21 Saturday Apr 2018
Posted in Scribbling
I haven’t posted Saturday tidbits in a while – and I really want to go back to doing it… I know it’s not the first time I make this particular resolution, but let’s try again, and see how it goes this time.
I’ll begin again by pointing you to a lovely post on Emma Darwin’s blog, This Itch of Writing. It is about the importance of rhythm in writing, and how there is no one set way to do it. Continue reading
05 Thursday Apr 2018
Posted in Scribbling
So… It’s April already, have you noticed? A quarter of the year has gone past in a whirl – and I have yet to write a single word outside the box.
Oh, I’ve been writing, and editing, and adapting with a vengeance – but I haven’t found anything new to try. Things I’ve never done before, you know – à la Breakfast at Tiffany’s, only writing-wise. Continue reading
15 Thursday Mar 2018
Posted in Scribbling
28 Thursday Dec 2017
Posted in Scribbling, Stories
I emerged from my Reading Days last night, for a trip to town to see The Man Who Invented Christmas – and, unlike the rest of my party, quite loved it.
I admit I’d been wondering a little as I watched: the film is as lovely as a vintage illustration or a Christmas card, and Dan Stevens is vividly endearing as the overimaginative, struggling, high-strung writer – but there are two aspects of the writing that, while very, very appealing to me, are perhaps not made to click with an Italian audience… Continue reading
14 Thursday Dec 2017
Posted in Scribbling, Things
I don’t know about West of Channel and West of the Pond – but here in Italy, it usually goes like this: you are having a normal conversation with some non-writing acquaintance or some editee and/or young hopeful, and all goes swimmingly, until they ask you about one particular play or story, and you said that oh yes, that was a commission from… Continue reading
30 Thursday Nov 2017
Posted in Scribbling
So, the last day of November… Time for reviews, isn’t it?
Let’s begin with my not-quite-NaNoWriMo. I meant to work on my new on spec play – the one without even a working title – and so I did: the other night I finished the first draft, with a couple of days to spare. It is a very first-drafty first draft, and will require a lot of work still, of course – but there it is, and not too horrible. I think I can count it as done.
But that’s not all. Considering how December is a month for sporadic writing at best, I might as well take stock of my writing year in general. Let’s see… Continue reading
02 Thursday Nov 2017
Posted in Scribbling
Tags
November?
Dear me, how can it be November again? And yes, I know it always catches me unaware, and every year I behave as though I’d never seen a November before…
“Oh, look – a November! I’d heard about these, but I wasn’t even sure they truly existed. And yet here it is… (pokes) How very bizarre!” Continue reading
19 Thursday Oct 2017
Posted in History, Scribbling, Uncategorized
Tags
1453, carey mysteries, Diana Gabaldon, Historical fiction, historical serendipity, p. f. chisholm, Siege of Constantinople
Says Diana Gabaldon, in her introduction to P.F. Chisholm’s brilliant A Plague of Angels*:
One historical author of my acquaintance describes something she calls “historical serendipity.” This is the condition of knowing one’s period so well and so intimately that when one reaches a point in the story where it’s necessary to… (gasp) make something up, one’s fictional choices are not only historically plausible – but very often turn out to be the ex post facto honest-to-goodness truth, as well.
Did it ever happen to you? Continue reading
30 Saturday Sep 2017
Posted in History, Scribbling
I think I’ve told you already how Writer Unboxed is one of my favourite writerly sites. That’s mostly because it provides a wonderful mix of thought-provoking discussion and practical stuff, musings and resources, theory and exercises… All of it interesting and useful. Continue reading
28 Tuesday Feb 2017
Posted in Scribbling
Do you use semi-colons in your writing?
Or were you – like me – taught in elementary school that the semi-colon is a half-extinct sort of thing, more stubborn than a comma and weaker than a full stop, and therefore good for nothing but to divide the items in a list? Continue reading
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