I'm dis-continuing this blog...

Hi to all my readers here!

After a few short weeks of posting all my writing here, I have decided I actually need to have my writing present on my main blog. Starting this week I will be posting my exercises from Words on Wednesday on my At the Bottom of the Garden blog. I'm also going to endeavour to participate in some Flash Fiction Friday exercises, if anyone is interested in reading those.

To all my Google Friends followers here - I REALLY appreciate your support, so if you're not already following me At the Bottom of the Garden, please feel free to follow me there - I will be very happy to see your faces over there!

Writing Exercise: week 11, The Fight

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 12 - The Fight. Kerri says:  I am a writer of non-fiction (for now, anyway). In my book 'When My Husband Does The Dishes...', I wrote a memoir of marriage and motherhood in as honest way as I knew how. In interviews, I was constantly asked how I felt about revealing so much about myself, and how I knew where to draw the line. I always answered the same way. Every single thing I wrote in that book was 100% true, because without my truth, I had nothing to offer. However, the book didn't represent 100% of the truth, just as my blog doesn't represent 100% of the truth. There are personal details of my life, my husbands life and my kids' lives that I will never reveal, because we all need to to keep something for ourselves. And that's the key to writing good non-fiction - or one of the keys. You have to be honest, because without honesty, your work won't speak to people. You have to be fearless, because restraint in writing can be perceived. But that doesn't mean that you have to bare your entire soul. Choose what you want to share, choose what is relevant to your story. But make sure that what you choose to share is real, and true. 


The exercise today is to write a story from your life. And remember: it has to be 100% true, but it doesn't have to be 100% of the truth. There's a difference. The keywords are: The Fight

The Fight

The door slams behind me and I stamp my feet up the driveway. If I wasn't fuming I might actually laugh at my own tantrum, but I am fuming. I'm so mad I have to stop myself from going back and saying something really bad, something that might end our relationship altogether.

Right now, in this moment, I hate him. Hate him with the white hot heat of a thousand suns colliding. How can I actually hate him, it's unfathomable to me, in the eighteen months we've been together we've never even had a fight before, not a single one. We've always been able to work around our differences... Maybe this is the end?

My stamping has slowed a bit now, it might be the hill, or maybe just the distance between us. Distance that wasn't there yesterday, or even this morning. This morning we were in love. Not a hot, furious love, but an abiding, patient and compassionate love.

Stuff compassion! I can't feel compassion for such an ignorant, stubborn bastard!

Sadness is starting to ooze over me. So, this is it, this is where it ends and what it ends over? Our perfect, untouched by fighting, romance. I can't ever respect him now, he's too nreasonable.

But...

Surely we can figure this out. 

I hear the train hurtling towards the station, it screeches to a stop and the doors slide open, I step on and take the nearest seat. I'll go to a movie. I'll see a comedy, maybe I'll feel like I can like him afterwards.

Our first argument - make or break time - all because his idea of doing the dishes never includes drying them and putting them away. Bastard!

I resist the smile that wants to creep across my lips. I don't care that it's silly - he's being unreasonable!

This week was hard! I don't usually write autobiographically. I hope it wasn't too clumsy...

Writing exercise 10: Walking.

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 11 - Take a Walk: "Come back home and write what you encountered. Try to write so that your sentences feel the way the walking felt." Let's toss the 5 minute sprint aside this week and instead take a lingering stroll through our exercise. Participants are encouraged to write a first draft (the point being to get it out on the page), then to go through and edit their piece before posting. We're aiming to get from one place to another, taking the reader with us - economically, gracefully, elegantly.
Perhaps start with the usual stream of consciousness exercise if you are having trouble getting started. But then stop and take a look. Edit your sentences and try to get them "feeling" the way your walk felt.

Walking, walking!


Out the door with the pram. Lock the screen? No time! Down the path and through the gate. Bloody pram, don't get stuck now! Step, step, step, step - road. No traffic, great. Cross. Step, step, step, step - ow! What? Oh, damn it, forgot to change my shoes. These Birk slip-ons are fine for around the house, but not barefoot speed walking on a warm day. 


It's not that warm really, only about seventeen degrees; warm when the sun is on your back, but still a bit chilly in the shade. That said, at this speed, and this weight, pushing this pram with a toddler onboard, it's quickly starting to feel a hell of a lot warmer!


If I slow down just a bit my foot might not rub on that stud inside the shoe, and my chest might not feel so tight, and my face might not feel full to bursting with hot, hot water. Can't slow down. The boy is up at the school with a gash on his chin that the nurse reckons needs stitches. 


Shit! Maybe he won't be able to walk home? Step, step. Do I have any money for a cab to the doctor's? Step, step. No, of course not. Stop. Do I go back for money? No, I'm buggered already! Must. Keep. Walking. 


It's only 350 metres from home to school. I walk this way four times a day. It takes exactly 5 minutes and 30 seconds with the pram. This will be over in 2 more minutes, but damn it that hill is only a driveway away and I'm already breathless. Can't think about the hill. Must keep walking. Step, step, ow, step, ow, step. Just keep walking.


I'm Dory in Nemo, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, ignore feeling breathless, ignore the raw spot on my left instep. Just keep walking. 


Nearly there, the hill is nearly done, only a slight gradient now. Cross the road, last push up the curb. Step, step, step - ah, breathe, breathe, deep breathes prevent a stitch. Step, step, last road to cross - on the flat.  Thank God! The shade on this side is nice on my red, hot face. I must look a sight. 


School gate, front door, nurse's door. There he is. No blood, looks as pale as I feel flushed. 


Breathe.


Well, I don't know how elegant this is but this is one of a couple of such walks I've had to do in the last five days (my boys have been particularly accident prone!), so it was something I could relive quite readily. My aim was to leave the reader feeling breathless as well... Let me know if it worked (if it didn't, please tell me because then I can work on improving that!).

Write on Wednesday - exercise 10 - Piqued.

A Gift of Serendipity... Take Felicity's Word of the Week. Write it at the top of your page. Set your timer for 5 minutes. Write the first words that come into your head after the Word of the Week. Stop writing when the buzzer rings.
Felicity's Word of the Week is...

Piqued:
A state of vexation caused by a perceived slight or indignity; a feeling of wounded pride.tr.v. piqued, piqu·ing, piques
1. To cause to feel resentment or indignation.
2. To provoke; arouse: The portrait piqued her curiosity.
3. To pride (oneself): He piqued himself on his stylish attire.
Enjoy! Try to have fun. You don't need to focus on the meaning of the word too much. No matter what you write, the point is to Get Writing and link your piece up to the linky below. Don't forget to say hi to Felicity and thank her for her gift...

Piqued

The hot autumn sun beat down on Jack's face as he set up the easel. Sarah had smiled when he left, but the smile was tight and lack lustre. Too many hours away from the house painting, and Charlie was being a little bugger these days, hanging out late with his friends and moping about when he's home. I've got to make this just a quick sketch today and get home so she doesn't have to with the lad on her own.

In the moment he was thinking those thoughts, Jack's determination was quite real, within five minutes of sketching, the impression of the thoughts would not have been found under a microscope. Sketching and painting had that effect on Jack, it swallowed him whole and erased any concept of time and space, there was just creation.

Jack's eyes saw everything and saw nothing at the same time, it was as if the sights bypassed his mind and went straight to his hands. Often he didn't see the thing he was reproducing until it was on the canvas. 

It was in this way he first saw Svava; as her delicate and pale features came to life on the canvas. Her golden hair, tinged with copper, lay like a plaited cable over her left shoulder. Her large sky-blue eyes fixed on his face. He hadn't noticed her when he first arrived and as his eyes flicked up to properly see the original version, he was surprise to find no one. 

-------

His hands continued to move over the canvas and she was still there, wearing a long dress in a mossy green fabric with intricate and colour embroidery along the hem. Now she seemed to be getting up to leave.

'No, stay.' he murmured, not wanting to frighten her. For a moment she froze in place and then she was gone. Gone from his hands and gone from the rock as his looked up.

Jack rubbed his face with the back of his hand, the sun was much lower in the sky than he'd realised. Sarah's strained smile would be a frown by now. Quickly he gathered his brushes and paints and folded the easel under his arm. He took one last look at the girl on the canvas and knew he'd be back up here tomorrow, even though Sarah needed him.

As people seemed to enjoy the story of Svava last week, I thought I'd look at the same scene from Jack's point of view this week - and piqued was the perfect would to enable me! I did go over 5 minutes again today, so the dashes represent the 5 minute mark-ish (I lost track of time, oops). Looking forward to reading everyone else's pieces!

Writer's Angst - I've got it!

Right now, as I write this, I'm experiencing the crippling effects of writer's angst. I want to crawl into bed and never write again - which is why I'm writing, to stop myself from giving up completely! I see other writer's getting things published and finding agents and I feel incredibly inadequate.

Sure, I could submit my manuscript and I could write a bunch of query letters and see if anyone is interested in reading the manuscript, but I keep hearing this little voice behind my ear saying, 'Don't kid yourself, they'll take one look and if they don't have a coronary from laughing so hard, they'll toss your manuscript down beside the toilet for later use!'.

I've heard other writer's feel this way, too. So, how on earth to they get past this? What do they tell themselves to make it okay to make that phone call or send that email or packaged of chapters and a synopsis and covering letter?

I had hoped for some guidance about this form my supervisors and lecturers during my Masters, but I misunderstood something, obviously because at the end of the course, they handed me my degree, patted me on the back and said, 'Good Luck!'

Maybe it was because I wrote urban fantasy, which isn't everyone's cup of tea - and many can't even bring themselves to call it literature. Maybe...

I need a plan of action.

11/08/11 - Getting back into it...

I thought I'd start a bit of a writing journal here, and put it under it's own label for people who might want to dig throught my internal rambings regarding my writing process.

After finishing the YA novel manuscript I wrote for my Masters degree last December, I felt very wrung out. For a couple of months I waited to see what mark I'd receive, as if that would somehow guarantee or exclude any possibility of getting the novel published. The mark came, and it was very good. I'd been given a Distinction and plenty of praise about the potential of the manuscript.

For a few days I felt elated, and then I felt nothing but panic! I felt and urgent need to get the manuscript under an editor's nose while it was still carrying the intangible glow of the Distinction. I sent it off to a couple of publishers and soon received my first rejection by letter, and have since received another rejection through 'silence on the other end of the line'.

I've decided to get the manuscript professionally read before submitting it again. That means waiting until I have a spare $350 on hamd, which might be a while yet.

In the meantime, I was going to get back into writing and submitting stort stories, but what I discover was that I was suffering from writing fatigue. I couldn't face the black page. I was attracted to social media as a writing outlet - I mastered 'thinking content in 140 characters'.

I threw myself into blogging, but all the while I felt the nagging sensation needing to write real fiction, real stories with characters and confliction and resolution. I tried starting a 'Friday Fiction' meme, but didn't manage to plug into the right crowd - the blogging writers. Then I discovered Write on Wednesdays and the weekly writing prompts with the participants commenting on each other's writing, and have participated for four weeks now.

Slowly but surely I've felt myself emerging from the post-thesis fog.

Thing week I finally started to put down a few lines from my next novel. I finally gave Lily's mother a name, Svava - giving her a name has been a big hurdle to writing her story, but now I feel that I can finally start to move forward with this new project.

It's been a kind of re-awakening!

WoW week 9 - Think with Character

Joining in Write on Wednesdays, again, at InkPaperPen.

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 9 - Think with Character. Choose a character from your writing posts. You can still do this exercise if you are new to WoW - select a character from another piece of your writing or simply work through the exercise from scratch.   Now, think about the character in regards to their: gender, age, occupation, physical appearance and mood at this moment. Is your character in the city, the country, inside or outside? Do they live in rich or poor surroundings? Alone or with others? Answer all, some or one of these questions. Now, set your timer for 5 minutes and write the first words about your character that come into your head. Stop when the buzzer rings. This may be one week where you feel you need to throw the timer and take your time. Do whatever works for you. You may also like to consider: Complexion, Style of dress, Hair colour/style, Speaking voice and likely vocabulary, Strengths/Weaknesses, Mannerisms

OR for a different approach

* Look at how your character fits into quotes like the one at the top of my page. For example, what does YOUR character do when nobody's looking? You can find more quotes about "Character" here. 

That's it from me. Write your post and link it up below, then pop around to comment on the other writing pieces. Most of all, enjoy and have fun with it!

The characterisation I wrote for this week's exercise is based on a character for the novel I'm just starting to get down on paper - it's a prequel to a YA novel I finished writing last year (but which I'm planning a professional reading of before pitching it to more publishers *the never ending treadmill*). Even though I have a fairly clear picture of Svava in my head, I have to admit I found myself waffling a bit here, so my apologies if it seems a bit weak... And, yes, I went over five minutes...


Svava


The day she met Jack, she had been sitting on a large rock, letting the winter sun warm her back through her robes. The summer heat was too strong for her and she didn't mind the cool of the sub-terrarian colony at that time of year, but since she was first permitted to travel above she'd craved the sun's light in the cooler months.


She had been confident he couldn't see her in her transformed state, it was very rare for humans to see the hidden folk without the hidden willing it. Jack - as he later introduced himself - came trudging up the rise with his easel and canvas and paints. He set up quite near Svava, side-on to her.


He was fascinating to observe, but then again Svava found all humans fascinating. They were so like the hidden folk, she could easily pass for one herself. She had played with the idea of entering the nearby town - but the laws forebade it, and her parents were pillars of their community. Setting a good example was extremely important to them.


Svava played with her long plait, watching it glisten in the sun - hints of copper among the golden blonde strands.


She'd glanced at Jack who was looking directly at her. She froze. He turned back to his canvas and flicked his brush over it's surface, then glanced in her direction again. The focus of his gaze sent electric twinges through her stomach. Svava pulled her feet up onto the rock and shifted her balance to her hands to get up and leave.


'No, stay.' Jack had murmured quietly, shifting his gaze back to his canvas...