I realise that many of you will already know by now but I've had some sad news... see the photo site for more details.

I can't believe I never announced it here. I thought I had plenty of time. It's hard to realise how fragile life can be.

(cross posted on watching geordie life)

Beth is AAAARGH!!!!

That is all.

(No, it's not going well. How could you tell?!)

skulking behind the starting line

... oh God. I've been so impatient for this day. But now it's here, I'm terrified to start.

Still, I have the names of my four characters, the initial situation, and somehow more motivation than I've had at the start of any other Novel Writing Month - I don't believe I'll win (I never have done before), and that's somehow reassuring.

Time to get my head down and start typing.

Update 2.30pm
I FINALLY started just now. Only for D to call me 84 words in to ask if I wanted anything from Asda. Oh well, at least I've finally got going.....!

National Novel Writing Month

Oh God. I've signed up for NaNo. What the hell am I thinking?!

User name is geordiewatcher if anyone else is doing it this year.

The daft thing is, now I can't wait to start. Even though I have NO free time.

I've never got further than 12k. This year I'm shooting for 20k. I'd like to win, but hey. I'm realistic.

Truth and fiction

I found this article by Lionel Shriver fascinating - especially following all the recent controversy over Julie Myerson.

I think We Need to talk about Kevin is a fantastic book. Disturbing as hell, but fantastic. I enjoyed The Post-Birthday World but not as much. But I do now really want to read A Perfectly Good Family, if only to explore how Shriver has written about - shock, horror - her own family.

'Text trumps truth – and especially in families there are many conflicting versions of "the truth". Writing is an imposition on reality, sometimes a brutal one. Family members who have been ruthlessly hijacked as characters have no means of redress, no outlet for their own story, no forum in which to proclaim to the same public, "But I'm not really like that!" or "That's a lie, she made all that up!"

'Fiction, too, is a kind of cheating. All the disguise I threw in may have protected me in professional and legal terms, but it didn't protect my family's feelings. Yet I could always claim "it's only fiction". In refashioning the moist, pliable clay of reality into the fired ceramic of a published novel, I could distort whatever I wished, leave out anything that didn't suit my purposes, and invent scenes that never happened, which to my subjects must have been infuriating.'

(quoted from here)

I can imagine how they found that infuriating. I'm not surprised it's left permanent rifts.

This is something that really does resonate for me. I read The Lost Child and found it utterly heartbreaking; absolutely absorbing. I can understand why her son was so angry; I can understand why she needed to publish it. How she believed it would help other parents - and I believe that there's a chance that it did.

I should confess that I have a vested interest in all this. A series of events that have happened in my life have really made me want to ditch all my novel plans (and I have a lot of plans for different novels) and write something based on a scenario very close to something that's been going on in the personal life of people close to me recently. Taking fictional characters and putting them into the situation in question. Seeing how it plays out.

That's not something I usually do. I normally stick to entirely fictional scenarios, entirely fictional characters. Occasionally I will take a trigger from a real-life event and base a different scenario on it, use entirely different characters - but that's about it.

(Interestingly I just went back to my list of ten stories I've sent out. Discounting the one that specifically asks for a true story - which involves only my husband whose permission I sought before submitting it - three (or four) have kernels of truth. One took an tiny incident with a friend when I was a student (forgetting her swimming costume when we went swimming) and turned it into a monologue by a 50 year old woman; I'd be surprised if the girl in question recognised that she was the inspiration. One took an anecdote my mum related to me in a card and wove a story round it. The third took a tiny incident and put two people in a different situation, in which what happened made the main character realise that things weren't quite right.)

There's also a fourth. But that takes one thing that didn't really happen (I thought I saw an ex in a bar; it turned out to be someone else) and put it together with a scenario that did (in which I met up with an ex and nearly kissed him, even though I had a boyfriend at the time). (Incidentally, I ended up dumping the boyf and marrying the ex. We've been together for nine years, married for five, so although I still feel bad about nearly cheating, I don't feel too awful.)

For those who write - do you ever base your characters on real people? Real scenarios? Would you tell those in question? Would you defend yourself?

Would you write about an actual scenario taken from real life? Even heavily disguised?

Would it make any difference if you could be described as the injured party in this situation?

Why Starbucks is the place to write*

*for me, at least.

DJ mentioned in the comments on my last post that she didn't understand why so many people write in Starbucks. I can only speak for myself - but I write really well in Starbucks. I only wish I had the time and money to spend hours each day in there.

For me, it's a great place to write because it's away from home. If I'm sitting at my computer, I'm aware that the washing up needs doing. (Even though it's nowhere near my line of vision.) I remember that there's clothes in the linen basket. I think about D's been bugging me to watch all the programmes that are backed up on Sky + (three Derren Brown 'Events' and The Secret Life of Twins currently) and think I could get through my ironing while watching them. I'll start working out how long it is since the bathroom was last cleaned and decide it can't wait a moment longer.

I can get through all these things and make myself write. But it's soooooooo much easier to be away from all that. Not to have to worry about it. I don't sit in the middle; I have nooks and crannies that I sit in so I don't sit and people-watch - although I'm not prone to do that even when I do have to sit in the middle of things. I'm more likely to get annoyed if people have interesting conversations that distract me :)

Thinking about it, I get more distracted by reading writing magazines than anything else. I convince myself that because it's about writing, it's still work. Which isn't strictly true.

And they have plug sockets for my netbook!

The only thing that would make it better is if I could get myself another coffee without packing up, going to buy one and starting all over again. Ideas to help that welcome!

I do love my Wednesday afternoons in Starbucks. I missed last week because we were on leave, and I'll miss this week because of my exciting visitor. So by the time next Wednesday rolls around, I'll be so excited I can't even tell you.

I've also been on a detox, so I haven't had a coffee for ages. It'll taste REALLY good by then :)

Still going

Been in Starbucks this afternoon. Editing one story, starting to write another, glancing through a couple of writing magazines to get inspired without letting time leak away reading every single word. This week it'll be hard to keep going - I have a very lovely friend visiting for a couple of days who I haven't seen in eight years - but I'll find gaps to write in. I WILL.

Oh, and Fiona Robyn will be blogging her next book from March 2010. She's asking bloggers to get the word out, so do visit her blog and let her know if you'll help spread the word.