THIS LITTLE LIFE

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Monday 1 March 2010

Writing


Goldfinches in our garden, eating our niger seeds :) They're coming, our garden is filling up, and my mum says that I will soon be like the bird lady in Mary Poppins! Feed the birds, tuppence a bag.

Writing is much harder than I even thought it would be, and I knew it would be hard! But it's not hard for the reasons I thought it would be; the problems I have to figure out solutions for are not what I expected. I thought I would struggle to find things to write about in the first place - never did I imagine that I would have too many ideas. This isn't a moan though, it's just an observation really. I love writing, almost as much as I love my kids! It's an absolute joy to create something that I know is good. The only thing I don't like about writing is that it takes so blummin long! I have almost a fully formed book in my head, but getting it onto paper takes forever. Things don't really behave as you'd like them too once you start putting them into actual words. For example, I'm writing a story about a boy who accidentally finds himself on an amazing adventure - but I got stuck on the third chapter very early on because I couldn't get the boy to follow the path he was supposed to follow. It's ridiculous, why can't characters just behave themselves and do what they're meant to do? Very weird, how writing works :) I still love it though, I love the challenges that it throws up daily.
This past month I have been switching between one book idea and another, the two of them not quite working as I planned them to. This approach, of chopping and changing constantly, is clearly not working as I am getting nowhere with either project. So, it is time to abandon one of them once and for all, and to stop faffing about and to finish a novel!!! I am giving myself a virtually slap, now ... ouch. There. That's done, and now I feel better. I am going with the fairy story (it's good, honestly, not a bit of tweeness or disneyfication in sight: definitely no pinkness or tiaras, no flowery stuff, no tiny little creatures that fly about on gossamer wings and grant wishes, nothing to make you sick at the saccharine taste that it leaves in your mouth). The second story that I was working on needs more thinking time, so I'm putting it on the back burner until I've finished the first book. I am going to stop being such a perfectionist about my fairy story, and I'm going to just get it down on the page, even if it's awful. I can't work on it if all I've got is a blank screen to stare at, now can I? I haven't wasted the last couple of months though - from working on the second story I have learned that I need to write about eighty per cent rubbish to find that twenty per cent of good stuff that I can build on (that's a lot of wasted paper, since I write long hand - but I do recycle, so it's not quite as bad as it could be!).
Two months of this year have gone. I have ten months left to finish a manuscript. *Sharp intake of breath* - I wanted to have a full first draft finished by the end of this year, so I'd better get cracking! What am I doing on here when I should be thrashing out my story?! Get off now.
Right.
I'm going.
Go on then.
Alright.
I'm going.
I'm gone!

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