Wednesday, August 15, 2012

My co-writer

This is why I love writing books with Jane…

I was struggling with writing a part of the book yesterday because it was so boring. I emailed her an update on general progress and mentioned this, and she said:

can't believe you are forgetting so many of bodmyn's basics -

RULE NO 1: if it's boring you to write it, it sure as hell will bore the pants of any poor reader who has to read it

suggestions for this a)make them as brief as poss - or skip them altogether

1. Jane gives good advice.

2. She thinks our characters are real. Aficianados of PLOTTING FOR BEGINNERS will remember that Bodmyn Corner was Sally’s creative writing guru. Jane and I talk about all our characters as if they are real people. Sometimes this gets tricky. She told me in the spring that one of the characters in the new book buys his steak pies from a butcher in Hackney (a place near Bakewell), so some months later, when I had a visitor staying who I thought might like a steak pie, I emailed Jane to ask her where the butcher’s shop at Hackney was, and got this reply -  “What butcher’s shop at Hackney? There isn’t one.”

In the mean time, Cecilia is definitely real –

aug 2012 cece

and I am going to see her in three weeks time. Yay!

 

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