Saturday, August 15, 2009

All Powerful

My four year old had her tonsils out this week. Ugh.

My work on Upturned Stones fell off a cliff, as my mental abilities were spent entirely on soothing and medicating my girl. Both girls actually, as little sister ironically contracted strep throat the very day big sister's tonsils came out. That was unfortunate!

Luckily, between my detailed outline and the chapters I've already written, it has been relatively easy to jump back into the story. As I reread what I've accomplished so far, I corrected that nagging little issue of voice.

First person still sounded off to me. It felt more like blogging than writing fiction. So I finessed the first three chapters into a reasonable facsimile of third person, to be more thoroughly edited later. I haven't worked on enough new material to know if third person will work, or to develop a flow, but I have high hopes that it will come.

If only life wouldn't keep steamrolling my resolutions! I really want this draft to be done by mid-October at the latest. It's a gentle resolution, really, but I need to keep moving, come strep throat or high water!

1 comment:

Anna said...

sending you all healthy, happy, peaceful healing vibes... :)))

I'll be incorporating first person in a future project (via blogging, that will be interesting!) and have used it in the past solely through letters and emails. when I started writing, I had a hard time keeping the narrative in one voice, switching between characters within a scene.

which other authors have done, with a transitional paragraph or two of no voice in particular. I've trained myself to write each scene from only one character's POV, but it took a few manuscripts to get there. :)))

(I think I wrote the first books with interchangeable POV's because in one of my fave books, "The Thorn Birds", Colleen McCullough writes that way. so it can't be all bad.)

but this isn't really helping you with your first person dilemma, just me, going off on a tangent. :)))

I just encourage you to go for/stick with the writing because it's there in you, just as your daughters are, yet we have to explore the parts of ourselves that aren't mothers, but also women, human beings. it's important for ourselves now and in the future that our kids see that while we love them, we need to address what makes us contented individuals.

man, this is really long now! okay, have a lovely Saturday and Sunday...

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