Words and wonderings...

I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front recently. Mostly due to moving house and then going on holiday resulting in minimal internet access, a sudden burst of enthusiasm for reading, and a long to-do list.

It's also been a while since I updated on the state of my novel writing attempts. To be honest, this is mostly because I haven't really got any further with it. Life got busy and novel writing got deprioritised for a while. I still intend to go back to it, but I find I need to set aside entire evenings purely for writing in order to make any significant progress on it. I'm still thinking through the ideas behind it though and seem to have come up with a couple of new plot developments which means it feels like it's still alive.

But I haven't stopped writing completely. Instead I've been expanding into some different styles of writing. A few bits of what I guess is classed as poetry, some short narratives bits, even the words to a song (I blame rewatching "Once" a few weeks ago for that one). What I've really enjoyed is being able to really work on something- rewrite parts, play around with words, and generally get it to a point where I'm remotely satisfied with it. I've realised that's something I've been missing with the novel writing stuff - I've been trying to get the first draft (prob 50,000 words) finished before I start rewriting any of it. Which is hard because I'm writing to a much lower standard than I'd like in an attempt to get it finished. When tackling something shorter and new, it's much easier to get it into reasonable shape and be able to indulge my perfectionist side.

Also, through going to folk tales (a monthly storytelling and folk music night) I've also been thinking a lot about the art of storytelling. It is a different art to straight writing - obviously there is the skill of the actual performance to factor in, but also the style of the writing is different - it has to be told in a way that will engage your audience and draw them into the story. Long narratives or extensive dialogue don't work so well, and the pace needs to be kept up in order to retain the attention of those listening. Plus there's a limit to how long people will sit still for. Anyway, as a result of that I've been playing around with an idea I found in one of my old ideas journals (basically a pad where I write down any potential writing ideas I have) to see if it has any potential for being written in that kind of style.

So that's all been good to be honest. I'm still writing regularly which is bringing me a lot of joy, and I get to play around with a thesaurus from time to time (yes, I know I'm a word geek).

On a completely random and unrelated note, go here for some awesome but very unseasonal music...