Hi there,


I'm going to move to stop blogging here now and move to http://www.sjluddem.com/ so if you want to come with me please do. X

First week back

We have been discussing Rings of Saturn by Sebald, this week. A strange book that I liked, then got lost in, then liked. Everything we read is useful in some way the same as any book that you read, you take out the good and the bad and can use them in some way.

We had our first workshop too and I stupidly volunteered to have my stuff workshopped soon, it gives me a week and a bit to work on it. I'm trying to insert some more tension into it now, because basically it's about a day out to the museum and a bus ride. I figure that if I get this out of the way then I can work on the next bit without worrying about tweaking for a while. Could always go down the Sebald route, just go off on tangents, write a bit about the war in the middle to confuse them into thinking it's a very intellectual and superior work. Probably not a good idea.

I think I'm getting to a better understanding of where I'm going with it now but there's a lot of filling to get to 80 000 words. Plod on plod on.

Up myself

I've gone all up myself over the holidays. I've got over excited and decided to have my own author name. It isn't just because I'm pretentious, honest... Someone is already (very rudely I might add), a successful author under my name. It's jolly bad form I'd say. So anyway, I'm working on a new site with my new twatty author name included in it. I'll tell you when I've done it. Then you can laugh at me some more.

I know, who do I think I am?

Nice to write again

Spent Christmas reading up about murderers for my research, ho ho hoh no he's got an axe!

Have just sent off my latest workshop piece. It's gone and now I can get back to writing instead of tweaking. This editing lark is harder than it looks, especially when you haven't even finished what you're writing and your characters keep changing. Glad it's gone and I can get back to my shifting river and shifting characters.

Snow Joke

We had a visit from Mulcahy and Viney, an agency, last week. Obviously, they were interested in books that they will be able to sell. This is another level that I am not even thinking about at the moment. Not only are we meant to put words on the page, they must be brilliant and they must be widely appealing.

They talked about having a small story within a big story. Something to discuss, a big issue! I've got none of this. I'm just plodding away still. I have avoided thinking this way so far. Perhaps I can crowbar something into my story, if I knew what the big issues were. Oh dear.

Trevor Byrne and Evie Wyld

We went to a reading last week with Evie Wyld and Trevor Byrne. I hadn't read their books but the extracts they read out sounded good so I will seek them out later. The following day we had a workshop with them. They were very generous in describing their experiences as writers, very open and honest. It was nice to hear that everyone has bad days, and everyone can feel daunted by the enormity of it all sometimes.

To plan or not to plan

I was feeling a bit swamped by my dreary scenery and thought about taking my characters on holiday but realised that is just another kind of story all together. I put them on the bus instead. So poor them, they are stuck in rainy Manchester still. They didn't enjoy the ride.

Not sure if I should have more of a plan to the story. It keeps going off a bit in different directions but will any of these directions arrive at a destination all just keep circling around and around? Then again I don't want to be tied to something that seems immovable. It's an interesting process.

Oh and my nine year olds story was compared to Jane Austen at parents evening the other night. Don't really know what to say about that really, as I struggle to make anything sound vaguely believable.