An invitation

No time to write anything here today, as Henry Mitchell has invited me to put a guest post on his blog Tales and Wanders. I met Henry through Alfie Dog Fiction and was immediately impressed by his elegant writing style. I was surprised to find that he didn’t decide to start writing fiction until he was in his 70’s, but I’m not at all surprised to learn that his first novel is soon to be published.

If you haven’t come across Henry before, do click here to take a look at his blog, it's well worth a visit.

How this writer’s mind works (2)

I took a day off from writing to catch up on some jobs I’ve been neglecting in my other world. One of the items that’s been on my to-do list for a long time was to make some cushions. I saw this teddy bear fabric in the market and couldn’t resist it.

As I sewed, I started thinking about all the bears I’ve known over the years: my own long-lost childhood companions, my children’s teddies, those perennial favourites, Rupert, Pooh, Paddington ….

And as my mind filled with cuddly images I began making up a story. Something about teddy bears? No, that would be too easy. This one’s going to be a really complicated murder mystery …

Do you love bears? Have you written about them?

 

Word of the week (19)

 encouragement

What’s disappointing and uplifting at the same time?

An encouraging rejection!

(With thanks to the editor who took the time and trouble to say, ‘Sorry, no, but …’)

 

 

How to write more

I’ve finally discovered the secret of how to write faster, ignore distractions, and generally be much more productive. All I have to do is take a holiday!

At the beginning of each month I optimistically make a new writing ‘to do’ list, but I rarely manage to tick off all the items before the end of that month. I could pretend I’m being too ambitious and giving myself too much work, but I know the real problem is that because I have 30 or 31 days to reach my targets it’s all too easy to get complacent about them – until I suddenly notice those 30 days have dwindled to 2!

After I’d written out my list for July, I realised I would only have 25 writing days because I was going on holiday at the end of the month. I could have made the list shorter of course, but I decided to leave it as it was and carry over any outstanding jobs to the following month.

I set to work straight away and completed everything on the list – with a couple of days to spare! Surprised? I was completely astonished, amazed and flabbergasted!

So my new plan is to include a holiday on my monthly ‘to do’ lists. Now then, where shall I go at the end of August? And September? And October ...?

Off on my hols!

See you when I get back!

A book, a film – or both?

I didn’t think I was a fan of vampire fiction but I did enjoy reading The Radleys by Matt Haig. It’s about Peter and Helen, abstaining vampires who are so desperate to be accepted as a respectable, middle-class couple that they have kept their true nature secret even from their teenage children.

When I started reading the book I was a bit puzzled by the author's writing style. The whole story is told in the present tense and the chapters are very short, most only two or three pages long. At first, I thought this might be a ploy to entice younger readers – the book was originally written for adults but there is also a Young Adult edition - but then I discovered that The Radleys is being made into a film and suddenly the style made perfect sense. I don’t know if Matt Haig was looking ahead and thinking about film rights as he wrote the novel, but any filmmaker reading this book would be struck by how easily it could be rewritten as a screenplay. The chapters are really scenes and the present tense (he says, she walks, they sit down …) enables the reader to instantly ‘see’ the action as you do when watching a film.

I suppose the next step I should be aiming for – after the little matters of actually finishing my novel and getting it published – would be to have it turned into a film. But I’ve just realised that:

•  my chapters all contain several scenes
•  a lot of the ‘action’ takes place in character’s heads
•  there are flashbacks with different characters having different memories of the same past events
•  some of the ‘dialogue’ is in the form of thoughts
•  none of my characters look remotely like any famous actors or actresses 

I could start rewriting the whole thing again …
But do I really want to commit to all that extra time?
No, I think I’ll just stick with what I’ve started – that’s difficult enough!

Do you have your sights set on Hollywood?

Overheard

A few gems I collected while doing the weekly shop this morning:

     'I don't want nuffin' sparkly. Me sparkly days are over.'

     'D'you want a sandwich for your lunch? Or something like a sandwich?'

     'We've all got to take him a birthday present. What d'you give to someone
       you can't stand?'

So many stories, so little time ...!