21 May 2007

What now?

I've changed the picture at the top of my blog again today. Paul Nash is a favourite of mine - I love the sparseness of line in this painting - sort of minimalist.

Well, I got the story off for the competition in plenty of time. Frankly I got fed up with reading and re-reading it so thought 'what the hell' and posted it. Unfortunately they had to have a recent picture of me to go with it so I had to send the photo I used to renew my passport last year! White background, grumpy face, you know the sort. God help me if I get the story published!

Problem is I haven't a clue what to do next writing-wise. Don't have the incentive of the course any more and ideas seem to be drying up fast. Time to just start freewriting for a bit I guess which is what this is really. I'm off for a long weekend in Florence next week so maybe there'll be some inspiration there. How could there not be!

Just in time too - the skies are grey again today and it feels almost like winter again. Summer in April and winter in late May! Must stop putting exclamation marks everywhere - I seem to remember my tutor saying it's a no no.

3 May 2007

Writing Competition

I'm scribbling away, fast as I can, to meet a 27 May deadline for a writing competition. 3,000 words long with the theme 'feel good'. Concentration keeps drifting - dogs barking at one another and racing round the house, veggies that need to be planted out, watering to be done, prevaricate, prevaricate... Sounds a bit like a Dalek - exterminate, exterminate!!

Well, I've got about another 1,000 words to go to get the bones down then it's edit, edit, edit. Having read all about how to plan the plot and the scenes and write bios of the characters (!) before starting to write I've ignored all of that and am just writing straight from my head onto the page. I think that's OK for a really short story like this but I'm not sure it would work for a full-length novel (like the one I'm writing!). As it is, I keep forgetting my characters' names.

Think I'll have a coffee...