A Few Festive Writing Feats!

So this week marks the time of year where it is now acceptable for me to unleash all of my pent up Christmas excitement. The 3 trees are up, the paper chains are hanging, the snowflakes are in the process of ‘falling’ onto my windows, and I am loving it!

On top of (or maybe because of) the festive mood, I feel like I’ve made a pretty good amount of writing progress this week too. I managed to get a bit of work done for all 5 of my ideas, kept my most recent new photo project going, and also had a new idea for something (hopefully) fun, and Christmas-themed which I’ll be doing throughout December!

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Progress On Idea No.2 – Big Horse

So my first piece of progress this week was also the biggest and most exciting.

It was Monday, so we were off to the shops. The bus journey is too short to really get into doing something, like reading or watching a show, so instead, I just stared out the window and daydreamed about some of my ideas. I wasn’t focusing on one in particular at first, and nothing interesting was really coming to mind. When we arrived, I snapped out of the daydream, and entered Lidl. Suddenly, within seconds of my feet crossing the entrance, I was hit with a lightning bolt of an idea. I’ve written before about the strange phenomenon of getting inspiration from the supermarket, but usually it doesn’t happen quite so quickly!

My current project has its plot completely set in stone by now, and really, for 4/5 of my ideas, I’ve already decided all of the major points. There’s just one out of the 5 though, where the ending was still vague. I knew exactly what I wanted to happen up till the ending, and I knew how the final scene would conclude, but the logistics of how the finale would happen were still messy and undecided. I think this problem arose because I hadn’t given enough thought to the villain and his backstory at the time, which caused the climactic confrontation to feel a bit empty and unsatisfying.

But Lidl, oh beloved Lidl, provided me with everything I’d been looking for. In a flash, I just knew what my ending was, and I just knew how the villain’s backstory was going to be connected to it. Most of the time I get my ideas by slow and gentle daydreaming, so to be bowled over by an epiphany like this was very exciting! Instantly, the plot seemed to come together, like two loose ends of a chain (paper chain, since it’s Christmas) being linked up neatly.

I couldn’t keep the grin off my face all day, just from having this idea, since I’ve got a really big soft spot for this story in particular. (Probably because there’s a horse in it!)

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Progress On Current Story!

This one might not be a gigantic leap forward for my current story, but I’m just really happy to have gone back to it at all.

So this week, after I was feeling in the festive mood, I got to thinking about Christmas shopping. Shops and stores are an integral part of my first idea, and so thanks to all the present-purchasing we’ve been doing for Christmas, I have come up with two new shopkeeper characters for the story!

Before these two, I had a total of:

• 2 Protagonists
• 4 Important side characters
• 1 Minor side character
• 2 Villains
• A few named background characters

I’m not sure if that is generally thought to be too few characters, and I don’t want to stuff so many in that they end up being underdeveloped, but I thought that perhaps one or two more would be ok.

Their part in things is still a very early idea which is open to change, but in general, They are two ladies, who each run a different charity shop. They look almost like twins, (but with different heights and styles), except they are not related at all. Right now, I think they’ll end up being casual side characters, but still with a purpose in the story, and playing a sort of opposite role to my only other minor side character. Perhaps they’ll be a sort of ‘devil and angel on the shoulder’ type of thing to one of the protagonists.

So it might not seem like much, but after feeling as though I neglected this idea last month, it was really nice to just return to the world and feel like I still understand it. I managed to plan out a few scenes involving these new characters as well, one in particular which will come at the start of my latest chapter, so I feel like I’ve created a gentle way to get started with it again.

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Progress On All Ideas!

So this week, to relax, I did something related to my writing, which involved no writing at all! I’ve been organising all of my music playlists for each of my 5 ideas, since music is a major part of getting into the writing zone for me.

There are certain songs, that when I hear them, I can visualise the scenes of the corresponding story as if it’s a film. It’s such a strong sense, and it’s very useful when I need to get into the right mood for a specific idea.

I love all of the songs dearly, so it didn’t feel like a chore to listen to them all and sort them into the right section. Once I was done, each playlist had around 40-50 songs, apart from one of them, which was Idea No.2 – Big Horse, (It seems to be the idea that breaks all of my habits!). It only has 18 songs, but strangely enough, I think it’s the one that has the strongest connection to the music.

This might have seemed a bit pointless, but I still feel like I was doing something which was connected to my ideas. On top of that though, all that music listening put me in such a good mood for writing, that I managed to name all of my main characters in all 5 stories! So apart from some fun, I actually got something useful out of this as well.

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Christmas Projects!

It feels wonderful to see Christmas come around again. I’m not even close to finished, but I’ve been decorating our house and wrapping and ribboning presents (seriously I can’t get enough of present wrapping, I feel like an elf.) but somehow I think I’ve managed to do so much more writing stuff within one week than I achieved in the whole of November, despite not being particularly busy then. Perhaps the festive season is just good for me!

Since I’m so obsessed with Christmas celebrations, I thought it made sense that I do something with that theme as part of my posts till the end of the month. Earlier this year I tried poetry for the first time ever. I chose to do an acrostic, since I didn’t feel ready to dive into the freedom of a lot of other forms of poetry. I find the loose guidelines of having those first letters decided for you, is really comforting!

I tried it mostly for fun, I don’t think I’m the next Edgar Allan Poe or anything, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I imagined. So for December, I’m going to have a little Christmas themed acrostic poem at the end of each post! I think it’ll be a lot of fun for me, and there’s plenty of festive words to pick from, so I’ll be spoilt for choice!

Here’s the first one!

Crispy potatoes with sea salt,

Herb coated turkey or chicken,

Roasting while we’re busy with gifts.

It’s hard, but I’ll do it every year,

Since the stress melts away when the food is ready.

The table is filled with snacks and sides,

Most of them will become luxurious leftovers.

After the feasting we relax for the night,

Satisfied with another successful Christmas Dinner! 

Perhaps I should’ve chosen a word that is more relevant to the early days of the month, but I was hungry when I wrote it, so this is what came to mind!

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Photo Prompt!

So I’ve only got one photo this time, but I think it’s fairly odd.

Why is there a square hole in this car park? Is there a very easy explanation for it? Or is it something more surreal?

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Well, I think that’s pretty much everything writing related that I’ve been up to this week. I must’ve been totally hyped up on both Lidl inspiration, and Christmas cheer, as I’ve had a lot of fun with all of my projects! Thanks for reading!