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My year in writing: 2016 and the freelance writer life Also otherwise known as the career and year to give you conniptions
Marisa Wikramanayake writes about what 2016 has been like for her as a freelance writer, editor and journalist and what it meant for her career.
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Reader question: what sort of music do you listen to when writing?
The simple answer is that it varies. At one point while writing Sedition, I listened to UB40 and a lot of reggae. I like reggae. I like drums and saxophone. At another point there was a lot of old ’20s jazz standards I listened to that you can download from here. For free. Right now editing Sedition, I am listening to my friend’s surrealist nerd punk pop rock stuff – her band is called My First Telescope. But to work on HIM, I often write while going through the backlog of vlogbrothers videos on Youtube on my phone. Or while catching up on the Wimbly Womblies’ progress in FIFA. As in…
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Why my brain has no space and why I have no time
So here is the news. I am going to slow down considerably on writing HIM. I can hear you: “You were supposed to finish by mid-April!” Yes, I know. The funny thing about books is that they don’t generally behave the way you would like them to. Ditto for life. So why am I decelerating on HIM at the moment? Lots of reasons but mostly: I want to enter the Vogel Awards and the Richell Prize. The deadline for Vogels is 31 May. The deadline for Richell is 1 June. I want to enter Sedition into the Vogels but that means editing Sedition before 31 May which at the moment…
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HIM update for April 15
Quick explainer: I am writing my second book HIM and have staggered my word count goals this time. If you sign up to the mailing list or become a blog subscriber you get to read the first draft. If you don’t you just get this update on whether I hit my goals or not each week. Subscribers scroll down for your link, mailing list, you will get an email in your inbox. Word count goals this week: 5,000 Actual word count this week: 3334 Total word count so far: 11,338 Total word count goal at this point: 60,000 NOTE: HALFWAY TO NOVELLA AND 1/5TH TO NOVEL! 🙂 How long did it take me? 3 hours What have I…
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HIM update for March 25
And this week I was distracted by a sexy boyfriend but also by the TAG Hungerford awards but I managed a few words...
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HIM update for Feb 26 and Mar 4 – sorry for the delay!
Horrible first draft" is not intended to be self depreciating at all - sometimes people I am writing with or speaking to about the ideas in the book jump in and try to tell me not to say that but the reason I do so is to remind myself that this is the stage where I get the story down in words. It isn't the stage where the words have to be awesome - they don't have to be. They just need to tell the story. So it is the horrible first draft now - it will be rewritten and edited and prettified later.
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HIM update for February 19
What did I write about this past week? Why no one often wants to get out of bed, the long lived nature of chicken dynasties and elderly neighbours who know more pop cultural references than you do. None of which was actually previously planned out by the way, these are just all the random cool things that turn up in my writing as I write.
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HIM update for February 12
Quick explainer: For those of you who don’t know yet, I am writing my second book HIM and have staggered my word count goals this time. If you are on the mailing list you get to read the first draft. If you don’t you just get this update on whether I hit my goals or not each week. Word count goals this week: 5,000 Actual word count this week: 1128 Total word count so far: 3135 Total word count goal at this point: 15,000 How long did it take me? 2.5 hours
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HIM and the experiment to write the draft under watching eyes
On January 1st I started a new project. I was going to write a new book and get Sedition edited and you got to watch while I wrote. And I told you that I was setting up a Patreon account for those who wanted to donate towards editing fees for Sedition by letting them see the drafts of HIM as I wrote HIM.
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HIM update for January 22 on the 26th and much debate about crowdfunding options
Quick explainer: For those of you who don’t know yet, I am writing my second book HIM and have staggered my word count goals this time. If you support me on Patreon you get to read the first draft. If you don’t you just get this update on whether I hit my goals or not each week. Word count goals this week: 2,000 Actual word count this week: 0 Total word count so far: 2,007 Total word count goal at this point: 6,000 How long did it take me? Not long. I didn’t do anything. Here is the timetable of targets to reach: Jan 8 – 2,000 words Feb…
