Thursday, February 16, 2012

More quality time needed




Yes I work. I’m currently trying to organise two more Free CPD seminars for the business in the hopes of increasing our customer base.  Plus I do have a lot to do on the general office management. I won’t mention housework since I haven’t done any today.  But really! Why did I wait until 9 pm on the eve of the writing competition to start my first draft?

The annoying thing is that if anyone asks me what I love to do I say – write.  So why do I have to self discipline myself to do something I love?  Surely people should be dragging me away from the laptop.  Am I the only person who as lots of wonderful and exciting ideas bubbling away in their minds, but finds it difficult to actually put them down on paper?

Yet once I finally stopped messing around looking for an Eskimo/Inuit Indian costume for World Book Day.  My daughter wants to goes as Renn from the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Books by Michelle Paver, which are breathtakingly brilliant, and finally started writing, I felt a thrill of pure pleasure.

By the way – I know Renn isn’t an Eskimo. But since the stories are set just after the Stone Age and I’ve limited funds, plus Greenland is bloody cold.  I’ve convinced my daughter that Renn would be dressed like an Eskimo.  I forbid anyone to put her right until after World Book Day unless you want to kill and skin a reindeer to make an authentic costume.   Also in a mad moment I promised that we would sew real raven feathers on her shoulders.

Michelle Paver spent time in northern Sweden to research her books, wandering around forests listening to elks and looking at stone carvings.  When she wanted to write about wolves she spent time watching them at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust.  When she started to write about snakes she went to Longleat.  And the research, time and effort leap off the page when you read her work.  Yet I grab an hour in the evening when the kids are in bed and expect a master piece. 

My self assessment of my own writing:

More quality time needed!

1 comment:

  1. I so agree, I can find so much time to waste on the t'internet, and writing is all I want to do too. But I find self discipline virtually impossible. . . . Raven feathers, where do you look for those? :)

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