CW: This is a tough one
#PennedPossibilities 436 — Did your MC ever feel as though their innocence had been lost? What moment in their life could be described as the end of their innocence?
Yes
You’ll have to read the book
Which means I’ll have to publish it
Which means I’ll have to finish it and get it edited and …
Let’s just say, EG was assaulted by someone she knew from school when she was eighteen and gave birth nine months later
I made a rough and ready synopsis of the WiP by copy and pasting key sentences into Notes then printing
Now marking up major threads
Next, identify minor threads
Looking for loose ends I need to tie in
#WiP #novel #amWritingFiction
#EG2 #novelx4 #amEditing
#WritingCommunity
I've been reading the wip. It's taken a few weeks but I'm almost done. 'Reading through' soon became line editing, rearranging, sequencing, adding & deleting scenes, etc
I'm pleased overall. I think it's getting there
I've also been binge reading, mostly cosy, Christmas things but also Kazuo Ishiguro (Klara and the Sun) and The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett & a sci-fi YA novel Silver Dream by Neil Gaiman, Michael & Mallory Reaves
Happy New Year!
Word Weavers Dec 22
How did you decide you wanted to write a book?
I'd compose but I'm no musician
I'd be a poet but it never sounds right
I had bits of stories but didn't know what to do with them **2
I wrote *1 after 2 weeks volunteering on a dig
I wanted a story about 'real' archaeology
Having written one, I kept going
*1 The Summer Dig
**2 Tom & Theresa
3 Climate Bridges
4 Elyssia Gadnall
(Working titles. Unpublished)
#WordWeavers
#amWritingFiction #WritingCommunity
#novelx1234 #EG2
Imminence vs Immanence
Did I know this? I'm not sure I did
Writing a tricky passage in the wip* I use the word imminence. Checking the spelling, I find an alternative spelling: immanence. What, I wonder, is the difference? Oh! Really?
Apparently, I'm not the only one to have this epiphany
https://www.gaylecue.com/blog/imminence-vs-immanence
* 'Counsel for the defence is ... paralysed by the imminence of the tsunami about to break over him and wash everything away.'
I'm reviewing the wip (novelx4) checking for pace and continuity & inevitably doing some edit-on-the-fly. The thing is complete but for a few chapters still to be filled in. I need to get a feel for the overall shape before I do that, hence a review.
It's going well so far: no major problems; a few clarifications to add in and stuff like that. I'd like to add a bit more sparkle, though. Does anyone have magic wand I could borrow? 🌟 😁
It took about ten seconds to dream up this 'emergency' scenario but it has taken me four days to write it, and that is just the immediate action. What the longer term consequences are, I have yet to discover - but there will be some. The will be some!
23. Do your characters ever express gratitude to each other?
Funny you should ask that
Writing yesterday, several times, I caught mc Elyssia expressing thanks to other characters:
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she said. That was probably too many Thank yous, she thought, but who’s counting?
She had just escaped imprisonment in the boot (aka trunk) of a car so perhaps it was not unreasonable
#wordWeavers
#EG2 #novelx4
#AmWritingFiction
#WritingCommunity
A couple of days ago, I was feeling so stressed (filling in a tax form - to claim tax back), I couldn't even think of writing
I dreamt up a completely new situation in my wip (mc kidnapped, abducted from her room and driven away in the boot of a car at night) and exorcised / extirpated / got rid of (what is the word?) the stress through writing. It worked!
Now, all I have to is deal with the consequences
I write best in the half hour before lunch and the half hour before supper. I seem to need to feel the deadline rushing up at me.
Today, I did some writing mid afternoon, too (half an hour before tea and cake)
PennedPossibilities 126 [ ... playing catch up ]
Which of the senses does your MC rely on the most?
Sixth sense
It's what gets her into trouble but, sometimes, it has its uses. Sometimes, you just have to trust that she knows what she's doing. Sometimes, you wish you hadn't
(When I say 'you', I mean me, as a writer)
#PennedPossibilities
#EG2 #novelx4 #amWritingFiction #WritingCommunity
Nov 1
Introduce your story as a high-budget film ...
Snow falling
Young woman, cellar, gagged, tied to chair
Lecture hall, students, images of archaeology on screen
Voice: [woman, American]
"Imagine yourself back there. What do you do?"
Black. Light infuses lower left, sea
Voice: [Scottish]
"In the beginning ..."
Bomb blast
Young woman walking, trees, flowers
Voice: [man, English]
"God! She's so annoying!"
ELYSSIA
Coming soon!
#WordWeavers 26 October:
Is your MC more of a people person, an animal person or a plant person?
Elyssia is a people person, every time
She lives amongst plants, they're essential environment, she would miss them if they were gone (I think). As for animals, well, yes, fine but they are for other people not for her especially except, in dreams, in the dead of night, she is a fox stepping stealthily through dew drenched meadows
#WordWeavers #amWritingFiction #WritingCommunity
#EG2 #novelx4
Came out of the writing hut this morning thinking it was Sunday.
Well, I had been writing a scene with a group of people having Sunday lunch together. It took me a couple of minutes to reconnect with this world and disengage from that world.
Is it still Thursday?
#amWritingFiction #writersProblems #WritingCommunity
#whatDayIsItToday
#EG2 #novelx4
Did a spot of writing today, snuck in a few sentences and a page of conversation. Had a crime to solve. MC Elyssia solved it while eating treacle pudding and telling the assembled company how she knew everything
Satisfactory, I think
Oh, they're in the Outer Hebrides, on Lewis, looking at archaeology: stones and stuff, very ancient. It is April 2011. The wedding is a week away, her wedding .. & his
A week? Why didn't someone tell me?
#WordWeavers October 4 - character development, world building, plot -- how much attention do you pay to each?
Does character drive plot or does plot drive character?
Both happen, I think. There is continuous interaction between character and plot. I pay attention to each equally
Mine are real world stories so the world is already there for better or worse
#WordWeavers
#amWriting #WritingCommunity
#EG2 #novelx4 (& 1,2,3)
I wrote some words today
Oh, boy
Words! Lines of words
Sentences
Paragraphs, even
A whole page and more
Two, perhaps, and a half
It's been a while
We had ten days away and then ten days since trying, and failing, to grab the reins of the runaway horse that is my wip but, at last, today, I'm 'back in the saddle' although it feels more like bare-back riding
Let's hope I can hang on for a few days
WordWeavers Day 4:
Does your antagonist(s) have a chance to become a better person?
Who are you asking?
Elyssia would say everyone has a chance of becoming a better person
Joshua would say he has no idea
Me? No chance. Dominic Brewster is rotten through and through, unredeemable (for the purposes of the story 😜 )
#EG2 #novelx4
#WordWeavers
#amWritingFiction
#WritingCommunity
TimeTravelAuthors 29: Alternate title for your story
I’m not a time traveller except in the sense of living from day to day but the topic rang bells
For some reason, the current WiP started under the title Apple Pie Order. It now goes under the generic Six Months in the Life of Elyssia Gadnall
I need something better:
The Christmas Eve Bomb
Whose Baby?
Young, Pregnant and Theological
??
Nah
#EG2 #novelx4
#AmWriting #AmWritingFiction
#WritingCommunity
#TimeTravelAuthors
WritingWonders 26Aug
If your MC wrote books, what would they write? Why?
Elyssia - popular theology
e.g. 'In Defence of Augustine of Hippo'
Because, why not?
(And, also, to be honest, because Sue Feenan would not like it. It would be a refutation of Dr Feenan's latest tome 'Augustine, the Man Who Destroyed the World' ... aka 'Augustine the Hippo'; see novelx1)
Augustine was not all bad!
He was mostly good
And human
