...Ive been reading Alan Hollinghurts "The Spell" and realise how much more work I have to put i to get my prose to the right standard, to make it work...Ive just re read my latest drafts of Chapters 1-4 plus some scene sketches, there are good bits but the overall impact of the prose isnt what I want it to be...its not flowing right...I JUST HAVE TO KEEP AT IT..I think that it may now be best just to keep going and try to get to the end without any expecttion other than to finish a complte first draft AND then to completely revise it. What hindering my goal is my hopeless computr skills! I consatntly edit ans then find that the edits are not saved and then have to do it all again and then later only find that the rwrong versions been saved or Ive got multiple versions all over the place. This wont do. It''ll just end in chaos so I must get more organised with all of this - atleast put everYthing in one file.
Today I thought about and actually accomplished sketching out in note form a new scene wher Roland is viewing a flat in the village. I will start writing this and see where it goes. I dont want to go on another downer - but am not happy with the drafts I have completed so far. Also, I only have had 2 out of 12 guinea pig readers give me fedback - one said "found it totally gripping" and no futher critique the other - which was more helpful was harsher on POV and especially the narrative voice - which I believed I'd nailed BUt with the distance of a week now realize I havent quite got it right still. It has been helpful critiqueing Nicki's first drfats of her new novel Romeo and Romeo - it llows insight into how something can be good but not quite right in its curent form and how to make it stronger.
Its incredibly expensive eating out here. The hotel does a great breakfast - which we enjoy on the terrace each morning after yoga on the balcony of our room which has a view directly onto Mount Etna in one direction and out over the sea in the other. Dinners out are delicious but obscenely priced. This is a tourist trap but the four days we've had here - apart from my temporary deafness - have been a tonic.
Off to Palermo by train tomorrow - a journey of 7 hours!!!
BG
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Remember someone's comment (was it Rick's) who said when you read a published book and compare it with your own writing that you're often comparing their best effort (usually written with the help of editors and redrafted many times) with your own first draft.
ReplyDeleteThere is a quotation from Virginia Woolf where she describes her writing process as finding 'the diamonds of the dustheap' such was the amount of work she discarded.