Thursday 27 June 2013

INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE WRITING JULY!


Happy Thursday, my best beloveds! The Night Itself will be officially released in EXACTLY one week now and I'm getting very excited. If anyone sees the book in the wild anywhere at all, any time at all - right now, a week from now - pictures would make my life. Pictures of you guys holding the book wherever you have found, even if that's on your doorstep when the Amazon parcel arrives, would be even more amazing. I'll post them right here, with your permission. Do, please, keep your camera-phones handy :)

(ETA: Turns out that The Night Itself is available TODAY, right this minute, at a substantial discount, on both Kindle and iTunes, although I can't link to iTunes. So if you're a Kindle owner or an iPad/iPhone owner and you were going to buy it that way... go nuts).


Onto the post. I'm here today, as promised, to launch InCreWriJul - a month of unbridled creativity and joy, and possibly also groaning, head-clutching and paper-ball scrunching, but that is ALL PART OF THE FUN!

Dear Readers, in the month of July I really want us to write together.

It doesn't matter if you feel like writing poetry or short stories. Novels or synopses. Blog posts or entries on Tumblr. Just so long as you write something - anything creative - you're welcome to take part in InCreWriJul! If you want to use this as a way to help you start a novel, or finish the novel you have on deadline, that's brilliant. If you want to use it to start creative writing for the first time ever? Also fantastic!

Pick a target for yourself. Something realistic and achieveable for you, something that you can hit with a bit of effort. Nothing feels as depressing as failing right away because you pushed yourself too hard. But once you've picked that target, stick to it. Because nothing feels as good as pushing through, working hard, and reaching your goal. And when I said realistic? I meant it! If you don't think you can realistically manage to write more than five lines every day? THAT IS 100% A-OK for InCreWriJul too! On the other hand? Don't be too easy on yourself either. There's more satisfaction in going the extra mile than in never putting on your running shoes because you're afraid of blisters.

The really important thing about this is that we're going to do it together. It's supposed to be exciting, and fun, and motivating, and part of that is being around to help and support each other. Every Tuesday in July I'm going to do a check in post. I will be completely honest with you about how many words I wrote in the preceding week, if I struggled or had a great time, and how I'm feeling about my own InCreWriJul book. I might even do breakdowns as to how many words/pages I managed each day, if you're interested in that much detail.

I hope you guys will be equally honest in the comments. If you caught a cold, felt awful, and wrote two words the whole week, we'll offer encouragement and reassurance. If you blew past your target and wrote pages and pages more than you expected, you'll get high-fives and cheers.

At the end of the month, we'll all do a review and round-up of what we've accomplished. And any commentors who checked in on every single InCreWriJul Tuesday (that's five, from July 2rd, to July 30th) will be eligible to go into a giveaway draw and receive a luverly prize. I think you can probably guess, given what month we're doing this and what ELSE is happening in July (hint: Big Secret Project will have it's book birthday and finally officially hit the shelves!) what at least part of the prize will be. You want to be eligible, trust me! And this giveaway will be open to everyone, from the brilliantly coloured beatles dwelling on the hot, eastenmost rocks of Timbuktu to the tiny dwarf Artic rabbits hopping around on the snow of the polar icecap. All are welcome.

I honestly and truly loved InCreWriMa last year Dear Readers, and I hope this year will be just as motivating for me and you, and just as productive! But don't get too excited now; take some time to think about whether this seems like fun to you, and what a REALISTIC target would be. Don't rush in and commit yourself too fast. I don't want anyone to put undue pressure on themselves or to take part if it's not right for them just now. I don't want to see any comments pledging certain amounts of words per day, or anything like that, in the comments today. It's not July yet! The first check-in post will be Tuesday next week. That's when I'll tell you my target, talk a bit about what I'm working on (not that it'll be a big shock) and ask for your details too.


Yay? Yay?! YAY!



24 comments:

Rebecca Lindsay said...

I can't wait!
I'm currently writing the second book of my trilogy and it is going to be longest book out of all of them, so this will be great to (hopefully) help me get a large proportion of it written :)

Zoë Marriott said...

Rebecca: And I'm wwwaaaaay behind on book #3 of the trilogy, so I'm hoping the same. It's amazing what a short burst of intense activity can do to really jump-start a book, I think.

Amy said...

'YAY' indeed! I have quite a few writing bits I could use some motivation for at the moment, so I'm excited for InCreWriJul :)

Zoë Marriott said...

Amy's on board! YES!

Rachel Balcombe said...

Exciting! Can't wait for July now! XD

Zoë Marriott said...

Rachel: Should be a really good month (fingers crossed).

Essjay said...

I'm joining up for this! I do so much better when I have a goal (when I work out what that is!). Also, am in London on Saturday so will look seek out rogue copies! xx

Zoë Marriott said...

Essjay: Yay yay yay! I'm like you - knowing I have a specific goal, especially when I've got to report that back, really helps me out. And yes, keep that phone handy. I want to see my baby in the wild!

Kate Taylor said...

I need to:

a) finish writing/editing my creative dissertation (due in 31st August)

b) (Re)write the first third of my fantasy novel

Kate Taylor said...

(Sorry for the abrupt comment: the build up to dissertations tend to do that to me ;) Looking forwards to having writing motivation to keep me going through July :D)

Rhi said...

I've been stuck on the important chapter of the WIP for a couple of months now (and the bit I'm stuck on is the whole reason for the story: this is just what I need to kickstart me again. Bless you, Zoe!

Zoë Marriott said...

Kate: Well, that's a lot to get through, but if you break it down into manageable chunks and have everyone's support for motivation, maybe you'll get there. Or at least a nice amount of the way there :)

Zoë Marriott said...

Rhi: You're very welcome. We can do it!

Phoenixgirl said...

Count me in! I enjoyed InCreWriMa last year, and I could use the motivation to make progress on my revisions.

Isabel said...

This is such a great idea! I'll hopefully be participating too, but I'm still not sure what my specific goals will be, so I'll have to give it some thought over the next couple days. Counting down the days until TNI's release!!

Zoë Marriott said...

Phoenix: Welcome aboard!

Isabel: I'm so glad you're going to participate in InCreWriJul as well! The more the merrier :)

Zoë Marriott said...

Elyndra: Yowch. Don't take too much on - this is supposed to be fun as well as work, hun. I don't want to cause you to melt down or anything.

Rebecca Lindsay said...

Just finished reading The Night Itself on kindle. I loved it! It was atmospheric, funny, and imaginative. I can't wait to find out what happens next! :D
Now I have the agonising wait for book 2.

Zoë Marriott said...

Rebecca: Yay! I'm SO glad you enjoyed it! Sorry about the agonising wait. If it was up to me you could read the second one as soon as it was finished being edited (although that might still be a while). If you felt like it, you could leave the exact text of your comment here as a review on the TNI Kindle page on Amazon... but no pressure :)

Rebecca Lindsay said...

Yeah, no problem :)

After reading about Jack in The Night Itself, I was reminded about a problem I am having in my book. Like Jack, I have a character who is a bit of a joker. The problem I am experiencing is making my character funny in a way that seems natural. He always says funny comments at the most inappropriate times, and the characters in the book find him funny, but I don't know if readers will find him funny. Did you experience this when you were writing Jack? I want my character to be the one that makes the future seem a little brighter, even under the direst circumstances, but I don't think I am executing it as well as I hoped.

Any advice would be great.

Zoë Marriott said...

Thank you, Rebecca! It's a lovely review! And an intriguing question... OK if I do a post about it when I have the time?

Rebecca Lindsay said...

No problem :)
Yeah, that's fine. Thanks :)

Holly said...

This is a great idea. I'm going to go back to the idea I originally had for a novel. Of everything I've written, I've avoided that one and it continues to call me, glare at me, mock me and other wise nag me to death. It's time.

Zoë Marriott said...

Welcome, Holly :) And good luck!

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