Week 48 – Picture this

This week writing has been hard.  I try to find the positive in all my writing experience but when motivation is lacking this is pretty difficult.  I have heard tales of writers cooped up alone for hours looking for the perfect word, and normally I’d understand that, but these last few days have been unfocussed to the extent that I decided it was more fulfilling to do housework than to write!

In order to make myself feel better I have listed my achievements for the week – and chosen not to look too closely at my timesheet…:

I’ve submitted a short story to a magazine (finally!) – edited some short stories to prepare for submission – written a new scene for the novel, to fill a gap I felt was particularly noticeable – typed up some contents from an old notebook – and started planning for an idea that’s been lurking around for a while waiting for some time to be spent on it (future novella or novel, I hope).

I also spent a bit of time looking at ways to develop this blog.  In amongst the WordPress guidance is a suggestion to use images (and I love these in other blogs), and remembering that I said a while ago I’d upload images that inspire me, I decided to use this as a way to get my writing mind working again…

So here is a photo that I like  looking at, which I took in Northumberland last year.  I call it The Elephant Tree – I hope you can see, there is a branch that has grown to look like an elephant’s trunk, complete with a lopping scar that looks like the start of a tusk.

I initially planned a poem but it did not flow, so I did a freewrite instead.  I was taught to do this during my last course, and find it quite useful – basically it involves writing for a set time about a trigger idea/word/image.  These exercises can go off onto strange tangents and that’s why I like them – you never know what will grow from your imagination.  To give you an idea how this works I’ve included a couple of paragraphs I wrote (with slightly improved punctuation and a couple of words added so it makes more sense than the original freewrite):

‘It curves, undulates like another type of trunk: midway to throwing water.  If I stand looking at it long enough, I’m sure I’ll see it move.  Life-full, it raises its scar eye and sees me.

The sun is high in the sky, but this is no African savannah, just a quiet corner of a garden owned for the country.  The elephant tree is as out of place in this lush quarry as I am.’

As I hope you can see, this gives me an opening to explore a number of ideas – such as belonging/place/space/identity – with plenty of room for scene setting and description.  This is useful and adds to my stock of ideas, images, notes and comments.  I never know when or if I’ll pick them up for something longer but my experience with the last poetry submissions proves that anything could be useful in the future!

In other news – it was book club this week.  I didn’t enjoy the book much – although the style of writing was fine, I was not drawn in by the story development and the characterisation.  Despite this, it was a very useful week because it helped me see that some of the things I found frustrating may well frustrate readers of my novel, and that one character in particular needs to be redefined.

I should point out that some of the group loved the book, which also got me thinking about the different things a reader may be looking for in their reading.  I know that I look for escapism and engagement: I can easily suspend disbelief about what happens, but I can’t believe in a character that doesn’t ‘ring true’, and I don’t want to write one.

And finally for this week, I’d like to say thanks to everyone who pops by and likes/follows/comments on/reads my posts.  I write this blog in part to keep me going with the writing even when I’ve had a less than successful week, and seeing the site stats and comment/like icon shining when I log on really does help.

Until next time – happy writing!

EJ

🙂