This is going to be a very rambly post, all haphazard and out-of-control, which is a bit like my life at the moment. I always knew that starting a new job was going to play havoc with my writing (and blogging, and . . .) routine — well, let’s face facts, my routine is completely in tatters — but it’s quite another thing to experience the utter frustration that accompanies the slaying of creativity.
One thing I have achieved in the past two weeks was the completion of the first stanza (13K words) of my novel WIP, which I submitted to my writing group for feedback. It was mostly already written, but I had a host of minor adjustments I wanted to make before anyone read it. In the end I settled for making the coarse edits so that it mostly hung together, then launched it at them.
It was a very useful critique session for several reasons. It highlighted to me areas that are confusing (and where I stuffed up the logic — I still can’t believe I had a character subsiding onto a sleeping pallet twice in about two paragraphs). It highlighted areas that are being misinterpreted — and where I’m holding back too much information for reader satisfaction. And it spawned a few good ideas as well. And of course there were suggestions on how to improve the prose . . . On the whole, though, it seems to be worth continuing at this stage — which was the main thing I wanted to know.
And now a pledge: I am not going to edit those 13K words right away. Not, not, NOT. I am going to move forward, to the next stanza, and about time too.
I also fully intend to get back to more regular blogging. I still haven’t finished my series of posts on World Fantasy highlights, so hopefully I can get my life back under control and wrap them up. (I went for 5 days last week without even turning my main computer on, which is unheard of!) (As for my Google Reader feed . . . it’s in the 100s.)
A good sign from the past few days is that my WIP is bubbling in my head again as I journey via two trains and a bus to and from work. For the first month of this job I might as well have been a comatose blob, but my mind is finally starting to clear. Ideas are starting to materialise; characters are starting to assert themselves. Soon, I will be back.
E V Gregory 