Tag: Books

Writing a novel in 365 days

Day 1

As a Christmas present, I received a calendar with a difference, one you might say all writers should get.

Writing a novel in 365 days.

Today is day one, and it is an advice day.  Some would say they don’t need advice, just a writing prompt, to get the juices flowing.

But…

It’s New Year’s Day!  Who works on New Year’s Day? Here in Australia, we are watching the countdown in New York on CNN.

It’s literally 4 hours of writing prompts and sheer lunacy.

Perhaps their advice would be to have shots, though not tequila, definitely not my cup of tea. 

Rum, Bacardi, and ice, lots of it.

Yes, here it is over 30 and 100 per cent humidity.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we will get to do some writing…

Oh, yes, the advice…

Do not attach a conversation after an action, like,

Pouring tea for the small group surrounding her, she said, “Some like it hot!”

The advice is mainly about the many ways to have conversations, instead of the same thing over and over.

I guess that means we have to get inventive. 

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Writing a book in 365 days – 15

Day 15

Set yourself a reading list, and don’t limit yourself to the sort of genre of books that you wish to write. But, I have to admit I’m guilty of not necessarily reading everything because there are genres that I do not like.

But, for the purposes of this exercise, what you are looking for are:

  • Descriptions of locations, the methods by which the author conveys the setting, whether, dark, light, eerie, scary, dripping with menace, or inspiring fear. A dark room can be just a dark room, but it can be so much more.
  • Descriptions of people. If anyone who witnessed a crime was asked to describe the guilty, ten different people would give ten different descriptions and unless there was a distinguishing factor like he only had one arm, it might describe a quarter to half the population. Your job is to see how others do it and refine it for your characterisations.
  • Conversation. We all have conversations but when it comes to writing them down and making them sound plausible, that’s another story. Conversation is the hardest part of this writing thing, or at least I think so.
  • Writing style. You will eventually get your own, but to begin with, it might be a little strange. Reading many similar-themed or genre books will give you some idea of what the publisher’s editors are looking for.

You will have to read quite a few, I have a library with about 3,000 books, having accumulated them over 50 years. And I think I have learned a thing or two from reading nearly all of them.

Writing a book in 365 days

Day 14

Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. So says Jorge Luis Borges in Doctor Brodies report.

Wow! If only I could guide my dreams.

They are a mess at the best of times and always end before I get to the good part.

That’s why I am writing a series called The Cinema of My Dreams. I lie awake at night staring at the ceiling, and instead of seeing darkness, I see the plots of my stories playing out. They never go where I want them to, but that’s because life doesn’t always play ball.

It’s the way my stories are written, an episode at a time, and not fully knowing what’s going to happen, as I write. i am writing like I’m the reader, hanging on every word, leaping from cliffhanger to cliffhanger.

Admittedly it can be nerve wracking especially when an idea for the next episode doesn’t materialise, but I get there. Inspiration sometimes comes from anywhere at any time.

But most people like to have a plan, and that to me, means you know every aspect of the story before you write it. I don’t like that because it would take too like to create the outline.

Writing a book in 365 days

Day 13

The bible, believe it or not, is just a collection of stories handed down over the years, from one language to the next, ending up in English so we English-speaking people could read it.

But, originally, these stories were told by people, not written down and read out, not for a long time when someone thought it would be a good idea to get them down before they were lost in the mists of time.

It’s not unlike the stories we tell our children about those who came before them, of what we knew about them, and sometimes a few embellishments to make them sound larger than life. I mean, who wants to have boring relatives?

Coming from another angle, when writing a story, sometimes it’s a good idea to read it out aloud. That will tell you if there are any problems. The first time I did this, I had to ask myself what I was thinking … people didn’t talk like that!

Now I get the text-to-voice feature working on the words, which is just as good. It tries to interpret the badly and wrongly spelled words. AI is good but not that good.

Then, if you write a good enough story, you can hold readings in bookstores and libraries, and not have storage looks cast in your direction when something is not quite right.

Everybody’s a critic, yes?

Writing a novel in 365 days – 6e

Day 6 Continued – It’s all in the detail

While we get to talk about characters and characteristics later, part of what sets the scene is the details, those little things about people, places, and sometimes just everyday items that will make a story from routine to, well, slightly more interesting.

For others to find these details relatable makes it even better.

I’ve been to the Eiffel Tower, but I’m sure there’s a detail that can transform words on a page into a picture in the reader’s mind.

Walking across a meadow isn’t just walking, it’s watching the swirling grass as the breeze pushes it one way then another, all around the sounds of birds, and insects.

For added colour you could add a dog, about the same height as the grass, one minute bounding through the grass, the next hot on the trail of a small animal like a field mouse or rabbit.

Above, the sky is blue, the sun is shining, not a hot day, but warm, the sort you don’t need a jumper.

It could be the first day or the last day of the holidays, or you could be staying with an aunt or uncle on a farm in the countryside, in the distance the farmhouse sitting in a familiar position overlooking the valley before it.

There could be a babbling brook, a small bridge to cross, even though it is not very deep, and hiding in the rocks, fish waiting to be caught, taken back to the house, and later become part of supper.

And tying the elements together:

It was almost the end of the holidays and I didn’t want to go back to the city. The last few weeks had opened my eyes to a world I had never known existed.

Sitting under the apple tree on the edge of the grove I looked out across the meadow that fell gently down towards the creek when the other day I had taken my aunt’s advice and went for a dip to cool off.

Now, looking out and trying to put a permanent image of the scene before me in my mind so I could remember it in the coming weeks and months, there was something new, different, than the other days.

Yes, the grass, as high as Cyclops, my aunt’s dog, was swirling in the breeze, and was bounding as he always did through the grass, searching for a rabbit, or he just caught a scent. Yes, the sky was blue, though now there were whispy clouds in the distance, perhaps an omen the weather was about to change, but that was not it.

A different sound from the birds chirping and the insects buzzing, someone singing not loudly but as they would to themselves when they knew no one else was around.

And, then I saw her, a girl my age, long blonde hair tousled by the breeze, in a summery dress with flowers and birds. The elusive Erica, the girl from the next farm, who, my aunt said, sometimes came to pick some apples to take back to her mother to bake apple pie.

Apple pie that was to die for.

When she reached the grove she saw me and stopped. The happy, cheerful expression turned to one of curiosity.

“Who are you?”

“Andy. I’m staying with my aunt. How come I haven’t seen you before?”

“I’ve been here. You have not or I would have seen you.”

True. I had spent most of my time, up until this day working with my uncle in the barn and on the tractor ploughing other fields. I was only here because my aunt had sent me to get some apples fresh from the tree.

“I have been helping my uncle.”

…

It started out as an awkward conversation because I was not very comfortable around girls. Those that I knew, in the city, were not very nice. By the end, I had found a new friend, and it made it all the more impossible that I had to go home.

And, although I didn’t know it then, it was the start of a relationship that would continue until the day we both died.

…

It of course needs refinement and more interweaving of the elements around us, but it;s a start.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025


Writing a book in 365 days

Days 11 and 12

It’s a writing exercise, not one I particularly like, but it’s another step – building characters

This one, a car lover, has more interest in his car than anything else. We’re looking to gauge his reactions when various events occur.

I must say, I don’t really know anyone like this.

Firstly, the car was stolen but returned a week later undamaged and a full tank of petrol.

Well, it’s certainly not a group of 12 to 14-year-olds stealing cars, they’d wrap it around a lamp post and kill everyone but the driver who would be unscathed, taken to the station, charged, let out because he’s a juvenile, and get caught the following week doing the same thing.

But that’s not the brief.

What really happened? A relative borrowed the vehicle. Who else would do such a thing?

Second, a tree falls on it and wrecks it, and the son of the car lover thinks it’s funny.

It probably is, to a certain degree. The irony of someone who so lovingly cares for it, watches it get destroyed with such ease? There’s always insurance, isn’t there?

Third, While cleaning the truck he finds a secret compartment and a note.

Yes, this is the stuff to feed a fertile imagination. My reaction, a note left by a previous lover after they made out on the back seat, advising him he’s a father. The fact he had a girlfriend, married her, and had children already, this has to be a shock.

There is a dozen other scenarios, and maybe it might fuel a story … one day.

Writing a book in 365 days

Day 10

Apparently, we are still discussing the implements with which we choose to put words on paper, and it seems that choice of implement might make a difference.

I have a degree of scepticism because I generally get words down on my phone, the only implement that is nearby at all times., no matter where I am.

Of course, many years ago I always travelled with little pocket-sized notebooks and a pen, rather than a pencil, to write. I still have all of these, several hundred in fact, in several shoeboxes in the cupboard in my writing room.

Over the years I have accumulated many A5-sized notebooks I bought where there were stationery sales, and now use these to both make notes or write. I tend not to use the smaller notebooks now, but I have a hundred or so sitting in a drawer just in case.

But do you like to write using a biro, with smudgy ink, a pen with a rollerball tip with less smudge, a felt-tip pen, which, depending on the paper type, can leach through, making it difficult to write on both sides, a fountain pen with ink, the old-fashioned way of writing letters, and some of the older writers back in the day?

I remember my early days I’m school, grade three in primary school, when we switched from pencil to pen and ink. It was very messy, to begin with, but I remember vividly being the ink monitor, the one who filled the ink wells, and discovering my schoolmate’s prelidiction for stuffing bits of blotting paper into the well for whatever reason.

Even now it would be a messy way to write.

But the choice is yours.

Tomorrow, at last, we get to do some more writing.

Writing a book in 365 days

Day 10

Apparently, we are still discussing the implements with which we choose to put words on paper, and it seems that choice of implement might make a difference.

I have a degree of scepticism because I generally get words down on my phone, the only implement that is nearby at all times., no matter where I am.

Of course, many years ago I always travelled with little pocket-sized notebooks and a pen, rather than a pencil, to write. I still have all of these, several hundred in fact, in several shoeboxes in the cupboard in my writing room.

Over the years I have accumulated many A5-sized notebooks I bought where there were stationery sales, and now use these to both make notes or write. I tend not to use the smaller notebooks now, but I have a hundred or so sitting in a drawer just in case.

But do you like to write using a biro, with smudgy ink, a pen with a rollerball tip with less smudge, a felt-tip pen, which, depending on the paper type, can leach through, making it difficult to write on both sides, a fountain pen with ink, the old-fashioned way of writing letters, and some of the older writers back in the day?

I remember my early days in school, grade three in fact, when we switched from pencil to pen and ink. It was very messy, to begin with, but I remember vividly being the ink monitor, the one who filled the ink wells, and discovering my schoolmate’s prelidiction for stuffing bits of blotting paper into the well for whatever reason.

Even now it would be a messy way to write.

But the choice is yours.

Tomorrow, at last, we get to do some more writing.

Writing a novel in 365 days

Day 9

OK. We’re not doing much writing, and today, we have another suggestion, one that might cause an unnecessary rush at the stationary store for pencils.

I was in one today, a place called Office Works, getting some folders to put the printed copies of my latest books about to be published.

I’d previously bought, pencils – a box of 24, a motorised pencil sharpener, cards – though I intend to use these for a non fiction book, pens – red, blue, black, erasable – for doing crosswords. I’ve not had to buy notebooks for a while, small and large, but last time I got some journalist note books.

But, I digress…

It is suggested and I think it’s a great idea that at times it is better to write down the story, mainly because I can write as fast as the ideas come, and I cannot type that fast. Not without a million errors and a lot of indecipherable words.

There are exponents for both means of getting words on paper, but I have to say the majority of my original books were written in small notepads, at work and elsewhere because ideas and storylines come to me at the sometimes most awkward moments.

Consider carrying around d a notebook and pencil or pen.

Otherwise, my other means of getting ideas down is a note-taking app on my phone, the best at the moment being Somnote.

And tired of waiting for the moment when the book gets underway, stand by, news on that front is coming.

Writing a novel in 365 days

Day 8

I guess before you actually begin writing, or planning, or however it will be when you finally get started, there are a number of preparations to be made, and advice to be taken.

Advice is always good, and today’s is probably more relevant in a few months when the creativity might start flagging.

Writing a novel requires stamina and dedication. That saying ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’ is probably a sign on the wall of your writing room.

But that’s only one aspect of this particular item.

It is also relevant when you’ve finally finished the novel, firstly when you sit down and do that first reading, before the editing, or perhaps that first edit.

You are going to think perhaps it’s not as good as you thought it would be.

No, we don’t think like that. it can be fixed by some editing, by you or someone else. Just remember all those days, weeks, and months you put into it, working your fingers to the bone, sharpening the two hundred pencils you wrote it with. Or smudgy biros or leaking ink pens.

Don’t lose heart.

Don’t give up.

There are days when I write absolute drivel, but I always go back, rewrite, re-read, and rewrite until I’m happy.

That first draft is just the ideas, strung together, that will, eventually become that best-selling novel.