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About a week ago I suddenly “saw” that an early scene in Tome Two could work in another way. However – and maybe that’s why the new vision struck me – I was on a run of trains, meetings, researches, visits, storytelling workshops and mightily sore feet.

I just couldn’t wait to get back to the unpicking. Started on it a day or two ago, and ooh blooming blimey! My very own Column of Infamy has raised itself before my eyes!

You see, back there on the train, the changes went so swiftly and easily. Pick up this person here and put them down there. Put these two together and let them have a really big falling out about something major, something that will drive the book along. Add this and that rather interesting incident. . . No, I won’t reveal more. It was all there in my mind, and wonderful.

So how come the actual Tome-work is so difficult? Think I’d forgotten just how much I had worked over and over the scenes before. Now the thread of the unravelled story seems full of kinks and twists. The colors in the wool look a little re-used, and unusual holes keep appearing where the story once went in another direction.

I keep working on, writing on, wanting to return to my once smooth and seamless surface. Occasionally I think I’ve almost made it, but then up comes a bit of pattern I’d once put in and that I really rather love. How am I going to manage this? It’s very much a head-down, keep-going sort of writing time.

In fact, there have been moments when I wish my bright idea hadn’t revealed itself. I’ve also – sssh! – had moments of being really rather glad that this is a renamed version, and the old document is still there waiting. Just in case I end up with an ugly lump of sows ear from my once silken purse.

Hope all of you writers out there are having a much better time!


You can also find me on my new blog, THE YEAR OF MOUSE.

Anyone out there who suffers from the "Write it! Hate It! Erase it! Try Again! Hate it! I Can't Do This Anymore! Leave Me Alone!" Anal Writer's Block Syndrome will surely recognize and identify with the voice in the gorgeous, iconic opening scene of Woody Allen's MANHATTAN. (In other words, see if you can guess what I am doing right now.)
What did Allen Ginsberg say? "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" or did he mean destroyed by the BACKSPACE and DELETE buttons?!

Maestro, please: