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Confessions of a creative writer

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How did I manage to write and publish two books in one year? Errmm, I didn’t. My ebook of creative writing exercises and tips for tutors out just now this week took 15 years of teaching in adult education, and the writing and creation of the paperback a few years ago. Then came a month or so this summer of selective editing and formatting — my brilliant idea to make said teaching tips more available.

Meanwhile The Extraordinary Dr Epstein, launched in March this year, took oh, about ten years or a lifetime of getting up the nerve to write about this astonishing ancestor. And then to research, find the voice and write the 389 page biographical novel. (I didn’t even know there was a category called that; the other category name of course is historical novel.) So 2015 is the year that both happened into being.

Kerr Book cover.cdrAmazingly people ask ‘what are you doing next?’ They are not writers. I am re-gathering my wits, my office, my self. Figuring out blogsites and Goodreads and Amazon Author Central and Ephraim’s own Facebook page, and no, I am not putting the links in here. ‘Scuse me, I am having a post-partum rest.

I am also weeding out my shelf of How to Write and How to Teach Writing books. Saving some of my absolute favourites, but otherwise I have made the most of the others. Ink marked and dog-eared, I guess I’ll give them to the Oxfam Bookshop, unless someone knows a way I can offer them to writers who are at that stage of the adventure of writing.

And this will make some blissfully empty shelf space for… the next writing project.

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A writer grows

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So, nearly the length of a pregnancy since I started this site and began to figure out WordPress. In the meanwhile I have finished, formatted, self-published and launched my novel under the book-and-blog guidance of the wonderful Catherine Ryan Howard. And I’ve wordpressed and facebooked my protagonist (and great grandfather) as a being in his own right. Now it’s time to turn this blog into something more useful, especially useful for writers. Yes I mean authors, creators.

So I’ve moved the moments of peace to their own pages — haiku to ‘so still’ and photographs to ‘green slash’. I couldn’t bear to give up the gorgeous Turkish twilight, the allium seedhead and my own-grown roses (called Birthday Girl) which I’d had as headers, so I moved them to ‘natura naturans’ in the green slash department. Read the haiku and you’ll grasp that title. I will add haiku and photos season by season.

But! The front page post position is for writing about writing. And especially at the moment for judethomasnz who commented on my comment on CRH’s recent blog on how many drafts it takes to make a novel.

Jude got attention from an editor for her historical novel, which she had told in two voices, from two time points. Great going to get feedback from an editor! But ed suggested a rewrite, into a straight chronological narrative. Should she do it?

My experience: after trying for years to find the voice for my historical-novel-based-on-a-true-story in various creative ways, I finally bit the bullet. Decided to stop being clever and just Tell the Story, chronologically. Writing flowed more easily and naturally. I tried to make the most of the natural ups and downs as events rolled on.

If you’re in how-to-tell-it anguish, don’t be afraid to try the straightforward way… but changing your head around after the long slog of writing can be painful. On the other hand, should this anguished writer try another editor?

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Here. Now.

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The general advice is ‘make your blog the blog that you wish you could find but you can’t’. Also, ‘watch and follow a bunch of blogs before launching into blogworld.’ What I want, what I really really want, is a late night, end-of-day, just-before-shutting-down brain, mind and soul washer. Maybe it could be for start of day, too. No words, or at least few words. No thinking. No comment. Just soothing and interesting and mindfully mindless. Chatter-chatter-chatter: monkey mind end of.

So with my own photographs and my own haiku, this is a start. As I learn WordPress I hope to figure out (with monkey-mind’s help) how to make this into an archivey slidey show of just such soothingness.