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Tag Archives: writing

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 →

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

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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 →

Form and substance

06 Friday May 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Things

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form and substance, shakespeare, technique, theatre, writing

It mostly comes in two flavours.

Flavour the first: now and then, when I hyperventilate over some (more or less) minute detail gone wrong in a play, a story, a talk, or whatnot, some sympathetic soul will try to convince me that it was a negligible hitch in the form – but the substance was there, and substance is what truly matters…

Continue reading →

Burning the midnight oil…

01 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

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first draft, writing, writing at night

Midnight – and rather later, in fact, because it was half past three in the morning when I added the last word to Draft 1 of ATP, Tom Walsingham’s second foray into espionage and sleuthing. Hooray!

And then it wasn’t really the last word, of course. You all know how it is: as soon as I’d saved the thing and done a back-up, I had to open it again and add one more little paragraph, and then a little later an idea occurred to me, and I jotted it down in the notebook, and by then I was wide awake anyway, far too excited to sleep, so I could have gone another hour without great difficulty – but the fact was, Draft 1 was finished, and it was well past four, so I went to bed, and found that I could sleep after all… Continue reading →

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