Little Black Book
Took a couple of days off after NaNoWriMo, at which point my back seized up - unused to not sitting at a keyboard, see? But it wasn't long before I was back into it, and over the last week I've been ripping through projects like a good 'un.
With the kids chucking out of school in about a week, it's been all about shoring up for the month and a half where my work rate will slow to almost nothing. I've binge-viewed movies, finishing all but one of the films I have to review between now and the second week of January. I've rewritten and submitted a short story for an anthology with an imminent deadline. I've proofed a book of short stories and critiqued a number of tales for friends and colleagues. And I've edited a sizeable wodge of the outstanding pieces for Scenes From the Second Storey. But the best thing to happen in the last week has been for my Little Black Book to prove itself.
Like a lot of writers I have a notebook, in which I scribble random ideas, details of interesting things I've read or seen in the news. You know ... raw material. And last week the book finally came good. Asked by a publisher to pitch a short story in double-quick time, and with not a single idea to work with, I dusted off the notes and started reading.
Straight away, there they were - two words I'd written down well over eighteen months ago that fit the brief perfectly. Within 12 hours I'd researched and written a loose synopsis that was tentatively accepted 12 hours after that. Fastest story I've ever plotted. And reason enough to keep scribbling in that notebook ...
With the kids chucking out of school in about a week, it's been all about shoring up for the month and a half where my work rate will slow to almost nothing. I've binge-viewed movies, finishing all but one of the films I have to review between now and the second week of January. I've rewritten and submitted a short story for an anthology with an imminent deadline. I've proofed a book of short stories and critiqued a number of tales for friends and colleagues. And I've edited a sizeable wodge of the outstanding pieces for Scenes From the Second Storey. But the best thing to happen in the last week has been for my Little Black Book to prove itself.
Like a lot of writers I have a notebook, in which I scribble random ideas, details of interesting things I've read or seen in the news. You know ... raw material. And last week the book finally came good. Asked by a publisher to pitch a short story in double-quick time, and with not a single idea to work with, I dusted off the notes and started reading.
Straight away, there they were - two words I'd written down well over eighteen months ago that fit the brief perfectly. Within 12 hours I'd researched and written a loose synopsis that was tentatively accepted 12 hours after that. Fastest story I've ever plotted. And reason enough to keep scribbling in that notebook ...
posted by Pete Kempshall at 4:29 PM
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