In what will hopefully be a new, fairly regular feature on the site, I’m going to be covering the various happenings in the world of film, and the trials and tribulations of bringing a much loved literary property from the page to the screen. And what a week we’re kicking off on. The first big news piece is that The Dark Knight Rises, sequel to the immensely popular The Dark Knight, has officially commenced shooting. Deadline has the press release up on their site, which doesn’t state anything we don’t already know. It does however showcase the completed cast list, which really does ley bare the fact that the film contains a quite frankly embarrassing number of Oscar winners, from Marion Cotillard to Morgan Freeman. The PR also states that TDKR will be expanding on the director Christopher Nolan’s use of IMAX photography, after The Dark Knight utilized them in some of the major action scenes in the film. In addition to this news, a photograph of Tom Hardy has emerged as Bane, a villain in the film. He certainly looks fearsome enough, and he certainly has the muscles on him to play the ‘drug enhanced’ powerhouse.

Also on the topic of popular graphic novels coming to the screen with an embarrassment of Oscar winners involved, the first trailer for Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s Tintin adaption has appeared, showcasing the film’s motion captured 3D art, which certainly looks expressive enough, making me almost forget about the dead eyed monstrosities Robert Zemeckis brought us in The Polar Express, as these CG people look wonderfully faithful to Herge’s art, and seem to have functioning eyes to boot, which is almost always the pitfall of these films. The trailer can be found here, with the desert shot in particular proving mighty impressive.

That’s all we have time for this week, but let me know in the comments what you thought of this feature, and what I could do to improve it. I’m happy to take on any criticism, so don’t be shy.

‘Right’, I said. ‘I want a career in writing, sports writing preferably. Now make it happen!’.

She began typing on her computer as I leaned back in my seat and wafted my CV in her direction. She gasped in awe at my impressive work experience and suggested I take a job with a major national newspaper starting at around £40,000.

‘Well, I was hoping for something nearer £50k’, I sighed. ‘But it’ll do for now’.

I walked out with a reassured swagger, the sun was shining, and I looked forward to a life as a writer, travelling the world reporting about the topic that I love. Oh, and I found a tenner on the floor.

This is the ideal scenario that played out in my head while I waited for my name to be called to see a careers guidance counsellor at my old University. The idea to make use of such a potentially handy service so readily at my disposal strangely hadn’t struck me until quite recently. I was at a low budget all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant complaining that I had no money, when my friend Johnny asked:

‘Have you spoken to anyone in the careers department, I’m sure that they could help’, he said.

I knew that he was right, and when he said it I felt quite embarrassed that I hadn’t explored this avenue before.

‘Because, you know, I didn’t think that I’d need to’. And as soon as I said these words I realised how naive I’d been.

Things rarely go as you’d hope them to and my fantasy meeting scenario turned out to exactly that. In reality the meeting itself turned out to be a very sombre, disappointing affair – you know a meeting isn’t going to go well when the opening exchanges involve a quibble over the spelling of your name. When I wheeled off my list of relevant work experience all I got in reply was a ‘Hmmmmm’ – needless to say this wasn’t the excited response that I was longing for. It turns out that my experience, while relatively impressive, wouldn’t cut it in the big leagues. She told me that what I needed was a full-time job, something, anything with some longevity attached to it which showed that I had actual ‘job’ experience. I could still aim for my writing dream, but I’d have to take the scenic route to get there. It came as a bit of a blow, but it was an eventuality that I’d been resigning myself to for the past few weeks.

So after looking at a more diverse range of jobs locally I have had some success. I have managed to get an interview for a job which I’ve essentially been doing part-time for about two years. If I get the job, which I sincerely hope I do, it will present me with the dilemma that I’ve been trying to avoid. I will be earning money, clearly a boon, but a full-time job will obviously allow me less time to write and thus lies the test of my ambitions. I know that I’m far from being alone in this predicament and that many budding artisans will have had to take similar paths until they achieved their goal, but after a long, frustrating day at work will I be motivated to open my laptop and get typing, or will television and an early night be more appealing?

Something else that struck me during my meeting was the nature of my writing experience. Everything that I’d done to that point was so genre specific that it could only lead me in one direction; football writing. I decided when I got home that I needed to broaden my writing repertoire in order to increase my employability, and that is how I found myself writing for this very website. It struck me that I’d spent the last three years of my life reading and writing about books, and I wasn’t too bad at it, so continuing to use these skills seemed like a good idea (and if an English graduate can’t write a decent book review then they should return their degree certificate with a note of sincere and humble apology). So over the last few months I’ve been going over some of my favourite books with my critical head on for the purpose of providing you, the loyal readership of this fine site, with the lowdown on some fine pieces of non-fiction.

So while I persevere in the work place I have installed plans and ideas to keep my typing fingers busy and bulldoze those pesky writing blocks. Watch this space!

I also hate books; old yellow brittle pages on a book barely 10 years old and peeling laminate on paperback covers or dust jackets that can’t handle use and rip easily. Dust on library shelves that, once disturbed, can send you into a coughing seizure. The “snap” of a binding that breaks on a paperback and a few months later the pages are falling out of the book. And the typeface in paperbacks seems to be getting smaller every ear.

All of my classic Sci-Fi novels from when I was a teen that I stored and that traveled with me as I moved from the city to the country are now so much fire starter. Yellowed, cracking pages, cracked bindings … they are now lost to me. A flood ruined a cardboard box of my books, so I transferred them to plastic which the mice thought were choice digs.

So, while I love books, surround myself with them, read compulsively and have a collection that I never dreamed possible, I hate them and have been slowly culling them, getting down to a level where they might be manageable.

Enter the Kindle. Ok, besides books, I also collect tech toys, gadgets and all sorts of technology. I have an IPod which goes great with a comfortable chair and a good book. But the Kindle, well, I pondered this for a long time. It is a reading tool. It houses electronic books, or eBooks.

I was originally not impressed with the tool. It didn’t hold many books, it was expensive, I didn’t have a wireless connection for a while (didn’t need one) and I am in love with real books.

So, it was a while before I finally decided to give the Kindle a shot. Eyes are not what they used to be, and the feature of being able to adjust the type size was attractive. But it’s black and white. No color. Magazines would be lost but books… I can see that books would benefit from this medium. No yellowing of pages, Amazon will keep your list of purchases forever (so they say) so you can’t lose any of them, and my library. Kindle holds 3,500 books! That is more than I can store in my little library. You can search the books. Big bonus!!! Books are cheaper and there is no shipping fee! Yea, I got wireless (laptops need wireless). So, Kindle easily hooked into my wireless and downloads are fast!

Larger typeface is a big bonus. The Kindle reads PDF’s. OK, this is their weak point. While the PDF’s are readable, they are not format able. They are stuck in their PDF state, and if you enlarge, you have to move the screen back and forth (in page format) to read. I can read the PDF’s better on my laptop.

But searchable! OK, take a geek text book, load it in Kindle and you can find your hardware or software issue without having to reference index. Every reference comes up. Big time saver!

We also have text to speech. Kindle reads to you! If the book is formatted for text to speech, those long drives to work locations are now filled with your favorite book! BTW, Audible books also work in the Kindle, and they are cool!!! Books read to you, and the readings are very well done in the books I’ve tried.

The battery life is also very good, does not need to be recharged as often as some of my other toys and the charger will plug into my car charger should it start to run low on juice.

Finally: acquiring books. I thought, oh, geez, I’m going to have to buy lots of my books over again to have them stored in my Kindle. Well, surprise, surprise, Amazon Kindle store has FREE BOOKS for Kindle download. And there are $.99 and $1.99 books. Not junk!!! Lots of early classics! Weathering Heights, lots of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allen Poe – older classics, pre-copyright. But have you actually sat down and READ these books? I am going thru the original Dracula, which I never actually read. Way cool, better than the movie. I’ve gotten to read the latest installment of a Yasmine Galenorn series, and just downloaded M. R. Sellars latest book to read. And even if I do end up purchasing my “can’t live without” books again, it will be the last time.

So, that leaves us with that age old question – if you were going to be left on a deserted island, what three books/records would you take with you? Well, ok, we now have to ask – what three things would you take with you? I would take my iPod, my Kindle, and I need for these laptop manufacturers to make a solar laptop. Replace the cover with a solar panel and a battery that recharges on solar. Recharging it on a deserted island would be a snap. Palm trees and bright sun? How come no one has thought of this yet? Sorry, I’m off on a tangent.

Kindle – yes, I am very happy with mine.

I am at a loss to explain quite why I remember this small portion of my life so vividly – my performance was anything but memorable, but the play’s conclusion does relate in a strange kind of way to my life at present. As I scour the internet in pursuit of full-time employment the dilemma of ‘write and don’t write’ is providing me with somewhat of a headache.

My passion and life ambitions lie within the realm of the written word, but I am increasingly finding myself with little option but to look beyond writing and into other fields of employment.

I had no illusions of grandeur when I decided that creative writing was for me – I knew that whatever kind of writing work I looked for, any job opening would be overcrowded and very competitive. But nevertheless I was confident that with perseverance, hard-work and the right work experience I could get my foot in the door, and it all started so promisingly.

I wanted to be a football writer and I got four weeks work experience on the Daily Mirror’s football desk where I wrote daily articles for their website. This taster month led to three days of paid work in October when I was hired to co-write an encyclopaedia of English football. But the newspaper’s money ran out and the project was shelved indefinitely, my P45 followed shortly afterwards. I was unperturbed since I had other projects on the go. I was doing an unpaid internship with another football website which I did for three months in the blind belief that all of my time and hard work would ultimately pay off.

Around two months ago, with the world at my finger-tips, I excitedly began searching for jobs. I asked all of the contacts that I had acquired in the football world since the summer and looked on numerous websites for vacancies in the sphere of sports writing. However, in what seems like an age of searching, I have only found one job that came close to matching my criteria and it requires experience far beyond what I could offer.

One of the most disheartening things that I discovered in my extensive job hunt were eBay style websites which are selling, yes selling, jobs to the highest bidder. They would offer x amount of work and pay you x amount per word with the only catch being that you had to offer them money for the privilege of doing their work. One job that I looked at had a highest bid of $800. Much like the lengthy, unpaid internships offered by the big companies, here is another example of the blatant exploitation that budding writers find themselves fighting against. As somebody who has been through it all, I can tell you that writing for free can become seriously disheartening. You feel as if you should get some kind of reward for what you’re doing, but if the person who you are working for doesn’t have to pay you then why would he? Especially as he is safe in the knowledge that if you make a fuss he can simply call on a conveyor belt of young hopefuls who have yet to experience the drains of handing over their creative offerings and daily toils for nothing more than a thank you.

I have realised that you can have all the experience in the world and a portfolio the size of the OED, but if there aren’t any jobs available then there isn’t really much you can do. At present media companies, much like the rest of the world, are in the process of cost-cutting which invariably involves laying-off staff rather than hiring more. So any graduate looking for a job in writing faces even stiffer competition for even fewer jobs and however good you may be, the odds will be heavily stacked against you achieving your first writing role.

Graduates looking on job websites will tell you that unless you want a career in recruitment or sales (and let’s face it, who does?) there’s precious else available. So do I abandon my hopes and dreams and surrender myself to the lure of a monthly boost to my bank balance, or do I stick it out a little longer?

There is something rather depressing about the thought of embarking down a career path that I’m not keen on and getting a job that I don’t want. I’m pretty sure that I could have got a job that I didn’t want as soon as I left secondary school without going through all of this ‘further education’ hoopla.

At this stage I’m sure you can tell that my tone is becoming increasingly grumpy, so perhaps it is time to stop. I intend to keep you all updated with my progress and offer a graduate’s perspective on the writing job market. Is it possible?…I’ll let you know.

So, let’s go through a few ‘environments’ shall we?

Coffee Shops:

As writers, we’ve all done it. That is, at some point or another we’ve all gone into a coffee shop and just had to write something down, whether it’s the first chapter of a bestselling novel or simply a list of article ideas for your blog. The coffee shop seems to be the ‘default’ out-of-the-home area for writers. Why wouldn’t it be? What writer could resist all that caffeine and free wi-fi?

Advantages: Drinks and snacks close by / Free wi-fi / Ideal for people-watching
Drawbacks: Noise / Busy at certain times of the day / You’ll probably look a little pretentious

Libraries:

Granted, my only experience here is with my University Library, but I find that I’m a lot less likely to hop over to a games website or just watch another episode of ‘Fringe’ when I’m there. For me, the University Library gives me the feeling of ‘I’m here so I’d better work’, which is actually pretty motivating.

Advantages: Peaceful / Books on hand if required / No distractions
Drawbacks: No food or drinks except water / No opportunity for a ‘break’ / Usually busy

Office (Home):

Ah, the home office. Unfortunately for me, this also doubles as my bedroom since I’m in a shared house. At least 80% of my writing goes on in here, with my loyal old laptop (which I have nicknamed ‘Rover’). It’s pretty great. I rolled out of bed this morning, took two paces, threw on my dressing gown and here I am, four hours later still sat in my PJ’s, typing away.

Advantages: Tea & Coffee on-tap / Choose your own working hours / No travel time or costs
Drawbacks: Family & Housemates distracting / Lots of Distractions / No ‘work’ association

Outside:

It’s slowly turning into summer now, so what about going outside? Last week on my way back from the gym I found myself wishing I owned a netbook or other similar thing, so I would be able to sit and enjoy the sunshine whilst doing some writing. Obviously, this particular environment is seasonal, but why let that stop you enjoying it while it lasts?

Advantages: Fresh Air / People watching abilities / Inspirational environment
Drawbacks: Screen-glare / Weather dependent / No plug sockets to recharge laptop

Commuting:

You may be a little surprised that I included this one, dear reader. Especially if you commute somewhere by driving your own car, or by walking. For those of us who use the train or bus to get somewhere however, that half an hour can sometimes be hugely productive.

Advantages: Filling otherwise unproductive time / Time limit as incentive / Stops annoying people chatting to you
Drawbacks: Sometimes crowded / May make you miss your stop / Time limit

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There you have it! As you can see, everywhere has good and bad points, but what I want to know now, is where YOU write. Yes, dear reader, what environment suits you best when you’re working on a new article, chapter or poem? It’d be great to hear from you!

But how near are the fictional serial killers to reality? The book by Bloch which eventual became the film ‘Psycho’ was based on the Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein (1906-1984). Gein is not the only serial killer; history is full of people who kill for the pleasure of it; from Jack the Ripper to the Yorkshire Ripper. It is where authors such as Thomas Harris (Silence of the Lambs) have taken their inspiration. But what makes a psychopathic killer?

To answer this we need to consider the genetic blueprint our parents gave us, the foundation on which our very being is built. A part of our behaviour is hereditary; and as such each one of us is slightly different. It is within this genetic base that makes some of us more fearless than others. It is the extreme qualities of this fearlessness that make somebody become ‘pro-social risk takers’, as we see with racing driver, fighter pilots or soldier defusing a bomb. On the other hand we have somebody with the same fearlessness but is detached from the social restrains that bind us all, and it is these people who are considered to be ‘anti-social risk taker’. We find this person does not have a conscience, nor do they show any remorse or sense of guilt in what they do. A typical sign for this personality type is the tendency to inflict cruelty towards animals, or people at an early age. But where does this thin line between the fearless hero and psychopathic killer come from? In a word, parenting.

In 1987, Ainsworth devised a psychological test that has become known as the ‘strange situation test’, in which infants are categorised as to how they respond during separation and reunion of a guardian and also, introduction to a stranger. ‘Normal’ characteristic of a person’s personality falls into three distinct types. Type A, ambivalent, Type B, secure, and Type C, avoidance.

Type A, ambivalent, is believed to come from an over-stimulating, rejecting parenting, and we see the child becomes upset at separation. Upon return, the child will tend to turn away, rather than towards the parent. The child responses seem to be inappropriate and find relationships difficult and there is also a lack a sense of self worth.

Type B, secure, does not show panic with separation with the parent and has confidence on their return. Also, the child is untroubled by others and will accept some contact with a stranger.

Type C, avoidance, associated with inconsistent, unresponsive parenting. The child shows distress at separation, the presence of the parent is important and has there is a lack of confidence that the parent will return. The child’s expectation seems to be pessimistic and can’t be eased by another person.

As adults, we see the following self reports as each talk about their childhood. Type A, generally become dismissive and what happened within their childhood is not important and gives the impression that personal relationships are not important. There is little detail in any narrative given about others, the past is in the past and that is where it belongs. They struggle to feel worthy of another’s affection and can be over powering. Whereas, on the other end of the scale, type C generally become preoccupied and any narrative about the past is lengthy with full of emotion, with the impression that they can not move on from the past. They believe the other does not want to be close to them.

This isn’t the whole story; it is possible for those who experience a major change in their lives to change from one type to the other. But it is not to these we get our serial killer; it is those who fall into the abnormal classification, Type D, usually associated with children who have been abused. Within the Strange situation, they behave irrationally. They are afraid of others and fearful of rejection in the end finding it easier to disassociate from others and the restriction imposed by society. As such, most psychopathic killers come from abused backgrounds.

As you can see, in order to understand we are compelled to consider the idea of nature and nurture in our development as human beings and it is those who lie outside ‘normality’ that cause us, ‘as readers’ to be compelled to read. Imagine if Hannibal Lector was a ‘nice man’ without the cruel twist portrayed within his mannerisms. How long would it take before you reside to the fact that the story was just not entertaining? In Steven king’s IT (1986), Pennywise is believed to be loosely based on Gacy, (1942-1994) ‘the clown killer’. Ed Gein, as mentioned above, gave rise to many fictional serial killers, Buffalo Bill in silence of the Lambs, and Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre

So when somebody asks you about your childhood, beware, there may be more skeletons in the closet than you first thought, and some of these skeletons may just find themselves on the page in front of you.

Written by: Paul Houghton
Editor: Peter Stewart

The whole project from start to finish cost me approximately £90, and took two days. It would probably have take three days if I’d needed to use a hand-saw instead of a ban saw. Feel free to leave me comments at the end of this post! Have you made a bookcase yourself? Where do you store your books? I’d love to hear from you all, dear readers.

N.B. Click on an image for a bigger version!

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This was my bookshelf before the new one. As you can see, the shelves are too ‘high’ for the books, and they don’t have any decent partitions. They are also far too wide. Yes, it’s a rather big mess.

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This was my ‘to be read’ shelf. I have quite a lot of backlog to get through as you can see. That’s three rows of books, plus two rows stacked on top.

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All the books had to be removed from the two black shelves and stacked neatly (ahaha, yeah, right) on the floor. One of the black shelves was then entirely dismantled…

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The other one I placed in the opposite corner, and here’s the finished product, along with a big cuddly tiger, and all of my encyclopaedias and ‘fact’ books.

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So to make the brand new bookcase, the first thing I had to do was get the wood. Thankfully, my grandfather knew someone with a van…

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Oh the joys of having a bandsaw at home so that we didn’t have to cut the lengths by hand…
and yes, even though I got to play with the sharp toy, I do still have all of my fingers.

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Moving all the pieces up to the attic, we had to measure out where all of the shelves were going to come to, before then using a drill to put some screws into it to hold it. We also added glue, just to be on the safe side.

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After making the main frame, all we had left to do was to hammer tacks through some hardboard and into the frame, giving it a backing.

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Voila, after spending ten minutes trying to push and pull and lift the bookcase into place against the wall and securing it, it was time for me to start putting the books onto it. And here we are! The finished bookcase! I must admit that it turned out a lot smarter than I originally thought I could get it. All the hard work certainly paid off.

One of the most popular novels written is The Lord of the Rings, by Tolkien which was written following the success of The Hobbit (1937). The Lord of the Rings was written over 1937 – 1949, but because of economic reasons the original was split into three novels, and printed over the course of a year (1954–55) into the now recognisable trilogy. So from start to end, The Lord of the Rings took Tolkien 18 years from the first scribbling to get onto the shelves. Even though this novel is recognisable as a trilogy, it was in fact written as a single novel split into six sections. If it had been a single novel, it would it have grabbed our attention in quite the same way, or would it have become another ‘War and Peace’? Would it forever stare at us from our over laden bookshelves, instantly falling into the category of ‘I should read it but do I really have the time needed to finish it’?

Another novel that struggled to become published and continued to struggle for the recognition it deserved for some time was Dune, by Frank Herbert. The venture took six years to plan and write. Even though he was already a successful science fiction writer, the novel accumulated a series of rejections. One editor wrote back “I might be making the mistake of the decade, but…” before rejecting the manuscript. Even when it was published it was not an immediate success. That was to come later when the novel was turned into a film by David Lynch in 1984. So even if a novel manages to become published, it does not guarantee instant success. In Herbert’s case, he had already written and published five of the six dune novels before he received the acclaim he deserved; the last was published just before his death in 1986.

Even those who now manage to acquire complete shelves had troubled beginnings. The acclaimed horror writer Steven King wrote a series of novels, each one of them rejected. Out of frustration, he threw the first three chapters manuscript onto the garbage. His wife having managed to recover the pages and encouraged him to continue to write and eventually send it off. Struggling to make ends meet at the time, King had the telephone disconnected so when Doubleday Publishers wanted to tell him the news, they could not get hold of him and had to send a telegraph. Even though this was King’s first novel to be published, he had already written three others. This novel we now know as Carrie.

The most acclaimed sagas, Harry Potter did not have an easy start. JK Rowling received twelve rejections before Bloomsbury, at the time a small publishing company, finally accepted it. Even so, she was recommended by the editor to get a day job as ‘there is no money in children’s books’.

Even though these novels are amongst an elite few, they show what can be achieved if you are determined enough. Furthermore, most budding authors dream of such achievements, but in reality such acclaim is so difficult to reach. But even in such desperate times, there is always a sense of hope that inspires us all to continue what we are doing. So, aspiring writers, one rejection does not mean your work should be tossed onto the fire in that sudden fit of despondency which comes with the territory. Even though publishers and agents know what they are looking for, they have been known to get it wrong. That piece of work you have poured so much of your life and soul into may be just a short step away from leaping off the slush pile onto the editor’s desk. So don’t give up when you receive those endless piles of rejection letters, it may be time to re-evaluate what you have written and come up with a better plan of attack.

Written by: Paul Houghton
Editor: Peter Stewart

On November 1st, I gave up caffeine, fizzy drinks and takeaways in order to try and detox myself in lieu of going to the gym regularly again. I am therefore less than a week into this new regime…and all I can do is wail and moan and ask myself why…WHY would I do this to myself…right when NaNoWriMo has turned up, knocking on my door and demanding more hours from me than there are in a day.

So, whilst I was sitting downstairs in the University Library Café, drinking my decaf tea, I began to wonder about different methods of keeping ones concentration whilst writing for something as intense as NaNoWriMo. (Although admittedly, we could also link this to academic essay writing. All-nighters, anyone?).

Personally, I work best when I have a spare hour or two squeezed in the middle of other activities. I guess this gives me a definitive timeframe to work to, as well as that incentive to actually get stuff done before I have to race off and do something else. (As I type this, I have forty-five minutes until a Theatre meeting). I know of quite a lot of people who prefer to write in the evening with a cup of tea by their elbow (I’m looking at you, Fiona!) But as the author Jody Lynn Nye commented in the INTERVIEW she gave a short while ago now, she has to make herself sit and write, regardless of whether or not she’s in the mood to do so.

Because I do – on occasion – attempt to do my bit to help, the rest of this article will concentrate on a handful of points which may help you overcome the feelings of distraction and apathy which may or may not settle in when NaNoWriMo gets about halfway through.

- Writing Games

Don’t feel as though the moment you sit down in front of your laptop, you ought to be able to type up the next bestseller without stopping. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that writing should be a little like exercising…you have to limber up beforehand. Something as simple as writing up a stream of consciousness (your thought processes…anything that comes into your mind), or picking a word and playing around with it in a single paragraph or stanza of poetry help to get the creative juices flowing and your fingers flexed and ready for the evening’s typing. Simple exercises like these will also focus your mind onto your literary challenge, rather than pondering what you’re going to eat for dinner.

- Eat Well

At the risk of sounding like one of those leaflets schools give out in order to help their students revise for exams…eating well is also a key element to concentration. If you want to snack, try to have something like yoghurt or some fresh fruit, instead of reaching for the biscuits and cake. These foods are low in the amino acid which causes drowsiness. If you tend to begin writing around actual mealtimes, eggs are also a great source of nutrients in protein, whilst also being low in saturated fat. Finally…if you’re really struggling, then having a cup of coffee may give you a short-term ‘pick me up’, but be aware that too much caffeine can lead to adverse effects.

- Deadlines & Schedules

I would like to take this opportunity to extrapolate on something I touched upon earlier. Technically, the word count ‘per-day’ for NaNoWriMo is approximately 1,700. But what happens if you only have, say, two hours free during the day, before you collapse gratefully into bed? The temptation is to think ‘it’s alright, I’ll catch up tomorrow’. This is NOT something which works. What if something comes up tomorrow and you have to delay your writing for another day? No, the best thing would be to write as many words as possible in one of your free hours. Not only will it give you the incentive to get as much written as possible (the challenge here is more of a time-trial rather than something word-count based), but scheduling in an hour a day no matter what, will also help you to stay ‘in the zone’ for the full amount of time. If you have a whole, free day to do something, then those procrastination techniques that we all know so well – such as FACEBOOK and checking your emails – will creep into your time and distract you.

- Keep it fun

Finally, remember to keep it fun! Things like NaNo are voluntary, and though they should be challenging…if you’re not enjoying it then there’s something amiss. If you don’t enjoy doing your writing, there’s going to be no passion there, and subsequently very little quality. So if you feel your enthusiasm waning, why not get a writing buddy? Someone to compare word-counts with and bounce ideas off. Change your perspective from NaNo being a challenge to it being a game.

I hope a few of these things will be able to help you on your writing journey. If you have any other hints or tips on this topic, please feel free to post a comment below, we’d love to hear from you.

Happy Writing!

NaNoWriMo stands for ‘National Novel Writing Month’, which is described on the official website as; “…a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.” The aim here isn’t to create a masterpiece, but rather to get into the mindset of taking the time to actually write something. The editing comes later.

You might be wondering why the I.Q. team is so excited about this event.

First of all, it’s something to do. (At this point, if you know the insane level of ‘stuff’ which the I.Q. team participates in, you will be laughing until your sides hurt). Personally, November is going to be painful enough without the added effort of actually sitting down to write non-University ‘stuff’, but it will at least allow me to focus my energies on something slightly different. Next, the event all but ties you to a chair, makes you a cup of coffee and stands over you with a baseball bat until you hit your daily word count. That is, it forces you to focus on getting through it by any means necessary.

If you take the time to sign up to the official website online (links to follow at the end of this article), there are also forums where you can get congratulated, consoled or inspired by other people doing their best to accomplish the same task. NaNoWriMo has a fantastic community aspect to it – one of the personal reasons why I’ve always wanted to participate. Finally, I would be doing the event a huge disservice if I didn’t mention the learning curve it offers to amateur writers. It isn’t as if an individual signs up for the event and is then sent on their merry way with nothing more than a smile and a wave. Oh no! Assistance is offered by the NaNoWriMo community, but as well as this, I have found that participants are also a lot more inclined to try and hone their writing skills and search for any other information they might require. This is something which gives people a starting block, as it were, to really develop not only their writing, but also their approach to writing…which is arguably just as important.

Is anyone from I.Q. participating?

Well now you mention it…One of the I.Q. writers, Fiona, will be jumping into the insanity of NaNoWriMo for another year. I however, will be doing something slightly different. I know it’s a ‘Novel’ writing month, but in order to feel at least a little productive, I will instead take it upon myself to write at an article per day for Inspired-Quill during the month of November. Now, that isn’t to say that I.Q. will be updated each and every day, but there’s a chance that there will be three articles instead of two for the duration of the month, as both Fiona and I keep you updated as to our progress as well as offering a few hints and tips along the way. (Probably in an attempt to help you learn from our mistakes!)

If any of you – dear readers – are going to be involved, please don’t hesitate to leave a message or get in touch. We’d love to hear from other NaNoWriMo participants.

In the meantime, here are a few handy links:

- NaNoWriMo site
- Signup
- Grammar
- Writing tips