Storytime

So I'm working on an edit of a WIP. I have given this work to a cold reader, so I have her notes as I go back and work through. Looking at the big picture stuff as well as all those tiny niggly details. Some details are not tiny, as I've changed two characters names already...OMG the mistakes that causes! I have begun to research how writers go through this structural edit. I have looked at the Hero's journey...and all the many variations. I have noted where my novel meets these milestones...the 'call to adventure'.....the 'threshold guardians'. And I have... Gone off to play in the garden and dream of what will be. This appears to be one of the many  problems I face. Getting down to it. I'm so easily distracted. I know I should be doing work. Research. Getting my head around... But frankly I would much rather... Be on a beach. Somewhere. Anywhere. I put down some more notes, work on a chapter. Realise that s...

Once upon a time there was a woman who wrote short stories. Sometimes very short stories, sometimes a little bit longer. Every now and then she wrote a poem, not very long poems it must be said. She enjoyed this dipping into here and there. Testing her abilities. Then one day, in a burst of over enthusiastic belief in her capabilities she began a novel. It began with a simple idea...what if I did this... (very much like how this garden bed grew...a simple idea)  This was only the first attempt at a novel. Over the years, and there has been a lot of those as well, she began quite a few novels. She finished first drafts of many of them. Three novels made it to second draft, and one famously made it to third. Thousands and thousands upon thousands of words were written, re-worked, re-jigged, re-wired, re-edited, refused, rejected. These many thousands of words lie forgotten and neglected deep in her computer's brain (hopefully). She is now working on another WIP...this s...

As writers we should have an abundance of imagination...and more importantly, use it. As children we have so much imagination, often told too much, and we use it constantly. We dream and play and anything is possible. However we grow and are told not to be dreamers, to be realistic, to stop 'playing' and we use our imagination less and less. It's school holidays so it is program after program for us at the library. So far we've had a maker space which consists of putting out a table load of craft items and allowing the children to make what they could/ would. We had tubes of all sizes, aluminium foil, icy pole sticks, long sticks, feathers, patty pan papers, twine, pom poms, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, coloured paper, googly eyes and so much more. The children made puppets and rockets, rabbits and collage pictures, machine guns and kites, kaleidoscopes and binoculars, dolls and mobiles. It was so much fun. They can look at something and see so much more in...

Last week daughter and I (and baby boy) ventured to the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. This has been an annual event since daughter was 15...with only a few years missed in all that time. It's a great day out, wet or dry, sunny or windy...and I come away inspired and filled with new ideas. It's always nice to see what is on 'trend'. This year it was obviously garden rooms... Hanging baskets of all kinds... native gardens are still big. And pampas grass is HUGE. It was not only in gardens but in so many floral arrangements as well. As I said it is good to see what is on trend, and if you have to have the latest in your garden, then you zoom home and start planting. But of course, next year something else will be in vogue. And if you have to be on trend, then your garden will have to change... and change again and again. I have never been one for trends. I know what I like, what I don't like, what works on ou...