30 November
We have another hard frost out there today, just like the rest of the country from what the weather man was saying last night. Jan isn’t much better than yesterday but even so, we do have to go out today. Not only do we have to do some shopping, we still haven’t got that driving licence form in the post yet. Tomorrow won’t do because I have diabetic clinic at 2.50pm; but there again, we are supposed to be having a parcel delivered today from Amazon. Oh, the complicate lives we retired folks lead …
No writing done yesterday, I really didn’t feel up to it, even if there’s not much else to do to it – or is there I wonder? On Monday I was surprised to find that one of characters has managed to get himself a police tail. Now here’s the thing; I’ve already written out one guy from the action that’s left to unfold, that’s why I was thinking there wasn’t much more to go now. And yet this one is now being followed by cops. That surprised me, it really did, simply because it adds a whole new story thread to the novel, one I hadn’t anticipated, and here’s why …
One of my favourite writers is Peter James and just lately he has begun a YouTube channel … https://www.facebook.com/peterjames.roygrace/?fref=ts Peter invites various other writers to appear on there with him and explain about their work and how they go about writer it. The last one I watched was Jeffery Deaver, a writer I haven’t read yet, even I do have some of his books in my TBR plie. During the video Jeffery explains that he sits and plots all his stories from start to end. That way he knows where he’s going with things. His latest books took eight months to plot out before he began writing. Interesting eh? But surely he was writing while plotting. All he had to do was to flesh it out, maybe add a lot more flesh I suppose.
Every so often I read bits n bobs from other writers who claim that if there are now surprises in a story, then the reader may be left feeling rather low and flat with it. The theory then goes, if the writer is surprised by what happens in his story, then the reader will be too. Without realising it I have been following that since I began writing five years ago. And that my friends is why I am surprised about my characters do next. In reality of course, what is actually happening is that I’m getting so wrapped up in the story that I’m moving it on and taking it off so as to expand it. What I need to think about now though, is do I let this one continue on along the same line, or do I bring it to a close as planned but come back to it later and write a third title to the series. After all, there are three Fred Copper stories with a fourth started. Arathusia is likely to grow into a series as well as at some time.
In between all of that Shipshape is ready to go up on Amazon, and that means another battle with their CreateSpace self-publishing software, not an easy task my friends, not at all. There are a lot of writers who use it successfully and make money from it, how they do it is something I would love to learn. Writing Magazine interviewed a writer, Adam Croft by name, who is a £1m-a-year writer. That’s another article I need to re-read soon.
My biggest problem when it comes to writing the first draft is the actual writing of it! Yesterday is a prime example. Above I said I said I didn’t feel up to it; in reality I didn’t feel like doing it. All writers have times like that I think. But another issue they have to deal with is being interrupted during their writing times. That is where having a proper writing space comes in useful; a place where you can sit and think and write to your hearts content. J K Rowling says that we need to be ruthless when it comes to our writing times. She’s right you know.
Going back to Jeffery Deaver, another question he was asked was where did he write? His reply was that writes everywhere, while waiting for and travelling on a train or bus; sitting in the doctor or dentist waiting room, in fact anywhere he has time to sit and do little else. I can live with that I suppose, that’s why I have so many notebooks on the go. It should be easier in today’s digital world too where writing can be done on the move pretty much 24/7. What you produce can be saved to the Cloud and drawn on to work some more on it. The possibilities are pretty endless these days. All I really need to do is to rise to the challenge.
Today’s photo …
A Writer's tools.
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