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Making it up as I go along

Making it up as I go along

Tag Archives: Third Book

Dancing with the word birds and making jam

01 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Ghostbird, Third Book, Virginia Woolf, Word Birds

Book the Second is resting. Meanwhile, Book the Third takes shape. I have never, ever conjured a story this quickly. One day it was floating at the back of my mind, made up from the remnants of a largely abandoned tale and the hem of a ghost’s frock; the next it was pouring out of me. In the space of three days I had the outline and most of the chapters in précis. 

A friend recently suggested a theory which on reflection makes a kind of sense. Now I have a deal for Ghostbird (which translates as validation) and a publication date; now it’s real and happening, has some creative synapse in my brain clicked into place? Is a new level of confidence emerging and is this what happens to writers once they get that initial confirmation?

Or is it simply the word birds, daring me and flinging ideas in my path? Either way, as a writer, I’m happier than I’ve been in years.

I know I quote Virginia Woolf as if I have her on speed dial. (I don’t – that would be creepy.) I do have a copy of A Writer’s Diary by my bed and treat it like a daily meditation. One of the things Mrs W said was, ‘As for my next book, I won’t write it till it has grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear.’

It’s as though this new story has landed in my lap in the shape of a harvest of pears. And apples, plums and peaches, and big fat juicy blackberries.

There is nothing for it – I must make story jam.

Meeting my muse in my bath

23 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Bath, Muse, RiverBook, Second Book, Third Book, Virginia Woolf

IMG-20150820-00987

In my perfect, fanciful world, Virginia Woolf is my muse. In my real one, all she has ever done is lead me to abandon punctuation & paragraphs while I, in the mistaken belief that I understand ‘stream of consciousness’ well enough to make it a viable motif in my own writing, follow like a witless fool. I freely confess to having wasted a lot of valuable time in this pointless pursuit.

My actual muse is a creature who lives somewhere in my bathroom. (She is probably a Daddy Long Legs or a small spider. Or even a helpful cobweb.) I know this because, without fail, each time I run a bath with the specific aim of mulling over a particularly puzzling writing-related issue, once I lie down in the water, I invariable mull usefully.

It happened this morning. With Book Two finished (draft zero – see above) & tucked away in a drawer to marinade for a week or two, I need something to do. (I’m not one of those writers who can amuse themselves with a short story or a bit of poetry. If it isn’t the book I’ve finished, then it has it be the one I’m about to start.)

For the past two days I’ve been outlining Book Three. The idea has been hanging round for some time & all at once, I got it. Apart that is for a small but crucial plot strand.

Cue a delicious, lavender & rose scented Sunday morning bath…

Job done.

It’s embryonic of course, but I do think it has [Daddy Long] legs… And it’s another ghost story…

My novels

Wild Spinning Girls
Wild Spinning Girls
Snow Sisters
Snow Sisters
Ghostbird
Ghostbird
Only May
Only May
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