Once Upon a Time…

My reading material is somewhat mimicking life currently as I lurch precariously from one genre to another. Jane Austen to Quentin Tarantino? Is that even possible? It is, yes, when Tarantino's first novel ascends the world's stage. I love Quentin Tarantino. It's no secret. I will bore anyone and everyone about why I think he …

Ease up mother

I've been trying to do a bit of reading in and around all the other things I'm not actually achieving. Every year I look at War and Peace and think 'this year...'. However, it's not to be. Certainly not in 2020. So, instead I'm just plodding through the biography about Ida Lupino. The biography is …

And the sub plot thickens…

So, tell me, how is it that everything seems to be coming along nicely, there's a plan, the word count is ticking up, and then WHAM! a side plot just hits you out of nowhere? Churchill Barriers: Orkney. These were built in WWII to keep the submarines at bay. Enormous concrete blocks were put in …

Motivations and Inciting Incidents

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com Our designated movie night this week was set aside for John Wick. 'It ticks all the boxes' I was told. Keanu Reeves. Tick. Yep. All boxes ticked. I actually quite enjoyed this absurdist hitman killfest and am quite looking forward to the other two. I also found it quite …

Paper. Pen. Post its.

Current favourite notebook I had July all planned out. You see, I finished my second Western on Monday and thought I'd get back to it after a bit of a break and then sort out the plot holes. In the meantime I had planned to work on something else. But it hasn't quite worked out …

The book with no name

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com I finished a day ahead of schedule! Came in at about 46k words and overall I'm quite pleased. I'm going to put it aside for a few days, or maybe even a few weeks, and regroup. It's so much easier to focus and digest it all with a bit …

Violence

Photo by NEOSiAM 2020 on Pexels.com It all started off so well. I had an idea, I had a hero, I had a plan. I got a third of the way in and realised that it needed....'something'. It needed more than a bit of mild peril. It needed something really juicy and it needed it …

Introducing Characters

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com I think the idea for this post started off as one thing and has turned into another. It was perhaps originally intended to address something along the lines of 'when is it too late to go into detail about a character we've met before?' Or something similarly snappy. However, …

What to do with edits

Photo by bongkarn thanyakij on Pexels.com So, following on from last week, now I have this feedback for my short Western story, what to do? I need to consolidate my drafts, that's the first thing. It's all a little murky though as I converted the story from Scrivener to PDF/Pages for my reviewers and then …

Writing for…?

As if by luck/fluke/accident/will power I appear to have two complete manuscripts, with a third bringing up the rear. One other person has read the shortest of the three and has provided favourable feedback (but that was my husband and we're in lockdown together...). I am now in a quandary. Other people have, very kindly, …