This last week has just flown by. I reviewed my chicken scrawl from the sessions at AussieCon. Hmmn, my handwriting is simply awful! I think I am so use to typing now I rarely write much of anything down. I doubt my ‘notes’, especially out of context, would add much value so I think I’ll just go back to my usual ‘what I have been up to’ blogging style.
This week I’m actively writing a story, hopefully the one I will enter into the Age newspapers 3,000 word short story competition. The deadline is still 15 days away so if it doesn’t pan out, I can always whip up another one. I’m learning writing a smaller story is actually quite difficult.
Someone, I can’t remember who, at one of the sessions said most writers have a natural proficiency for either short stories or novels but not usually both. I think I lean toward novels simply because I like the process of exploring where things go in far greater depth. As a writer you sort of fall in love with your characters, even the bad ones. It’s great fun to become them, well in your head at least. This process is too limited if I only have a predetermined size constraint.
What else? Well I’m stealing time here and there to chew through Duncan Lay’s ‘The Wounded Guardian’, book 1 of his trilogy. I haven’t read much Fantasy of late as the last few years I seem to be devouring Clive Cussler’s and re-reading everything Matthew Reilly. I’m not sure if it’s Duncan’s writing style but I’m hooked, completed engrossed in the unusual story of a ‘I’ve seen and done too many bad things’ soldier and an energetic 6 year old girl who drives him nuts. A very unusual pairing, offering Duncan plenty of room for humorous situations, to which he does a very solid job.
Having two girls and one of them being 7, I’m finding plenty of parenting ‘nodding moments’ in the story. I think I can learn a lot from this book. Not only how to deal with my kids but how to improve my writing in a number of areas. When I met Duncan he mentioned how he did 20 full revisions. Many detailed edits before the book was picked up by an agent and eventually published.
Contrary to this, so far I have completed 3 full edits of Impatience and 2 more partial edits of key sections. All of these were done before I really understood how to edit in a effective manner. I’m also still developing my writers ‘voice’.
So yeah, I guess I have more work to do!
