Lilacs and Links

Surprise, surprise...I'm still in London and I'm enjoying my little bit of garden. I was delighted beyond words to discover this lilac in bloom last weekend. Each time I step outside I am greeted with a scent that transports me to my childhood. Growing up just outside of Boston, May was the month for our small garden to be rampant with lilacs. In fact they were so profuse that once a week I would take a bunch into school for the display of flowers in front of the statue of the Blessed Mother (May being Mary's special month and in a Catholic school that's a big deal). I can't begin to describe for you how this scent fills me with hope and happiness. I am twelve and I can feel the warmth of sun on my face and the promise of the coming summer.

It never ceases to amaze me how powerful the sense of smell is. Lilly of the Valley means my Great Aunt Agnes who lived across the street. Her little garden didn't have any lilacs, but boy did she had a bumper crop of Lilly of Valley every year. What smell for you brings back your favourite memory or dare I ask your worst? Do you use this powerful tool in your writing? I do sometimes but I think not often enough.

I haven't posted any links in a while and as always there are some terribly useful ones out there. So in no particular order :-

For the Twitters among you two links - BubbleCow The Bookseller

BubbleCow comes up trumps again http://www.bubblecow.co.uk/2010/05/three-vital-steps-to-writing-a-novel/

David Hewson's sound advice on when is a book really done http://davidhewson.com/2010/04/30/when-is-a-book-really-done/

Another brilliant post by Anita Burgh on being organizing which is truly helping me at the moment http://anitaburgh.blogspot.com/2010/04/being-organised.html

That's all for now. Back to decorating (yesterday coming back from Ikea in rush hour traffic I looked like I had just savaged the nearest botanical garden - I didn't I promise) and reading Penderown....

Repeat after me - Do No Repeat

Back in Dubai and I am cracking on with this 'listening to my Inner Voice' rework of A Cornish House. I find myself yet again stung with my own inadequacies at picking up my 'Irish' love of repetition - to be sure, to be sure. In this go-through I'm also thinking of the reader's experience and I must think my reader terribly thick becauseI have repeated the same damn things again and again albeit a different way each time. Enough already!

So it was heartening, in a strange way, to catch this link from the Guardian on Twitter today. However just because those authors can get away with it doesn't mean I can.

I do know that all my novels thus far do have a number of overlapping themes that I am playing with. I have yet to decide if this is good or bad.

Do you repeat? And if you do what? Themes, images, words......

There and Back Again plus the Dubai Rugby 7s

Well this post is long on photos and short on words. The trip to the UK seems a life time ago after two days spent at Dubai Rugby 7's. However the UK trip was packed with great stuff from the Hyde Park Christmas Fair to #tweetmas, which was a twitter meet up, and deserves its own blog post.
So please enjoy the photos - the 7s were as always brilliant from the rugby to the social. What can I say except I love Dubai...

Swamped

I am knee deep in people and work and just managing to keep my head above water so forgive me for my silence, lack of comments, lack of visits and basically everything. Twitter messed me around and in the process really set me off kilter. I felt cut off for my coffee breaks as it were. The results is that I have set up a new account - @liz_fenwick.

Aside from that I have been working at editing A Cornish House and tying in with this Anita Burgh has a post on That Inner Voice that is simply a must read. Had I listened to it more I would be editing less - the upside is that I am listening now. More about this later when I'm through the first pass.

Hope the sun finds you all. It has just appeared here and everything looks better.

I'm over at the Novel Racers' Blog Today

I've posted on plotting over at the Novel Racers' Blog.

I'm behind on A Cornish House and I have been a victim of Twitter's cull so have lost all my followers and those I follow. If you followed me or I followed you on Twitter can you find me again! @lizfenwick Thanks!!!!

Emotional Scenes

Barrie Summy, tween/teen author, wrote in the comments of last post that she liked the 'come in late and leave early'. I wish I could take credit for that but I can't. I don't know if I read it or heard it. Clearly I'm having a senior moment. If it comes to me I'll let you know.

Now on to the the focus of this post - Emotional Scenes. I want to look at them from two angles - as a writer and as a reader.

This week I struggled. Demi was forced into a corner that had only two options neither which of she wanted. She had to lie or in this case say nothing which when it all came out would make things much worse (and I know sometimes that this what you want as a writer) or speak the truth and suffer the consequences. Now lying for Demi is a big deal. It's never been her thing yet suddenly she finds she's having to lie for various reasons (don't want to give the plot away here). In this situation, by lying she could have what her heart wants, but she would put someone else at risk.

Now this point had to come some time in the story - it is one of those key moments. We have watched her with this issue of telling the truth or lying and I am now beginning to rope things in.....hence my uncertainly if this romantic cliff top scene was the time. I'm sure I could have found some excuse to interrupt the lovers so she didn't have to face her demons but to be truthful (see even I can tell the truth!) - a clench on top of a Cornish cliff is a pretty dramatic location and image for such a face-off. So I bit the bullet and was nasty (which isn't my nature, unfortunately - I think I would be a far stronger writer if I was but I'm learning!)

Because I was uncomfortable with what I was doing I cut pretty quickly to the chase so to speak and I pulled out of there as fast as I bl**dy well could. In fact the words were hardly out of her mouth before I opened the next scene the morning after with a full cast of characters, but not her lover. Time and a rewrite will tell if this was the best way to handle this moment (but at least is is written).

So as a writer do you struggle with such points? Do to keep these moments of high emotional pain short for your characters or do you let them twist in agony (image of Bugs Bunny here saying AGONY) as long as possible?

Now to the second part - as a reader...what do you prefer? (I'm not sure- so over the weekend I will have a think as I have long couple of drives in front of me and I'll let you know.)

Now onto a few links (Twitter is proving to be a brilliant source of info for me - is it for you?):

Tips for Title from The Paperback Writer (the blog in general is worth a visit as there were some other great posts) This clink came via @thecreativepenn

The other link is Answers to the Top 10 Reasons Not to Twitter here and came via @BubbleCow