A Quick Note

I have had an amazing day in a workshop with fantasy writer Fiona McIntosh. It was a great oppertunity to learn from an experienced and well published author.

I learnt a lot and it has given me some good grounding and great tips for my current work. I am a little nervous about whether I can come up with three books. But I'm currently meeting my daily word goal and the story is moving along well so I may just do it.

She also had some great advice around getting published and how important it is to keep the audience in mind while writing.

I have come away refreshed and revitalised.

And a new idea is teasing me, and this one I'm sure I can write over three books.

Happy Scribbling.

Coming Unstuck

This week hasn’t quite gone to plan. I continued to struggle with getting words onto paper (or screen). I have still been making lists but it didn’t seem to be helping. I was ruminating ideas but not putting them down.

By the time I reached my writers group on Thursday night I hadn’t written anything and the pages I had tried to rework were disjointed and the scene started in third person, shifted to first person and then back to third, but another character’s point of view.

This is why I think writers groups are so important. We were a little light on the ground as half our number are attending a creative writing course, but the opportunity to share my work and talk about it was very helpful.  It is also helpful to listen to other writers, hear how they write, talk about what issues or problems or challenges they face.

I left the group feeling enthusiastic and recharged. And I have been writing. I am also more settled on the voice. I know what I am comfortable with and so that seems to work best. There are some plot points that need some work but I am happy at the moment to continue writing and let it work itself out.

I may have already mentioned that when I start writing I don’t write to a plan. I usually have a character or a scene in mind and the story builds from there. The overall plot is coming together with my fantasy draft as it moves along. But there are times when I write something and then wonder how it will resolve itself or end or connect to another scene or character. I have found in the past that the characters can determine things for themselves. That is work out how the story should go.

So now that I am writing , I am going to just write and see what happens.

Happy Scribbling.

From Stuck to Unstuck

I have had a very poor week. I’m stuck. I have found it very difficult to get out of bed of a morning and cringe at the idea of facing the computer. I’m not even sure how it started, but it has lasted all week. I haven’t known where to turn to next and I haven’t written a word, well a creative word, at all.

Today I finally turned to a great book to find some solace and see if I could find something to help. The reference is Chapter after Chapter by Heather Sellers. And she is fantastic. But one of the key points in the chapter I turned to today was that what works for others may not work for you. It is important to find your own strategies for coming unstuck.

Sellers gives a range of options and within those there is room for personalising each strategy. One of the options she suggested struck a chord with me – make a list. I love lists. I find lists calming and helpful.

So where I couldn’t sit at the computer and work through ideas I have been standing at the kitchen door writing out lists of questions. In a way I was writing lists of ideas but I find them more useful when formed as questions.

These questions will then sit in my head, moving around and slowly working their way out to a solution. It all helps in moving from stuck to unstuck. Tomorrow morning when I sit down I will be able to think about one of the ideas that I questioned tonight.  And then I’m sure a scene or idea will start to form itself and the words will flow. And the day after and the day after that.

I’m quite excited now about sitting down in my study tomorrow morning. Now all I need to do is make a note so that the next time I get stuck it doesn’t take me as long to work out how to get unstuck.

Reading, Writing and Dreaming

I have missed reading so much. But one of the things about reading that I forgot was that it can take you away into a whole new world that washes away any care for the real one. Not that I have stopped operating altogether. I am still managing to get up every day and write, and feed the kids and send them to school. But every chance I get I am picking up the book and disappearing into someone else’s world for a time.

Here is the current state of my bedside table, or at least how it looked yesterday morning. The pile of books I have purchased or borrowed over the last few months but too busy editing to read.

And then there is my current library book.

I am attending a workshop at the end of the month and wanted to read something of the author that I will be working with. Then a supposed friend, who came around last night arrived with three more books (they aren’t included in the photo). I have actually started a second pile. And I’m living in fear of passing a bookshop in case I feel the pull of another novel.

This reading is also feeding my creativity. It is certainly helping with some small problems I am having with my fantasy novel. The story is there but I am unsure about the best way to tell it. I am very comfortable with the first person, but not really sure if this is the best way to tell this story.

Part of the joy of a first draft is that I can do what I want with it. So as well as playing with different ideas, some scenes are in first person, some in third person, some in present tense and some in past tense. As I go I think it will work itself out what is best for the story and I can adjust the rest in the next draft.

And my vivid dreams are back. I had the rare opportunity to sleep in this morning, partly why this blog post is late, and I woke feeling both excited and scared. It was unlike anything I had dreamt before and very dark. The images have haunted me all day, and I have struggled to remember small parts that are no longer clear, such as conversations and instructions being screamed over the crash of waves. But some details that seemed small and insignificant at the time are more prominent now as I try to relive it.

A small white house in the distance sparked something later this afternoon. I have dreamt of it before. And in a very different story, with very different characters but it was the same house in the same place, with the same setting.

So as unsettling as the dream was, the house is calling for me to write it. It may be the place that needs to be written.

I wish I had whole days to write and read uninterrupted...but for the moment I am going to have to continue working out how to fit everything together. I think my best option is to try to go to sleep tonight thinking about my little house and see what happens next...

Happy Scribbling