Wealth for writers

Time.

Time is a precious commodity. Especially when there isn't enough of it to go around.

I don't have much time to dust or garden and exercise (I know; I'm a slack writer).

Yesterday I found out that I have been awarded a writing grant from Creative NZ which will give me time: time to spend hours and hours needed to bang this last book into shape. I could pay for someone to come in and dust or garden or pay one of my girls to haul me out to write but, nope, not happening. I'm running away.

I've already booked my accommodation in Naseby to go to as a retreat where I will be free from domestics and distractions (including the internet because it takes quite an effort to connect up there - 2000ft above Stress level is Naseby;s logo). My plan is to write, walk, read, write, eat, write, walk, read, write, write. I will be on my own and free to get up at 2am if a scene grabs me and not feel bad about waking up the whanau (and be able to take a nana nap later that day).

I feel so utterly bestowed to have been given this lifeline - it is as if the gods have gone: oi, you, TK. How's about we throw down an extra ten hours in every day for the next two months - just for you? Cos we think you're worth it.

How did I celebrate? I bought chocolate for my students and running shoes for my eldest (yes, I get the irony). And, I planned my time off.

And, as to my plans for the next wee while - writing is it and reading.

What do I plan to read? Well, last week I moaned about a less than positive reading experience. This week I'm metaphorically banging my head on the desk because I'm reading Geraldine Brooks first novel: Year of Wonders. It. Is. Stunning! May I warmly recommend it to you: set in 1666....

Her style of writing is very different from mine: I'm sparse; she's opulent without being overwrought. I'm trying to move along action at the moment; she's showing me it's okay just to slow down and smell the hydrangeas.

Tomorrow, during my school's writing club get together, I'm going to focus on word choice because I have been so uplifted and replenished by Geraldine's writing, I have a craving for tasty words.

Six weeks till deadline (when the manuscript is due at the publishers). It feels like it does ten days out from a production - potential, chaos, exhaustion, excitement.

It will be (and always is) alright on the night.

I've been reading and....

I've noticed a couple of things:
1) just cos they are so called modern-must-read-classics and just because they are written by best-selling writers don't make 'em perfect reads and
2) makes me itching to get back to my own writing.

Let me elaborate:
I picked up a book which came very highly recommended. An historical tome. Set at the time I'm writing. The narrative style is driving me NUTS. It reminds me of the narrative voice over from the Disney Movie Sleeping Beauty. It is distracting. I want to yell at the story-teller to shut up; stop telling me what the character is thinking and feeling and believing and just SHOW ME! Sigh. That book is now weighing down a stack of papers on my desk.

The second book I picked up is a lot easier to read and there is no narrative intrusion but the author is doing a weird thing by switching into the mind/POV of non-main character characters. But, the story is interesting as are the characters so I'm persevering with this one.

I bend over backwards to avoid doing the above and I'm glad I do. I don't want to hold my readers at arm's length by my intrusions and I do want my readers to stay with one character at a time. My skill as a writer has a long long way to go but I'm determined to keep learning and keep improving.

killing off characters

One of the advantages (and there are only a few let me tell you) of procrastinating over this final book is that the characters and their situations become more interesting without my meddling and then I can see further use for them - especially the ones which are destined to shuffle off their mortal coils.

I had been feeling somewhat aggrieved that one of my characters was going to kick the bucket so to speak but am pleased to announce that this particular one lives for a good many more chapters than was first intended. In fact, the action before and at his/her demise is butt-kicking, nail-biting edge-of-your-seat kind of stuff.

seven weeks to dealing and counting.....

A change and a rest.

I have found it incredibly difficult to pick up my skirts and run the last distance to the end of the task. I've been sick; there's been snow; there have been other things crowding in. My usual writing place is in a lovely old shed at the back of the garden. With the earthquakes in Christchurch, the walls and door have shifted and now a howling wind blows through. That and the cold and wet and soggy garden made my writing space very undesirable. Here is the nice tidy WARM inside of that place.

I was bemoaning my lack of 'my space' within our house to a teaching collegue and she suggested I carve out one for myself right this minute (well, as soon as I got home from school). I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before. So, here I am, writing this to you from the corner of my bedroom


Now, the loo is across the hall; the kitchen (for my snacks and cuppas) is accessed by five strides and, if I'm in serious need of distraction, the living room with fire, telly and family are two doors away.

So, off to make a cup of tea, flex my fingers and begin to begin again.