Robert Scott-Norton's Blog, page 8

Running the Seaside 10K

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It's been a couple of years since I've been in any kind of running habit and I can't quite believe I've let it slip so long. The last time I was a regular runner, I made myself run a mile every day to keep the habit going, believing that a daily run was harder to avoid than three longer runs a week that I could easily move around.

Southport's a great place for running, especially close to where I live. Just a couple of minutes running and I'm at the start of a trail that takes me through sand dunes and into a nature reserve. Timed right, I can have the trail to myself and early enough in the morning it can feel all mine...

To motivate me, I've signed up for the Seaside 10K. This takes place in September and rather excitingly, routes around the Marine Lake. For anyone who's read 'The Face Stealer', this lake is rather central to the whole plot (think Torchwood and Roald Dahl Plas) so it will be nice to remind myself why I wanted to include such a Southport landmark in my writing.

To further motivate me, I've signed up to support Galloway's Society for the Blind.

We are a local charity based in the North West of England that supports people living with blindness or a visual impairment. Operating out of our four regional centres we provide vital help and services including: specialist equipment and advice, talking newspapers, training and support groups as well as escorted holidays and outdoor activities.

If you'd like to support Galloway's visit http://www.bmycharity.com/robscottnorton.

Falling in love with notebooks again

Ever since I started to use Scrivener for my writing, things have certainly moved forwards. Scrivener was the kick I needed to get my first novel finished, and I'm now past the 100,000 of my draft 0 on my next novel. For that, I have to thank this amazing tool, with it's session word counts, and full screen writing mode. Those two aspects of the program alone have lifted my writing practice.

But, there's one thing that Scrivener doesn't do that well. And that's let me write without inhibitions. No matter how many blog posts I read on how important it is to just write the first draft without editing; call it draft 0, or the exploratory draft, or the rubbish draft. To me, when I see words appearing on screen, they become a little bit special, a little bit too real. Although I don't edit as I'm going, I sometimes find things a little hard to just let go and write what I want. Perhaps I'm scared of having to edit further down the line. My experience with my first book with all of the rewriting I ended up doing, has no doubt influenced my thinking about editing.

So, I dug out a half-filled Moleskine notebook and a black gel pen (normally a pencil user), and set to work.  At my next writing session using the Moleskine, I hit approx 800 words (in Scrivener this would have been closer to 600). I found that I could do this again and again. Something had changed. Perhaps a couple of things.

Seeing the words in my handwriting scrawl made them lose a little bit of signficance to me. Some of their power was lost, and that ultimately meant that I knew I could write what I wanted without the internal editor kicking off.Changing from the status quo of my writing practice has probably contributed. I can now write fairly comfortably sat on the sofa whilst the kids are playing around me. Something I would never do with the laptop on my knee.I've some other observations on this approach. I now have pages in my notebook that need to be transferred to Scrivener. I'm seeing this as a positive at the moment although I'm sure that won't last. In transferring them, I'm able to do a little bit of sneaky editing as I go. More than enough to satisfy the internal editor, but not too much that it slows me down. And I suppose on those days where I really don't feel like writing, I've some easy work inputting pages into Scrivener.

Lazy, stupid writer

So, a few weeks of not doing any writing and I think I can just waltz back in here and slam down my 500 words and say 'Take that you stinking novel."

But I just have. All is not lost. I've had a family holiday, then a busy period at work, and now I can at last refocus my free time on my writing.

And it is a hard thing to do. After getting into a habit of 500 words a day (still I realise a minimal amount by most writer's standards), it's pretty hard to coerce those jumbled fragments onto the page.

I read a post on Medium about how a writer came to their novel only to realise they'd killed it. I'm not sure I'm quite at that stage, but I certainly appreciate the sentiment. A novel needs a pulse, and a break, especially one towards the end of the first draft process, can harm your chance of keeping your work breathing all the way to the end.

A breather, a pause, a chance to take a deep breath and go for it

It should have been a week of enjoying time away from work, and letting the Christmas atmosphere soak in. As it turns out, we had a week of the whole family getting ill. Luckily, we're all OK. Nothing serious. Nothing like what some other's have had to go through this Christmas.

I'm not sure how much writing I expected to get done in the last week, but it was probably a bit more than the zero word count I actually managed. This isn't a bad thing. This is my breather. I'm taking this moment and letting it dance around my synapses. In the next week, I'll be back to writing 500 words a day, but until that happens, I'll be here waiting.

What lies under this lake?

In The Face Stealer, this lake is pretty important. The opening scenes take place there and Max finds himself drawn back to the area shortly after escaping from another 'Blank'.

I've lived in Southport pretty much all my life and so the Marine Lake is very familiar to me.

The man-made lake was created in 1892 and was made in part to compensate for the sea retreating from its shoreline. Anyone coming to Southport beach may be surprised by how far out the sea can sometimes be from the shoreline.

The boatyard scene was absolutely inspired by my stopping at the top of a sand bank to take my own pictures of the lake, and being reminded of its existence. Once I knew it was there, it seemed a great idea to have a chase around abandoned boats.

The lake is enormous. Living in the area and driving past it on a regular basis, it's easy to take it for granted, but hopefully these pictures show for a man-made lake, it is impressive.