writing – Page 4 – The Naked Ladies Writing Group

My Book Title

Published on October 7, 2020October 7, 2020 by rachelkeerie3 Comments

As promised, I’m announcing the title of my book in this post and I can’t wait to hear what you think of it. Unlike other books I’ve written, the title came to me first and the characters and story second and third. The title made me laugh at myself for even thinking it, but I’ve had some time, a few years, to get used to it and find the courage to not only write this book, but do it publicly, in front of anyone who wants to read along. My book to your eyes, week by week. I can’t promise you’ll love the story or even like it, but I can promise to try and make this journey together interesting, fun and encouraging to all the women out there who want to write but are scared to start.

I just want to say from the start that although I was a professional writer for many years, I’ve never tried to have any of the five novels I’ve written published. The time was never right, and I always told myself that those five stories were like my apprenticeship in fiction writing. It’s okay to keep writing until you choose a story to put out there. Every book has its time and not every book is for sharing.

The name of my book is The Naked Ladies Writing Group. Yes, it has the word naked in the title, but no it isn’t all about being nude, instead it is about being your most bare, honest and real self in your writing practice and you’ll see as the story unfolds that the characters aren’t all at the same stage of willingness to be open. It’s going to be about a group of women, each one wanting to write, each one with her own style, abilities and obstacles. I haven’t yet definitely decided how many women will be in the group, and my job now is to make my final decision about each of their names, attribute personalities to them and set up their lives. I like to do this when I write fiction, and then use it as a kind of primary source for writing the story.

Today I’m looking at lists of baby names, lists of surnames, lists of people in the online phone books, and writing down the ones that leap out at me. As I’m writing the first draft I like to have these lists so that as I write, even if there’s an incidental character who needs a name I can just look at my list and choose one. This impacts the flow of my writing minimally. Names are important to me and I’ve even changed a characters name halfway through a book, which leads to painful time editing that day!

The characters and events in my book will be completely fictional, created in my imagination. The story belongs to me, each blog post belongs to me. As I write the story in my blog posts, I will be copying and pasting each entry into a Word file, building up the story in one place to edit later. Do you like the name I’ve chosen for my book? Let me know in a comment. Find me on Instagram at RachelGraceWrites and say hi.

Writing

Published on October 4, 2020October 6, 2020 by rachelkeerie2 Comments

When I wrote for other people, copywriting and ghostwriting, there was a need for privacy and it wouldn’t have been right to show the world that work which really didn’t belong to me. Now I’m writing for me, for fun, and I want to share my process with anyone who wants to watch and maybe even learn a bit about writing, the way I do it.

I have my own writing process, and I am looking forward to sharing it with you because I think you might like seeing my writing world. I know the story I want to tell, and my style falls somewhere in between writing to see how the first draft of the story fleshes out and compiling copious handwritten notes about the story as I plan to write it, characters, their names, traits and descriptions, places in the story, ideas about when and where a certain event between characters should take place and lots more. I’ll share photo’s of this journal as I write in it, to go with the writing I do. If there’s anything you can think of that you’d like to see, feel free to ask.

I’ll share the apps I use, the pens I use, the notebooks, as well as what time of day I feel the most productive, where I write and so much more. I’m completely open to suggestions and I’ll try almost anything to get my story written, so please don’t be a stranger.

Writing happens in three stages: writing, which is often called the first draft; editing, which is the second, third, fourth, fortieth draft; and proofreading which happens at the end of the process, to tidy up grammar and spelling. For now, I’ll be writing the first draft of my book and for your benefit I’ll be careful of spelling and grammar in a way I never have before in a first draft. I’ll make mistakes, and I know you will let me know, all I ask is that you be kind. Putting this process out there online is huge for me, and I’ll be waiting for those kind comments letting me know where I’ve messed up or where I’ve missed a predictive correction that went wrong.

I commit to posting one blog a week of first draft writing and one blog a week of writing information, answering questions, chatting about my process and how I feel it’s going, basically the writing life. In my very next post this week I will announce the name of my book and some initial information about the story. You can email me from here on my blog, and I hope to meet you on my Instagram at rachelgracewrites. Bye for now.

Rachel

Write Your Life Know Yourself

Published on October 3, 2020October 5, 2020 by rachelkeerieLeave a comment

Thanks for checking out my blog. I have a lot of writing to get done this month, and I appreciate you coming along for the ride. You might have found this blog because you’re looking for ideas or inspiration in your writing, or a way to start writing a journal, a book or even a blog, and you’ll find all of that here. I was a professional copywriter and ghostwriter for years and I love that now I get to write purely for pleasure. I get to offer what I know to whoever needs it. I hope we can connect and encourage each other in our writing.

Words have always been special to me, from the books my mother read to me to the first books I read for myself and then the ones I read to my brothers; Dr Seuss and Little Golden Books. The first book I remember owning was Busy Busy World by Richard Scarry and I read the print off the pages of that book. Other books that had an impact on me were Charlottes Webb, Black Beauty, Born Free, The Hobbit, Interview With a Vampire and so many more. Every book I read fed me thousands of words, I inhaled meaning and context and I learned about myself and the world.