How I Write
How are you all? Sorry the WKDN posts are few and far between - the juggling act of family/work/writing is more challenging than usual, and every spare moment is being spent on the third draft. Everyone is back to school in a week so the normal post & prompt format will return.
We've mentioned the great Guardian column Writer's Rooms before. Knowing how and where other writers do their work is so interesting - it's like going through the round window on Playschool. A couple of years ago a friend gave me a great book 'How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors' - it's full of images, anecdotes and the quirks of sixty or so top writers (Will Self has a thing for Post-It Notes, who knew). So how do you write, where, what are your talismans? If you feel like it why not put a link in the comments up to your blogs and show us how you do it?
We've mentioned the great Guardian column Writer's Rooms before. Knowing how and where other writers do their work is so interesting - it's like going through the round window on Playschool. A couple of years ago a friend gave me a great book 'How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors' - it's full of images, anecdotes and the quirks of sixty or so top writers (Will Self has a thing for Post-It Notes, who knew). So how do you write, where, what are your talismans? If you feel like it why not put a link in the comments up to your blogs and show us how you do it?
The hound and I have been burning the midnight oil (she gets to sleep on my feet though) - 'how I write' at the moment is on the kitchen table after everyone is asleep for as long as I can - you can see the script I'm buffing into shape above. I'm just at that point with the new book when disappearing to a spa, or a hotel, or a shed (anywhere with uninterrupted peace basically), would be a really good thing - but it's not happening so the kitchen table it is.
I love this book. I love what the characters have become, the shape the story has taken, and I really want to do it justice. A deceptively clean first draft has now had all the historical info added in - sheets and sheets of red pen edits ... it feels like the house of cards we've talked about before, but this time it feels like there's something new. Maybe it's all the research - it feels real, and I'm excited just thinking about it. I was thinking about 'Officer & a Gentleman' at an RAF museum on the south coast the other day - you know these gorgeous looking chaps striding around in their blues, cravats, and Mae Wests are actors but there is something about a man in uniform ... Funny really that this story of romance, danger and courage is being spun at a kitchen table - but maybe that's where a lot of good things start. What are the other great endings you can think of in film/fiction? It's what I'm hoping for - an epic sense of happily ever after. WKDN has always been a recession/doom and gloom free zone - maybe everyone needs a glimmer of hope and a happy ending now more than ever. What do you think?
