All in the mind
This morning started badly. I had officially declared it a writing day (which is to say I've not got enough paying work right now to keep me occupied all day every day*), so I sat down at my computer, dealt with a few emails, tried and failed to get into blogger to see what everyone was up to. Then I sat and stared at my Benfro working file, looking for the pattern that's trying to emerge from the random thoughts and witterings I've been jotting down these past weeks and months.
After half an hour of total blank, I switched the computer off and took the dogs for a walk. Then I went for a run.
I think it may have helped.
This afternoon I sat down in my old red rocking chair** with a big mug of rooibos tea, a lined A4 pad and a semi-chewed biro. From a fresh sheet, I started to list the things that have to happen to all the main characters between where I left them at the end of book two and where they'll be at the end of book four. It's not anywhere finished yet, and it's not in chronological order, as I keep remembering things I'd scribbled on notes to myself whilst writing the first two books and then lost. But it's possibly the most positive thing I've done with the whole Benfro project since finishing the major rewrite of book two.
After the pain of writing the first two books unplanned beyond the vaguest of sketches in my head, and the subsequent endless rewriting that inevitably ensued, I'm determined to have a decent structure for the rest of the series before I even begin writing it. I might not have a perfect plan, bit I will know more or less what everyone's supposed to be doing and when.
Of course, what will happen is I'll get to about page a hundred and think of something completely different that's so good it just has to go in. But at least with the sequence down on paper, I'll be able to shuffle things around and reorganise them with relative ease. And I can scribble things on my whiteboard too - it looks dead professional.
Then there's just the writing to get on with. I'm psyching myself up to do the two books back to back. I reckon that's 300k words, or about a thousand pages.***
This fantasy nonsense is hard work.
great thoughts happen here
* I'm not unemployed, I'm a consultant****
** Don't laugh, my sister gave me this for a birthday present almost twenty years ago. We've been through a lot together, my rocking chair and me.
*** OK, so that's just one book by Tad Williams or Stephen R Donaldson. Call me lightweight.
**** My favourite Dogbert quote.
After half an hour of total blank, I switched the computer off and took the dogs for a walk. Then I went for a run.
I think it may have helped.
This afternoon I sat down in my old red rocking chair** with a big mug of rooibos tea, a lined A4 pad and a semi-chewed biro. From a fresh sheet, I started to list the things that have to happen to all the main characters between where I left them at the end of book two and where they'll be at the end of book four. It's not anywhere finished yet, and it's not in chronological order, as I keep remembering things I'd scribbled on notes to myself whilst writing the first two books and then lost. But it's possibly the most positive thing I've done with the whole Benfro project since finishing the major rewrite of book two.
After the pain of writing the first two books unplanned beyond the vaguest of sketches in my head, and the subsequent endless rewriting that inevitably ensued, I'm determined to have a decent structure for the rest of the series before I even begin writing it. I might not have a perfect plan, bit I will know more or less what everyone's supposed to be doing and when.
Of course, what will happen is I'll get to about page a hundred and think of something completely different that's so good it just has to go in. But at least with the sequence down on paper, I'll be able to shuffle things around and reorganise them with relative ease. And I can scribble things on my whiteboard too - it looks dead professional.
Then there's just the writing to get on with. I'm psyching myself up to do the two books back to back. I reckon that's 300k words, or about a thousand pages.***
This fantasy nonsense is hard work.
great thoughts happen here* I'm not unemployed, I'm a consultant****
** Don't laugh, my sister gave me this for a birthday present almost twenty years ago. We've been through a lot together, my rocking chair and me.
*** OK, so that's just one book by Tad Williams or Stephen R Donaldson. Call me lightweight.
**** My favourite Dogbert quote.
Comments
And I think you're just underemployed.