The Trials of Winter Writing

On a different note to usual, here’s something very important I’ve learnt in the last few weeks.  Writing when it’s cold is hard work, especially when your fingers start to stiffen with the first signs of hypothermia!  If you don’t want to turn the heating on then here’s my advice (true for anyone working at home – or in a cold office, I guess – not just writers!):

(1) buy a slanket (worth every penny) - http://www.slanket.co.uk/

(2) wear fingerless gloves (often they’re not thumb-less though so why not make your own – these are very simple http://a-friend-to-knit-with.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/toasttoasty.html and these are the more fancy ones in the photo http://www.orangellous.com/cdn/files/patterns/vancouver_fog.pdf )

(3) type fast to keep your fingers warm

(4) if you can’t do number 3 coz the muse is taking a break or you need some thinking time, then have a hot drink in front of you to use as a handwarmer!

Bring it on December!

On Friday, I hit my word count for November.  Good job too seeing as it was the last day of the month!  But I was SO chuffed to achieve that goal, especially as my experience of writing over the last couple of years has been predominantly wishful thinking rather than achievement.

Now I’m looking ahead to my next goal - 30,000 words (or a finished first draft of similar length) by the end of December.  I can already sense that this is going to be more of a challenge – as a new challenge always should be, I guess, otherwise it’s fairly pointless and should be called something else!!  

The last month has been easy writing in many ways.  Some of the time I’ve written individual scenes that have been working themselves out in my head for weeks.  Often I’ve sat down and just seen where a conversation or idea has taken me.

This month’s writing will need me to draw those elements and scenes together into a coherent, progressive story with realistic motivations, causes and effects.  I’m sure that I’m going to be saying “ah, that doesn’t work” more than a few times and have to go back and rework details that I’ve written previously, so that they are logical and credible.  But hopefully I’m also going to come up with new ideas that will get worked through the manuscript to make it stronger too.

In some ways this task daunts me.  How well a story hangs together is fundamentally important to its success.  I’m the first to spot and be highly irritated by discrepancies in storytelling, so I hope I can be as aware and analytical of my own writing.  

At the same time, I can’t wait to have a finished first draft (even if it still needs weeks/months of editing after that) and am so excited about the prospect of drawing my ideas together to ensure they form a fantastic well-developed tale!  My life isn’t simply a series of individual random scenes, but a joined up meaningful whole - even if I don’t always have the benefit of the author’s perspective on all the links.  My story needs to be just as authentic, which won’t be simple.  But I'm up for it, bring it on!