Category Work in progress
The improbable story line
“How unbelievable is that?” “That would never happen in real-life?” I’m sure some of us have said these things when reading a novel? How far should authors go with storylines that rely on remarkable events and coincidences, especially ones that requires readers to suspend their incredulity for the sake of moving a plot forward? But […]
Catching up on castles and stuff – #amwriting
Gosh, it’s been a while since I posted. I have a wonderful excuse – I wrote a book. Well, that’s a little bit of a cheat. I wrote the first draft of it years ago, but it wasn’t right. So now that I’m learning the art of editing, I ditched half of it, totally re-wrote […]
A cursed existence – #flashfiction #amwriting
Welcome to Friday Fictioneers – hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. I usually write something original, but today I’m hijacking a few sentences from my current manuscript because they fit the picture. This story is about a curse. ‘Does it matter,’ he sighed, ‘because the reality is, I’ve not left this estate in over one hundred and […]
Draft after draft – #amwriting #firstdraft
I recently read Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life and thoroughly enjoyed it. The life of Ursula is repeated throughout the novel and each time it replays, her various choices and outcomes lead her down different paths. It’s like a butterfly effect, the recuperations of one seemingly inconsequential life rippling into countless others. Ursula has the […]
Misty Goodrich #atozchallenge
I wished I’d taken a picture. I think I did, but it would be lost on film somewhere, perhaps in a forgotten box in an attic. It was one of those memorable landscapes that made you go ‘wow’. A dreary autumn morning, the leaves dimly orange and yellow, and looking out of the front window […]
The manuscript dilemma
I have a manuscript. It’s there, on my computer, on my Kindle, my tablet. It sits there waiting. What now? Months of slaving away on it and it’s come to the point I’ve always dreaded. It would be so easy to tuck it away in a drawer and start work on another project. I want […]
Ruins and views
A recent holiday in Yorkshire gave me the chance to explore some new castles. I’m finding myself doing the trip I have laid out in my stalled work in progress in reverse. My character travels south, while I went north. Armed with a camera, I snapped away, trying to pretend I was somebody else, not […]
Editor’s block – the flip side.
I finished the first draft of my book (hooray!). I immediately, and foolishly, started to edit it (boo!). It doesn’t work – switching from writing to editing. I guess it’s the brain thing. The right side is supposed to be the creative part, the left the home of the analytical, logical and verbal reasoning. I’m […]
Is it finished?
It’s done, finished. The last chapter squeezed out my brain and deposited on the computer. So that’s it? People like to ask that – have I finished writing my book yet? The yet has that particularly irritating emphasis. Oh, how I wish. I can see the hours spent revising my draft. I’m already fidgeting with […]
This writing odyssey
I wrote an outline, a rough brief for each chapter. I know where I’m going. Then, as the words start to flow, my characters lift off and take shape. The journey begins and there’s the first deviation, then another, my heroine wants me to change her name, the lead male wants a bigger role. I […]
The Quiet Writer 