I had my Welsh class this morning, which was fun. This afternoon I caught up with rasfc and LJ and then went for a brisk walk and had a good Think about the novels I'm supposed to be writing. By about a quarter of the way round the walk, it was clear that I need to go right back to chapter 1 with both the WIPs.

Yes, I know it sounds dangerously like the Endless Revision Loop, but trying to write the Mad God Novel with an almost non-existent setting isn't working. I need to go back to the beginning and world build as I write. My idea of doing a Chinese-ish setting isn't working because a) I haven't been to China and more importantly (because I could always research it) and b) since I had the idea of using an eastern setting (about 10 years ago), lots and lots of books have come out since using that very thing. In addition to moving it back to a European-ish setting, I think I'll have a try at shifting it into first person and let the two other characters have scenes. I can always cut them out if they don't work, but writing something would be better than writing nothing.

Also I finally had to admit that my decision last year to separate the Siamese Twin of a novel has resulted in the death of the other half. I need something as an exciting opening and nothing new has come along. During the walk and the Think, I decided that I can put the caretaker's death back, but Bethany mustn't realise that she's killed him. Basically, there was nothing wrong with the original idea that writing it properly wouldn't solve! :) It's all a question of balance and I'd allowed that part to get unbalanced and thus Bethany wasn't in the right state of mind for the next scenes.

I will see if I can make some progress tomorrow morning in the form of some actual words.

Tags: dark mind waking, revealing secrets, writing progress, writing reflection
Current Mood: thoughtful

I have concluded that the Stonehenge Abduction novel is just not ready to write yet. My backbrain is sending up zilch in the way of scenes or images. Having promoted the story from third in the queue to first, it definitely needs more time to mature.

In the meantime I have some short things to write, but the other day I was looking for something in a drawer when I found the beginning and outline of a novel I'd forgotten all about. Oooooh, novel!

I had the printouts, but being lazy and hating the thought of retyping, I rummaged around on the hard drive, but couldn't find the electronic version. It then occurred to me that there may be floppies in the folder. There were! My glee was followed by a brief, "Oh, fsck!" moment as I remembered that the desktop machine has no floppy disk drive!

But then I remembered that the laptop I don't use any more has a floppy drive and hence I transferred the files over.

The files are PC Write files, which open fine in Word, but need reformatting (PC Write puts a hard line break at the end of each line, so I will call up my macros to remove them!)

I think I have about 15K plus a complete outline, so all I need to do is write the thing!

Tags: dark mind waking, writing
Current Mood: cheerful