Tuesday 19th November

I have done a first draft, and just completed a second sweep, trying to polish it up, add a touch of magic and sparkle.  Also I have written a few extra bits.  When you start out on a new story, you don’t really know where you are going with it.  This one actually grew from a very early exercise for writing class.  It was a throw-away piece, written on the hoof, and read at class, then put away.

Something made me exhume it.  Maybe I always knew I needed to develop it, write a bit more, see if it would fly.  And I feel it is.  Flying, I mean.  It seems to have taken on a life of its own, with bits of philosophy and politics coming in to the story.  And I think it is actually quite a good story.  A clever idea has emerged which was never there at the beginning, but which has grown as I continued writing.

What next?   Oh, the inevitable third rewrite.  I must resist the temptation to develop ideas any further and  just concentrate on the text.  While at the same time being aware that knowing when to walk away is just as important as writing it in the first place.

I used to (and fully intend to resume) paint.  In oils, in enamels and drawing in monochrome.  And the hardest bit was knowing at what precise point the picture was finished.  The temptation to tease out a line here, to darken a hue there had to be resisted.  Somehow some little voice would work like  a conscience and let you know that enough was enough.  Hopefully the same will be true of this story.

The title is “2066 – a personal memoir”.  Which might or might not intrigue you.