Sandra

Just dropping in quickly to say hello, and to apologise for my absence for the last few weeks. Will try and catch up soon. (Nanowrimo kind of took over).

It would be great if you could try and post some notes from the Stephanie Hutton workshop @raine. I’m at the stage where I find all the exercises very useful – end of first draft and starting the second which is when I try to do serious planning – but I agree timing is everything!

I’ve been very bad and not even finished the reading assignment. Things keep cropping up to divert me. We are off on a cruise at Christmas with several sea days so I will catch up on all reading then if not before.

Sorry for not contributing this session. I did the reading, and enjoyed it, and think I’ll use some of the exercises to expand on what I already do when I’m planning. I didn’t get around to doing anything for this bit as I’m at totally the wrong point in any of my wips for it to work, and needed to get something finished, etc, etc!

Too late to…[Read more]

Sounds good @woolleybeans. Thank-you. 🙂

Yes that sounds good WB. Thank you.

I would appreciate a bit of space right now because as @janeshuff says I’m really enjoying the process, but I have a lot of other time pressures right now. It would be good to feel I had a little bit more time to wallow in each part of the course. That’s just for now, I hasten to add – the pacing of it is spot…[Read more]

Sounds good @woolleybeans.

Wow. That went fast!

I’m happy with the timetable you suggest @woolleybeans and equally happy if anyone with a busier Christmas than mine wants to take it even slower. I’m getting a lot out of this and don’t see any need to rush!

Thanks for staying on top of it WB

Brilliant, thank you @squidge!

I seem to be following @katemachon round the den and repeating everything she says. So once again… Thanks @squidge. It was a great blog. That Julie Cohen is a very clever person.

Thanks @squidge – a great blog.

OK – here’s the link to Julie’s workshop at York (back in 2013! Yikes…) https://squidgesscribbles.blogspot.com/2013/09/playing-at-being-god-creating-characters.html

In this post is the link to a more creative – literally tear and stick version – way of answering questions about plot, characters etc. At the end of the post……[Read more]

I’d be interested too @squidge.

I’ll try and dig them out later today. Think I might even have blogged about it, but we’re going back a few years. Also got something that might trigger the unconscious brain into devising your character…

@squidge I’d be interested in seeing those notes too.

I agree with you both about using the character questionnaire and other exercises at the early stages. It isn’t helpful for me. I need to write stuff and let them emerge. However at the end of first draft stage (which is where I’m at) I am finding it very useful for pinning down things about…[Read more]

@Squidge ooh would you mind sharing those notes? I keep hearing about Julie Cohen and her post it notes etc! And I think Kate’s talking about the Toni Morrison excerpt from ‘Recitatif’, towards the end under the Action section.

I find that whole character analysis thingy quite daunting, frankly. At the early stages I just don’t KNOW all the…[Read more]