In the area of reading writing advice.

I feel I ought to blog, but only because you’re supposed to blog once a week on a regular basis. It doesn’t mean I’ve actually got anything to say.

I had a very nice day on Saturday, dancing at Ely Apple Day with the Riot. We were unusually together and danced with both vigour and accuracy. Usually we manage one or the other, but this time we were on top form and achieved both.

I’ve reached the stage with The Glass Floor (now 50-odd thousand words long and looking to be about 120k when it’s done) where my inner editor has kicked in and is nagging me to go back to the start and correct everything. I am instead making a list of notes for revision on the second draft, and pressing on. It haunts me to think that a lot of what I’ve done so far will need to be changed, but that’s better than my old process. (Which involved making dozens of revisions on the first five chapters and then abandoning the book unfinished.)

I read a book recently that claims you have to enjoy every part of your writing process, or it’s a sign that you’re writing something boring. This naturally has made me feel very anxious. (Everything makes me anxious.) But, given that I suffer from regular depression and don’t enjoy being myself, it would be very out of character for me to enjoy anything all the time. I don’t think I have the kind of wiring capable of such a thing. Given this fact, I take the knowledge that I don’t hate my writing to be the equivalent of the positive person’s ‘OMG, I love it!’

And speaking of writing advice and other people’s processes, I’ve decided to have a go with the whole right-brain mind map thing and do one for each of my main characters, as well as my own sweet spot map. I’m such a left brain person, I normally even do things like this in lists, and can’t help a mental sneer at the untidiness of the whole brainstorming squiggle thing. But that disdain probably just means that it would do me good if I tried.

Anyway, that reaches my limits of stuff I have to say today. If you’re looking for a rather more interesting blog post, you could try this one by Kay Berrisford on the subject of the forest in folklore:

http://lgbtfantasyfansandwriters.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/if-you-go-down-to-the-woods-today/

Mirrored from Alex Beecroft - Author of Gay Historical and Fantasy Fiction.