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Category Archives: Scribbling

All those words!

10 Thursday Nov 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling, Things

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Historical fiction, Historical Thesaurus of English, Language, University of Glasgow

Among the many wonders of the Internet, there is the huge abundance of dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses, lexicons, and such-like beautiful things.

I’ve always loved dictionaries of all sorts, old and new, and own shelves of them, and since a young age I’ve been known to ask Saint Lucia for the occasional dictionary as a gift… Apart from the obvious use, I just love to get lost among those columns of words, to make discoveries, to go on treasure hunts, to chase the elusive nuance of a meaning… Continue reading →

Add water and stir…

22 Thursday Sep 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

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brainstorming, historical novel, Not quite Draft 1, The Tom Walsingham Mysteries, writing, writing process

In the beginning it was just “when the elder G. asks him about his plans to leave, Tom demurs.”

That’s all it was. A half line in Draft 0. Thirteen words in all. I thought it would be a very tiny scene, little more than a transition, a little coda to establish that Tom wasn’t leaving after all.

Then on Saturday morning… Continue reading →

Dumas on counting words

08 Thursday Sep 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Books, Scribbling

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Alexandre Dumas, deadlines, Le Constitutionnel, The Three Musketeers, wordcount, writing

This one is for T.

I’m always a little amused at being reminded that, in my corner of the world, measuring a written text in words, is still a somewhat alien notion. No, really. I still run into people who go round eyed and ask how on earth are they going to keep count – and are genuinely amazed to discover that any word processor will do it for them… Continue reading →

Of human mind and motivation

12 Friday Aug 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling, Things

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motivation, writing

Such a lofty title, isn’t it? Very, very lofty for a post arguing that the human mind is, in several ways, an easily amused little hamster. Mine is, at least, and I’ll wager that yours is too – in several way – when it comes to motivation. Continue reading →

Then came the plague

28 Thursday Jul 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling, Things

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Covid-19, deadlines, The Tom Walsingham Mysteries, writing, writing schedule

I’d somehow managed to dodge it for more than two years and a half, but at last the plague caught me – or, in other word, I caught Covid at last. I suppose it was just a matter of time – and that I caught it at the theatre was just as inevitable as it was fitting.

Last Friday, more or less from one moment to the next, I found myself with a very sore throat and a temperature above 39° C. Within hours a rather fierce cough and a cold joined the company – and there I was. Continue reading →

Saving the day

21 Thursday Jul 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

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copies, drafts, Microsoft Word, saving files, Scrivener, writing

What is your favourite writing software?

Mine is Scrivener, nowadays. I landed there about a decade ago, when I began to write plays for companies (as opposed to “in the vague hope that someone might one day stage them”), and quickly discovered that I wanted a software that did the right formatting for me. Continue reading →

The Small Writer and the Huge Deadline – an instructional tale

14 Thursday Jul 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

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getting unstuck, historical novel, murder mystery, Procrastination, research, writing

Once upon a time, there was a Small Writer with a Huge Deadline.

The Huge Deadline was still rather far away – and that was perhaps the heart of the problem. Had it been looming large, roaring nearer and nearer, the Small Writer would have been writing like mad, and piling up a nice daily wordcount, and biting her nails, and drinking tea by the gallon, and generally doing what she was supposed to do… Continue reading →

Tom Walsingham 3 – Draft 0

07 Thursday Jul 2022

Posted by la Clarina in History, Scribbling, Stories

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drafting, Historical fiction, plotting, research, Tom Walsingham Mysteries

Remember when, back in January, I told you that I was experimenting with the idea of a Draft 0 for A Treasonous Path, and I’d let you know how it worked for me? Well, it would seem it worked well enough, because I’m doing it again. Six months later, and I’m at work on Draft 0 of Tom’s third book – for now TW3. Continue reading →

27 tiny paper disks

23 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

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freewriting, ideas, writing, Writing Prompts

The world being what it is, I’ve found in a drawer 26 tiny paper disks – well, 27 if you count the debatable one… Less than an inch wide, not all of them perfect circles, each bearing a tiny – and often rather cryptic – note in orange or blue ink. Continue reading →

The not-quite-finish line

26 Thursday May 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

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deadlines, Procrastination, writing

I don’t know about you – but with me it’s like this: the closer I get to finishing a project, the more I slow down. Continue reading →

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