Sound trumpets, rally horses...the Second Crusade is here...

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Yes, soon you, too, could be one
of the world's great bloggers...

Most of you will have already heard of the Crusade, but for those in the dark, click on the link above, or on the link at the bottom of this post.

This is a special kind of Crusade, a Writers' Platform-Building Crusade - one to help interested blogging writers form new connections within the blogging community.

I was involved last year and as someone new to the blogosphere, it was the perfect way to get my feet wet.

Click here for more information and to join the Crusade!

And to all those who've found their way here - hello and welcome!

If your story has legs, let it stand!

Hopefully this post will be useful to others, even though I've actually written it as advice to myself, mostly, because I've been going in circles with my latest project. Let's call it Project P. The problem? Too much thinking and not enough writing.

Don't get me wrong. Thinking is good. It's necessary. But too much of it, like anything, can be paralysing.

Project P (a novel) started with the idea for a basic scenario. And with two characters, two very different characters; I thought starting out that there'd be plenty of built in opportunity for conflict based on their differences alone. And conflict - in novel-writing - makes the world go 'round, right?

An ooops! moment

I'd been waiting a while for feedback from one of my beta readers, and was a little nervous about what he'd say as

a) I'm writing primarily for women and he's most definitely male
b) said beta reader has been writing professionally since before I was born

'The art of suspense'

Cover of The Pillars of the Earth

 Well, I've sent my manuscript to my agent with completed revisions, so now I'm taking my own advice and turning my attention back to another project, one which I started earlier this year during the wait for news on my MS which was out on submission.

It's a completely different genre from my last MS, and I've had trouble pinpointing what genre it is (though I think I've decided it's more a psychological thriller than anything else), so I'm still at the point of feeling my way, trying to work out how to tell the story, whether to include multiple points of view and all that other fun stuff which will be familiar to most of you.

Of course, books don't have to conform to a particular genre. And they can straddle boundaries between genres, or shun genre boundaries entirely. But...in the interest of informing myself a bit more about what the heck I should be doing if in fact I am trying to write a psychological thriller, I've just watched Ken Follett's online video lecture on the history of the thriller. Though he has a career spanning more than thirty years as a writer of thrillers, to some he is best known for Pillars of the Earth, his historical novel about the building of a cathedral in the Middle Ages. His writer's biography is comforting for anyone contemplating genre hopping at some point in their career!

110,000 words and counting...

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I've been working on revisions discussed with my agent for the last couple of months now.

And there's been progress...finally! November - the early part of it at least - wasn't a good writing month for me. Those of you who've read my earliest posts will know I'm a believer in writing mojo. I sometimes think there's a finite quantity in the universe to go around, and all those busy NaNo writers used mine up.

What's the magic number when re-drafting?

How many drafts do you have to do before your manuscript will be 'right'?

Should writers really be spending as long polishing their work before submission as some would have us believe? Going through laboriously, line by line, and making our verbs wonderfully strong and emphatic and our metaphors sparkle? Or is this one of the great fallacies perpetuated among new writers?

Perhaps, instead, we should just write that first draft (a difficult enough task for many!) tidy up the spelling and grammar, incorporate the changes suggested by one or two trusted readers and then send it out?

To some extent, the answer depends on the individual, and where they currently are in their journey as a writer, remembering that each of us works differently.

Refilling the creativity well

View over my vegetable garden in Spring

While every writer is different, I believe that for many of us, inspiration flows from somewhere among the rich tapestry of threads which make up our lives. So to bring our best writerly selves (and fresh ideas) to the table/computer/notebook, we need to make sure that the other parts of our bodies and souls are 'full'. Fulfilled, regularly recharged, however you want to view it. For some people, that means a regular walk around the neighbourhood where they're free to wander and think. For others, it means getting into the kitchen and creating something.

A luxurious bath with essential oils. A shopping trip where you can be all alone. Time with family. Time with friends. Time to read. Travel.

However you prefer to 'recharge', doing so is essential, or over time, your ideas and words will become flat and stale. I'm sure we've all experienced this!