Friday 26 August 2011

Enforced seclusion brings rich rewards

I have a fithly cold. I should now be dancing tango in Oslo but I had to cancel and as H is in Berlin, here I am alone in our big Walthamstow pile. This misery has become an opportunity . I am hard copy reading my completed manuscript for the very first time, along side my four ginuea pig readers who recieved their copies yesterday(ohh, er...!!!). It's a chance to hone the text even further aswell as see how the characters and plot develop in one uninterupted weekend. So far I 'm at Chapter 19(of 42). I am also taking a close look at chronology especially the time line of the novel. My story takes place primarily in London between February and July 2002 and so it's intersting now to check details of those few months - the weather - if Ive given a date then is this the correct day of the week in my telling of certain sequence of events. What was on the tele then?What was major in the news (I already hvae researched this some time ago) and how would such news filter through my characters eyes into my novel and how can I make this not seem like a broadcast. When were there full moons(yes, you heard me correct- read the novel!).
I am finding this whole process totally absorbing. I may have a stinker but I 'm totally immersed in another world - events that played out almost 10 years ago in my neighboorhood - it seems real to me - yet of course it's all made up in my head. This is the buzz writing fiction gives me.It's real but infact it's all made up!
Bren Gosling

1 comment:

  1. I write better with a cold, too. Odd. But it focuses me and makes me invulnerable to distractions. I feel so terrible, that I have to focus to do anything at all. Also, it slows down my mind, which helps me focus. I never see things more clearly, in life and in writing, than I do when I've got a cold. Weird!

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