At some point, maybe in the first chapter even, a writer will wonder if he or she has a story.
For me, I write to roughly the half way mark or even just the first 50,000 words and then I send it to my trusted editor for an opinion.
These last couple of weeks, I have held back from continuing with the manuscript of Reliquary until I had a definitive answer on whether the story had legs.
I have separation anxiety.
When my editor asked me to do a tad more work on the last chapter of G2, I grabbed it and ran with glee. Happy, content and thrilled to be back with friends.
Sad, isn’t it?
A Thousand Glass Flowers.
Prue Batten
© 2009
Chapter One
Lalita
Thumping woke her and the dog growled from her bed. The bar across the door rattled and underneath her fingers she could feel the hackles on the animal’s spine. ‘Hush, Phaeton,’ she whispered. ‘He can’t hurt me.’
Please dear followers, excuse my lack of posts just lately. Lots of reasons:
* Am reading. Rarely get the chance to read a lot and have read three books in last few days
* Am writing. Big spurt. Ideas must be written down.
My friend Michael (thevelv.blogspot.com) is in the throes of editing a wonderful biography of his mother Catherine Duncan who was an actress, artist and witty and observant commentator on life. Mike’s book will be released through Macmillan next year and so he is in the clutches of the dreadful ‘R’ word. Or the ‘E’ word if you like. Revision, editing, it’s all the same. This is what he says in a recent blog:
I haven’t done any revision for a week. I am a disgrace to the brotherhood of writers.
The days it’s Antarctic blue, and clear as far as the galaxy’s end, why would one want to sit inside tapping away on a computer? And I ask, does this mean I am not really as dedicated to my writing as I should be?
One of the things I agonise most about as I revise, is how much attention to pay to the editorial reports that come through from my assessment agency. I mean I obviously take them seriously because they cost me a considerable amount of money. But the things that concern me are how much of my voice should I/could I retain? How much of MY story should I/could I change? I am a descriptive writer, have always been and it is one of the points I am pulled up on constantly. How much of that style could I/should I alter?
These encouraging words came from http://thesunlitdesk.wordpress.com
Perseverance: Write daily
Trust: Don’t wait for creativity, expect it
Prudence: Have the good sense to know when not to write. Forcing writing when you just can’t get into it will foster resentment and make the next session hard to start
Yesterday was the most perfect day. It should be Autumn but in fact it felt like early summer. Warm enough for rolled up jeans and short-sleeves. It would have been the hardest thing in the world to sit in the house with the laptop, reading through the track changes suggested by the editor. So of course I didn’t do it.
