I’m enjoying reading a good book: How not to Write a Novel

I’m enjoying it because, slowly, I’m learning that the most common mistakes in newbie writers work, isn’t the sort of errors that I make. Admitedly, I’m only on Chapter 1(ish) but I see it as a good sign. I recently started to re-read my last writing effort called: The King Of Bohicon, and I’m generally very pleased. On comparison to my first effort: Stowaway, the former is 100 times better. 

Learning that I haven’t made obvious mistakes is really comforting 🙂

On the writing front, I’ve not actually started #3 yet, there’s still a lot of thought going on. I think I’ll probably start in April as I’m looking to move home just prior to then, and I’m hoping I’ll be settled somewhere else by that date. If I can be done with writing in June, I’ll be a very happy man indeed. 

I have been writing a number of possible plots for April, in Evernote Which is my ‘pre-writing’ tool of choice. For those that are interested, its a quick and easy text tool, for capturing notes, which is automatically sync’d online. Perfect for not losing any ideas. For the novel writing itself, I will most likely be using Buzzword again. Its just sooo nice and I really hate using anything else. 

A plot that I’m thinking about atm, here’s the notes as I have typed them into Evernote:

As I travel, so do my purchases, blocks are put on my creditcard to prevent fraudulant claims. I have to phone up the bank to convince the Fraud Dept I am who I say I am. This intrigues me as I now know that someone is following my purchasing movements digitally, on a computer screen, in an office somewhere. I have to be able to recall my travels and purchases, this unknown person has a lot of power over me to decide if I am who I say I am. 

This is inspired by going to Japan and finding my card blocked immediately, and finding it blocked after a few train ticket purchases when back home. The call with the voice at the other end, assumed I was guilty first… I mean c’mon, when has a criminal ever phoned up a fraud dept to get the card he stole unblocked?

Sooo, I’m seeing leg room in a plot for this.

I’ll keep thinking about it (and many others) until April.