This week I continued with the whodunnit, caught up on some of the coursework I should have done, and got back into the swing of writing group.
I’ve pressed on with the whodunnit despite still feeling a little conflicted about the detective. I have gone for a police detective for realism but the more I think about it the more I think the likes of Marple or Holmes work precisely because they are not official – they are not constrained by the rules of the law and can do things that wouldn’t make good policy! I also feel that it’s made the story become a bit sludgy as I try to get the jargon and legal process right.
In a last-ditch attempt to get a balance between professional detective and civilian sleuth, I have had a Miss Marple marathon running over the weekend in the background. This week my writing time will be very limited as I have things on every evening after work – predominantly rehearsals, sadly! – but I will revisit the story and see which direction I want to go. I am trying not to get too bogged down in the minutiae, bearing in mind my reason for trying this was purely to practise the written art of misdirection, and think if I continue down my current path I’ll lose focus again which I don’t want to do!
In the meantime, I have started work on a new poem for performances, called ‘The Ties That Bind’. I like it and I feel it has legs so will be working on that in the next few weeks as well.
Alongside the writing, I am getting back into my studies, on a fairly basic level – I am doing the bare minimum work and no interactive elements such as forums, because I don’t have time, but I wanted to get back to learning which I find so inspirational. I still have ideas to explore about history and society that may become poems rather than novels or short stories just because I want to get them onto paper!
And finally, this week also saw the return of writing group. We have a new venue which is a local pub, and I’m not sure it’ll be entirely successful but we’ll give it a while to try it out. As we arrived it was snowing, and a great big log fire was a very welcome sight! I am pushing us all to have writing targets this year, and we are going to run a children’s writing competition locally, so I hope everyone’s a little more invested now. We even have newbies joining us, which is great fun!
I’ll leave it there as it’s nearly midnight and I have to get up for work! Decisions on detectives will be made soon…
Happy writing,
EJ
🙂
Becoming a writer 
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