Thursday Thoughts: Writing Goat’s Story

Hello,

First up I feel the need to apologise for the terrible quality of the images in this post, since installing Mavericks my scanner no longer works, and no amount of searching has yet found a suitable (read: free) work around for this, so the images are taken with my phone. Yeesh.

I wanted to use this post to talk about the short story that I published on Tuesday and how it came about. I also spoke briefly on Monday about a writing exercise that I find helpful.

In the image above you can see a breakdown of the story. I will talk you round how I map out and plan the story.

Starting with the left hand bubble in the centre we have the Title of the story. This can be temporary, but it does help to start by naming your story.

Directly above that is the Subject of the story. This isn’t a detail of the plot, but a quick summation of the story. This is helpful if you feel you have a block in your writing, remind yourself what you are writing about, is what you are trying to write in service of that? Mine is simply: Goat eats pages after writing them.

The next bubble anti-clockwise is the Setting. Where and when is it set? I’d originally planned for the book to all take place from Mr. Goat’s house, but eventually moved the final scene to be elsewhere. Yours could be in the future, the past, on an alien planet…

Next left is What Changes. My story is about a goat who eats his writing when he finishes it, so the change I wanted was that he meets someone who can help him fulfil his wish to write. Your character is destined to be a different person when the story concludes, whether for the better or worse. What is it that happens to them?

At the bottom is Plot. This you must breakdown into three parts: 1. Inciting Incident – what happens that sets our story in motion? For my story, Mr. Goat eats his work and this makes him sad. 2. Complicit – How do they react to this and what actions do they take? Their involvement allows for the rest of the story to unfold. If Mr. Goat chose to carry on eating his work, it wouldn’t make for a story. He chooses to abandon his writing, breaks his routines and sets in motion the involvement of Nanny Goat. 3. Climax – I’ve spoken about endings before, here it is again, how will the story end? I wrote “Tells someone his story. They surprise him by writing it.”

Connected to the Title is the Major Theme that in the instance of Goat’s Story was of not trying something for a fear of failure. In this case as a metaphor for love, which you can see above as a Minor Theme. You can have as many minor themes as you need. Again they are good to come back to if you’re struggling to write, remind yourself what it’s about.

There’s the story mapped out in a very loose terms. There’s no right or wrong way to write this out, perhaps the themes will help dictate the plot, perhaps the plot is what comes first and you explore the themes as texture. It’s a good tool to be able to look at your story at a glance.

A similar exercise to this is regards to character. Start with your main character in the middle and all the bubbles coming out are what he/she Wants. I didn’t do this for Goat’s Story as it was a fairly straight forward piece, but for the book I have a page all about Evin with numerous bubbles coming out which lead to sub-bubbles. You can carry this further by starting a new page with your protagonist in the middle and the first bubbles around are all the secondary characters, from them you state what they want. I’ve got another page like this with Evin’s family, friends, people she’ll meet and the antagonist. You are really looking to explore what makes those characters. There will always be pieces that come out of it that you hadn’t expected, and you will see opportunities to create scenes where those characters either get or are denied the thing that they want.

If you are writing right now and having some trouble with a character and what to do next try one of the character exercises and see what comes from it.

From that basic diagram of the story I tend to move to a more detailed outline of what I want to write. For me it’s usually the major beats of the story in fairly broad strokes and I am constantly writing questions, be it whether the character would or should do something, to giving myself a couple of options for a scene. Below is the two pages for Goat’s Story.

It was at this point (despite the note on the diagram page) that the story organically became in the style of a children’s story. It seemed a logically extension for a metaphorical story as the best children’s stories are metaphors.

I’m never a slave to this outline, but I find that it helps keep me on track. In the novel I have given an entire story that I had planned for Evin to another character, which has slightly derailed the outline, but that story is better where it is now.

I hope you’ve found this interesting. I will post the story breakdowns for each short story after publication, although the posts will not contain as much explanation of the process as this. I was fortunate that the story came quite easily to me on this one, I’m sure there will be a story that won’t be so fortunate.

And next week I will reveal the details of my novel!

– Andrew

 

Short Story 1: Goat’s Story

Hello,

Here is the first short story written based off of a suggestion submitted to this blog.
The next submission date for story suggestions is Friday 1st November.

I hope you enjoy this story.

Goat’s Story
By Andrew Davidson
Based on the suggestion by “J”

On the edge of town, in a dark wood, in a simple house made of wood, lives Mr. Goat. To me, you, and any of our friends, Mr. Goat would seem like any normal goat, with silver fur, a black beard, and small surefooted hooves. During the long hot days he would work in the fields, bleating a good life for himself. But Mr. Goat was sad.

At night Mr. Goat sat in his windowless study and wrote fantastical stories. He imagined worlds so detailed in their description, so beautiful in their words that his heart would ache that he couldn’t visit them. But that wasn’t why Mr. Goat was sad. He was sad because he ate every page of his stories the moment he was finished writing them. At the end of the night he would have nothing to show for his hard work. This was why Mr. Goat was sad.

Every Saturday Mr. Goat would usually walk the short distance from his house, past the Library Tree, beyond the Swan Lake, and around the Shrew Police Station to the stationery shop owned by Nanny Goat, where he would buy some blank paper to write his stories. On this particular Saturday he hadn’t come and Nanny Goat was worried.

Mr. Goat sat in his front room and sulked. He wasn’t very happy at all. He had decided that he would never write another story ever again. “Better to never create than always destroy.” He said to himself.

There was a knock at his door.

Mr. Goat was not accustomed to having visitors and wondered, as he trotted towards his square front door, “Who could be disturbing my quality misery time?” He opened the door with a huff and found Nanny Goat standing outside, an umbrella over her head, although it wasn’t raining.

“May I come in?” She asked.

Mr. Goat stepped aside to let her enter his house.

“You have a very nice house.” Said Nanny Goat taking in the uneven timberwork, the wilting flower in a vase, and the worn red rug under her hooves.

Mr. Goat was trying very hard to be miserable and found her compliments very unhelpful in that regard. He had a mind to tell her as such, which was lucky because she turned to look him in his yellow eyes and asked, “Where were you today? I expected you to come and buy some paper for your stories, but you did not come. I was worried.”

“I have given up writing!” He proclaimed, meaning that to be the end of the discussion. “And how did you know where I live?”

“I asked a Stoat, who told me to speak to the Squirrels, they told me to ask the Badgers, but they have all gone into hiding, I couldn’t ask the Shrews because you have to be missing for twenty-four hours, I found a Fallow Deer who told me to ask a Chaffinch, but they were just rude. I don’t like the Chaffinches. But I met a Mole who said he knew you from the Woodland Association and here I am.”

Mr. Goat thought it was a very tall tale, though he did agree about the Chaffinches.

“Well, now you have found me and I am quite alright. Please leave, I was enjoying some quality misery and would like to get back to it.”

“But why, Mr. Goat, have you stopped writing?”

“Because I always end up eating my stories, so I think I would rather not bother.”

“I am very sorry to hear that,” said Nanny Goat, “But would you please do me the honour of telling me one of your stories before you finish forever. I would very much like to hear one of them.”

Mr. Goat had never told any of his stories before and thought that maybe if they couldn’t last forever in the pages of a book, that maybe it could last as long as it took him to tell Nanny Goat. Yes, he thought, Just this one story and then I will finish forever.

He told her a most fantastic story full of wonder and heroics, of good guys winning and defeating the bad guys, and of love. Nanny Goat sat quietly on the rug and listened intently to his story. She never once reacted to an exciting moment, never blinking as the hero almost died, and she didn’t sigh with relief when the hero won the heart of the girl. When the story was finished she stood up, said thank you, and left the house.

Mr. Goat felt worse than ever and went to sleep in a very bad mood indeed.

A tapping at his door woke Mr. Goat the next morning. Tap-tap-tap. Mr. Goat heaved himself up on his front legs, then on his back legs, and trotted grumpily to his door. “Two guests in two days.” He grumbled to himself. “Quite unacceptable.”

On his doorstep stood Mr. Goose, his white feathers and orange beak immaculately turned out as befitting someone of his position.

“Mr. Goose, sir. To what do I owe this fine pleasure?”

“Mr. Goat,” Replied Mr. Goose, “The pleasure is mine if you would care to join me for a walk.”

Well here was a fine thing if ever there was one. The Geese were well known for their self-important ways and were more likely to honk at you than talk to you. Mr. Goat agreed without question, grabbing his hat from behind the door and following Mr. Goose.

Soon they were past Nanny Goat’s stationery shop, that Mr. Goat noticed was closed, he was not accustomed to seeing it in that state. They waddled and trotted respectively toward the Town Hall that the rabbits had burrowed under the largest oak tree in the wood. As they entered the Hall the gathered animals hushed themselves and stared at Mr. Goat as he followed Mr. Goose to the front of the Hall. All the animals were there, the Ducks, the Foxes, and the Moles were all facing the wrong direction; the Frogs had come too, as had the Owls and the Hedgehogs. Above him were Nightingales, Sparrows, Woodpeckers and Willow Tits. Mr. Goat was pleased not to see any Chaffinches.

Standing behind a lectern made of mud was Nanny Goat. On the lectern Mr. Goat could just see a collection of paper bound together with straw. No, he thought, It can’t be.

“Mr. Goat,” said Nanny, “With the help of the mice we stayed up all night and wrote the story you told me, every word. I would like to read it to these animals, so that they can all share in your wonderful tale.”

Mr. Goat’s heart beat faster and his chin quivered. Throughout the story he turned his head to look at the excited faces of the other animals, his friends. They cried at the sad bits, they laughed at the funny bits, Mr. Owl put a protective wing around his wife when it seemed that there was no escape for the hero, a Nightingale sang with happiness when victory finally came, and the animals all applauded by stamping the ground at the Happily Ever After.

Mr. Goat had never felt happier. Here was his story being read to a group of animals that had loved every moment of it. He had hardly dared dream that such a thing could happen to him, let alone the demands he received afterwards to write another.

It was with a heavy heart that he spoke to the gathering of animals to say, “I am sorry my friends but I cannot write you another story, for I am cursed to destroy anything that I try to create.”

The animals in the hall all groaned in unison.

Nanny Goat stepped up beside Mr. Goat and nuzzled the side of his face with hers. “But you are forgetting Mr. Goat, that you have me, and the mice. We will help you write your stories. You tell us what to write and we will write them, together.”

Mr. Goat thought for a moment. He had been enjoying his misery, or so he thought, but there was a spark in his heart as he had listened to Nanny Goat read his story. Maybe he didn’t have to write alone, maybe there was something greater out there to experience and enjoy if only he would let himself enjoy it. He just had to believe in himself.

“Together.” He said.

And they lived happily ever after.

NOTES

• Please feel free to repost this story, however a link to this blog must be included.
• This story cannot be edited or otherwise altered in reproduction without prior written consent.
• This story cannot be used commercially in print, in part or in whole, without prior written consent.

 

Monday Musings: Inspiration

Hello,

Here’s a delightfully intangible thing: Inspiration.

What is it? Where does it come from? How can we harness it? How can we generate it?

I had planned to write a very sweeping statement about what my inspiration is, and I was thinking through my previous writing to confirm the statement. However, as I thought back I realised that this wasn’t the case at all. I feel a little like I’ve been lying to people. I had to think more, where DID my inspiration come from? I had planned to say that ideas come to me in a very visual way, often a single striking image that over time becomes a story. Even though this isn’t true in every case, it is where I will start.

It is common that I will get an image of something and work my way backward from there. One such image was of a yellow and red sunset sky, silhouetted against which was a flock of birds that transformed into a formation of military aircraft across the image. For the longest time I didn’t know what that story was, but I was interested in the imagery of it. In time it became a story about a lone survivor of a battle, wounded and going delirious who befriends a young French girl who is playing the in woods. They were not able to communicate with each other but after all the fighting the soldier has witness she was a vision of an innocent future yet possible.

Sometimes I get a particular phrase stuck in my head. My novel stemmed from the phrase “They’re here” and worked forward from there originally as a very straight horror, but it changed over time to be less about who they were and more about how it all effected the central character, Evin. After a considerable period of rumination and false starts I realised that it was a story about Evin asking herself the question we all face at some point in our life: “Who am I?”

Other times ideas grow out of a sense of wanting to look at something from a different angle. I have spoken often (outside this blog) about my apathy toward the Zombie genre. I can count on one hand the works about Zombies that actually interest me, and they tend to be the ones that actually have very little to do with Zombies (TellTale Games video game of The Walking Dead was not only not about Zombies, it was also one of the best pieces of written entertainment in 2012). As I sat listlessly watching another retread of Zombie tropes I wondered how a Zombie would feel about the representation of Zombies in the media. I thought of him being offended by it. This idea grew to be a short film I made a couple of years ago called Dates of the Undead:

I’m the first to admit that translating those kernels of inspiration into salty idea-popcorn goodness is not something I’m very quick at. Those ideas tend to stick in my head and ruminate for a long time before I feel ready to put them on paper. I have got better and have picked up some good writing exercises over the years that have helped. There’s a great one for laying out structure/story/themes/characters that I used recently to start the book and last week for the short story. I thought it might be interesting to share the process of writing the short story, so after it has been published tomorrow I will talk about the process of taking the idea from suggestion to story and I will post this on Thursday.

I think my two favourite writing exercises are to write a monologue for a character stating who they are and what it is they want, and how they are going to achieve it. This will work for all your characters, you will find that with each character you will instinctively give them voices, and their desires and how they intend to achieve them will reveal a lot about who they are. It also means, at least to me, that when I start writing that I already know them, yes they will still surprise in the writing process, but the starting off point is less daunting.

A similar piece to this is to write a dialogue between two characters, if they are the protagonist and the antagonist it will help. Think of yourself as a counsellor for the characters. Let the protagonist state what they want and the antagonist state how they can’t have it. Again, it will be revealing and help find who the characters are. Give them weaknesses that will hinder their ability to get what they want. Not necessarily physical weaknesses, it could be impatience or a short temper.

Finally, where can you find inspiration? I did a writing course a few years ago and was told to choose a story from a newspaper, and write a scene based upon it. I’d found a small story about a couple on holiday who had been tied up and robbed. It was a horrible story and I don’t know why I picked it. Every part of the article made me sick and angry, the couple were threatened with assault and at times separated from each other. I wrote two pages of just utter rubbish, it was full of cliché and didn’t go anywhere or mean anything. It was a struggle to write and I only finished it the night before the next class. Out of those two pages, of all those words, the only thing that sparked any interest in me was five words: “Why do you love her?”

I became desperately intrigued by this. Why would someone take people hostage and demand an explanation of love? What would the answer be? If the people were physically separated from each other would their answers be the same? What if they weren’t the same? What if they didn’t know that? The story became about lies and truth. Lies we tell ourselves, truths we hide, accepting or rejection those ideals. It was a cat and mouse of what do people say and what do they mean.

Out of that article of misery, of two pages of horrible writing, came five words that inspired something much bigger and better.

I guess the point is that inspiration comes from anywhere, the trick is to be able to recognise it and harness it. To take whatever it is and work at it, use any tool available to you to create something from it. Sometimes that it won’t work, sometimes it’s not meant to work. But sometimes something better will come from that failure.

– Andrew

 

Thursday Thoughts: Letting Other People Read

Hello,

Having recently completed a draft of the first third of my book I decided to let some brave souls have a read of what I have been up to. This is always a terrifying moment because you hope that everything is clear, that the journey the character is on and the actions that they take track correctly and are believable things they would do.

Some stuff really shifted around in the editing of the book. The largest change was switching the timing of two major events. The action of those events didn’t change but I realised as I worked back through the book that I had the personal scene first and a larger event second. By switching them I could identify to the reader what is happening in the world, and then later bring that right to Evin’s door, which gave it a lot more power.

Editing is my favourite part of writing. I take very little joy in the initial writing process, it is difficult, and long, and frustrating. Editing is a blissful journey of discovery, of looking at everything you have created and arranging it to make sense. You look at every moment to identify if it makes sense, is it adding anything and is it supporting the themes. If it does none of that cut it out or make it better.

I’m looking forward to hearing what my friends think.

Now it is back to writing, Evin’s journey is taking a new direction and I’m eager to explore that.

Also, I’ve started work on this month’s short story. Look for that coming soon.

– Andrew

Monday Musings: The End

Hello,

For my first Monday Musing I thought I would start with the question most frequently asked of me: “Do you have an ending?”

Endings are regarded as the most important part of a narrative experience. You can afford to start weak if your ending is strong. The ideal would be to have a strong start, a great middle and a fantastic end. I loved Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold because I was instantly hooked from the opening chapter. It’s his best writing and his best characters.

A story simply can’t afford a limp ending that readers feel cheated by. I’ve just finished reading Kate Mosse’s Citadel which I thought had a deeply satisfying ending. Emotional, truthful and, importantly, right for the characters. Conversely I threw David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas to the floor when I finished it. I loved the individual elements but felt no sense of completion at the end.

Those are my opinions on the aforementioned books, you may share them or not.

With my story I actually started with the ending and tracked back from there. The inception of the story goes back about four or five years and has changed a lot over that time. I eventually found an interesting hook for the story and it has grown into what it is now. That’s not to say that the ending I started with will be the ending that the book will have. I’ve been toying with variations of it recently. I’m not locking myself into anything at this point.

I have told some of my closest friends what this ending is and their reactions have varied so far, I think it depends on their personality. Don’t read too much into this next statement, but I like a certain amount of ambiguity in my work. I think it was the director Adrian Lyne when talking about his film adaptation of Lolita who said that he wanted the audience to figure out for themselves how they felt about the characters and what happened, rather than being told what to think. I’m paraphrasing there. My point is that I like to create a story and draw attention to the plot, characters and themes and then go: “And you decide what that means.”

Excuse my horrific self promotion here as I use a short film I made 10 years ago for demonstration purposes. I feel we said everything that we wanted to in the story, explored and re-explored the central theme and left it at a point where the audience has to think how they choose to interpret what has happened and where the character goes next.

There tends to be a 50/50 split between people rationalizing the events and those that want to see something else. I argue that both are correct and both possibilities are accounted for in the film.

Upon explaining the ending of my book, many people nod sagely and say “Yes that makes sense.” Others agree that the ending works but are concerned that there may not be the clarity that they want. I think that is the key to any ending. I can be as vague about the specifics as I like but if people don’t feel that the threads of the narrative are adequately tied up it will feel like a cheat. So, again, I’m sort of catering to different groups.

This isn’t to say that it works with every story. Some stories need to be tied with a bow and pronounced complete. I will write those stories for sure. That’s just not this book. That’s not who this character is.

It’s hard to talk specifically about what the ending is because I don’t want to spoil it, I haven’t told you what the story is about yet (that’s coming very soon), and where the main character ends up may not be where I think she is supposed to find herself. I have explained my intentions of how I will wrap up the story to people and hope that I will be able to deliver. It’s certainly the right ending for the character and what happens to her.

I think what I’m keen to achieve is that I want the ending to be talked about, to be debated, I want people to have different interpretations of the events (all of which, and more will be correct), but for the finale of the character’s journey, of her experiences, of who she is at the end to be satisfying and rewarding.

– Andrew

 

Structure For The Blog

Hello Blog-fans,

I probably won’t use that term again. It makes me feel unwell just looking at it.
Moving on…

I have been thinking more about what my plans for the blog are. You may have noticed that the banner at the top has changed slightly, I’m trying to give the blog more of an identity and structure. I sometimes have ideas for things to blog about, in the same way that I often think of things to tweet about. I don’t want this blog to become an expanded twitter page (if you look at my tweets to the right, you will be grateful for that). I want a way to compile those ideas into the blog in less of a scattergun approach.

I have decided for now that the structure of the blog will be: On Mondays I will blog about things that I have been thinking about regarding writing, so this is where the blog about music would be found, or the piece about clichés. On Thursday I will blog more generally. I’m being deliberately vague regarding that at the moment as it may change over time and can fit a few ideas I have regarding the publishing of the short stories.

So there you have it Blog-fans (last time, I promise!). For the time being, until I come up with a better plan, this will be the way the blog will work around the dates of the short story.

– Andrew

Story Submission – October 2013

Hello,

I was unable to post yesterday because of reasons, sorry this is a day late.

The idea should be that on the 14th I post my favourite submissions for you to choose which I should write as that short story. However, we only had one submission this month. Therefore I will be writing the following as October’s short story.

“A goat. Who is an author. But as soon as he finishes a page, he subconsciously eats it.”

Submitted by J

I will get the story up by the end of the month.

– Andrew

PS If you have Facebook you can follow my Facebook page to receive notification when this blog is updated. Click your mouse to: http://facebook.com/ardavidsonwrites

Musical Inspiration

Hello,

First up, let it be clear that this post exists as a pretence to talk about the Danny Elfman’s Music From The Films of Tim Burton concert at the Royal Albert Hall last night.
Sorry.

The show was fantastic and consisted of largely new suites written from themes from each of Burton’s films (anyone with either of the Music For A Darkened Theatre albums will have recognised the Edward Scissorhands and Batman suites) with illustrations by the director projected onto a large screen behind the orchestra. The show ended with Elfman himself appearing on stage to sing live for the first time, so he says, a number of songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Above is a picture of my friend Alexandra in our box.

For a massive film score nerd, particularly the works of Mr Elfman, it was a fantastic night of some of his best work played by a stunning orchestra. It was nice to see a theremin being played live during the Mars Attacks! suite. Edward Scissorhands was as timeless and beautiful as ever. And I have lived to see Danny Elfman sing “What’s This?” from Nightmare live to the scene in the movie.

This bring me round to writing.
I can’t write to songs because I listen to the words and can’t concentrate. I can write in silence, but I find it a little oppressive. I listen to film scores as a means of inspiration. There are a few video game sound tracks in there too, Jesper Kyd’s score for Assassin’s Creed 2 is phenomenal. I just checked and iTunes tells me that if I were to listen to all my soundtracks continuously it would take 5 days to listen to them all.

Whilst writing my book I have been mostly listening to Michael Giacchino (Star Trek, Super 8 and M:I Ghost Protocol in particular). I’m often to be found wandering the back catalogue of John Williams’ work. I’ve said it before, but this is a man who composed three of the best film scores ever over three consecutive years:
The Empire Strikes Back, 1980
Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982

You probably have favourite works of his: Harry Potter? Jurassic Park? Jaws? Catch Me If You Can?
Ergh, the list is endless.

Ennio Morricone’s work on countless Westerns; his theme to The Mission (oh my god, the love); his haunting, sad, edgy score for Adrian Lyne’s Lolita. There’s Thomas Newman (hello Silence of the Lambs, Lemony Snicket or The Green Mile) or Howard Shore’s everything. Who isn’t stirred by Alan Silvestri’s Back To The Future theme?

I love Alexandre Desplat’s Girl With A Pearl Earring, Clint Mansell’s Requiem For A Dream, Steve Jablonsky’s work on the Transformers movies, Eric Serra’s score for Leon, Stephen Warbeck’s Shakespeare In Love.

Perhaps the best score in recent years is Daft Punk’s soundtrack for Tron Legacy. If you don’t own that you’ve got to get a copy.

I’d be remiss not to mention my dear friend Steven Coltart who composed such wonderful things for my short films. He elevated Autumn Heart is ways that I can never fully explain, and to him I am indebted.

This is not a definitive list and I’m sure in half an hour I’ll think of something I should have added. There are hundreds. You’ll have your own favourites, post them below, I’m always open to suggestions.

What I’m getting at is these are the things that help bring my work out, that fuel my creativity, give it rhythm and pace. I lose myself to the emotion of the music. It helps me write.

How do you write?

– Andrew

 

Healing The Heartache

Hello,

At the beginning of the week I blogged about the loss of 74% of my writing. That was 25,000 words lost in an instant because I was being a little careless. I can’t blame the computer, it only mindlessly did what I asked it to do. Ironically I get peeved at computers when they double-check meaningless activities: ‘Are you sure you want to print that?’

I had a rough night sleep on Monday, I was angry at myself for wasting a lot of work. I joked to a friend that I was more upset on Monday night at the loss of my book than I had been the last time I broke up with someone.
At least I think I was joking.

When I got up for breakfast on Tuesday morning I was sore and tired. My back hurt and my eyes felt foggy. I was still in a bad mood and didn’t want to think about my book and writing any more. The task of starting again seemed too great. I didn’t think that I would be up to the job.

This made me more angry at myself. Now I was angry for daring to think of letting this moment of idiocy ruin what has been one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling months of my life in a number of years. Yes, I was scared of re-writing what I had already done. Of course, I was worried that I would not be able to recreate what it had been. Obviously, I was anxious about the moment I would start again. I’m not a good starter of things, I rarely have that planned out. As it stands the first paragraph of my book is:

I think the exact words I said to my mum were, “Don’t fucking tell me what to fucking do.” I’m sure that the second ‘fucking’ was lost to her by the thunder of my door slamming. I’m not proud of it and in hindsight it was probably not a proportionate response to her saying encouragingly, “Evin, you really should be doing more to get a job.”

So, yeah.
I don’t think that will last beyond editing, but at the time it was all I had to get the ball rolling on the book.

The same principle applied to the rewrites. I had made a bullet point list of what I remember the key moments of the plot were and the order that they came in. I sat at my desk, took a deep breath, and started typing. It was difficult at first, I was conscious that I was trying to recreate something while trying not to copy exactly what it had been. I finished the day having written 5,000 words. I have been hitting that as a standard target each day since. I wrote 6,000 words yesterday because I had to finish what was happening.

I am currently at 18,000 words and in most places I am pleased with how it’s coming together. There are definitely places that are more concise now than they had been previously, and there are some moments that have been stripped right back and are less overwritten.

In essence I’m pleased that I didn’t wait, that I didn’t allow myself to become overwhelmed by rewriting. I’m pleased that I got straight back to it.

I would not recommend this process of writing.

– Andrew

 

Interactive Short Story feedback

Hello,

As you can only post submissions in the main post I thought I’d open this incase you want to leave any feedback or ask any questions about the process.

Thank you for your interest in my blog.

– Andrew