Getting up at 5am each day, I find I can get a good three hours in before the house becomes too noisy and annoying to consider attempting to woek. I’m aiming for 1500 words a day and pretty much exceeding the target.
The novel’s still a bit of a puzzle to me. I seem to be seeding mysteries all over the place that I don’t really know how I’m going to resolve as yet, but I’m enjoying the ride enormously. The last novel I wrote, and the road book that followed it, were so meticulously planned, the writing was just flesh-on the beautifully-constructed bones and they were just hard work and no fun at all. When I started this one, I made the deliberate decision to write with no idea of what the story was and where it was going to go.
There’s a phrase I use called ‘The Valley Full of Clouds.’ Writing a novel is as if you are going on a journey across a valley. The valley is full of mist, but you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there. And with any luck you can see the other side of the valley. But you cannot see down into the mist. Nevertheless, you head for the first tree. At this stage in the book, I know a little about how I want to start, I know some of the things I want to do on the way. I think I know how I want it to end. And this is enough…
Terry Pratchett
I know my characters really well, and they dictate the story, I just follow in their wake. They’re constantly surprising me.
Find out what your hero wants, then follow him.
Ray Bradbury
Gillian Walker 
Is it possible to read your original stories on the net?
I’m unable to plan any of my stories, even articles. When i put down plan first then i’m losing interest in writing, cause i already know what it all about :-))
I don’t have anything on the net, no – I’ve never seen any reason to post them, tbh –
I find the plan is only ever a rough guide. Once I start writing, the thing takes on a life of its own and often goes in all kinds of directions I never planned.
By articles do you mean journalism? I always planned those meticulously just because of the constraints on length, par length and structure.
Yes, journalism, though I like to think of myself as a researcher rather than journalist. I have to know the purpot and main ideas of an article when I begin to write it but i can’t detail the structure of it before i write the first variant, I don’t know why but i begin to understand how each part combines with others only then. Not very productive way of doing it 🙂
Whatever works for you is always good and everyone has their own ways of doing things. I could never figure out how the old guys managed, banging a story straight out on to a typewriter – it’s a totally different way of thinking and one I never got yo grips with.
I always found, being, by nature, a long writer, that I had to structure articles very firmly and know exactly what points I was going to make at set points of the story or else I was just – lost. Especially if they involved hefty editing of lengthy interviews. I used to get in the most appalling messes sometimes.
Columns, though were pure stream-of-consciousness things for me and always my favourite things to write.
Who do you work for (if you don’t mind me asking?) I used to mostly write for The Economist and the UK press; did a lot of freelancing for the glossies – Marie Claire, Cigar Aficionado, Natural Health, stuff like that.
It’s okay, I just think you don’t know these editions, cause I live and work in Russia.
I’d begun to write for journals for parents when I was at the university, i was interested in fairy tales then and had written about it and other stuff, i’d even had a year-length project of ‘The history of fashion for children’ 🙂
Later I’ve wrote several years for the “Moscow news” monthly appendix (is it right word?) and for one of the travels magasines, always as a freelancer.
Now I write for popular scientific journal “Science and Life” though quite lazy, i’m actually lazy writer, sometimes it takes me even month or two to compose article (if i have no deadline). I tried to find a way to one of the glossies, but here it’s all work through personal connections and my connections lays in different fields 🙂
But mostly i work as a researcher (and rarely author or editor) for TV programms, scientific and documentary, with my father who is well-known in Russia author of documentary and scientific popular films ant Tv programms.
Your work sounds really interesting. I used to work as a fixer for documentary makers when I was in Cuba. It was always my favourite part of the work.
Yes, it’s always interesting. We are finishing now big project – history of genetics, I’ve spent two years reading and translating a lot of literature on it from English and rummaging libraries and it was even fun, i found so many fascinating stories and persons to read about. I was totally in love with Tomas Hunt Morgan for some time 🙂
question, dear
Do you like Torchwood? Specifically Jack?
Re: question, dear
Not much, nope. I’ve tried but I just can’t get into Torchie and I find Jack a bit annoying.
Why do you ask?
Re: question, dear
Just curious. I’m trying to get a pic done for a fic, but I don’t collect art and it’s going to be of Jack and since you’re in teh UK, postage would be cheaper for her….make sense?
Re: question, dear
I’m happy to help if I can – let me know.
I’m glad to hear things are going so well! And I really hope this one gets published, because I’m just dying to read it someday. From all your descriptions it sounds really cool…
Whoops – posted the wrong message there. I somehow switched pages while I was posting… *G*
I hope it’s good – tbh, it’s all so new and the writing quite raw, it’s barely even started but I’m happy with the way it seems to be going (thanks!).
*sending more writierly vibes*
I’m so glad the novel is coming along so well and the way you’re writing this, with the characters properly worked out but the plot developing itself (more or less) sounds very sensible to me. Like Jen, I really, really hope it’s going to be available on Amazon one day so I can read it. Hm, mysteries; the more the merrier! *g*
Re: I really hope it’s going to be available on Amazon one day
Me too. (o:
I’m enjoying this one; something I couldn’t say about the others I wrote. I’m thinking this bodes well (though I have no idea what the central character is up to at the moment.
::general happy dance for your good fortune re Mangoes and writing, and life in general.::
– bs
Thanks hon! ::returns your happy dance for your own good luck::
Have to say – just finished your ‘Angel Dust’. Such powerful story, really moving. Thank you. And found once more ‘Child of God’, I’ve read it before and really like it, as “Chasing rainbow’ and “Wild Whispering”.
By the way – where did you find that expression ‘angel dust’, I tried to think of it in Russian but couldn’t pinpoint it.
My father had a Russian friend who told us about the frozen breath that he called ‘Angel Dust’. The image always stayed with me. Maybe it’s a mis-translation? The only other reference I can find online is in a song by Laura Veirs;
‘Ice crystals form from flakes of heaven
Fall down weightless to the earth
To them it’s worth the falling
Through atmospheres a-dawning
And open arms a-calling
To collect and protect all the raining
Insane from above
The lonely angel dust
The only angel does…’
I’m really happy you liked my stories, honey. ♥
Haven’t heard this song.
I don’t think it’s mis-translation, in different parts of the country such things could have different names, think i’ll ask mom and other friends who might hear it.