Debbie Robson's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
Skive Magazine
I am so excited! An excerpt of (a chapter set in Athens) Crossing Paths is going to be featured in Skive Magazine Future, June 2010.
http://www.skivemagazine.com
I will update when the the Mazagine is online.
http://www.skivemagazine.com
I will update when the the Mazagine is online.
Meeting All My Helpers
Crossing Paths, my novel that is to be published in September, is unusual in that although it is a work of fiction, it is inspired by a real online book club and 40 real BookCrossers feature in the manuscript.
When I first started researching and writing the novel a lot of BookCrossers were helping me with my research and rather than make up BC names for the countless journal entries that were beginning to be a feature in the book, I asked my helpers if they would like a journal entry. Along the way 40 said yes.
Four years later I have been able to recontact all but four of my helpers. Some I still write to regularly and one day I would like to meet all of them including a lot of others that although they don't appear in the book helped me by answering often bizarre questions about places such as Lake Shawnigan and Turin; the traffic in Paris and a magnificent hotel in Looe, to name but a few. They will be listed in the acknowledgements along with a lot of other people not associated with bookcrossing.com
Here's to us getting together one day!
Debbie
When I first started researching and writing the novel a lot of BookCrossers were helping me with my research and rather than make up BC names for the countless journal entries that were beginning to be a feature in the book, I asked my helpers if they would like a journal entry. Along the way 40 said yes.
Four years later I have been able to recontact all but four of my helpers. Some I still write to regularly and one day I would like to meet all of them including a lot of others that although they don't appear in the book helped me by answering often bizarre questions about places such as Lake Shawnigan and Turin; the traffic in Paris and a magnificent hotel in Looe, to name but a few. They will be listed in the acknowledgements along with a lot of other people not associated with bookcrossing.com
Here's to us getting together one day!
Debbie
Trouble With Shipping
For a month now I've been having trouble with my research for my novel The Grey Silk Purse. I need a ship to get my heroine Miss Summerville from Sydney to England departing October 1917. I've been through Trove to no avail. I can easily find details of say the RMSS Britannia departing Sydney, 14th December, 1887 with Mr P.S. Tomlin in command and Mr Peter Leverage officiating as purser on the voyage. Easy peasy! But for the year I want - not much else except the troopships and they are listed on the excellent Australian War Memorial webpage.
The penny didn't drop until I spoke to Francis from the Vaughan Evans Museum at Darling Harbour. She informed me that shipping departures and arrivals were not advertised in the papers during wartime. Obvious now of course but gosh I wish I'd worked that out a few weeks ago, lol. She advised me to try the State Records Office and ancestry.com but it's still going to be tricky. Hoping to come up with something in the next 36 hours as I'm heading to the Mitchell Library on Monday. Stay tuned.
The penny didn't drop until I spoke to Francis from the Vaughan Evans Museum at Darling Harbour. She informed me that shipping departures and arrivals were not advertised in the papers during wartime. Obvious now of course but gosh I wish I'd worked that out a few weeks ago, lol. She advised me to try the State Records Office and ancestry.com but it's still going to be tricky. Hoping to come up with something in the next 36 hours as I'm heading to the Mitchell Library on Monday. Stay tuned.
Charting the Progress of Your Manuscript
In my original post on wordpress 25/6 I featured a photo of my record of my pages written. Simply with date, chapter and pages recorded.
As you can see I’m old school! Well, at least as far as keeping a record of my writing progress goes. Paris Next Week is my seventh manuscript. Yes, I love bashing my head against a brick wall! The first three manuscripts I can’t actually remember keeping a record of each page written. I’m pretty sure it all started with Tomaree. I was, by that time (early 2002) becoming more organised and setting goals. The main goal was – a page a day! A page a day is of course a manuscript in a year but as you can see from the very battered piece of paper covering the last three months, I’m only averaging slightly half that. I am, though, happy with my progress.
Of course there are many programs now that a writer can use to chart their progress and keep all their notes organised. I won’t discuss them all here as I don’t use them, lol. My project management tool is a notebook!
ep! In I keep very scattered notes but as I write I generally circle what I need to research further. I keep this with me at all times. When I’m reading research material I often jot notes down quickly. If a line from a character starts reverberating in my head, such as the simple words: “Money follows you.” from the wealthy Lilith, I jot that down too. Any more than a sentence though and I’ll have the laptop out pronto.
The main purpose of this post though is advice that covers all forms of record keeping and that is be generous! It really does help keep you motivated. I found this out by Tomaree and it’s my common practice now. Don’t worry if you’ve only written a few lines (generally you’ll find at the start of a new scene or chapter) put down half a page! If you look closely at the sheet above, you’ll see lots of 1/2 pages. You’ll find too that even being generous when you do a page count, reconciled with what you’ve written, you’ll still be missing a few pages – page breaks of course!
I wrote 10 1/2 pages this March, only 2 1/2 pages in April, 10 1/2 in May and I have so far written another 10 1/2 this month. April I was on holidays painting doors and architraves in my house and my Mum came to stay. I was also checking over my Darlinghurst research. In May the next chapter required a bit of research in France and I’m currently researching crime scene practices in the 1920s regarding the discovery of a dead body.
By keeping this simple record you can actually see your month by month progress and highlight the months, where perhaps you have fallen behind. If I’m doing a lot of research, I will often note that research on the days I’m not writing. After all, it is progress too! If you don’t keep a record of each page written, give it a try. Don’t forget to record those half pages, keep at your writing and watch the pages mount up!
As you can see I’m old school! Well, at least as far as keeping a record of my writing progress goes. Paris Next Week is my seventh manuscript. Yes, I love bashing my head against a brick wall! The first three manuscripts I can’t actually remember keeping a record of each page written. I’m pretty sure it all started with Tomaree. I was, by that time (early 2002) becoming more organised and setting goals. The main goal was – a page a day! A page a day is of course a manuscript in a year but as you can see from the very battered piece of paper covering the last three months, I’m only averaging slightly half that. I am, though, happy with my progress.
Of course there are many programs now that a writer can use to chart their progress and keep all their notes organised. I won’t discuss them all here as I don’t use them, lol. My project management tool is a notebook!
ep! In I keep very scattered notes but as I write I generally circle what I need to research further. I keep this with me at all times. When I’m reading research material I often jot notes down quickly. If a line from a character starts reverberating in my head, such as the simple words: “Money follows you.” from the wealthy Lilith, I jot that down too. Any more than a sentence though and I’ll have the laptop out pronto.
The main purpose of this post though is advice that covers all forms of record keeping and that is be generous! It really does help keep you motivated. I found this out by Tomaree and it’s my common practice now. Don’t worry if you’ve only written a few lines (generally you’ll find at the start of a new scene or chapter) put down half a page! If you look closely at the sheet above, you’ll see lots of 1/2 pages. You’ll find too that even being generous when you do a page count, reconciled with what you’ve written, you’ll still be missing a few pages – page breaks of course!
I wrote 10 1/2 pages this March, only 2 1/2 pages in April, 10 1/2 in May and I have so far written another 10 1/2 this month. April I was on holidays painting doors and architraves in my house and my Mum came to stay. I was also checking over my Darlinghurst research. In May the next chapter required a bit of research in France and I’m currently researching crime scene practices in the 1920s regarding the discovery of a dead body.
By keeping this simple record you can actually see your month by month progress and highlight the months, where perhaps you have fallen behind. If I’m doing a lot of research, I will often note that research on the days I’m not writing. After all, it is progress too! If you don’t keep a record of each page written, give it a try. Don’t forget to record those half pages, keep at your writing and watch the pages mount up!
Writing and the subconscious mind
The subconscious for me, as a writer, is like a treasure chest. I might have deliberately or “unconsciously” stored stuff away that over the years I’ve forgotten about. It might be, for instance, a note to myself to read a book that for the life of me, I can’t see at the present moment that I need to read. Or as in the case of The Night Garden a book my subconscious has chosen for me.
It might be a memory or a fact that stays with me but I don’t know what to do with. In the 1990s I was doing research for my third manuscript with the working title of the The Nightingales. It was set over a period of twenty or so years from 1914 to 1937. Somewhere amidst all the pages I read and photocopied, was an account of a WWII army captain (from memory) who was on leave and on his honeymoon. The tyre blew out on their car whilst they were driving to their hotel. His bride died at the scene and later he killed himself in his hotel room. A simple thing for him to do as he had with him his full service kit.
The incident was seared into my subconscious but I didn’t expect I would be able to do anything with it. After all it was years after the period I was researching and at that time I wasn’t writing short stories. It wasn’t until 2013 that a friend asked me for a short story for an anthology he was putting together. The incident of the dead captain came straight to mind. Here was my chance to finally put him to rest. From that short story has come a new character and what I hope will be a series of short stories that I’m currently working on.
My new enigmatic character has memories from the first World War. This week I needed some idyllic memory that a soldier could go back to briefly, before he moved on to the next world. What came to my conscious mind? A bluebell wood I visited somewhere in England in 1976. I did some googling but they weren’t the sort of images I was looking for and the bluebell woods weren’t located in suitable places either. It was then I remembered a card of a bluebell wood I saved from twenty years ago.
It was a painting. Early morning I’m guessing with a green path leading to a wooden gate and bluebells spilling over the foreground. The light is diffused, almost healing in its otherworldliness. The painting was perfect to help me set the scene in my writing and I am so glad I saved the card.
These days I am more aware of things like this. If I get a little nudge to really take note of something, I obey my subconscious and write it down in my notebook, bookmark the page or as I’m doing now incorporate it into my blog.
Here is another nudge from my subconscious. It occurred last week at the Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibition of The Greats from the National Galleries of Scotland. Yes, here were a lot of paintings I had seen in art books during high school. 70 incredible sketches, paintings and watercolours spanning a period of 400 years from the Renaissance to Impressionism. Out of all these amazing artworks what stopped me in my tracks? The modest watercolour above - A pool in the River Greta near Rokeby.
The first thing I noticed was how modern the watercolour appeared to my eyes. Amazing to think Cotman painted it over two hundred years ago! Why did it have such an impact on me? I’m sure it is not just because it appears very modern. Maybe the beauty of the location and the name - Greta? There is a Greta north from where I live. It is a beautiful spot too. I can keep on speculating but the why of it ultimately doesn’t matter. I trust my subconscious. I’m sure it has its reasons.
It might be a memory or a fact that stays with me but I don’t know what to do with. In the 1990s I was doing research for my third manuscript with the working title of the The Nightingales. It was set over a period of twenty or so years from 1914 to 1937. Somewhere amidst all the pages I read and photocopied, was an account of a WWII army captain (from memory) who was on leave and on his honeymoon. The tyre blew out on their car whilst they were driving to their hotel. His bride died at the scene and later he killed himself in his hotel room. A simple thing for him to do as he had with him his full service kit.
The incident was seared into my subconscious but I didn’t expect I would be able to do anything with it. After all it was years after the period I was researching and at that time I wasn’t writing short stories. It wasn’t until 2013 that a friend asked me for a short story for an anthology he was putting together. The incident of the dead captain came straight to mind. Here was my chance to finally put him to rest. From that short story has come a new character and what I hope will be a series of short stories that I’m currently working on.
My new enigmatic character has memories from the first World War. This week I needed some idyllic memory that a soldier could go back to briefly, before he moved on to the next world. What came to my conscious mind? A bluebell wood I visited somewhere in England in 1976. I did some googling but they weren’t the sort of images I was looking for and the bluebell woods weren’t located in suitable places either. It was then I remembered a card of a bluebell wood I saved from twenty years ago.
It was a painting. Early morning I’m guessing with a green path leading to a wooden gate and bluebells spilling over the foreground. The light is diffused, almost healing in its otherworldliness. The painting was perfect to help me set the scene in my writing and I am so glad I saved the card.
These days I am more aware of things like this. If I get a little nudge to really take note of something, I obey my subconscious and write it down in my notebook, bookmark the page or as I’m doing now incorporate it into my blog.
Here is another nudge from my subconscious. It occurred last week at the Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibition of The Greats from the National Galleries of Scotland. Yes, here were a lot of paintings I had seen in art books during high school. 70 incredible sketches, paintings and watercolours spanning a period of 400 years from the Renaissance to Impressionism. Out of all these amazing artworks what stopped me in my tracks? The modest watercolour above - A pool in the River Greta near Rokeby.
The first thing I noticed was how modern the watercolour appeared to my eyes. Amazing to think Cotman painted it over two hundred years ago! Why did it have such an impact on me? I’m sure it is not just because it appears very modern. Maybe the beauty of the location and the name - Greta? There is a Greta north from where I live. It is a beautiful spot too. I can keep on speculating but the why of it ultimately doesn’t matter. I trust my subconscious. I’m sure it has its reasons.
The books we reach for when we are writing
The two books I grabbed after I finished a very long and tricky chapter the other week were Paul Auster’s The Invention of Solitude and Jane Austen’s Persuasion, my favourite Austen. Why the Auster? That is not immediately obvious to me and is probably the underlying reason for this blog post but we shall see what comes to light as I write.
As for Persuasion I know exactly why I wanted to borrow this exceptional book. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say, borrowed. I don’t have my own copy. The reason is a scene in the book that I will find in a moment. It is the scene where you realise this is not quite the same author who wrote Pride and Prejudice. She has moved one step closer to her character’s thoughts and feelings. In fact she’s almost inside Anne’s head in the paragraph I desperately want to read again.
It is a wonderful piece of writing that I remember as surprisingly modern. This time I want to find out what words and tone she used to actually phrase Anne’s awareness of not just the physical proximity of Captain Wentworth but that his heart may be returning to her as well. Here they are discussing the love story of Captain Benwick and Fanny Harville which ultimately ended with the latter’s death:
“...A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman. He ought not, he does not.”
“Either from the consciousness, however, that his friend had recovered, or from other consciousness, he went no farther; and Anne who, in spite of the agitated voice in which the latter part had been uttered, and in spite of all the various noises of the room, the almost ceaseless slam of the door, and ceaseless buzz of persons walking through, had distinguished every word, was struck, gratified, confused and beginning to breathe very quick, and feel an hundred things in a moment. It was impossible for her to enter on such a subject; and yet, after a pause, feeling the necessity of speaking, and having not the smallest wish for a total change, she only deviated so far as to say,
“You were a good while at Lyme, I think?”
And it’s all there, isn’t it? The noisy world intrudes and makes it hard for Anne to concentrate but somehow she does amidst feeling gratified, confused and a hundred other things besides. I think some part of me remembered that confusion of a noisy world yet ultimately the realisation of hope that Anne is feeling in that moment.
My character on the other hand has hoped to search out her new husband at a fancy dress ball and find him dressed to her liking. When he turns up very male and swashbuckling about to reduce her to a damsel in distress she realises that, in the midst of a crowded ballroom, she has been fooling herself as to her sexual orientation. Now that’s all very well but why the Auster? What answers does it hold for me?
I am not confused about my sexual orientation but I am fascinated with identity. My novel is about the perception of identity. The Invention of Solitude is about the study of a distant and difficult father and the second half, The Book of Memory, is a meditation on memory as a writer and father. The texts Auster refers to for answers are erudite and often include the dispossessed. For me the second half of the Invention of Solitude seems to be a search for his identity now that he is a father himself. I really love the way he gathers those texts together looking for answers. Some of these are: Mallarme writing about the life and death struggle of his son, Collodi's Pinocchio versus Disney's Pinocchio, a letter that was never sent from Nadezhda Mandelstam to Osip Mandelstam dated 10/22/28 and the bravery of Anne Frank.
Good books are like friends. They console, offer help and sometimes have the right answers. Here, this is one way of writing that scene. Here is the moment an unappreciated and unloved character realises there may yet be a chance of love. Here is an author looking for answers in the work of others. Just as I am doing now. And reading them returns me to my work.
As for Persuasion I know exactly why I wanted to borrow this exceptional book. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say, borrowed. I don’t have my own copy. The reason is a scene in the book that I will find in a moment. It is the scene where you realise this is not quite the same author who wrote Pride and Prejudice. She has moved one step closer to her character’s thoughts and feelings. In fact she’s almost inside Anne’s head in the paragraph I desperately want to read again.
It is a wonderful piece of writing that I remember as surprisingly modern. This time I want to find out what words and tone she used to actually phrase Anne’s awareness of not just the physical proximity of Captain Wentworth but that his heart may be returning to her as well. Here they are discussing the love story of Captain Benwick and Fanny Harville which ultimately ended with the latter’s death:
“...A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman. He ought not, he does not.”
“Either from the consciousness, however, that his friend had recovered, or from other consciousness, he went no farther; and Anne who, in spite of the agitated voice in which the latter part had been uttered, and in spite of all the various noises of the room, the almost ceaseless slam of the door, and ceaseless buzz of persons walking through, had distinguished every word, was struck, gratified, confused and beginning to breathe very quick, and feel an hundred things in a moment. It was impossible for her to enter on such a subject; and yet, after a pause, feeling the necessity of speaking, and having not the smallest wish for a total change, she only deviated so far as to say,
“You were a good while at Lyme, I think?”
And it’s all there, isn’t it? The noisy world intrudes and makes it hard for Anne to concentrate but somehow she does amidst feeling gratified, confused and a hundred other things besides. I think some part of me remembered that confusion of a noisy world yet ultimately the realisation of hope that Anne is feeling in that moment.
My character on the other hand has hoped to search out her new husband at a fancy dress ball and find him dressed to her liking. When he turns up very male and swashbuckling about to reduce her to a damsel in distress she realises that, in the midst of a crowded ballroom, she has been fooling herself as to her sexual orientation. Now that’s all very well but why the Auster? What answers does it hold for me?
I am not confused about my sexual orientation but I am fascinated with identity. My novel is about the perception of identity. The Invention of Solitude is about the study of a distant and difficult father and the second half, The Book of Memory, is a meditation on memory as a writer and father. The texts Auster refers to for answers are erudite and often include the dispossessed. For me the second half of the Invention of Solitude seems to be a search for his identity now that he is a father himself. I really love the way he gathers those texts together looking for answers. Some of these are: Mallarme writing about the life and death struggle of his son, Collodi's Pinocchio versus Disney's Pinocchio, a letter that was never sent from Nadezhda Mandelstam to Osip Mandelstam dated 10/22/28 and the bravery of Anne Frank.
Good books are like friends. They console, offer help and sometimes have the right answers. Here, this is one way of writing that scene. Here is the moment an unappreciated and unloved character realises there may yet be a chance of love. Here is an author looking for answers in the work of others. Just as I am doing now. And reading them returns me to my work.
The slow progress of a first draft
This post was published originally on wordpress the last few days of 2016 with pics of sheets of paper recording pages written.
Well, as you can see it's a very crumpled messy piece of paper but it is the start of my manuscript with the working title of Paris Next Week. As you can also see the first two and a half pages were written over three years ago on the 5/8/2013. Being Australian that means the 5 August not the 8 May. On the 25/2/2014 I ended up with 43 and a half pages. Not a bad start but overall the slowest first draft I've ever written, However keeping a record such as this does help remind me of several things.
Firstly, as you can see near the top of the page there is a gap of three months. Not sure why now but probably had to stop and really think about what was happening with the novel and to check that I was heading in the right direction after the excitement of getting those first five pages down.
Secondly I can see now where I took breaks of over a week or two for research. These are breaks that I couldn't be avoided by using hashtags (see my earlier posts). In May 2014 I took two weeks off looking for a suitable chateau by a river in France. In early October of the same year I took a week or so off researching Kings Cross. And then from late October 2014 to early July 2015 I didn't write a page. I was doing a major rewrite of a previous manuscript for a couple of months and then during the first half of 2015 I was quite ill suffering from a severe flareup of eczema.
During 2015 and early this year I also wrote three short stories featuring a brand new character called Zach. More breaks to research Sydney Theatres and quite a long break researching 1920s actresses and their famous roles and also looking for 10 locations that my main character Sarah's grandmother would have been tempted to sketch in the 1860s in Paris. Whew!
Pages written 4
Above is the home run with the very last entry written sidewise just last week, 4 and a half pages finishing the final chapter entitled S S Ormonde. I also did some editing checks and eliminated two words that I used a frightening number of times - one was the word 'word' and the other 'beautiful'. I'll be doing a lot more of this type of editing in the next draft but these two jumped out at me and I felt compelled to reduce them drastically.
And this is what makes it all worth while. A list of all the chapters and a rough page count.
List of chapters
35 chapters, 255 pages and 70,687 words. The page numbers are pretty much screwed after chapter 27 because I did add a page here and a page there to some scenes that had to be rewritten but it is close enough. This sheet is one thing I don't keep up for the next few drafts as the manuscript is in a state of flux with rewriting and researching going on but I do tend to write another one of these up for the final draft.
Would love to hear how you all keep a record of your drafts. Probably not as old fashioned as this but the result will be the same - words into sentences, paragraphs into scenes, transformed into chapters to form a complete first draft of a manuscript. Happy writing and a Happy New Year!
Well, as you can see it's a very crumpled messy piece of paper but it is the start of my manuscript with the working title of Paris Next Week. As you can also see the first two and a half pages were written over three years ago on the 5/8/2013. Being Australian that means the 5 August not the 8 May. On the 25/2/2014 I ended up with 43 and a half pages. Not a bad start but overall the slowest first draft I've ever written, However keeping a record such as this does help remind me of several things.
Firstly, as you can see near the top of the page there is a gap of three months. Not sure why now but probably had to stop and really think about what was happening with the novel and to check that I was heading in the right direction after the excitement of getting those first five pages down.
Secondly I can see now where I took breaks of over a week or two for research. These are breaks that I couldn't be avoided by using hashtags (see my earlier posts). In May 2014 I took two weeks off looking for a suitable chateau by a river in France. In early October of the same year I took a week or so off researching Kings Cross. And then from late October 2014 to early July 2015 I didn't write a page. I was doing a major rewrite of a previous manuscript for a couple of months and then during the first half of 2015 I was quite ill suffering from a severe flareup of eczema.
During 2015 and early this year I also wrote three short stories featuring a brand new character called Zach. More breaks to research Sydney Theatres and quite a long break researching 1920s actresses and their famous roles and also looking for 10 locations that my main character Sarah's grandmother would have been tempted to sketch in the 1860s in Paris. Whew!
Pages written 4
Above is the home run with the very last entry written sidewise just last week, 4 and a half pages finishing the final chapter entitled S S Ormonde. I also did some editing checks and eliminated two words that I used a frightening number of times - one was the word 'word' and the other 'beautiful'. I'll be doing a lot more of this type of editing in the next draft but these two jumped out at me and I felt compelled to reduce them drastically.
And this is what makes it all worth while. A list of all the chapters and a rough page count.
List of chapters
35 chapters, 255 pages and 70,687 words. The page numbers are pretty much screwed after chapter 27 because I did add a page here and a page there to some scenes that had to be rewritten but it is close enough. This sheet is one thing I don't keep up for the next few drafts as the manuscript is in a state of flux with rewriting and researching going on but I do tend to write another one of these up for the final draft.
Would love to hear how you all keep a record of your drafts. Probably not as old fashioned as this but the result will be the same - words into sentences, paragraphs into scenes, transformed into chapters to form a complete first draft of a manuscript. Happy writing and a Happy New Year!
Reading Just As Fast As I Can
(This post was made on wordpress on 14/2. As you can't see a pic on this blog, the books I will be discussing are of course on my read bookshelf.)
Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing these last two months. Like a long distance runner, I’m trying to put as much distance as I can between myself and the first draft of my manuscript Paris Next Week.
Why, you wonder? Well I’m not one of these people that can put a manuscript away for say nine months or a year. (For me that’s like those dreadful people who leave Easter eggs in the fridge for months! It’s just not happening!) Instead I find that the best way to bring new eyes to my work, after a short period of time, is to read a variety of books. As many as possible.
So what have I been reading since 23rd December last year? Well most are in the pic above and as you can see at a glance they are mostly NOT historical fiction. (And that I'm behind in my reviews.) There’s a self help book, an Australian novel written in the 1920s, a short introduction to a trilogy set in 1919 and the first book in the trilogy (yes, I know, historical fiction). There’s a collection of short stories by a popular English author, a biography, an autobiography, a memoir set in Greece, a crime novel set in London in the 1990s and a romance set in the US in the 1960s.
Looking at the list now I can see (although it was done mostly unconsciously) I have selected quite a range. I’m also currently reading a poetry collection and a collection of the Sunday Times 2016 short story competition finalists.
What I’m aiming for is immersing myself with writing that is very different from my own. Poetry is particularly good for this - the unusual word usage, juxtapositions and the sheer mesmerising difference between poetry and prose. Will it work? I’ll get back to you on that shortly.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing these last two months. Like a long distance runner, I’m trying to put as much distance as I can between myself and the first draft of my manuscript Paris Next Week.
Why, you wonder? Well I’m not one of these people that can put a manuscript away for say nine months or a year. (For me that’s like those dreadful people who leave Easter eggs in the fridge for months! It’s just not happening!) Instead I find that the best way to bring new eyes to my work, after a short period of time, is to read a variety of books. As many as possible.
So what have I been reading since 23rd December last year? Well most are in the pic above and as you can see at a glance they are mostly NOT historical fiction. (And that I'm behind in my reviews.) There’s a self help book, an Australian novel written in the 1920s, a short introduction to a trilogy set in 1919 and the first book in the trilogy (yes, I know, historical fiction). There’s a collection of short stories by a popular English author, a biography, an autobiography, a memoir set in Greece, a crime novel set in London in the 1990s and a romance set in the US in the 1960s.
Looking at the list now I can see (although it was done mostly unconsciously) I have selected quite a range. I’m also currently reading a poetry collection and a collection of the Sunday Times 2016 short story competition finalists.
What I’m aiming for is immersing myself with writing that is very different from my own. Poetry is particularly good for this - the unusual word usage, juxtapositions and the sheer mesmerising difference between poetry and prose. Will it work? I’ll get back to you on that shortly.
