Thursday 13 June 2013

Writing is an extreme priviledge...

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.

Amy Tan

It has been one of those weeks. Absolutely manic at work and several work in progresses to think about! 

Yesterday – on my writing day I thought I would get stuck into Poison in the Water (I’m going to call this PW from now). My goal was to hit 15,000 words and I managed it but then I got thinking is it better to write drivel or have writers block? PW is really not working. I mean I am struggling with the writing of it. I am sure this must have happened on the other books but I really feel like there is no tension.  Perhaps because this is the first book I have written with just one viewpoint

I remember with The Bittersweet Vine I started with one viewpoint. Then I introduced a sub plot. The ideas came so easily to me with the Bittersweet Vine. I am struggling with PW and does that mean that the story will not flow? Do all writers feel like this during some point in the novel writing process?

I need to spend some time on Poison in The Water. However, just as my mind was getting into gear I received 40 queries from my editor on the Bittersweet! Argh!!! Another step further in the publishing process. I spent the weekend on them and hopefully every little query has been bottomed out!

I’ll let you know how it goes. This also means I still haven’t signed up for that grammar course. I know I just have to get on with it. Back to PW - I want more than one view point to build tension. I also need more dramatic things to happen to the main character for the book to be fast paced. At the moment the main character is just bobbing along. It seems that the plot is mostly at the end of the book (I’ve already written the final act! I’ve never done this before so maybe that is where I went wrong). I may follow the Cornerstones three act summary and have a look at the graph of tension for PW. This may highlight where I need to add tension. Mmm or do I just write it and add the tension later. I am wary of doing this (although I am sure I did this for Goa Traffic and The Bittersweet Vine). It’s confusing. Perhaps I need another break from writing or conversely perhaps I need to shut away the distractions of Bittersweet and Goa Traffic and just concentrate on Poison in the water. Perhaps Ill ask at my writing group. A spider diagram of the plot and how characters are interlinked has helped before so maybe I’ll do one of them.

I am also half way through answering a list of interview questions for my blog tour! If anyone is interested in hosting – let me know! I was going to do this blog tour pre-release to build up some buzz but should I do it post release so I can put a link to Amazon or something? Decisions.

I suppose I can do it pre-release and do the Goodreads giveaway and email to people etc after.  Anyway take care writing people! I will get back to my multi tasking and hopefully make a breakthrough with Poison in the Water