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RichardB replied to the topic NaNoWriMo in the forum Coffee Shop 7 years, 11 months ago
Yes, if you tell someone that you play, say, the guitar, they don’t normally up and ask you if you’ve got a recording contract, do they? Though I don’t think I’ve told anybody outside my immediate circle of close friends and family that I write.
Apart from you lot, obviously.
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RichardB posted a new activity comment 7 years, 11 months ago
Speaking of armrests. When I’m in the armchair reading, and puss wants to be stroked/scratched/ generally mauled about, she’ll come and sit on the armrest. If i try to ignore her she’ll stretch out her front leg and put her paw on my face. if that doesn’t work, she’ll do it with her claws out. I told you she was shameless.
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RichardB posted a new activity comment 7 years, 11 months ago
Fraid not. Our cat, though she’s a shameless attention seeker, doesn’t do lap-sitting.
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It’s ok if said cat doesn’t mind being an arm rest, which one of mine doesn’t. He’s a daft bugger. But I have resorted to the cozy cardboard box next to keyboard option at the moment.
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The current lap sitter has allowed me to move the keyboard from under her head and use it – although it’s rather uncomfortable (for me, not her). The other thinks moving fingers are an invitation to play…
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Not without growing your arms a bit longer…
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Speaking of armrests. When I’m in the armchair reading, and puss wants to be stroked/scratched/ generally mauled about, she’ll come and sit on the armrest. If i try to ignore her she’ll stretch out her front leg and put her paw on my face. if that doesn’t work, she’ll do it with her claws out. I told you she was shameless.
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Our Timmy does that sometimes, too, Richard. He’s got a stare you can FEEL…and if you ignore it, he’ll give a little ‘mew’ and stretch out his paw towards my face. Glad to say when his claws come out, he usually saves that for my arm…
The teeth he saves for when he’s hungry, and he always goes for the soft bit of my upper arm.
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RichardB replied to the topic NaNoWriMo in the forum Coffee Shop 7 years, 11 months ago
Or to put it another, slightly less discouraging way, if you’re writing fiction that’s coming from inside your head, right? So anything outside that is Real Life.
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RichardB posted a new activity comment 7 years, 11 months ago
Yes, I know that Debi (for one) works like this. so there’s a published author as an example.
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RichardB posted an update 7 years, 11 months ago
Editing: they say cut cut cut, don’t they? Hmm. I don’t work like that. When I finished the first draft of my ghost story six (My God!) years ago it was only 47,000 words long. When I submitted it two years later it was 74,000 words. Now its creeping up to 80,000. Mind you, there’s some rather drastic cutting needed near the end.
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I think it works like that for some, doesn’t it? Writing the bare bones first and then fleshing out. (I’ve always hated the term ‘fleshing out’ – too many dissection classes and JEkyll and Hyde stories!)
I seem to always end up at roughly the same word count – cutting a lot and feeling all pleased with myself, then realising I need whole new scenes…
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Yes, I know that Debi (for one) works like this. so there’s a published author as an example.
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RichardB posted a new activity comment 7 years, 11 months ago
I like it! How were the plums?
Oh, and your news. I like that too.-
Delicious. So sweet, and so cold. Unlike the novel which is bitter and very, very long
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that is bloody amazing @daedalus! Congratulations 🙂 What a lot of plums…
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Yippee Daeds! Hope you are going to take the day off to celebrate.🍒🍾
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Haha I wish
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This is awesomes Daeds. Both the achievement and the plums. I want that meme back, it was the best.
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RichardB posted an update 7 years, 11 months ago
Call me weird if you will, but I do love picking a passage apart and putting it back together again, better than before. So satisfying.
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That’s not weird, Richard. I didn’t think I could be the only one who preferred working with an existing draft to creating a new one
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Two different types of adventure, I think. I enjoy both but creating a new draft can be like swimming in very rough seas.
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Definitely. Editing is a craft. Writinf a first draft is an extreme sport
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I like that analogy. If it’s skiing, then I am currently uphill xcountry skiing, stuck in those parallel ruts and not sure whether they are heading in the right direction…
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RichardB posted a new activity comment 7 years, 11 months ago
One day you’ll be glad of this. Better sooner than later.
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I’ve also completely lost control of the days of the week. I think’s it’s just been both Tuesday and Friday simultaneously.
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Sympathies, Raine. I had to spend the best part of a day retiming my plot because I got the days wrong and ended up with things happening on a Sunday when they couldn’t
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I’m thinking of launching a campaign against the need for books to have to do days of the week at all.
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Or to have any internal coherency whatsoever. Who cares if my MC left the house in trousers and was wearing a skirt by the time she got on the bus
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I recall that Joseph Conrad had to make some rewrites to Under Western Eyes at a very late stage when someone realised that the entire plot took place over one extremely long day
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@janeshuff there’s a possibility of that happening in my current wip – only more likely shorts -> trousers as the MC is a he.
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@athelstone Hurrah. It’s time we writers broke free from the shackles of continuity.
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@janeshuff this looks like another case where bbpress is hiding replies (for space and tidiness) but not providing a ‘show all replies’ button. So although I can see there were 8 replies, I can’t actually view them.
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Neither can I!
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RichardB replied to the topic TV appearance – Quest, 'Wings of War' in the forum Podium 7 years, 11 months ago
Spot on, Kaz. That’s exactly what he is.
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RichardB replied to the topic TV appearance – Quest, 'Wings of War' in the forum Podium 7 years, 11 months ago
Well done indeed, Daeds. Authoritative, erudite and lucid. Once again you display that knack you have of making technical things clear to the layman.
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RichardB replied to the topic What shape are your ideas? in the forum Blogs 7 years, 11 months ago
Before I start writing (these days, anyway) I need to know the beginning (obviously) and some idea of the ending, but not necessarily everything that happens in between. Nothing is set in stone, though, and either may change before I’ve finished, depending on what happens along the way.
The two novels I’m prepared to own up to came about in quite…[Read more]
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RichardB posted a new activity comment 7 years, 11 months ago
Finished redoing that chapter. Now for the other two…
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RichardB posted an update 7 years, 12 months ago
Dunno about NaNoWriMo and word count targets, but in the last two days I’ve revised and rewritten 4,000 words, which is pretty good going for me. I’ve almost finished changing an entire (long) chapter from one POV to another. Remember that exercise in the S-E course? Like that, only longer. Much longer.
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That’s great Richard! Looking forward to seeing the results
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Me too 🙂
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Finished redoing that chapter. Now for the other two…
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RichardB posted an update 7 years, 12 months ago
Just about to take murdering darlings to a new level. There’s this paragraph I posted for one of the exercises in the S-E course. Debi was impressed, and helped me make it even better. And now it’s got to go. The whole para. (Sobs.)
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You have my sympathies. But keep the cut lines somewhere, Richard. You never know when a version of them may turn out to be useful in another piece.
In the meantime, here’s a hanky 🙂
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RichardB replied to the topic Some notes on Dara Marks' Transformational Arc in the forum Blogs 8 years ago
I feel much the same way, Squidge. I never have been able to get on with charts, graphs, grids or any other kind of science-ish analysis. I’m not knocking it for those who find it useful, but my eyes start to glaze over when faced with such stuff, and it seems to place a barrier between me and my creativity (if any). I suppose I might conceivably…[Read more]
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RichardB posted a new activity comment 8 years ago
I had a holiday there in the eighties, on a farm somewhere near Abersoch and Hell’s Mouth (delightful name – Porth Neigwl in Welsh). I particularly remember the day we went to the pub in the nearest village. I left the wife and kids at a table in the garden and went into the bar to order. There were a good thirty people in that room and a fair bit…[Read more]
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RichardB posted a new activity comment 8 years ago
Can’t help in this instance. You can’t get a lot further from where I live and still be in Wales, isn’t it?
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Ohmigosh – we went to the Lleyn EVERY year for holidays. I remember having shop-bought Victoria sponge on the beach on my birthday in June… Nefyn, Morfa Nefyn, Whistling Sands, Llanbedrog, Baa-Lamb Beach (our name for it, no idea what it was really called!) Abersoch and Aberdaron… Happy days.
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I had a holiday there in the eighties, on a farm somewhere near Abersoch and Hell’s Mouth (delightful name – Porth Neigwl in Welsh). I particularly remember the day we went to the pub in the nearest village. I left the wife and kids at a table in the garden and went into the bar to order. There were a good thirty people in that room and a fair bit…[Read more]
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RichardB replied to the topic NaNoWriMo in the forum Coffee Shop 8 years ago
SloMo – definitely sounds like my kind of thing. I’d be up for it. Might encourage me to get a bit more editing done on the notorious ghost story.
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RichardB replied to the topic NaNoWriMo in the forum Coffee Shop 8 years ago
Yes, there’s something to be said for leaving all the polishing until the editing, and I’m sure it works for some, but not for me. If something I’ve written doesn’t satisfy me, it niggles at me until I’ve put it right.
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