Friday 22 June 2012

Treat every chapter as a short story

Treat every chapter as a short story – that’s what I keep telling myself and its working I think my writing is clearer and I am cutting down on the pointless info too. So I wonder how many words I will end up knocking out of The Bittersweet. It currently stands at approximately 82,000 words. I’m happy with that.

It’s odd I look back on when I first started writing. Googling ‘how to write a novel’  when I was in Goa, scribbling in a little notepad my words – that were soon to be edited so that they bore no semblance to what I had first written. Looking back it has been  along journey – well not so long – from 2008 till now that’s only 4 years – well 4 years is enough time. A book every two years in now my mission. I was reading Danielle Steels blog post the other day – she said that she types till her fingers bleed and that she works on a manuscript for 20 hours a day- wow no wonder she is where she is – after all she said it has all been down to hard work. Interesting fact - Did you know that her first book was published but the next 5 were not! Crazy huh! Its tough out there- it always has been – is it any harder now? Well now publishers don’t take your work directly you need an agent- or has that always been around- probably so.

I finished Sugar and Spice and I must say – go out and buy it- its good very good. I haven’t read much about the author although I started following her on Twitter. She is extremely knowledgeable about her subject matter which is probably why its such a good read and of course its controversial and makes you think… and we all like a thought provoking book.

I am currently reading a friends manuscript (from writing group) – of course I am in awe of his writing and his grammar and its nice to read something that someone you know has written. Also it’s nice reading the full thing as opposed to just snippets when we are in the group- I am going to provide general feedback about the book and not specifics- I am better at that then normal critiquing. 

I did a couple of Jubilee short stories the other day on the lens and the quill- weak is how I would describe them but Urmi said they were strong together- I’m not sure. Sometimes I worry that putting up ‘not so good’ and ‘never refined’ (I spend about a half hour on each max) stories up on that blog that people may read them and not want to read my books – which are totally a labour of love- I might add- I worry about this but I suppose at the end of the day its me-  My writing isn’t perfect and the stories are part of me and its all learning at the end of the day I guess… gee I’m such a geek.

Gee… I haven’t used that word since I read Archie comics. What happened to Archie comics? Jughead Jones was my favourite- I wonder what that says about me. I am sure someone somewhere has analysed this… The fact that I like Jughead Jones the best. Well Betty could be a little flaky, Veronica was up herself along with Reggie and Archie was okay but he still always fell for Veronica when we all knew Betty was nice- but I suppose nice doesn’t count sometimes…and I was only about 10 years old!

That’s another blog post all on its own!