Terrie

Like Squidge, this is an alien way of working for me, but … I need a murderer. One who isn’t immediately identified as such. (And while I know the (probable) victim I don’t know why or how) so I’ll be attempting to discover him (probably him) with this approach.

I haven’t finished this chapter yet, but I’m already fascinated. Love the Sloane rule that speech ‘must do more than one thing or it is too inert for the purposes of fiction.’

And the example of the argument about sinking the oil rigs was an eye opener – to engage us emotionally in a disagreement, the characters must have an emotional stake in…[Read more]

I’ll try…but it feels so unnatural! Maybe I’ll have to do two exercises – one that challenges and one that feels more natural?!

I bought myself an academic diary and I’m jotting in it things I do connected to writing, especially to do with this MA.
I don’t write every day, so my target is to have at least one, hopefully two sessions a week. I’m currently NaNoing, so that’s changed the focus somewhat over this month.
I also want to go back to blogging more regularly again…[Read more]

This will be interesting for me – I don’t normally have a clear picture of a character up front – they develop as I write them – so the character questionnaire will be a real challenge. Do I stick with how I usually work or try something new…?

Thanks for all your hard work @woolleybeans.

Nice summary @JaneShuff. I think you’re right – it’s about getting in the mindset of making notes and creating work regularly. I read an interesting quote from Ira Glass about closing the gap between what you want to be creating and where you are now. That was all about doing a big volume of work and having deadlines. It’s back to the old idea of…[Read more]

Works for me. I’ve got my journal ready, just haven’t written in it yet! But a step in the right direction.

All OK here – finding the time to do the writing is hard at the mo, so I need to work on that, but the timings aren’t unachievable. Just that my life needs to calm down!! When does Class 2 go up?

I’m a bit of a sleeping partner in this; not fully committed, so will dip in and out, attempting to keep to time structure and maybe lax in commenting.

Yes, all good for me, too. Thank you x

Ta all! The substance in question was, I believe, CBD oil; two gents were having a very animated discussion about setting up in business to supply it.

@Raine – I am a death-dreamer, too! I’ve been shot, drowned, stabbed – really weird to feel my life ebbing away in the dream.

I think the forced thing is definitely due to the fact that I try to…[Read more]

Read your dialogue soon after a trip to Mull. Wish I had the memory to write down what I hear i passing. And your ‘I remember blue tiles and the smell of drains and old food.’ sums it up; as you say above, you only need a couple of telling details.