Off and on in the past, I have posted on the trials and tribulations of the creation of The Children’s Tale. This most difficult piece of fiction has been troublesome from the beginning, when an unruly bunch of children hijacked the whole. I have learnt a great deal during this four year process!
2) Work out very quickly how the story is to be written. Before the children took over I had begun to relate the Grandparents Tale in the format – of previous works in the series, letter and diaries – for some unexplained reason the children dictated a straight forward narrative – a mistake. By the time the mistake has been identified, the editing , the task of changing the POV throughout thousands of words is onerous in the extreme.
3) Try to avoid endeavouring to create new lives and worlds when seriously ill. Although the act of writing and reading did help keep me sane as the doctors worked on restoring some kind of life to me, (heart failure leaves one gasping to breathe and having to sleep for hours of every day. Getting doses of drugs right requires time.) it was no way to write anything one cared about. As health goes up and down, as the brain clouds and clears, the style of writing changes, the voice wavers and more rubbish than is necessary is written.
4)If one is writing a series, as a pantser, by the time the fourth book comes along one should have become more of plotter or at the very least have lists of previous characters (with correct spelling) previous incidents and secrets.
5) If one is catering into the last decades of life (I’m being optimistic here!:) with attendant health problems, one really must come to terms with the fact one is no longer 27 years old or even 47. Goals will become desires, deadlines should become flexible, compromise and acceptance, boring though they can be, and certainly this person thinks they are, become the way to continue.
6) However, what I have also learnt now, as the end is slowly revealing itself (I talk of The Children’s Tale:) is listen always to your inner imaginative imps and opportunistic devils; if one cares for the creation, one wins through eventually.
I have taken on board my own advice! Changed my deadlines to no deadline, dropped my goals and kept my desires, The Children’s Tale will be finished one day soon, the first part has been edited now and so to the next three. If I wake on a bad day I no longer fret, I occupy myself with something else. My imagination is still working, conversations can still be working themselves out in the background.
If I don’t manage all my blogs every week, it is not the end of the world.
If these don’t happen I still have the books, the garden and friends.