"Do not forget" notebook

Well, many times, I have said I'm a Panster when it comes to writing. And I still think that I am. I never do an outline of my novel. Goddess knows, I don't do characters' bio or do the charts, diagrams or well, all that the Plotters do. 

My stories all start in my head, triggered with one event or an incident, a song and its lyric is as good as any other thing. And this is it. As soon as I have time, I sit down - usually this is after my family falls asleep - and my writing process starts. 

Choosing the main characters' names is also a thing, I need to think of or make up. Somehow the names of the supporting characters pop up as I write. The story is growing and its revealing in front of my eyes when I type. 

I can confess and this is not hard, I do kinda know the end - that is going to be happy - for heaven's sake I'm a Romantic suspense writer after all. 

But I realised as the story reveals before me, I kinda forget about some things I wrote before. They might not be big ones, but I know these things must be giving my editor Alison quite a headache. And frankly myself too. 

Trying to remember what I wrote on page seven, when I am already on page one-hundred-sixty-six is not simple. And it's not really welcomed by the readers to read that the cat was black on a page twenty and white on page seventy-one. 

Even when I was writing my WIP II - which is now finished and submitted - I did it the way, that if I was unsure what I wrote, I went back reread what I had written and then continued the story. Believe me - it's time consuming. Instead of writing I was reading my own novel. Too many times.

So, what am I showing you in this post is not my 'plotter' notebook. Nope. It's my "DO NOT FORGET" notebook. I don't write in it what I plan to happen in my novel, instead of that, I write things I know I'll need to know when the story will be deep within its twirls. 

So yes, this lovely notebook - by the way, I'm a real sucker for these kinds of things - has now became my new helper. 

And to be honest, I like it. I don't need to scroll through the pages anymore... 

 

Romantic Novelists' Association

One of my 'best' kept secrets was, that right after new year I applied for a Full Membership with Romantic Novelists' Association.

I received a kind answer of acceptance and got my 2016 Membership Card soon afterwards. I don't know for many other writers that write in the Romantic Genre, but being a full member of RNA was something I always tried to achieve.

Unfortunately RNA's New Writers' Scheme always somehow slipped through my fingers. But now it doesn't matter anymore. I've become a Full Member of the Association and you can also find me on their page:

RNA Member: June Moonbridge

This Writing Life ~ a blog post series by Zeba Clarke

You can find this on Zeba's blog That Reading/Writing Thing.

This is a new blog post series where authors (and me) will answer on Zeba's interesting questions about our Writing Life.

Today, as an opening post to the series, you can find me answering those questions.

Want to find out more? Go and check Zeba's blog. 

The link is right here:

This Writing Life: June Moonbridge 

Februar's review ~ 5 star

Well, the day cannot get any better when you find:

~ a notification in a FB group that a book was read and reviewed with a words from a reader: 

"...I've just finished it with tears in my eyes." 

and then 

~ finding a

  star review on Amazon, saying:

I'm a happy bunny... :)

 

Facing the Dilemma

Sometimes I wonder if twenty-four hours per day will ever be enough for me to do all the things:

- I have to do

- I must do

- I want to do

and

- I'd love to do...

Not necessarily in this order... 

Today I somehow managed to do all the things on the lists from the first and second bullet point. The thing is; I do them every single day. Yeah, my real life makes me do them with no exception.

Now, in the evening I finally reached the third and fourth bullet points' lists and I'm facing a dilemma. Which 'things to do list' to tick first. 

To be honest with you, I have approximately another three to four hours to do at least some things, but they are all quite 'time consuming' - in a good way.

I have to decide between:

- re-reading the last proofread of my second novel and get the final 'finesse' to be ready for submitting;

or

- write Chapter Fifteen of my next WIP. 

I have also one more thing to do, but this one I'll keep as a secret just for a while more...

So choosing between three things isn't easy and, well, as you can see - I started on a completely different thing - on one that was not even on my 'to do list'... sheesh...