This blog is just to record my experience of writing a story. That is something I have wanted to do all my life. I guess it is now or never.
I am just doing it for fun. I do not really intend to publish it. Mind you, I shall give that a try if I ever get it finished :).
The blog is only intended for me to keep a diary of my thoughts and for some of my close friends, especially those at the Richmond Writers' Circle (bless them for their patience).
If you have found your way here by accident, comments are welcome - especially the kind ones.
If you are, like me, attempting to write your first novel, please share the ups and downs.
Seeing as how I am learning on the job I read as I go books on how to do it. There are a lot of them. Many are worthy without being special. But a few I really have found helpful - I think this is a personal thing. One I am enjoying at the moment is Louise Doughty's 'A novel in a year'. This is a gentle 'let's have a cup of tea and talk about it' approach with some well thought out exercises. And yes I do wish I had done the exercises before I started! (I did do some of them, mind.)
Everyone agrees that the opening is so important. I have never been satisfied with mine and have had to change it anyway since since I wrote it I have made a big plot 'discovery' that has been a major structural enhancement to the story. Despite a debilitating head cold I made a draft rewrite that I think can be made to work. Y gave the thumbs up to my nest Writer's Circle reading so all in all I think I'm ahead of the game! Of course I should have worked out all the plot before I started writing I expect. And then again I should have done all my research first and in fact should probably have learned to write first. The trouble is I want to get on with the writing and anyway I usually get the best plot ideas in the process of writing. My hero, George MacDonald Fraser, author of Flashman, had it all worked out I think. He learned to write crisply as a journalist and for each novel did about six month research at the London Library and then six month writing. Alas, the London Library is beyond my means and if I were to do it all in the write order I should still be writing when I'm in the grave.
I think of it sometimes as someone painting in oils, they seemed always ready to smudge over something and repaint it when it seemed not right. This is what I'm doing.
Knowing I am labouring over my story my delightful friend Sabine bought me "Steampunk - the art of Victorian Futurism" by Jay Strongman. I really enjoyed it but it did make me think. As a child I did read most of the antecedents of the Steampunk genre. And I did know that there was such a genre. I had NO IDEA though that it was so well developed and widespread. Y said I'd have to write fast to catch up. But what can I do to make more than a tiny addition to all the really clever things that have preceded me? I shall just have to plod on.
Isabelle Ebenhardt looking on the left almost like a movie star playing her and on the right in Islamic costume. Like so many people of the era her true story bettered any fiction I can write.
I like to find images of the people I write about. Where rhe characters are out of my head I like to find images from movies, say, that are close to how I picture them. I'll include some in this blog. This I how I think Kitchener would have looked in the scene where the Gentlemen Rankers first report to him. Here his is with his staff in India. I think that one of them is probaly Fitzgerald.
The only formal training I have had in creative writing I got from the Sydney Writers' Studio
www.writerstudio.com.au/
I only did a short course which was on how to write a scene. Their course material was basically many quotes from successful writers that supported their approach. Since doing the course I have come across many other remarks by writers that confirm it. When I try this approach my writing is always better than when I don't. Here it is (perhaps with a couple of additions, I have picked up on the way)
Decide on the objective of the scene and the things it has to include.
Try and go into an almost meditative state of mind where you focus on the main emotion of the scene.
Scribble out as fast as possible (pen not typing) the scene giving free reign to imagination.
Put it aside
Without reading what has been written do that all again. (The second version is most always better)
Then get on with wordsmithing and editing
The point is to separate the creative and the craftsmanship.
Oops I see I have not posted for a couple of days. My promise to myself was to say something each day at midnight. The Wednesday meeting ot the Writer's Circle has come and gone. I really look forwards to it. If you are interested my reading was almost entirely stammer free. There are a few really good readers there so I shall have to try harder. In truth they a tolerant of a steampunk mash-up rather than longing for the next episode :) but they are very tolerant and that is one on the things that makes me so look forward to Wednesday evenings. Well that and the beer afterwards, I suppose. I spent a big chunk of my life in Australia. Australians are lovely people but have funny ideas about beer. They think their beer is drinkable. They are wrong. A pint of proper ale on a Wednesday night does not go amiss in my book. Well I'll confess to two pints and then a struggle up the hill to hope for a 33 bus.
