Posts

Self-Editing

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 As much as I admire professional editors, I am still not making enough money from my writing to justify using a professional editor. Yes, I hear you, maybe if I did have a professional editor, I would make more money from my writing. Chicken and egg! I am an advocate of write, write, write, for the first draft. Just get it all down on the paper. I don’t worry about editing as I go along because I don’t want to go down the rabbit holes. Even research is left out of my writing in this first stage. I keep each piece of work in a separate folder with a label of the project on it. If I do have a genius idea I can put it on another piece of paper and just put it together with my draft for later reflection. 1.     1.    The Big Sweep   On the second draft I look at the whole piece, whether large or small and make sure the consistency and if fiction, plot development is as I want it. At this stage, I am pulling out the bits that aren’t relevant. Yes, deleting. I find that very difficult

Over and Out After Six and a Half Years, by Georgie Tennant

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Beginnings can be easier than ends sometimes, can’t they, imbued as they are with connotations of hope and expectancy? Ends are sometimes harder to face, especially as it can be tricky, can’t it, to recognise when it’s time for an end that must be of your own making? On the More Than Writers blog, people, rightly, come and go. It is an amazing place to hone your writing skills, develop the discipline of regular posting and receive great encouragement for your writing journey – and then step aside to make space for others to do the same. I have been writing for More Than Writers since my first post on 18th August, 2017 , a grand total of six and a half years. I remember feeling so grateful, at the time, that a more seasoned writer had stepped aside and made way for my fledgling thoughts. Now I know it is time for me to do the same for someone else. So this is goodbye from me, and thank you. Thank you to Wendy Jones then Rosemary Johnson, for giving a total novice a chance to find her

Make each day your masterpiece

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'Make each day your masterpiece.'   'Well thank you, John Wooden. You surely don't mean today? I mean, look at the place. The decorators have just finished my study, the contents of which are all over the dining room chairs and floor, and my filing cabinets and bookshelf are in the sitting room. You couldn't dance if you wanted to. And there's certainly no room to ask a friend in at the moment. So, there is no possibility of today being a masterpiece in any way, shape or form!' John Wooden, I hasten to say, is not actually here. He was an American basketball player, born on 11th October 1912, and he died on 4th June 2010.  All his life he adhered to a Seven Point creed, which was passed to him by his father.   All Seven Points are very good  advice, like  • Be true to yourself, and • Make friendship a fine art, and • Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day. Yes, all Seven Points are very good advice......... mostly. But not today. Of c

A 'ready' writer

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  I imagine that several More Than Writers writers have picked this topic before, so forgive me if I am being repetitious.   However, this verse has cropped up a few times recently demanding my attention.   I must have learnt it in the King James Version back in the dim and distant days of Bible Club on a Sunday morning.        The NIV(UK) says it’s the pen of a ‘skilful’ writer but I’ve been wondering what a ‘ready’ writer is.        Is it the keen bean who’s up at 6am, done a two hour quiet time, gone for a run and is showered, breakfasted and ready to create fabulous prose – fiction or otherwise –   or indeed, poetry, on their laptop from 9am sharp?   Is it the writer who settles down with a squillion fabulous ideas ready to take the reading and publishing world by storm?   Perhaps it’s the wannabe author who has all their files of ideas alphabetised and is organised to the nth degree.      Or perhaps it’s the writer, published or otherwise, who comes to their keyboard humble, pray

Authenticity

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I’m a contemporary fiction writer. In the words of a lady attending my fiction workshop, ‘You just make it all up!’ Her face expressing utter outrage that anyone could write down such lies. I remembered this while I was looking at Cambridge colleges for 16+ education. I chose all the books for my character’s English A level and read all the syllabuses for different versions of the BTEC in Performing Arts and in UAL Performance and Production. I hunted for music at A level in the same college for her friend and made a note that I needed to visit one of the further education colleges to be able to describe with some accuracy the foyer where the two characters enter the building and go to their separate courses. I found out that my guessed/imagined version of what clothes and equipment was needed for a dance and drama course is more or less accurate, but have not yet discovered whether there is a college that has courses to suit both girls, one being much more academic than the other. Doe

Where Does Our Tongue Write by Christina Bywater

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It has been on my mind that Psalm 45:1 speaks of our tongue being the pen of a ready writer.  We write on paper with a pen, but what do we write on with our tongues? How lasting are those words? Are  they constructive? Or destructive? Are they good, or evil? Comforting, or unnerving? Faith filled, or fear full? Proverbs say that Death and Life are in the power of the tongue; and Jesus says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  That is a scary thought! We can build up, or we can tear down, we can encourage or discourage, enthuse, or deflate, just by the words we allow to leave our mouths.    The challenge that I have with my writing is that, if a reader reads my outpourings out loud, are the words they utter going to have a positive or negative effect? Will they work for good, or evil?   Worse still is the thought that, for every idle word, I will be judged. Jesus was clear about that too.  What is an idle word? One that neither builds up the body of Christ nor tears

What do you mean, it's Friday? by Jane Walters

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In the middle of February, my son was due to start a new job on the Friday. He had his week all planned: buy new threads, get a hair-cut, grab a trip to a waterfall while he was still a free man. It was as he stood at the bus-stop that he took a call. ‘Hey! Er, thought you were starting work here today?’ ‘Oh hi, no, we said Friday.’ ‘It is Friday.’ ‘Ah…’ *aborts trip to waterfall. I had a similar experience a week or so ago, with the secretary of a church emailing me for the song choices and sermon PowerPoint ahead of a preaching engagement. ‘They’re a bit previous,’ I grumbled as I reached for my diary. No, it turns out they were very much on the boil. Somehow I’d missed an entire week. Time can be so deceptive, can’t it? How come some hours can feel endless, while some whizz by in a moment? I guess it depends on how we are spending it. I’ve had a couple of conversations recently with starting-out-writers who are desperate to schedule writing time in an already packed timetabl