In order to be a better writer I’ve had to have a close look at the flaws in my writing. One is my complete inability to use swear words, mainly because my mother might be reading it. At 35 it might be time to break free of worrying about upsetting her quite so much. She raised four boys, in addition to raising me so I’m pretty sure she’d heard a few pearlers in her time. However, this weekend I made a point of having a chat with her and warning her there may be some profanity in my work. She seemed far more relaxed about it than I had thought.
I’m going to ease her into the possibility there may be a love scene next week. It’s best to take this kind of thing slowly.
Actually I may need a glass of wine or two when it comes to writing one myself. I seriously considered getting a ghostwriter for it; such is my inability to write something vaguely sensual without breaking into helpless giggles.
I know.
I need professional help.
Swearing and love scene issues aside I have other problems to overcome.
Firstly, I repeat “cool” words. That is, I might think “sublime” is a word I could use in a sentence.
E.g. “her writing was sublime” but then, two sentences later I’ll use the same word “but the trouble was it simply wasn’t as sublime as Kylie Ladd’s.”
I won’t even realize I’ve done it until much later and this kind of error is scattered throughout my work.
I also seem to have a propensity for giving my female characters names with 2 ‘l’ s in them. Think “Chantelle,” “Isabelle,” “Danielle.” I’m not sure why I’ve done this but it does mean I need to rethink their names, or some of them at least. Otherwise people may think it’s a book of rhyme, rather than a serious work of fiction about a cross dressing clown.
Thirdly, I write “on the fly” as it were.
I think everyone writes differently. For me, the words are just poured onto the page. Initially I don’t anguish over my words, I have a roughly scrawled plan and use that as a guide for my narrative. The problem with that is that I am going to have to spend a great deal of time editing my work when I’ve finished my “pour.”
I’ve made peace with that.
My thinking is, the foundations are pretty good, they just need careful raking over. And while spell and grammar checks won’t cut it in this case, years of editing my student’s work mean the mistakes tend to leap out at me. I think there will be a great deal of leaping over the next few weeks ;)
I’m at 45,000 words now. Well over half way there.
Yayness!
