Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Writing Wednesday



Oddly enough, now my Littlest is out in the world, my writing hiatus seems to be at an end. (I can roll over in bed! I can bend! I can walk ten paces without losing my breath! I can lie down without being choked with heartburn! And, most importantly, O happy day, I can write!)

And so, with great celebration, I am returning to my beloved stories and characters. They never really left me - at night, caught between waking and sleeping I'd run through images and scenes, mull over characters and unravel plot tangles, but putting fingers to keyboard? Not so much.

I've finally transferred all the manuscripts I want to work on this year onto the laptop possessing its full complement of keys and without cracks in the screen, renewed my membership of Scribophile, my online writers group and… set to work. (This time with a sleeping baby on my lap - her noisy breathing makes a lovely soundtrack and she herself is a brilliant little heater.)

It is wonderful to have that rush and thrill again, to pick up where I left off and throw around ideas and images, get lost in dialogue. I've missed it.

I've started small with editing. I was perplexed to realise that I've used the same rather dodgy word on every second page of the first three chapters of the novel I'm working on. Hmm.

A friend pointed out with a previous manuscript that every time I described a dragon - which was a lot I used the word 'flanks'. I seem to have done a similar thing here, but because my protagonist uses sharper language than I'm accustomed to, I've used a pseudo swear word in place of what she'd really use…I've started to wince every time I see it. Let me redress that.

In order to keep my momentum going I've decided to set aside one blog a week to keep myself accountable with my writing.

So: This week, I've edited three chapters, and marked out writing on Scribophile that I'm very much looking forward to critiquing. Next week - I'd like to edit another three chapters (some of which are mere outlines which will need to be rewritten) and critique at least three chapters on Scribophile. There's also a synopsis I need to work on… again.

What are other people working on?





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