Venice and Links

Eons ago I said I had something of my weekend in Venice to share with you. While walking through the back alley ways i fell in love with the laundry lines of Venice. They were fabulous and competed with my love of flower boxes. So here are a few of Venice's beautiful laudry lines.

Back on a writing track though there are some great things about.

Amanda Grange on her web site has fantastic refence material for any writers. I particualry liked her check list for manscripts before they go to a publisher here

Then there is this great break down of genre that finally clarified it all for me here

And Novel Racer Zinnia has begun the most fantastic series on how to help bereaving families. She begins with what to write here.

The rain has begun here and as the garden now needs I am trying not to frown too much. With the rain I may figure out how to put a link to all the RNA conference pieces on the sidebar....but then again I may not be able to work that one out!

Normal Life Returns

At 7:30 in the morning Venice is a buzz of activity. I love that all things in Venice arrive by water. I also love it's contrasts.

But enough of Venice and it's contrast. Yesterday I returned to revision which mainly consisted of new writing. Many new scenes had to be added to keep the twists turning. This is much slower work as I have to keep thinking about how much my characters have changed since the beginning. When I am writing a whole draft straight through their changes evolve and it's not something I am fully conscious of ....... now I need to be. I keep asking myself things like - is this how Judith would react now?

The work now totals 96,500 words of which 78,000 is reworked. I will hit the 100,000 words with all the new scenes that have to be added. On another note, over on Judy Merrill Larsen's blog http://notafraidofthefword.blogspot.com/ she is talking about the control of writing - the control we have over the story and the lives of its characters. She also mentions letting go of that control and letting the characters lead in part of her revision process. I definitely let them have their way in draft one. I think what has focused me on this fifth rewrite is that I have more control which with the move and all the chaos is the only thing I have control over at present.

A Little Bit Of Venice

Things are a bit chaotic here. I shouldn't be blogging at all. My lists of things to do grows hourly and I still want to enter the Daily Mail competition. However I just had to say what a wonderful time we had in Venice. We arrived stressed beyond words and left blissfully happy. I should probably be ashamed to say that we did not visit a single museum but the Dh said I dragged him into more churches than he's been to in all his life!

So we wandered the city with cameras in hand trying to become lost. Lost to the reality of the move and all the other stresses of life. It worked and we ended up in quiet locations sitting by canals drinking cold white wine and feasting on fresh fish.

The atmosphere of Venice's quiet locations should be bottled. The magic of water lapping gently and crumbling building tinged in colour eased away all our cares.........

So I leave you with two photos. One is one of my classic leanings towards flowers or more precisely window boxes. This lead to a new obsession which I will share with you latter in the summer when I have time to post at a more leisurely pace.

Finally, I told my DH that I took this picture for Kate Walker. Well, I did and for me too. All things in Venice were quite exquisite :-)

In Haste

I am sooooo excited. I am off to Venice for the weekend with DH. We so need this time. I have even promised to leave my lap top behind!!! I must love him.

Revision is cracking on....72k and I think the total will be around 96 so I am within striking distance!

Stress: low, excitement: high, writing: good, schools: 1 definite and 1 possible, move: nothing in writing yet!