My writing progress this week

Equals not much. Knowing I was going to Melbourne for a few days meant starting a new project wasn't worth it. So I kinda pottered, but in the process did some interesting things.

a) In the pursuit of improving and learning more about the craft, I did some exercises with the various narrative voices. I had some folks on Twitter help me establish a scenario, then I wrote it in first person (four different styles – basic, as spoken, as written and stream of consciousness); second person and third person (limited, omniscient and objective). I'm still processing my thoughts about the experience – one thing I will say is that I was surprised (although I shouldn't have been) how much what I read affected my ability to write in particularly voices. I'll do up a full report next week.

b) I wrote a new Gadda short story. For a while, I've been thinking I'd like to write Kenyon's story – there's a lot in his past that doesn't come up in the novels. Then, while I was thinking about the narrative voice experiment, the entire story came to me – as letters. So I've written my first epistolary story. It's a very rough draft, with lots of thinking to be done about it but if it works, I think it might be another story I self-publish.

When I return from Melbourne, my plan is to get stuck into my modernised Shakespearean contemporary romance. I hope to have the draft done by Christmas.