Sarah Painter's Blog, page 10

Midsummer Motivation

I love this time of year when the hedgerows are full of poppies.

Hello, hello! Hope you had a lovely weekend. After a relaxing family BBQ on Saturday, I had a fabulous burst of energy and spent Sunday doing Useful Things in the house and garden.

I also had the urge to reassess my goals for the year and to plan for the next few months and I realised, belatedly, that it had been the summer solstice on Saturday. My subconscious was clearly aware that the year had turned and was giving me a little nudge.

So, we’re officially into the second half of the year – how are you all doing with your goals for 2014?

I do think it’s useful to revisit plans and to examine habits to see what is working (and what isn’t).

For example, looking back over my diary, I can see that I’ve recorded many pitiful writing days with just 200 or 300 words, but that I hit my overall target (to finish the first draft of the new book). In other words, those small amounts really do add up. The key, for me, definitely lies in regularity, so I will continue with that and reassure myself on the bad days that some words are better than none.

I’ve also noticed that on the months in which I set concrete goals (such as write 20,000 words, blog once a week, edit three chapters), I was far more productive, so that’s another lesson to learn. Or, more accurately re-learn! I know these things but need to keep reminding myself of them… Argh!

So, for the rest of the year I’m going to maintain the good habits and try to build on them. I’d like to have far more ‘good writing days’ for example, so I need to look at what’s different on those days and try to engineer them.

I also need to set some concrete goals but I need to cogitate on those (and then break them down into monthly targets).

How about you, folks? Whether you plan your year out (like me!) or prefer to wing it, I’m wishing you all the best. Here’s to an excellent (and productive) six months!

[Image Credit: FreeDigitalPhotos]

 

More France! So pretty…

As promised, here are a few more pictures from my trip to France.

The Dordogne in June is very green – every hill is thickly wooded and the hedgerows bursting with plant life. The landscape is a sea of undulating slopes, dotted with picturesque cottages: It’s like the West Country on steroids.

When you get close the main rivers, though, the Dordogne and the Vézère, you find deep gorges and mighty bridges, plus towering limestone cliffs, studded with castles of various ages and stages of ruination.

 

Around each corner you might find a medieval village full of fairy tale houses or a beautifully preserved château with turrets and landscaped gardens.

Castelnaud was a big hit with the family, due to its extensive collection of medieval weapons. Like them, it looks so sweet and innocent from the outside…

 

 

Perfect house is perfect… Sigh.

In a quiet corner of Sarlat.

 

As always, I was captivated by the pretty windows and doors, but somehow I failed to take as many pictures of them as I usually do… However, I did manage to snap these pretty curved shutters:

Fairy tale window, complete with ivy.

 

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed my holiday snaps!

A Week In France

Hello! I’m back!

I can now reveal that my week of internet silence (offline for a whole seven days – gasp!) was spent in sunny France. In the Dordogne to be precise. To be even more precise, we stayed in a lovely cottage:

 

 

It has beautiful gardens with a small river and a swimming pool, and is on the edge of a village which is set against a limestone cliff with buildings cut into the side of the rock. Very cool:

 

And it was glorious. I didn’t write a single word and I feel rested and refreshed.

The food was, as you’d expect, delicious. After a week in France, my body composition is now: 50% bread, 0 cheese, 10% wine and 10% these little beauties…

Macarons. They taste EVEN BETTER than they look. And, yes, this is a stock photo. None of our macarons stayed around long enough to get photographed.

 

Look out for a more picture-heavy post later in the week, but for now I must attend to my neglected WIP. Allons-y!

[Macaron Image Credit: FreeDigitalPhotos]

Monday Motivation: Just Fifteen Minutes

I’ve talked about this technique before, but it’s worth repeating. If there is something you don’t really want to do (tax return, cleaning the bathroom, writing your book), set a timer and tell yourself you’re just going to work on it for fifteen minutes.

This instantly removes some of pressure. I mean, you can do anything for fifteen tiny minutes!

You might think ‘there’s no point, what can I accomplish in such a short space of time?’, but you would be surprised.

Think about how much cleaning you get done just before some visitors arrive? Or how many emails you can power through when you know you’ve got to leave work in ten minutes to catch your train?

Plus, you might find that when the timer goes off, you’ve become so engrossed in the task that you just continue…

If you fancy trying the technique and you don’t have a stopwatch or a kitchen timer handy, there are loads online. I’m using this one right now to write this blog post.

[Image Credit: FreeDigitalPhotos]

 

Book News: The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst

The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst is published today and you should totally go out and buy it/download it to your e-reader Right Now.

I was lucky enough to get a review copy of this book and, although I’m not a proper book reviewer*, I’m very happy to shout loudly when I find something I think is brilliant. And this is brilliant.

It’s wildly imaginative with a central premise – a town of lost people, filled with lost items – that is so well realised it gave me actual goosebumps as I began reading.

I was delighted to read on Sarah’s blog that this is the first book of a trilogy. The second, The Missing, is out in December. I know what I’m putting on my Christmas list…

* I will only ever recommend books on this blog, which means I will only feature/mention books I genuinely love. Karma, innit.

 

 

 

 

Toot! Toot!

A spring afternoon spent skimming stones on Elie beach, followed by fish and chips. Every conversation prefixed by the words ‘this time last year…’

Toot! Toot! Yes, I’m afraid that’s the unseemly sound of me blowing my own trumpet…

I’ve been feeling very nostalgic this month. The warm sunshine and the hedgerows bursting forth with cow parsley reminds me of writing The Secrets of Ghosts. Plus, we’re fast approaching the one year anniversary of my debut, The Language of Spells, being published.

This time last year I was unpublished. Now, I’ve got two books out and am well on the way to finishing another one.

I worked towards this point for so long (and spent so much time wondering if I would ever get there), that it still feels like a dream.

This time last year I was terrified. I felt exposed. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, fearful of my writing being ‘out there’. What if everybody hated it? What had I been thinking? I couldn’t do this… People were going to look at this thing that I’d made up and they were going to know how stupid/vapid/talentless I really was.

Instead, I had the most fabulous year. Friends and family were lovely and supportive and said so many nice things about the book that I just about swooned from happiness.

Book reviewers and readers were just as nice and I couldn’t have wished for a better reception.

Which brings me to my trumpet-blowing… Almost a year on and The Language of Spells is number six in the magical realism chart on Amazon (US), and people are still discovering it, tweeting about it, emailing me, and leaving lovely reviews.

I just read this one on Amazon:

I genuinely enjoyed reading this book and have purposely held off on buying the sequel so I will have something wonderful to read when I’m down. The whole story is well-written and engaging. I love the family dynamic. 

I feel so lucky and so grateful. My readers are the best! Thank you!

 

Progress Report: Slow and Steady

I empathise, my hard-shelled friend. Progress is slowwwwwww.

Hello, my dears!

I thought I’d give you a quick update on my progress with the New Book. I’ve got my messy first draft completed – hooray!

However, progress has slowed considerably… I’m about a third of the way through the second draft and it’s hard (say that last bit in a drawn-out whiney voice to get the full effect).

I’m not a fast writer, but while spewing out a first draft I can get 1000 words in a session without too much angst.

When I’m rewriting/imposing order on the chaos, progress feels so slow. I spent three hours writing yesterday and my overall word count inched forward by 36 measly words.

It doesn’t help that this stage is fraught with anxiety. For me, at least. I’m a fairly anxious person, anyway, and the task of facing my crappy first draft, making big decisions (rather than just scribbling away and thinking ‘I can fix it later’), is inherently stressful.

During rewrites I’m aware that I’m working towards something I will actually show people. I’m thinking of the reader’s experience, rather than just writing down whatever pops up from my subconscious.

Plus, this book feels more ambitious than anything I’ve tried before and I’m scared I’m not up to the task. Argh.

Still. Slow and steady progress is good. I must remember that if I keep going, rewriting it one scene at a time (or one paragraph or one sentence or one word), I will get there.

Probably with plenty more wailing and flailing, though.

[Image credit: FreeDigitalPhotos.net]

 

 

Friday Five: Random Recommendations

Random picture to go with random recs. Isn’t it beautiful?

Hello, hello! Hope you’ve all had a good/productive/positive week!

My aim to finish draft two by the end of May has been going pretty well, but it does have the knock-on effect of everything else going to hell in a hand basket. Is that the phrase? I have no idea and I can’t Google it as I’m using the ‘stay focused’ app and it locks me out of Google (and Twitter and Facebook and many other interesting and enlivening things) until five pm. See? I *am* working hard!

Without further waffle (stop cheering in the back, there), here are five random recommendations.

(I know, it’s not much of a blog post, but wait until the end of the month: I’ll have lost the power of language all together by then and will simply post ‘burble burble blarg’.)

1. Superdrug shampoo and conditioner. I haven’t tried all of them, of course, but I am THRILLED to discover that all of Superdrug’s own brand stuff is BUAV approved (not tested on animals), which makes cruelty-free shopping super-easy. I’m currently using the Pro Vitamin Thermal defense stuff and I love it. I also got the coconut and almond shampoo for the kids, which has the added bonus of smelling like cake.

2. Ann Patchett is one of my favourite novelists and her non-fiction stuff is fabulous, too. Have you read Truth and Beauty? Just wonderful. Anyway, last week I finished her latest book, This Is The Story of a Happy Marriage. It’s a collection of essays and articles (including The Getaway Car, which is about writing) and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

3. The aforementioned ‘Stay Focused’ app. It’s a free extension for Chrome and is customisable so you can block certain sites for certain hours in the day. You can also set a timer for your access to those sites (ten minutes is the default) so when you’re faffing about on Twitter it tells you ‘five minutes until you’re locked out’ and counts down. Once you’ve used your minutes for the day, it displays a cheery ‘shouldn’t you be working?’ if you attempt to access any of your banned sites.

4. Struggling to get started on your book or other creative project? Like playing video games? Felicia Day has made a video-game-themed vlog packed with tips for getting started, staying motivated and finishing creative work.

5. Tumblr. Yes, I realise this is unlikely to be news, but Tumblr is full of funny/awesome/creative/crazy stuff. And cat gifs. While we’re on the subject, why not follow my tumblr? Advanced Procrastination.  Thank you!

 

 

 

Monday Motivation: Treats

While we may write because we love it, completing (and revising) a novel is Hard Work. Plus, as it’s a solo effort, you have to be your own ‘good boss’. I don’t know about you, but this is definitely an area I could improve…

I’m pretty good at setting my own deadlines and mini-goals and tracking progress, but there’s another productivity trick that I keep forgetting about – treats.

On a normal day, I make several deals with myself of the ‘if you finish this paragraph you can check your email’ variety, but that’s about the extent of it.

I know that my friend Keris goes one step further and promises herself small gifts for reaching writing goals and I think this is a great idea. I mean, we don’t have performance reviews or bonuses or after-work drinks… We need something, right?

Plus, I think it’s important to celebrate the small successes and to find joy in the process of creation as, really, that’s what constitutes the writing life. The publishing side is amazing (and I count my blessings every single day), but it’s more… Fraught.

So. I’d already told myself that I had until the end of May to revise my first draft and send it to my agent, but now I’m wondering what little gift/treat can I promise myself if I hit that deadline… Maybe a meal out (or tea and cake in a nice cafe)? A book from my wish-list?

How about you guys? Do you like the idea of treats or is it something you do already?

 

 

 

 

 

Monday Motivation: The Art of Procrastination

Okay, I know that isn’t a promising title for a motivational post, but bear with me…

The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing (written by Stanford philosophy professor John Perry) is concise, witty and surprisingly useful.

It offers reassurance,  as well as stealth tactics that will help you to become a productive procrastinator. For example, if you put a non-urgent, but fairly daunting goal at the very top of your priority list, you are more likely to complete the smaller tasks beneath it in order to put off tackling it.

In all seriousness, this has made me re-think my habit of putting ‘write book’ at the top of my daily to-do list. Perhaps, I ought to move it further down…