On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 5 of 5)
If there's one thing I'd like to leave you with at the end of this special, exhausting, exhilarating month, it is this — say yes to your writing by saying no to something else.
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 4 of 5)
107,910 words, and still nowhere near finished — but for now, I’m content to keep wandering across the universe of this strange, sad, redemptive novel.
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 3 of 5)
I’m now getting to the stage where I am required to write characters whose attitudes, opinions and experiences do not correspond to my own, in three primary and overlapping areas: sexuality, religion and politics.
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 2 of 5)
I wrote my first ever sex scenes this week. Every aspect of these scenes could be viewed as a template for the kind of questions we need to ask ourselves about every single thing we write.
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 1 of 5)
I’ve written a total of 24,136 words this week. Considering I pledged to finish a 90,000-word draft this month, you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m well on course.
On the only kind of permission you ever really need
In six days' time, I'll be embarking on a thrilling/foolhardy (you decide which) literary experiment, writing a 90,000-word novel in the space of a calendar month — and not only that, I'll be on show for at least 20 of those days, in full public view.
On digression, sub-digression and even deeper digressions below that
I've got to thinking more about a technique which I've used more often than any other in all of my writing. It's the thing which even helped to give this blog its title. I'm talking about my great love of digression.
On a long sentence of my own
By way of a bit of bonus content, I decided I should quickly follow up this week’s latest post with another one in which I put my money where my mouth is, by sharing an example of me putting all that I think and feel about long sentences into practice.
On the joys of a long sentence, a thing which we are nowadays encouraged to avoid on the basis that readers cannot cope with processing more than twenty words before a full stop, but which, in thoughtful and sensitive hands, can be a thing of great beauty and a tool of magnificent narrative power
If writing long sentences is the crime that readability analysis (including on this site) makes it out to be, then many of the nineteenth and early-twentieth century writers who have had a big influence on me are serial offenders.
On professionalism and the (super)market
What does it mean to be a “professional” writer? Is it that you devote lots of your time and effort to writing? Or that you get paid for writing?
