The Next Project

And so, while I await the launch of my third book, (Meet Me At Wisteria Cottage - 6th April 2017) I am cracking on with the writing of my fourth novel. This one is going to be based around online dating as I have plenty of material from my own personal experiences to use.

It's a shame I can't actually take my heroine through the last four years of my life; she's going to have a mini squashed down version of my experiences.

Today, though, while writing Maya (that's my new heroine's name), I realised this character is the closest based on me. All my others have been younger, single women, with no children, searching for their one true love. Maya is on a different journey. I didn't want to make her a divorcee, so I've made her a widow. She is in her late thirties, but the dreaded forties (which we all know when we reach them isn't so bad after all) are on the horizon.

When her husband died she was very much still in love with him, so her journey is going to be harder, haunted a little by the ghost of her husband, having him high on a pedal stool in her memory.

I've chosen children that are of similar age to my own too. Only because I'm not sure how teenagers properly act yet - having not got one (yet) - and although I remember my children younger, they're better as research at this age, because I can see what they're doing. Maybe I can even blackmail them... "do that and it'll go in a book!"

This morning was a trying day with my kids, I'd lost the plot... the will to live... And the emotions of an intelligent single mother, fed up with the nagging and mundane repetitiveness of the day to day stuff rubbed off onto Maya. She drinks wine, too. Maya's story is coming easily to me.

I've got the hero in mind, and I will need to weave some online dating adventures of his own in. Luckily I've been given some male perspective on this too. At the moment I just can't decide what he does as a job but the good thing about writing is, I can weave it in later. In the meantime, I'll just try to write 3000 words a week, and aim for this first draft to be finished by the summer.

New Year New Book

This is what I think I should do to plot a book... 

New Year, new resolutions and all that.

I'm not very good at making those, but I have started writing my next book.

What with my four years of online dating experience, I have been urged (by my current beau #TheBoss - who I met through online dating) to write my online dating story. I mean I have so much material!

I've noticed writers say they're going to write 1000 words a day, etc. and for me that's no good. It's not possible. I'd be failing before I even started. There's no point setting yourself something unachievable. It's not motivational.

I work part-time, so on the days I work, I don't tend to get to write. I have two kids, so I try not to write during the evenings, and use that time to relax and read. And now I have a new man - who takes up my weekends, so there's no way I can sit down every day and bash out 1000 words.

Anyway, I got to thinking; what if I try to reach 5000-7000 words a week. I have three days a week where I try to set aside writing. Although even I don't get write on all of these days sometimes.

At the moment I don't think even this is possible, as I am in the throws of researching (which I tend to do a bit as I write because I'm the pantster type writer apparently...) I'm just not very good at the whole plotting thing. I just end up writing and research as I go. I make notes, don't get me wrong, and make sure I put the main points I need to get into the book, but I like how the story comes to me from my head through my fingers on the keyboard, and onto the screen.

Then I got to thinking, well what if worse case scenario, I only got 3000 words written a week, in those 3 days... How long would it take me to write approximately a 90,000 word novel. So I did the math.

Basically, it would take 30 weeks, which is around 7.5 months (if they're all 4 week months!). Well that's not so bad. I could be looking at by the end of July having the first draft finished.

So that's my plan. It might be a bit longer than that as we need to factor in school holidays - but some weeks, once this novel really takes off, and I don't have to think up new names, or sneak off to the internet for some research, I'll get more than 3000 words written a week - easy.

I do use a spreadsheet to see how many words I write a day, so I can monitor my progress and see if I'm on target. I've marked off the 90th day. So let's see if I can do this.

Currently it's working title is The Golden Rules To Online Dating.