Today is National Day on Writing, and I was all ready to go on and on about writing as compulsion and need, just as books are as necessary to me as food and air, but then I realised I actually said it all before.
Why I Write
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Archive | Writing
The craft of writing and some tips here and there.
It’s True I’m a Research Junkie
- JJ: (long rambly complaint about feeling compelled to know every possible detail about her characters’ backstories, particularly one who turned out to be Welsh because of the surname she decided to give him) It’s the little details. WHY MUST I KNOW THE LITTLE DETAILS?
- WICKED COOL RILEY: You are like a drunk girl texting her ex. STEP AWAY FROM GOOGLE.
If there was any doubt I was a Ravenclaw, then this should eliminate it entirely.
Also, did you know there is a dearth of information about the Swansea accent on YouTube?
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Old Writing
I was all ready to type up a post about blog fatigue (and I probably will another day), but I stumbled upon bits of my old writing that I figured I’d share, since I can’t be bothered come up with new material. I wrote this when I was 20, and it makes me laugh a [...]
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The Truth
Most people ARE likeable, or go through the world with some construct of character that they hope is likeable. That's how you get through life. [...] The key with characters is to be HONEST. If a character's actions are believable, then that character will work. Notions of like or not-like become irrelevant.Russell T. Davies, Doctor Who: A Writer's Tale
I may be peppering my blog with quotes from this book, because really and truly, there are some gems in here.
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Margaret Atwood is Amazing
The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
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I Must Be Getting Hormonal Or Something
These are the things we won’t do. We won’t be together so long that we forget how we got together in the first place; and it doesn’t matter to us or to anybody else. We won’t go to bed in the afternoon on the strength of a smile across a room. We won’t exchange our life stories and feel pangs of jealousy when we talk about old lovers. We won’t get enough memories of our own to see us through the bad times. We won’t read something in the paper and want to ring each other up just to talk about it. And we’ll never go dancing and embarrass everybody but ourselves. We won’t ever argue. We won’t ever make up. We won’t ever get to know each other so well that we take each other for granted.D.I. Peter Carlisle in Blackpool (played by David Tennant)
That last line kills me. What is it with me and declarations of love these days? I must be getting broody or something. I’m in the midst of writing something romantic and now I’m just searching for other romantic declarations. Between this one and the one on Bones, I’m turning into a total sap.
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Writing For Me
In a later life, he would stroke the hair from her face and speak of family, of a house and children and dogs (of all strange things). His voice was wistful and soft, and she could pretend enough to believe that she wanted those things too. Perhaps she did. Perhaps he was the only man in whose eyes she could see her future. She wanted to want them. She wanted to want them because HE wanted them, and because she wanted HIM. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted to want him badly enough to be a better woman than she was, to live up to the hope he cherished in his heart. But in the end she was nothing more than a coward and those heartbroken eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life.From a bit of backstory on a character in my novel, except this backstory is turning into a back-novella
Sometimes it’s good to write things for yourself that you know will never get published.
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Why Should I Care?
Recently I’ve been having difficulty finishing books. Of course, when you read as much as I do, there’s no point in finishing books you don’t like (because there are so many more I should be reading), but in this instance, I don’t think it’s because I don’t like the book–it’s because I can’t muster up [...]
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Your Mileage May Vary
Here’s an unpopular opinion: I really, really, really dislike it when writers tell me how attractive romantic leads are, and the specific ways in which they are attractive. I am, of course, talking about when writers linger on the physical merits of a character. Oh writers, if/when you are writing a book with a hot romantic interest, please refrain from describing said romantic interest’s looks in minute detail. I am begging you.
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The Dignity of Impoliteness
There was a nakedness in rudeness, and she felt the edges of embarrassment flutter close to cloak her in shame. But she brushed the feeling away with effort, willing herself to believe in the dignity of being impolite.Short story in progress
Am writing. Or attempting to. The past few weeks I have been so overwhelmed with work that I have no energy to do anything except come home and obsess over Doctor Who and/or Harry Potter (or both at the same time). Anyway, here’s another darling that will probably be axed at some point in the [...]
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