Now, here's a thing

This evening, I head to Write-Club at Pete’s place http://www.petermball.com/ – the real place, not the virtual one.

I am charged with the bringing of the essential choclit items (aka brain food – the literary equivalent of Thing Rings, making writers more productive and more able to either defeat or perpetrate evil, as is one’s wont). Pete is cooking, which is good – for I am lazy.

Today was one of my Friday writing at home days; I cleared about 1500 new words. Then I lay on the couch for about 3 hours and did research reading. I woke up last Saturday with this story idea in my head; I had a fairly srawny-looking skeleton, but I knew I liked the idea and I could flesh it out (feed it some carbs). I’ve typed up my notes, made more notes and scribbled a preliminary scene breakdown … I feel comfortable that the story, “Lavender and Lychgates”, will come out in the end.

But it’s this strange and frustrating place I’m in at the moment, where I’m still feeling my way, knocking on the doors and windows of the narrative, trying to find the best ways in and out; tapping on the walls and floor to see if there are any hollow spaces where words and story might hide. And the thing of which I keep reminding myself, the thing that keeps me grounded when I’m feeling lost, is this one question: what does this character want. The more I write, the more I become convinced that for a story to work properly, it must be grounded in an exploration of desire, want and need. Maybe that’s just me … it often is, let’s be honest.

But the coooooool thing about today is that tonight, I will crack the 70K mark on the short story collection, Sourdough and Other Stories. “Lavender and Lychgates”, is the second last one for the book. Then I just need to finalise a re-write of “Under the Mountain” and getthe whole schmeer off to my four beta-readers. And then it will be ready to go out into the world and make its fortune. I will, of course, be equipping it with all the traditional tools for this endeavour: a swag tied to a pole, a red cape with a hood, and magic beans. What could possibly go wrong?

Onward and upward.