Working in a break

I have been on a short break over Easter, from work, from writing, from most things really. I needed some down time and I'm feeling much better for it. During the break I have been sleeping in, spending quality time with the kids and catching up with some friends. I have also been reading lots and thinking about my writing.

I have developed a bit of a book problem recently where I purchase at least one novel every time I pass a book shop. I tend to buy books regularly anyway, but it started to get out of hand. At the beginning of the week, I had 7 books piled up beside my bed. I have worked it down a bit.

Reading helps writing in many ways, you get to see what else is working, different stories, different times you may not have thought about, what doesn't work. And of course the pure enjoyment of losing yourself in the story. With the best novels I have read that is when you know they work, when your not focused on what is working, what is poorly written, when you are just lost in the story.

There are so many elements that make up a good story. Even in the smallest, or simplest form these elements are still important. For example, my daughter and I were reading the Gruffalo recently. A smart, sweet character, a compeling character that you care about is one of the key factors. We followed the story of this little brown mouse as his quick wit got him out of dangerous situation after dangerous situation. Part of the appeal of this character was that he knew the danger, realised how close to death he was during interactions with other characters but thought he way out of it. We cheered him on.

Interactions with other characters is part of this as well - even in a children's story the interactions have to be credible. There is also setting and timing, but the part that really struck me with the Gruffalo was the rhythm of the language. It carried us, with the little brown mouse, along the story line. This is possibly more evident in children's books but it is important in all writing. It should carry us along, and it depends on the story or the image required as to how that flow moves; sharp, short, quick, slow.

Now it is back to focusing on my stories, making them flow and hoping that the reader wants to take the journey with my characters and get lost in the story.

Happy Scribbling

Plot changes and misbehaving characters

I have tidied the study. It is not completely organised, but much better. I am still typing at the dining room table but that means my editing notes are all exactly where I need them. I do not have to move things out of the way or hunt through piles. I am also set up so I know exactly what point I am at and organised the pages I have done so that changes can be made electronically. It makes it so much easier when it is all together and in a space I can spread out.

During my quiet weekend I spent time working on the weak plot of my first draft. I’m not reworking passages; it’s too early for that. I am creating new scenes that will fit in to help strengthen the plot and the characters. Early on in the first draft process, the main character had the vision of someone dying. It seemed a bit hard, but it did show just how different her world now was, and her place in it.

When it came to the crunch she couldn’t let the other character die and stepping in, despite my pleas, saved her. Characters don’t always behave how we hope they will, but they hopefully behave as they should. My characters often get away from the initial idea I have for a story, and usually they and the story are better for it.

I started thinking about at what point I would kill off this character, the one that I thought should die, but when I re-read the scene where she was saved I realised that my main character had done the right thing. She is too caring to allow that kind of death to happen, and given her skills and new position that is important too.

I am also trying to document some recent dreams. This is not something I do often, but occasionally I have a very vivid dream where the story stays with me for a number of days. I had one last night. I was keen to write it down straight away but found I remembered more of it when I just let it mull over in my mind. So I am letting it turn about and flesh itself out and then I might put it down on paper as a short story. Once dream started to flesh itself out enough to be the beginning of a novel, so who knows where it may lead.

Happy Scribbling

Writing Spaces and Quiet Time

I am ashamed to say that I have only made an insignificant impact on my study. I can now make it easily through the door without having to step over anything, so clear path to the desk. I even removed the container of old clothes giving me more desk space. Unfortunately the entire surface of the desk is covered in some form of paper. Whether bits of writing, bits of editing, course work, magazines, filing. You get the picture.

The baby stuff finally goes this weekend. And I have some quality time booked with myself. It will be a good chance to clear things out and organise the space a little better. Having some time alone I plan to write, and read, as much as I can.

In the meantime I am scribbling away and trying my hand a little more poetry. Not so weird this time, just a bit of fun. It started with the first lines forming in that magic moment between awake and asleep and I had to get up and write them down. Thankfully I keep pen and paper beside the bed so I didn’t have to brave the study to be able to document my thoughts.

It is a very slow poem, in that it is taking it’s time to complete. Of a night when I get into bed I add another line or two, sometimes nothing but it is slowly coming together. I am not very practiced with poetry nor have much understanding of the different forms. I just write what seems to flow. Once I have it all together I can work on the rhythm. I may even share…or maybe not.

My scenes are coming together in my first draft and my visualisations of the environment and world building have certainly helped develop a richer story. I hope that I can provide the stronger plot as well. With all editing notes safely stowed (I have got to the point that I am tucking them into the laptop so I know exactly where they are) I can continue with the editing of my first story with confidence. I hope.

A calm quiet weekend, all general housework already done, there is nothing to distract me. It is likely to rain too so I can’t even be dragged out into the garden to mow, or check on vegies or paint. Just me, the laptop, pages of story and my favourite pen. The only thing I need is background noise…

Happy Scribbling

Setting the Scene

Every time I close my eyes I see part of the setting for my latest manuscript. Part of the fun of writing fantasy is the creating of a whole new world. I have been fixated on trees this week. Partly because those deciduous trees that are glorious golden red and creating their very own carpet of orange red leaves that I seem to see everywhere.

My idea is that my trees, growing in a land of perpetual winter, have no leaves. Which leads to no leave litter. This has raised some interesting questions for me. Such as how do they grow with no leaves to produce sugars from photosynthesis? Did they ever have leaves, would they develop anything else?

Then watching the news that the cherry blossom festivals are not going ahead this year in Japan, all I could picture was a flash of colour on my naked trees. Perhaps there should be something special and unexpected...

The lack of leaves and leaf litter would also mean that the forests of my world would have a very different smell to the winter forests that we would wander through in our world. Their growth would also have an effect on the type of animals or birds that would live there. And this would lead to what type of animals the people that live there would hunt and eat. How they would hunt them; how they would cook them. Who does the cooking and how the food is served.

I must admit that I haven’t actually done a lot of writing this week, but I have done a lot of thinking. Those trees appear every time I close my eyes. I can even feel the walls of the dwelling in which the people live while I run on the treadmill at lunch time. I am thinking about my new world all the time. So when it comes to writing I am going to be able to sit and write. I will have worked out those tricky questions and the scenes will be more clearly formed before I reach for the keyboard.

With a clearer idea of what my world is I know that my writing will be better, the scenes will fit together better. The reader will hopefully see, feel and smell the world well enough to immerse themselves in the story and wander through my leafless forest with a better understanding of those that live there.

Happy Scribbling.

Writing Spaces

Woohoo I found my time line notes.

All it took was a calm headspace and some time. Turns out I had filed them with some first draft notes in an attempt to clear my writing space. I still cannot work out how I did it, but I can tell you the relief is overwhelming.

Now I just need to get my writing space calm and organised. I have included some photos. I have been working from the dining table for some time now and when I showed a friend the first photo this morning she asked if it was the junk room. I was very embarrassed to say it was my study. I can’t even get in the door at the moment. Well I can, but it is a bit of a stretch. The old baby stuff is going in the next couple of weeks to a new home and that will certainly clear some space.

Then when you look at the desk…well I did say that I haven’t been working in there for a little while. Most of it is reasonably organised mess (not that you can tell) and really just needs to be put away in the right place.

I may have mentioned before that I can get a little distracted, and I like to keep busy with different projects. I do have some long term plans to completely overhaul the study and create a beautiful and practical working environment.

One of those little interests is Zentangle, I usually only do one a day, at most, very calming and great to show I have some other creative talents (cough). See below for last night’s effort. A new design and the build up to a Zentangle workshop on the weekend.

I think workshops, workgroups and courses are a great way to keep the creativity flowing and the enthusiasm with it. I try to continue upskilling at every opportunity, both in my writing and other interests and my day job life. You can never know it all, and sometimes just working with different people in a different setting can open up a whole range of ideas and opportunities.

Writing space is not just about a comfy chair, suitable desk size or peace and quiet, but also about head space. Being able to put yourself into the right space to write, no matter where you are or what is going on around you is an important skill. Sometimes we have to work from the dining table, or from the desk in an open plan work place during lunch time or think out scenes or plot problems in the car on the way into town with the kids singing in the backseat.

I am keen to get my physical writing space back, and make it mine and use it daily but in the meantime I am writing and that is what's important. And maybe just a little Zentangling along the way.

Happy Scribbles

Goal Update

My goal setting went really well, and I have been trying to keep up with them as well as I can. One thing I have learnt is not to beat myself up when I can’t get what I want done. The past week has been another example of that.

My internet was down for most of the week, which made it difficult to post blogs. Although that doesn’t stop me writing for when it is back on line. Very busy days at work where I longed for a quiet moment but couldn’t get one. Now I have a peaceful day at home, alone, I could get so much done, I am finding the quiet distracting. Arrgh.

OK, I can actually work around all of these things, and easily. No internet is no excuse, actually it means less distraction. When it is back up and running I already have the posts ready to go.

When I first started writing I used to sit in corner of our old but comfy sofa with a pen and paper and scribble for hours, the telly always on. I have said before that I can find the telly a bit of a distraction, but if I put on a movie I know well, enjoy and have watched about a hundred times then it helps block out the deafening roar of the silence and I can write quite happily for hours. It was only recently that I read of a very well known authoress who did the same, but with musicals. I think that would tip me over the edge but if it helps, then use it.

My day job focuses on very different things, when I need to focus there I tune out the world by plugging in music, depends on the day and the task as to what I listen to but it does work. I know other writers that have a writing soundtrack to help with creativity and focus.

I am also more aware of my procrastination and what I use to procrastinate. I really want to write. I want to be able to tell people I am a writer. To be able to do that I have to write. So, a day at home, I don’t make eye contact with the bath and it’s ok that there are dishes piled up beside the sink. They are only little things. The house is clean and generally tidy (if you don’t mind stepping over Barbie, and all her friends, or the shoes and school bags that you could swear you asked her to put away yesterday). It is not essential that the bath be cleaned right now, or the kitchen floor be scrubbed.

Back to the Butt-in-Chair theory, Pride and Prejudice on the telly and write, write, write. I am actually excited about what I can achieve today.

Happy Scribbling.

Genre

I have talked about my writing and the stages I am at and then recently realised that I haven’t mentioned genre.

Really it is the process that I wanted to share not necessarily my actual words. And that’s for a whole range of reasons, insecurity, fear, they just be rubbish. My photo from the kitchen door today is some more odd lines. It isn’t really poetry, more thinking in short lines. I am finding with my current draft that if I put some words down as the idea hits me, I am then able to build on those flashes to create the scene.

Back to genre - my first manuscript is women’s fiction. Stories about women, for women, by women. Also called chicklit although I don’t see mine as trendy enough to fit that well. I aim my writing at the same audience so it may be up to them to judge whether they prefer the term women’s fiction or chicklit. Chicklit seems to have a reputation for being a bit soft, which I don’t think it deserves.

Anyway, when I finally came to the end of the first draft I thought “wow”. Then after re-reading and reworking several times (and I mean lots) I thought “how horrid, perhaps I should try something different.”

So I did. My second attempt is fantasy. And working a bit slowly but I am enjoying trying something very different. I also have ideas for stories of different genre, action, suspense/crime; even young adult.

You may be starting to think “she’s a bit fickle” about now. But part of it is that I love books. All books, all genres. I read everything I can get my hands on, but if I’m not enjoying it I will put it down and pick up something else. So with an interest in reading different genres I have an interest in trying to write different genres.

You may have noticed that I don’t refer to my own stories as novels. It is a bit of a quandary how to describe my work. I certainly think of them in terms of novels and I can picture them in the bookshop sitting on the shelf looking like novels. But until the manuscript is accepted by a publisher and turned into that book on the shelf I can’t quite let myself call them novels.

You will also notice Aunty Lizzie is still on the kitchen door...

Happy Scribbling