them off at me almost too fast for me to process. I finally had to stop - I thought I was being all quiet and covert, until the Engineer rolled over and wanted to know what I was doing as the light my my phone was keeping him awake. So I grudgingly had to call it a day. But all day at work today I've been looking at the clock, itching to come home so I can get writing again.

I don't have a proper outline for this novel. I don't even have any kind of plan. If you've been following my blog, you'll know how unusual this is for me, but I can't explain it - having no plan just feels...right. I don't know all the ins and outs of this story yet, but the excitement I get when I think about discovering more about this world is just amazing. All I'm planning to do is write whatever scenes pop into my head and just roll with it. In fact, I might even draw a map of this new world tonight, which again, is something I've never done before but I'm so excited to try out. Luckily, the Engineer is away on business until Thursday, so this week I'm literally just planning on writing as much of this story as I can, while this inspiration and enthusiasm lasts.

At this moment, I don't even know if I'm going to turn this into a full novel. I might get halfway through and realise it's not working, or that I've run out of steam. But strangely, this doesn't make me want to stop. If anything, I want to write more. Because even if this ends up being nothing, I'll still be a better writer than I was before I started writing it - after all, practice makes perfect! And there's something incredibly liberating about writing simply for yourself - it's like there are no limitations on what I can or can't write, because at this moment in time, I'm not planning on sharing it with anyone.

So that's my news - I've got my tea and my cake and I'm off to write until I can't prop my eyes open anymore (which may be sooner than I'd like, as I barely got any sleep last night). But despite how tired I am, I still can't wait to get going!

Hope you're all having a good Monday!

Have you been bitten by the writing bug recently? Have you ever thought of a story that you simply HAD to write right then and there? How's your writing going this week?

I is for...Inspiration

Happy Friday, everyone!

Today's blog post is focusing on the letter I. I know that quite a lot of people will probably have chosen 'Inspiration' for their theme today, but I thought I'd chip in anyway ;).

There are masses of blog posts and books out there which can tell you how to find inspiration for story ideas, and how to channel that inspiration into your writing. But instead of repeating their messages, I thought I'd share with you some of things that provide me with inspiration for my own work.

Firstly, and most obviously, is music. I've written before about how music helped to shape my novel, Synthetica, but I mainly use music to discover new novel/plot ideas. I love going out for a walk, plugging in my headphones, and letting my thoughts wander. Quite often while I'm listening to a certain song, an idea will form in my mind and I'll have to either try to remember it, or quickly finish my walk and run home to jot it down. Strong song lyrics can be particularly effective in sparking ideas - quite often, I'll write song lyrics that jump out at me in my WIP notes, and I can look back at them whenever I'm stuck on a particular chapter or scene. These lyrics quite often embody the feeling or emotion that I'm trying to get across in my writing, and sometimes I just need that little reminder of the direction I'm trying to go in.

My next big source of inspiration is films. I love watching films. I love going out to the cinema and making a big deal of seeing a new release. But the weird thing is, quite often while watching the film, I'll be inspired to write my own novel. A certain scene in How to train your dragon 2 lead me to outline a possible new fantasy series. Insurgent helped to me work out a character's background, despite the fact that I wasn't actively thinking about the character at the time, and my character's background doesn't resemble any of those in the film. It was only after I finished Synthetica that I realised that it had been heavily influenced by The Dark Knight. And while we're on the subject, American Horror Story, lead me to outline a possible collection of my own ghost stories - even though the stories and characters are completely different to what I was watching on screen. I may never get round to writing these stories or novel ideas, but it's useful to jot down any ideas just in case.

And of course, books can influence me too. Although, now that I really think about it, I don't think they influence me any more than music or films do - in fact, I think they have less of an impact on my inspiration, and have more of an impact on my actual writing. And reading a wide range of books is not only a fun way to pass the time, it's helped to improve my writing beyond measure.

It's only looking back now that I can appreciate how much music and films have shaped my writing over the years - my favourite bands and scenes from my favourite films have definitely influenced certain scenes and passages in my work, as well as influencing the overall feeling of my writing.

So how about you? Where do you find inspiration from? Do you get inspiration from any strange, or unusual sources? I'd love to hear your ideas :)!

Inspiration Station...

In honour of Synthetica being released next month (three weeks to go, people...I think I'm going to throw up from nerves...), I thought I'd share with you all the inspiration behind the novel.

Originally when I thought of this post, I remembered a few bits and pieces from conversations I'd had with the Engineer, and the original scene from the Matrix that inspired me to jot down the idea for Synthetica. But then one day last week, I was looking back through the folder I have on my laptop which contains all of my work for the book. It has pages of random notes, a spreadsheet containing the rough layout of the book's scenes, a detailed synopsis, random photos of my beat sheet and cake I posted on Twitter, first drafts, second drafts (all saved in different formats, depending on the computer I was using at the time) and another subfolder for my final drafts.

I decided to have a nosy at my original 'Ideas and Notes' file, just to see what I'd come up with and to see if I could work any of it into this blog post - and I was genuinely shocked.

Whenever I hear about other writers saying that their novel went on a 'journey' and it didn't end up how they imagined etc etc, there is always a part of me that is a tiny bit sceptical. 'But surely,' I cry, 'your book can't have been THAT much of a learning curve? You had the idea for it, surely it's still the same book??'

My god, have I been wrong.

You want to see a snippet of my original notes and ideas for Synthetica? Here it is:

(The original document is six pages long by the way, this isn't everything)

It's only looking back over these notes now, that I can fully appreciate how far my novel has come. I've even cringed slightly reading them back - in them, I can see snippets I've 'borrowed' from other YA books that I'd recently read, or themes in other YA books which I thought I had to have in mine in order for it to be a success. 

I am so grateful that my novel outgrew these notes, and turned into something totally different. I can remember having one conversation with the Engineer while we were out walking in the Lake District - I was telling him my ideas for this novel, and we were throwing around ideas of the rich buying programs they could download directly into their brains, and thinking what the less well-off citizens of the city think/do in this situation. What if the rich kept the programs from the poor? Why would they do this? What would the poor do to retaliate?

But even back then, when I got home and wrote up those notes from our walk, I wasn't really feeling it. I don't mind reading books about characters who overthrow oppressive regimes, but let's face it - it's been done to death in YA. I knew what I didn't want from my book - I only had to figure out what I did want.

I don't remember exactly where the idea for the Hacker came from, but I have a feeling it was while I was watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Wherever the idea came from, as soon as I thought about him, that's when I knew - my book wasn't going to be about an evil government, or a regime - Synthetica was going to be about the fight between Anais and the Hacker, and the consequences of both their actions. To me, having an actual villain in a novel or a film makes the whole story more...relatable. It's a strange concept, I know, but I'll be explaining more about my thoughts on this in an upcoming blog post.

Anyway, so that's a small snapshot into the inspiration that Synthetica came from. I guess it just goes to show that you can find inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, if you're willing to look for it.

Until next time! Happy Wednesday, everyone!