It's been a gloomy January in the U.K with icy roads and cold dark nights with the prospect of lying on a beach months away.
At this time of year it's easy to become disheartened, to wonder: will I ever get published? I've been writing for ten years in August (although I've had two children during that time) and I don't want to be sitting here typing the same words in ten years' time. I'd rather my blog post at the end of January 2023 was entitled 'How I got published...'
If I don't get Book 1, The Grandson published before I'm happy with Book 2, The Painting then I'll rewrite it. I put my heart into The Grandson for a long time and thought carefully about its plot and structure, so ideally I don't want to cast it aside. At the moment The Grandson is written in third person from three points of view: the heroine's, the heroine's mother's and the hero's ex-girlfriend's (who knows if those apostrophes are in the right place). Part of The Grandson includes excerpts from the heroine's grandfather's journal written during WW2 in Italy. I may rewrite those journal excerpts as scenes and make the book up to 120,000 words so it has a similar structure to The Painting. At the moment The Painting is part eighteenth century, part present day.
On those days when I can't think of where to take draft 1 of The Painting: I need to scan the word file I've created and zoom in on a section, expanding it; increasing the word count until I come up with an idea on where to take the story next. My outline for The Painting is a spreadsheet with key scenes loosely mapped out. I can't decide on all scenes in advance because as I write and research, the plot takes on a mind of its own. Then there are those minor characters who appear out of the blue with subplots which mirror the main plot all by themselves.
Has this January been good for your writing?
Thought I'd include the beach photo just in case you want to imagine yourself lying on it, the sun warming your skin: as you sleep, read, eat ice-cream or stare out to sea...the waves jostling against the shore.
And if that isn't enough, here's a motivational tune: