A Misnomer

The term 'writer' is a misnomer for writing involves more than just putting words down on paper. Yes, actually writing something - be it a novel or a short story - is important, but the amount of time you spend writing is small compared to the other things you have to do. Before writing a piece, research may be necessary and that can take hours, if not days and weeks of work. Then you have your notes to write up and sift through. When your first draft has been completed, it has to be read, re-read and worked on until it is perfect. Eventually, when you have your article, novel or story ready, it must be checked one final time, formatted correctly and sent off to the publisher or agent you had in mind when you wrote it. This sounds simple, but can be very complicated as each publication has different guidelines. And all of this work is for only one story, I'm not counting the publications, books, newsletters and websites that have to be read and trawled through simply to keep informed of the market and abreast with current trends. So when I said my aim for 2008 was to spend 4 hours a day writing, I meant actually WRITING. I didn't realise how hard it would be to accomplish because I forgot that I would have to spend double that time on the other business of being a writer.

The Mark of the Wolf

I'm working on revising The Mark of the Wolf at the moment, heading towards the final draft. I have all these ideas in my head about how I want it to be, and I hope I can bring all these threads to bear successfully in the final draft. I've been reading TMOTW again before I start work on it and, despite all its faults, I am enjoying it. I think the characters are good and the scenario interesting. However, I keep on feeling that it is the action that takes place off scene that is the more important stuff. A lot of the scenes are based very much in the mundane and the everyday, with the characters often referring to something exciting that has happened but that we, the readers, didn't get to see. One of the things I will have to do in this edit is shift the perspective and show those scenes which weren't shown before, and leave much of the everyday to the imagination. This might make the final draft look very different from the original (on the surface) but the book that was struggling to break free from the confines of the ordinary was there all the long. I think it is going to be good - really good. I'm very excited about it.