Of Wednesday Wishfulness December 9, 2009
Posted by Jen in : Bits and Pieces , 19 commentsDear Santa/God
(are you the same person? I have doubts that there could be two tubby dudes with the whole beard and robes thing going on? Your secret’s safe with me)
Hello whiskery one, how are you? All set for your busy night? Have you figured out an alternative to reindeer power for the sleigh yet? Reindeer have rights you know. There are rules now, written down by very important people who make rules for a living. Have you thought about solar power? Perhaps not so good since your jolly jaunts are generally made at night. Powered by starlight, how about that? They’d love it on Dragon’s Den though they’d probably say the idea was patented by Neil Gaiman or something and then they’d heckle you until you cried. It’s a tough gig.
Anyhow, just thought I’d drop you a quick line with this year’s wishlist. And yes, I’ve been a good girl. Quite good, anyway. Good enough. Hmm.
I would like:
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Sparkly writing oomph in a golden bucket that I can ladle over my laptop so as to avoid reading gossip on the Daily Mail Online. I obviously don’t *actually* read gossip online, and certainly not on the Daily Mail, but you know what I mean. (You can’t see everything, can you? Oh, bugger. I won’t do it any more, ok?)
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A purple velveteen chaise longue upon which I will lounge while having terribly writerly thoughts. Sometimes I will have to think for extended periods (with my eyes closed) and it will be a special chaise longue which wakes serenades me with Elizabethan madrigals floating on magical rays of sunlight which will bathe me in warmth and deliciousness and make me thin while I write fabulous novels with plots that glisten potently and make people cry a little bit.
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Peace and harmony to all mankind, except the really horrid ones like the old bag in the Co-op who banged her trolley really hard into my bottom and then gave me quite a mean look.
If you have trouble with that stuff, some Hotel Chocolat rum truffles would be nice. I’ve been good enough to deserve those, surely?
Cheers mate.
Lots of love
Jen X
Of Distracted Dithering December 4, 2009
Posted by Jen in : Journal, Novel , 14 commentsCan you see my teeth from there? No? Well, I can reliably inform you that they are a-gnashing. My fingers are a-twitching. The words for Novel 2 are bursting to tumble out onto the page, the characters jostling for prime position. But. Novel 1 was very much character-led. I loved my characters, had my setting sorted and wahooo, off I went. I took the organic instinctive approach (aka making it up as you go along) and it was fun. Well, fun until I got mauled by the RNA critic lady. She was right about one thing though. Novel 1 lacked plot. And now, of course, I’m obsessing. I actually feel a little bit sick about launching in and letting the story scatter itself. I’m not sure what the story is. I have some of the characters, some of the theme and that sort of thing. But that’s not the story, is it? The characters have to actually ‘do’ things. This is, I suspect, bothering me more than it should. I’m too scared to write without knowing everything in advance. But I don’t want to know everything in advance. It’s like life (innit) (she said, philosophically). It’s tempting to have everything mapped out, and possibly know where it’s going, rather than lurch along uncontrollably, falling down potholes and being surprised by sudden gusts of stuff.
Perhaps I’m thinking too much. I know what you’re going to say. Just. Write. The. Words. Perhaps the plot will become apparent as I go. As with life, I can make sense of it in hindsight. So yeah. Abandon ye The Thinkingness.
This blog post didn’t turn out quite as I intended at all. But maybe it doesn’t matter. That’s life, I s’pose. Sometimes it turns out better than you thought it would. So that’s nice, isn’t it?
