Finally, I’ve ironed out the wrinkles in the start, and go to move on.
I have a plot line that I’m working on and will run for about three chapters.
That means the next plot line will develop from this writing.
Sorry, only a short report, writing to get on with …
So you think everything is running smoothly.
Think again!
So, here’s the thing …
I changed the start. It was bothering me. Bothering me so much I couldn’t sleep.
Parts of the first chapters were alluding to events which didn’t seem to add up, so I wrote the whole piece so I could draw upon it later on.
Yes, I like the idea of full-on action to start, bullets flying, people dying, and heart racing tension. I call it the ‘James Bond’ start, like what happens at the start of a James Bond film.
And, yes, you guessed it, I now have to make changes down the line in the first four chapters, now delaying the completion of chapter five for day six.
OK, stop whining and get writing!
There’s a fork in the road.
It could be worse.
Chapter two now seems to be about what it should be about and leads into chapter three.
But …
Oh no, here we go … that inevitable but …
Chapter four is now relatively new writing which requires a new chapter five, ready to give an extra twist to the plot. It hasn’t changed radically, but marginally.
For now.
Chapter five, tomorrow’s task, is completely new and will require some extra thought while I’m asleep.
Or perhaps I should make a few brief notes now!
How quickly things change.
Chapter two is now chapter three and I need to add some new words in what will become chapter five because of a small change in chapter one.
The plan is changing, but that is always the case when you start delving into the motivations and actions of characters, and how they may react to a certain situation.
I had sketchy outlines of characters to begin with, but they, like the plot, will evolve as I move forward.
Nothing like writing a story where the end is still not clear in my head.
Outside it is very hot, and inside where the writing is happening, I need to be cold, cold as Scotland in winter with snow, so getting into the scene is going to be quite difficult.
I wonder how low I can turn the air conditioner …
The best-laid plans of mice and men …
All come to grief when you begin writing. Sure, you have a plan, it may be meticulous, it might be scrambled, it might be almost perfect.
I thought mine was almost perfect.
Then chapter one started and I reached a fork in the road. This way or that, or another altogether.
It was a possibility I didn’t see in the planning stage.
Will it affect the outcome?
Too early to tell.
Part of chapter one has now become chapter two, and the ripple effect had changed the number of chapters.
The good news, 2,241 words written.
Let you know more tomorrow!
After spending a number of harrowing days trying to plan, plot, and replot, sort out the characters and their characteristics, discover locations and read up on them, learn as much as possible about the props, it was time to let loose the pencil.
But, sadly, all the plotting in the world does not translate to instant words on a page.
I started writing. Great.
I hated what I wrote.
Deleted it.
Started again.
The blank page was staring back at me, daring me to write more of those terrible words, disorganized thoughts, random passages that had no connection.
No, it’s not writer’s block.
It’s pressure, the pressure of having to write 1,800 odd words in a day, this day, and tomorrow, and the day after that.
Enough!
I go outside and look at the mess in the backyard, the one I’ve been promising to do something about for the last 10 years. Perhaps it’s now time.
As rubbish goes into the bin, ideas form, passages start writing themselves in my mind, plot lines seem to materialize and make sense.
I go back in and write.
Day 1 over, 1,916 words written.
Just think, come tomorrow I have to go through all this again. Sigh!
“I’m happy to be being here.”
Yes, I actually heard that answer given in a television interview, and thought, at the time, it was a quaint expression.
But in reality, this was a person for whom English was a second language, and that was, quite literally, their translation from their language to English.
Suffice to say, that person was not happy when lost the event she was participating in.
But that particular memory was triggered by another event.
Someone asked me how happy I was.
Happy is another of those words like good, thrown around like a rag doll, used without consequence, or regard for its true meaning.
“After everything that’s happened, you should be the happiest man alive!”
I’m happy.
I should be, to them.
A real friend might also say, “Are you sure, you don’t look happy.”
I hesitate but say, “Sure. I woke up with a headache,” or some other lame reason.
But, in reality, I’m not ‘happy’. Convention says that we should be happy if everything is going well. In my case, it is, to a certain extent, but it is what’s happening within that’s the problem. We say it because people expect it.
I find there is no use complaining because no one will listen, and definitely, no one likes serial complainers.
True.
But somewhere in all those complaints will be the truth, the one item that is bugging us.
It is a case of whether we are prepared to listen. Really listen.
And not necessarily take people at their word.
It is an interesting phrase, one that means someone is working overtime at the office till late at night, or early next morning.
You know, “Been burning the midnight oil again, Frank?”
It prompted me to look up its real meaning. It goes back to the days before electricity where a worker toiled on into the night using only an oil lamp or candles.
In my office, I have neon lights that are so bright you would think it was a television studio. Not quite the atmosphere needed when looking for inspiration. That inspiration might be better attained in a more subdued light, and an oil lamp or candles.
That aside, those hours leading up to and after midnight are the best time for me to write.
At times the silence is deafening, another rather quaint but relatively true expression.
At others, there are what I call the sounds of silence, which for some reason are much easier to hear than during the daylight hours.
The bark of a dog.
The rustle of leaves in the trees.
The soft pattering of rain on the roof.
The sound of a train horn from a long way away.
THe sound of a truck using its brakes on the highway, also a long way away.
The sound of people talking in the street.
I’ve never really thought about it until now, but it will be something I can use in one of my stories.
Perhaps it will be the theme of another.
Damn, sidetracked again!
There are a lot of words in the English language that can strike fear into the hearts of even the bravest of men and women.
Two are renovations and editing.
We are currently deep in the first and it’s running something like this:
Firstly, we are updating the ensuite, and this has been relatively painless.
Secondly, we are fixing up the outside of the house. The intention was to put in a retaining wall and build a stone garden with succulents.
Ah, the best-laid plans!
This led to, let’s render the walls, get rid of the unsightly bricks.
Fine.
But before that, we need to repaint the roof an appropriate colour to match the walls.
Fine.
Got the roof done, got the walls rendered.
Now we need a carport. Fine.
Back to the garden, and so on, and so forth. Much is still to be done.
It’s like editing, a chore that I’m beginning to like less and less because it’s taking on the dimensions of a renovation.
It isn’t a matter of correcting spelling mistakes, sentence structure errors, or badly place punctuation.
It’sd a matter of weeding out the superfluous text, cutting and more cutting, taking out anything that does not propel the story to a logical and unexpected end, let alone having to rewrite at the beginning because of an afterthought later on.
Starting to sound like the garden, rendering, roof scenario?
It’s harder editing than writing.
So many words, so much brilliance, ending up on the cutting room floor.
Perhaps it’s time to go back to the renovations. They seem more fun than editing.
No?
I am teetering on the edge of a precipice.
Of course, literally, that might mean I’m standing at the top of a craggy cliff looking down at a bed of rocks.
One that would hurt a lot if I landed there.
But there are many ideas of what that precipice might be, metaphorically.
It might mean, in an argument, you’re about to say something you’ll regret or can’t take back.
It might mean you are one action away from turning your parent. or someone else, into a green-eyed monster, and do something you thought you’d never do.
Pushing them to the precipice.
It might mean you are one thought or idea away from solving a problem.
Like the title of your next book.
Or the formula to create a warp drive.
Or perhaps a simpler problem like where the money is coming from to pay next weeks bills.
My precipice?
The next plotline for my current book.
And, no, I’m not one of these writers who plan the whole novel before writing it.
It just happens.
I like to write my stories, in the same manner, it would be for the reader, not knowing what will happen next.
It’s cold and wet at the top of the cliff …
Damn! Just had an idea. Got to go.
