24 Thursday Mar 2022
Posted in Scribbling
Tags
deadlines, Emma Darwin, overwhelm, rachel aaron, theatre, wordcount, writing
I didn’t post last week.
I found myself on Thursday morning with no post ready and no good idea… Continue reading
10 Thursday Mar 2022
Posted in Scribbling
Tags
book 2, deadline, draft 1, draft-0, Tom Walsingham Mysteries, writing, writing experiment, writing schedule
Well, no – this is not to say that I have finished Draft 1… I’m about halfway through, though, and it is not an entirely bad place to be at this point. Oh, I do have almost daily bouts of How Will I Ever Meet The Deadline, but it is a common disease, and actually I’m pretty much on schedule, so what does one do, except ignore the bouts and write on? Continue reading
27 Thursday Jan 2022
Posted in History, Scribbling
Tags
Historical fiction, languages, names, naming characters, research, spelling, Tom Walsingham Mysteries, writing
Yesterday I spent a good deal of time perusing lists of names of Guild members in 16th century Bruges. It’s one of the many wonders of the Internet that you can find this sort of thing for the asking… and, as I said, I ended up spending a good chunk of the afternoon going through list after list, copying the promising ones in my notebook – one column for given names, one for family names – trying them out for size, and even involving a Dutch-speaking friend for a sense of how a few of them would be pronounced… Continue reading
20 Thursday Jan 2022
Posted in Scribbling
I’m not sure whether it truly qualifies as stepping out of my comfort zone – but I’m definitely trying something different with what we’ll call, for now, Tom Book 2 – or, even shorter, TB2. Something I’ve never done before. At least not the way I’m doing it now… Continue reading
02 Thursday Dec 2021
Posted in Scribbling, Theatre
Once upon a time, December used to be a rather non-writing month, all given to Christmas preparations. Crafting ornaments and decorations, trimming trees, baking Lebkuchen, making the pudding, searching for presents, listening to carols… this sort of things.
I just believed – in all naive honesty – that there was no time to write in December… Continue reading
30 Thursday Sep 2021
Posted in Scribbling, Stories
Tags
I’m sure you know how it goes.
You are working on a project. A long term one. Longer than you planned at first, perhaps – but sometimes things have their own way of stretching into something else, and… and… oh, you do know how it goes. Continue reading
02 Thursday Sep 2021
Posted in Scribbling, Stories
They come to you, and say that they have a story, a really good story that you should really write.
In time you learn to recognize this, a certain gleam in their eyes from the very first moment someone mentions that you write. Then they sit on it, they observe you, sometimes they ask questions, trying to determine whether you might be the right person… Continue reading
19 Thursday Aug 2021
Posted in Scribbling
I’m not writing enough.
I’m not writing enough.
I’m not writing enough!
And I could go on, you know. I could go on for a rather long time, because… yes, well: I’m not writing enough. Continue reading
10 Thursday Jun 2021
Posted in Books, History, Scribbling
You know those moments – those moments when a book speaks to you? When you read something that might have been written exactly for you to find it? Well, I had a rather peculiar moment of that kind, yesterday… Continue reading
29 Thursday Apr 2021
Posted in Scribbling
Yes, yes – I’m doing it again. Because I liked the jolt it gave me last year, and because otherwise, considering the writing course I’m teaching, and the looming Summer Season, and a couple of largish jobs I’ve taken, I might be tempted to push my writing aside for now… Continue reading
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