A Grumpy Post

I'm back from a lovely, if wet, holiday in Wales. Unfortunately I managed to pick up yet another cold and this time it's gone to my chest. So now I'm feeling grotty, miserable and, yes, grumpy. Therefore, while I'm in the mood, I'd like to take the opportunity to get something off my chest. Possibly not the best expression to use, given the chest infection, but here goes...

Why is it that when I tell people I work from home, they always take that to mean swanning around, doing nothing? I've been inundated with calls this week from friends, all starting with, "As you're free, I wondered if you could help with..." In each case I wanted to point out that I wasn't free, I was in fact trying to work, in between hacking fits of coughing, but I just don't seem to be able to do it. As a result I've got all sorts of niggling little jobs to do for people when I'm desperate to get down to work.

Knowing how to say 'no' is a useful skill, and one I don't have. Just call me 'Doormat' *sigh*

Ahead of schedule and but pruning

I've finished all the alterations on my list, so I'm two days ahead of plan. Yay! Tomorrow I've got to do some but pruning. Although that might sound like some kind of drastic form of male grooming, it's actually down to my extreme overuse of the word 'but' at the start of chapter one. I don't know how I managed to miss that until now.

Another update

I didn't get much done this week, but that was in my plan - I've had a busy week both in my day job and preparing for a visit from a cousin and his family. Now that's over, I've gone through my first three chapters and made notes on all the things that need changing.

I'm encouraged that there's nothing too major on the list. I've already made a start - I rewrote the all-important opening paragraphs this morning and it's a big improvement.

I've got to get the changes done by Wednesday - I'm off on another holiday after that. This time to sunny Pembrokeshire. I don't want to have unfinished work hanging over me whilst I'm away.

I'm back!

I said in my last post that I would confess up to how much work I had done on my ms whilst I was in Prague, so here goes...

Well, I like to look upon all new experiences as research. For instance, I now know what it's like to look after a toddler with a death wish, I've learned all about jelly-floods (courtesy of endless episodes of Ben and Holly) and I got whipped on Easter Monday (didn't manage to avoid that after all). So while I didn't actually work on my ms itself, I've built up a store of experiences that I'm sure will come in useful in my future writing.

Wow - that almost convinced me! Back to work tomorrow...

Holiday time and an arcane Czech tradition

I'm off to Prague tomorrow for the best part of a fortnight. I've been looking forward to this for ages - Prague is such a beautiful city. My brother lives out there so I've been there loads of times, but I never get tired of it.

It's especially beautiful at Easter. They hang ribbons and painted eggs in the trees in the Old Town Square which looks charming, although all the pastel colours do give me cravings for Cadbury's mini eggs :)

It's not all fun, though. Not for women, anyway. On Easter Monday, it's traditional for the men to whip the women to keep them fertile. To add insult to injury, the women are supposed to weave and decorate the whips themselves! The men go around the neighbourhood, whipping all the women and drinking a glass of slivovice (a potent mixture of plums and TNT) at each household. The  next day the poor women have to nurse their menfolk through their hangovers. Something tells me that this particular tradition wasn't thought up by a woman.

I think I'll try to stay out of the way on Monday. I've sent the latest version of my first three chapters to my Kindle, so I hope to be able to read it through and make notes. I'll own up to how much I did or didn't do when I get back.

Happy Easter!

Typical...

I'm going on holiday to Prague on Tuesday, so of course my body decides that now would be a good time to catch a stinker of a cold :( On the upside, it's a good excuse for eating ice cream (to soothe my sore throat) and watch dvds.

 A couple of years ago I bought the complete series of a BBC adaptation of Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries and I've been working my way through those again. As a writer and reader of romance, I suppose it comes as no surprise that what I love best about Dorothy L Sayers' books is the relationship between Lord Peter and Harriet Vane. And what's struck me, watching the dvds this time, is how much she has to teach a budding romance novelist on the importance of internal conflict. Of course, being crime stories, there's plenty of external conflict in her books to keep the lovers apart - the little matter of Harriet Vane being in gaol on a murder charge for starters - but what really keeps them from each other's arms is the multi-layered internal conflict. Right from the start you can see they are perfect for each other, but Harriet pushes Peter away owing to a crippling inferiority complex: the fact that he's cleared her name and saved her from the gallows means that she'll always feel beholden to him, and that is not a sound foundation for an equal partnership. The fact that Sayers manages to sustain the tension for three books (Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night) shows just what a master she is at her craft. It just goes to show you don't have to stick with reading romances to learn how to write one :)

Learning by my mistakes

It's funny how things that jump out at me as obvious flaws in someone else's writing, I completely fail to see in my own. Today, as I finished yet another revision of my first chapter, it finally dawned on me that I wasn't allowing the reader into my heroine's head; there were far to many 'she thought that...'s or she wondered if...'s, rather than communicating her thoughts directly. Using too many phrases such as 'she thought that...' puts a barrier between the reader and the character, distancing the reader from the story.

Now, I've known about that for some time - I've read How To books and articles that have explained it in great detail. So why couldn't I get it right first time?

I think the answer lies in me being someone who learns by doing. Knowledge only really sinks in when I make a mistake, puzzle out what I've done wrong and then correct it. Unfortunately it means that I'm having to spend far longer on editing than it took me to write the first draft! I had a moment this afternoon when I was tempted to chuck this story in and just start on another one, but thankfully that didn't last long. I'm determined to get this ms to the stage where I can send a partial off to M&B just to see if I've reached the standard that at least merits some feedback along with a rejection! So I'm carrying on.

I'm going to have to revise my submission date, though. I'd wanted to submit by Easter, but as I'm off on holiday for a fortnight next Tuesday, there's no way I'm going to achieve that. April's an incredibly busy month for me, so I'm going to move my deadline to the end of May. Wish me luck!