When I was young we used to play a card game called 'Round Britain'. I can't remember much about it now, but the novel I'm currently working on reminds me of it in the sense that the characters have spent a lot of time travelling, almost to the extremities of mainland Britain and back. This …
The next thing
There are several schools of thought about how to get things done. One is to carry on with one project until you've finished, another is to start doing lots of things at once so that you don't get bored. I suppose my approach falls somewhere in between these two extremes. I don't like to find …
Warming up weekend
When I call this 'warming up weekend' I'm certainly not referring to the weather, which is cold and wet with traces of snow. I don't feel encouraged to go out, and the only thing to do seems to be to sit in the conservatory and prepare for April's writing challenge. I did wonder whether to …
As easy as 1, 2, 3
Up to now I haven't generally been very good at multi-tasking when it comes to writing, but I think I may be getting the hang of it. I now have 3 very different novels in mind which I hope to write this year. Fortunately the NaNoWriMo people seem to have been tuning into my plans, …
Almost ready
My latest mystery novel is unexpectedly almost ready for publication. I didn't realise this until yesterday, when I looked at the number and seriousness level of edits waiting to be done in the printed copy I used for proof-reading, and saw that because there were very few plot holes left (but I'm willing to be …
Knowing where to start
A trip to the cinema to see Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln' made me think about how difficult I would have found it as a writer to know where to start writing the script for it. Actually, one of the very many good things about this movie was that it made me think about quite a lot …
If I only had a theme
I was reminded this morning, when reading someone else's blog post about themes (http://yamuses.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/identifying-your-storys-theme.html), that I've been struggling a bit with a theme for 'The Lion and Unicorn Quest'. Well, struggling a lot. It's worrying me because in my experience my novels are better if I start out with a theme which I can then …
Beware of the interloper
Although I've managed to avoid redding up the house (see previous post) and I found myself sending off a couple of Christmas cards yesterday because they were for people overseas and I put off going to the Post Office with them at an earlier stage, I haven't completely wasted my Christmas and New Year holidays. …
I think there’s something in it.
Today I carried out the self-imposed task which I had been dreading and looking forward to almost equally: I re-read the draft of 'The Lion and Unicorn Quest' I wrote in November. This is probably the scariest moment during the writing process, especially if the whole thing has been written in a rush, to a …
Building up a head of steam
As arbitrarily as it started, Fifties month is now at an end, despite the heading to this post. I've now become submerged beneath a rising tide of pantomime preparations and Christmas-related stuff - if only they didn't always coincide! A head of steam is what I'm hoping to build up before I look at my …
Cecilia Peartree - woman of mystery 