It may well seem, as we enter the doldrums of January, that we’re stuck on the same day — day-in and day-out! But I have plans afoot, and I hope to get well stuck in, as we say, over these winter months.
Foremost in my thinking is my membership with Bardsy.com, with whose writing group(s) I hope to develop ‘The Scrappy Quilt Partnership’, my fifth novel attempt. Although it’s true that my writing is indeed the writing ‘of an old man,’ I do not quite feel as old as I may appear. Indeed, it may be, considering the issue of time differences between Pacific Standard Time and Greenwich Mean Time, that I’m placed in a group with much younger members. That could be energising! I hope I don’t slow them down!
I want to explore issues that I’m aware confront people who are of a certain age. Over fifty, let’s say. Perhaps not as sexy as the issues that challenge younger folks. But since I’m square in the middle of the Boomer generation, there must be a significant cohort of readers who are dealing with these sorts of matters, the matters that I want to explore in a general fiction context. So I’m going in.
Meanwhile, I’ve elected to stay with another pair of closely related writing groups, even though the monthly stimuli are a dawdle to deal with. That is to say, a poem and a prose piece of 550 words maximum a month. That’s barely scratching the surface of the writing I want to do! But the group is eager and kind, and I’ve been with them for over two years now, and feel that I must stay in and try to keep learning.
The one refrain that does bug me, in the monthly groups, is the constant reiteration that ‘less is more.’ This has gone to bizarre lengths, such that one month a piece of four adverbs was praised to the skies for its succinctness [I wasn’t quite sure that the critique was satirical!]. Since I want to write novels, that kind of assessment doesn’t fit well with me. You can’t make a novel less than the more it demands, and that ‘more’ is typically 90k words. So I carry on, trying my best to convey nuance, sucking it up when I’m asked to edit down, again. But I have appreciated many of the other homilies that seem to pepper Creative Writing groups: ‘Sacrifice your darlings; eliminate the adverbs; show don’t tell.’
So I do want to stay humble and contribute, however I can, and try my hardest to learn the lessons that are valuable, and perhaps to let the less valuable offerings slide by the wayside. The challenge is usually in figuring out which is which!
Since this blog is my writing journal, unread by virtually nobody else but me, it seems to serve as a way-marker. I recall that I was in another writing group, when I thought I would attempt a revision of my science-fiction (‘hard’ genre) trilogy, but somehow floundered. I think I despaired especially because I’d written the three books, and didn’t really want to go back for the re-write.
How much of a different tack I’ve been able to take with my fourth novel, the re-named ‘From Silenced Voices’ which I’ve mentioned in previous posts. This novel has seen a significant amount of editing, revising, and re-configuration since its first draft was finished oh, nearly two years ago now. And this year I aim to send it back to my mentor for a full and comprehensive edit. This novel will not be within the remit of my work with the Bardsy group.
Instead, I’m approaching ‘Scrappy Quilt’ with an open mind, a flexible keyboard, and fingers ready to dance as the story is created. That will be a new approach for me, and I’ll be so intrigued to see how it goes. If it does go well, I’m thinking it will be a year of effort, and then we’ll see where we are.
I expect rather more reports here in the coming months, as I veer between elation and despair.
Biome NE47 