The Sound of Silence
As it’s been a fair while since my last blog I thought it about time I sat down to write another, and update you all on my writing progress.
Things have been going well recently – surprisingly well. This last week I’ve taken to going into Brunel library in the mornings to sit down and get on with a bit of writing. Sitting on the entirely empty third floor with only a pad and pencil and a copy of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White for company I’ve actually managed to get a fair bit done.
While I’ve always generally been one for writing things by hand first before typing them up later, the fact I then have to sit down and type up thousands of words of manuscript certainly does take it out of me. I’m up to 9,300 words so far, with between perhaps 2-4,000 words still to type. Experience tells me it’s always a good idea to try and stay on top of my typing as much to remind me of all that’s happened so far as to help me keep up to date. A big drawback to this approach is that I not only have to spend in a sense, double the time writing as I perhaps would if I just typed straight on to the pc, but also that I often find myself getting distracted by sections I feel I need to re-write or edit at a later date. The internet is of course, another major distraction.
But it’s all good – I’m making progress and find myself finally getting into the swing of writing again. I have to admit for a while I was a little bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to get back into it again as it’s been so long. Fortunately, the 70k manuscript I scrapped two years ago now is proving a good source of the odd paragraph (or in some cases, even the odd chapter) which I am trying to work into my new book(s). It just seems like such a shame sometimes that I scrapped what amounts to an entire book because I didn’t think it was good enough. Looking back it really isn’t good enough – or at least not good enough to meet my expectations. It just feels like a waste of an awful lot of time. Most people don’t even write a single book in their lifetimes, and I’ve just gone and scrapped an entire manuscript…
On the reading front, as I hinted at earlier, I’m currently in the process of working my way through Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White. It’s not bad, I’ll give it that. It’s also reasonably well written, and a remarkably easy read all things considered. The only downside is it’s just so long. Thus far I’m only something like 100 pages or so into it, and still have another 400 or so to go. This one’s definitely going to set my reading list back a fair bit, and I’m already back a bit because of Melmoth the Wanderer among other things. Looking at my reading pile The Mysteries of Udolpho and Dumas’ The Three Musketeers certainly don’t fill me with confidence that I will meet my target of 60 books again this year. At the moment I think I’m currently on something like 27 since January 1st. Wait and see how it goes I guess.