Welcome...

Hi everyone, welcome to my site - a place of prose and poetry.

Thanks for stopping by...

Jo

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

May - You Write Your Novel: May - You Write Your Novel Challenge - FAQs

Just found this via twitter and decided to give it a go! Love the idea of the daily challenge and the support of other writers; definitely makes you feel less alone but also gives you the impetus to get on with it (instead of de-moulding the bathroom-tile-grout like I did yesterday...)

Good luck all!!

May - You Write Your Novel: May - You Write Your Novel Challenge - FAQs: "I'll add to this as the time goes by and questions arise. What do I have to do? The challenge is a simple one. No bells no whistles. Jus..."

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Authors for Japan



Help raise money for the Japanese tsunami/earthquake victims by bidding at the fantastic Authors for Japan site. Items up for auction include a dedication in the next Jill Mansell novel, first chapter critique and free signed copy of His Last Duchess by Gabrielle Kimm and synopsis and short story edit by Stella Deleuze - plus many more...


Bidding has opened and will finish at 8pm GMT on Sunday 20th March and all donations will go to the British Red Cross.

Monday, March 07, 2011

moving on - when you miss the characters you've created

Here's the thing. You've been writing a novel and there's the first draft done. You leave it for a while, come back and reread, realise how much more needs to be done and waver. Then you do all the technical, hard graft things; redraft, polish, redraft some more, cut your favourite section because it doesn't work, move things around, get the whole thing into shape, and then finally, after all that time, you realise it's finished * and you send it out and wait and wait.

I can cope with that. I was ready for the waiting.

But something I didn't expect to happen, something I wasn't ready for at all, was how much I miss those characters. I've spent so long thinking about them, imagining them, helping them do and say what it is they needed to do and say, that now I don't need to do that any more, I really miss them. They exist in a complete and finished world within the pages of the novel and don't need me any more. There is nothing constructive I can do for them now. I have to let them go and move on - spend time with new characters, have fun getting to know them, discover their needs and wants. And I'm looking forward to it. I really am. Honest.

Yet, I can never quite prevent those who came first from wandering back, creeping in from that vast space beyond the final page to whisper in my ear and unsettle me. No, I'll never be able to properly let them go.

 And I wonder, is that true for everyone? Is that usual?

So my question is,  how  do other writers deal with leaving behind one set of characters to begin working with the next? How do they cope with that experience?





*As finished as you can make it, anyway...