Okay, I said I was going to whip over Ramper Pot ~ Adventures and send it off to a story writing competition. I did just that and realised quite soon into Chapter 1 ~ The Hideaway, that it had been a while since I’d read it. Crikey. What a mess. Well, not really a mess, more of an out of date boring account of two children bored out of their brains, holed up in their new house by the rain and hiding from their recently instated boring step-father. I bored myself to sleep reading it ... a fusion of modern day Arthur Ransom's Swallows and Amazons meets Jacqueline Wilson without the tattoos, drugs and alcohol. What can I say? Boring.
So, Touchstone will have to wait the week-end out while I get back to Ramper Pot’s ~ The Hideaway [Chapter 1] and River Cavern Escape [Chapter 2]. Apologies to Rob and Zak who I’ve left in a cliff-hanger situation - holding on for their lives, trainers, Penguin biscuits, playing cards and an ipod have sailing downstream faster than money down a slot machine. Can Amy get help in time? Can I make the scene dramatic and exciting?
In between the news and serving up a snack, I managed to delete two thousand truly unnecessary words. Phew, that felt better. I didn’t even wince. Another thousand needed to go but not before adding a couple of pirates and a ghost, did I go to the local pub for lashings of ginger beer and the occasional whisky sloshed in.
Ramper Pot ~ Adventures is based on a semi-rural area with a history of piracy near to where I live, in Lancashire.
See you tomorrow,
Gillian
Gosh, it seems you can be very harsh on yourself and the fact that you deleted a few thousand words 'just like that' I find extremely brave - I hope you feel happier with the content soon. I find it true that no matter what the content whether it be a story, essay or perhaps any creative process, it is best to step back from it every so often to be able to see the 'wood for the trees'. Some people seem to sacrifice quality for quantity all too easily.
ReplyDeleteThanks John, I know what you mean ~ but this was really boring stuff ... the kids went down the lane, they went back home, they went down the lane again... I realised the kids just needed to go down the lane once and let the adventure begin. So it was a learning curve for me.
ReplyDeleteAlso, realised my readership would be younger - so had to do some jiggery-pokery there too. Keeping at it but wanting to get back to Edward and the novel.
Thanks for your comments. Gillian