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Tag Archives: my writing shed


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(Unofficially) I’m a full time writer!

Writing Shed in the Snow, January 2013, by Autumn Macarthur

Officially, I don’t finish at the Day Job until Friday. Unofficially, because they owed me leave, my last working day was the Friday before last, the 18th.

The first week off work had some unexpected challenges, like the snow! Yes, I did still get out in my writing shed and write, though I needed to rug up before going out there as if I was planning a trip to Antarctica, not the other side of the garden, and my little heater in there worked overtime.

I didn’t get as many words written as I would have liked, true. But that’s okay. I played with the idea of letting myself treat the two weeks until I officially left work as a holiday, no writing apart from Morning pages required.  Instead, I decided to use it as “practice time”. No word count pressures, but time to get everything ready to start seriously writing on February 2nd. Time to make sure I got the shed all prepared and ready to go. Time to do some story planning. Time to practice and prepare for the real thing.

And that’s what I did.

I got the pieced blackout and insulating blind for the shed finished. It’s not perfect, but I like it, it gives exactly the look I wanted and cost next to nothing for materials (cute Cath Kidson style cotton tea towels from the Pound Shop, gingham from a 50p charity shop shirt and stripes from another, and the cheapest polka dot polycotton I could find on ebay).

I planned the rewrite of one story I wrote years ago and totally bungled at the time, wrote the first thousand words, and submitted them to the ITV/ Mills and Boon  Racy Reads contest under my racier pseudonym Sienna Lachlan.  I’ll have fun finishing rewriting that story some time!

I have several new ideas for novellas, but I’ve just written a few notes for those so far.

I have started setting up a whole new health related business, to keep my hand in at nursing too, but that can’t be allowed to take up more than one day a week.

Best of all, I started a new Haven Bay story, my series set in a small coastal town south of Sydney. I love it. My characters even have GMC for once! There’s lots of built in conflict and it’s obvious right from the start. I began this on Sunday and already have 6 k first drafted, and a bit of a plan for the next couple of chapters.

So my unofficial start at being a full time writer has started off pretty well. I still have the trainer wheels on, I’m still not as productive as I want to be when I really get going. But it’s a good beginning.


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Monday Musings- on menopause and creativity

At last the writing shed is being used as I designed it to be used- writing! I had a lovely afternoon yesterday beginning  edits of Believe in Me, my Christmas novella. It’s a wonderful space to write in, though I do admit to getting a bit twitchy after dark. Onder of those slightly creepy windy nights, and the cherry tree has a branch that rubs on the shed roof. If my husband had been home I don’t think I’d be so jittery, but he’d gone out.

Anyway, I’m so pleased and happy, using the shed to create in.

I’ve sorted out a lot of my sewing and crafting stuff too. I’m moving it all out of the house and into boxes in the shed. I think I’ll be able to fit everything in. I want to keep the shed looking uncluttered, so everything needs to have a place in the boxes on the shelves. That way, I will only have my current project on view and will be less likely to get distracted. That’s the theory anyway. I’m easily distracted! My brain has finally switched back on after menopause, and is whizzing in so many different creative directions.

So glad I am through menopause now.  I’m feeling like I have my brain back at last, though I’m still more forgetful than I was. Names and words for things in particular. I hated the feeling my head was full of wet cotton wool!

I do think I complicated my transition with a lot of resentment at not having a child, not wanting to let go of possible fertility. Then I got to the stage where I just wanted it over with. I had a couple of false stops, where I went many months without menstruating, then my cycle restarted.Every period was an annoyance and a reminder, tying me back to a phase I wanted to let go of. Once they really did stop and not come back, I felt more like I could mourn and let go of the wasted opportunities of that stage of my life. I do still very much regret not being able to have a child, but it’s time for me to move past that now and see what else I can do with my life.

I’m quite happy to develop into an interesting crone now, with cats and a garden and my creating shed. I really want to get into art too, not just writing. I always had this thing I couldn’t do “art”. Part comparing myself to a very talented younger sister, part internalised parental perfectionism, and the biggest part primary and high school teachers who insisted on very prescriptive art tasks with ridiculous rules for what a painting or drawing should be.

So much of that teaching stifles creativity rather than developing it!

I want to give myself permission to make a mess and get things wrong. In writing and in other forms of creativity. I want to start keeping a sketchbook. I bought a better digital camera cheaply on eBay (still a point and click, but it has a zoom and a macro and takes pretty good photos) and I’m taking photos of anything I see that interests me. I’m trying to develop seeing things differently. I want to mess around with restyling clothes from the fifty p rack at my favourite charity shop,  especially doing things with texture and pattern for surface decoration.

I love Alisa Burke’s work, because her stuff is so wild and free and she doesn’t wait for “permission” to be an artist. She has an inspiring post here on being an artist.Age doesn’t matter. Having a Day Job and not being able to create full-time doesn’t matter. Life after fifty can be fun and interesting and more creative than when I was younger and all my energy got tied up in the longing for a child. Now, I’m free to focus on creating. On writing and sdewing and painting and drawing and however else I want to express my Muse.

I go back to part-time work next week. Not the two days I want, but three days a week  is at least a step in the right direction.  Getting the shed finished now is perfect timing.

 


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Little Yellow Writing and Crafting Shed- progress report!

Progress report on my writing and crafting shed- almost all the timber is up!

It’s now completely panelled in spruce tongue and groove, painted white, and all that’s left to do is add a couple more pieces of woodwork to finish the window surround and get that painted white too.

My husband loves the zen simplicity of the white space. He thinks I should just have one cushion and a single polished pebble in there. That idea does have a certain appeal, though it won’t be as much use for writing or crafting that way! He’s right about one thing.  It’s a very small space for the amount I hope to fit in there. I’m trying to imagine how it will look with a wide full length desk at one end and full length shelves lining the long walls.

Smaller. A lot smaller, even though they’ll all be white too.

And smaller again when I add in all the stuff I want to put on the shelves and the windows and the doors and the walls. Lots of books. Big brightly coloured patterned bags holding my fabric stash and clothes for restyling. Boxes and bottles of buttons and threads and other sewing bits and pieces. My sewing machine. My overlocker. My big laptop. My Alphasmart.  A heater for winter. A fabric covered pinboard over the desk and on the door. Patchwork cushions on the chair. A matching patchworked blackout blind on the window.

It will be quite cluttered and busy, but hopefully in a good creative way!

Anyway, unfortunately progress has now halted. I managed to break a tiny bone in my foot on Saturday night, a one of those stupid, clumsy, ridiculous accidents. I’d been standing on a chair putting up a new lampshade in the living room (just one of those lovely cheap big round bamboo and paper ones) and as I stepped down, my foot landed on the side of one of my shoes. I twisted my foot sideways as I fell.

Instant pain and swelling and bruising. The result is, I’m now in a fair bit of pain and have to wear an ugly clumpy walking boot for at least a couple of weeks. And I need to sit with my foot up as much as I can.

Stupidly, because we’re short-staffed, I went in to the Day Job yesterday. That was a mistake. I managed okay, taking plenty of pain relief, but by the time I got home from work the foot was hugely swollen and bruised. This morning the swelling has gone done a lot, but it’s more painful. I couldn’t have gone to work on it today without going through hell. Not so much the actual job, there are two separate nursing roles in the office and one is fairly sedentary, most phone and email work. It’s the two hour each way commute that’s the killer. Walk then train then walk then bus then walk, and the same in reverse going home. No other way to do it, short of taking a cab from the train to work, which pretty much wipes out the day’s pay! Luckily it’s not too busy right now, despite the short staffing, so I’ll stay home tomorrow as well.

But it’s so frustrating to sit inside all day itching to work on the shed and not be able to! I just need those few extra pieces of wood for the window surround, a door sill, and something for the centre of the ceiling. Then once those are painted, I can get the carpet down. A lucky find on Saturday morning in a car park- boxes and boxes of used but good condition carpet tiles in the rubbish at the back of the carpet shop. I so want to get them down, then I can get the desk up.

And I can’t get the last few bits and pieces of the building work done!

I can’t even start on the sewing for the cushions and blind because that involves standing, too, measuring up and cutting out, even though the sewing part will be sitting.

Well, I can get lots of reading done, which is a good thing. I could even read my rejected Christmas story and start making notes for the re-write. I’m strangely reluctant to do so, probably because I don’t want to have to see all the ways that my story is crap. And I don’rt want to get full of ideas then not be able to write because I’m back at work, or working on the shed. I’m obsessed with getting the shed finished. It’s like my subconscious has made a deal with itself- no more writing until the shed is done.

I wonder how I can convince it to unmake that deal?


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A fab article on romance writing – and Little Yellow Writing Shed progress

One of my critique partners, fab rural romance writer Rachael Johns, published by Carina Press and Harlequin Australia is featured in an article in a major Australia newspaper! That’s her in the pink. You can read “Romance writers share love of success” here. I’m looking forward to being able to buy Rach’s book when I’m next in Australia. I just missed out last time, going a few weeks before her release date, and I really want to read it!

I worked three days at the Day Job last week, but the bonus is I now have four days off, work one, and have another four off. That’s a work schedule I can live with. 

So today, I’m back working on the Little Yellow Writing Shed. The current job is lining the inside with foil and foil taping the joins. Fiddly. It took a while to find the best way to do it, and the cheap crappy staple gun I bought caused a lot of swearing, but once I worked a system out I got in a good flow with it. I’m being meticulous about it, excessively meticulous, some might say. No one will ever see the interior work I’ve done so far, as it will all be hidden away. But it’s worth the effort. I hope so, anyway. I want the shed to be comfortable in winter without needing a huge energy input to keep warm. Insulation and gap sealing is essential. I think there’s still a day and a half’s work to get it done. Then I can start on the finishing work, the bits that will actually show – the tented ceiling, and the timber lined walls. That’s when it starts to get a lot more exciting!

I really want to get the guttering up and the water tank in place, but the outside needs painting first. My lovely husband is doing that for me, but veeeeeeery slowly! Poor man has a chronic connective tissue disorder and he’s in a flare up. Anyway, it hasn’t rained again, so no rush.

Lots of writing ideas popping up while I’m doing relatively no-brainer building tasks. I love the process, those little bubbles that pop on the surface, deciding if that’s something I want to play with or not. There are a couple of things in today’s batch of ideas I can really have fun with!

I had a great haul on the 50p rack at the charity shop today too. A big pile of stuff for just seven quid! My favourite is a  top that’s way too big for me, but in fabric I adore. I’ll have a go at fixing it to fit. I’m thinking I’ll try some shirring, in places on clothes that aren’t usually shirred! If it works, I’ll do a post on it.

I’m planning a blog overhaul. Possibly a different WordPress theme, so it may look different. Adding more new pages. Mainly, adding some different content. I want to post more regularly, and mix in some new stuff. Like photos of my thrifted buys. Raw vegan recipes. How-I-done-it sewing posts, mostly refashioning those thrifted clothes. Still lots of writing, because that’s my number one thing. But more of the other things I love, too.

If it makes me either smile or swear, it’s probably worth blogging about!


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Work in progress- the writing shed, days 3 to 6

Work in progress

Still exhausted and doing no writing, I’ve been working eight hours a day on the shed. It’s coming along.

Slowly, a lot slower than I’d like, but I’m getting there. These jobs always take far longer and cost far more than planned, and the shed is no exception.

The photo is where I was yesterday morning. Today, the whole interior – walls, ceilings, and even the z-framed timber door, have polystyrene insulation. It’s not beautiful. I patchworked a lot of odd size pieces together to reduce the amount of wastage. But it should be functional, especially when I add a layer of foil over the top, which I hope will seal all the gaps well enough.

I don’t know how my husband worked in the shed when it was his computer workshop. He must have frozen his butt off in winter and barbecued it in summer. I grew up in Australia. Heat I’m okay with, but my cold tolerance is minimal. I normally wear three layers of thermal underwear under my clothes, and fingerless gloves inside our house in the British winter, so a freezing drafty shed is not doing to do it for me. Insulation is more important than how it looks!

I’m hoping I can achieve both a comfortable and an attractive writing space though.

Next comes the foil, and taping all the gaps in that, then I’ll staple up a tented ceiling from an old white sheet. Don’t want to risk anything heavier on the ceiling, there’s not enough to nail into. It would NOT help my writing to have the ceiling fall on my head! The walls will be light spruce tongue and groove boards.

I’ll need to ensure I fix the leaks, before I start that. There are a couple of broken edges on boards outside that I’ll patch. I’ve put new support under the shed and stopped the water tracking up where it rotted out in that damp corner. I’ve ordered better window perspex, and guttering and a water tank. My lovely husband is painting the outside for me.

Luckily, we finally have summer! No rain at all the last two days. It’s been beautifully sunny and all a British summer day should be, after raining heavily every day so far this month. I hope it stays dry. I won’t get much more done until Thursday now, between the Day Job and visiting the MiL.

The lovely thing about this sort of physical work is that my mind has been free to wander. Yesterday, I came up with a new story idea. It will be fun to write. At last some characters based on my Flying Doctor days I feel happy with! I don’t think they’re romance cliches. It doesn’t feel like it at this stage. I’m looking forward to mining that period of my life. The story needs a lot of development work yet. Mind mapping, and finding out more about who these people are.

But I’m resisting the temptation to chase the bright new shiny. I’ll edit the Christmas story first. I’m almost to the stage where I have enough distance from the writing of it to do the edits justice, and to want to start back into it again. With no words count constraints, I think it will end up around five thousand words longer than the version I submitted. I’ll address the issues the editor pointed out in the rejection. The choppy jerky writing and the lack of clarity, product of cutting too much to get word count within limits.

I know it will take a lot of work, and I’m looking forward to that!


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The writing shed, day 2. And another writing decision.


Photo by timsnell

I’m exhausted, and I’ve done no writing today. Lots of thinking.

I worked in the shed all day today. Doing work I hadn’t planned on, caulking all the gaps between every single board, between the walls and the floor and the walls and the roof, down the corners where the wall panels meet, and that 10mm (3/8″) gap under the windows the wind howled through. It took three tubes of gap filler! Worth it, I think, even though time-consuming. It should make a big difference to how weatherproof the shed is. I didn’t take any photos as there are only so many photos of an empty shed anyone will want to see. Just imagine three huge tubes worth of white lines across the last photo!

I’ll be back at the Day Job tomorrow, but Thursday I can start putting up the foam insulation panels.

And hopefully start work on the rewrite of the Christmas story.

I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’m glad I left it a few more days to start. I need that extra distance. before I change anything.

Though I’ve made a big decision. I’m going for an idea I had early on in the development phase of the story, and was strongly tempted by but ultimately rejected as less suited for the particular Call for Submissions I wrote the story for. I’m making the hero and heroine much older. Late fifties or even early sixties instead of twenties.

It works far better for me that way. I just like it. I think it will add more poignancy, too.

It will mean more of a total rewrite. It also means it won’t really be a category type romance any more. It will be a feel-good Christmas story that also happens to be a love story with a happy ever after. So I’ve pondered the differences between single title and category romance.

How to know- this idea is category, this idea is single title? What’s the dividing line between category-style romance, an ST romance, and an ST with strong romantic elements? How does the  writer’s mindset need to change when approaching the story?

I’m guessing it’s the tropes, the focus on the relationship, the need for secondary characters, just how big a canvas the story needs to be told the way the calls for. Discussion with my CPs suggest that ST can get away with more humour, less of a black moment.  Many of the romantic ST’s I’ve read have been fairly light and fluffy, a kind of grey moment and not the real black BM needed for category. More feel-goodish. But there still needs to be some sort of ”all is lost” moment, or there’s no story. The sh*t hits the fan moment (the nursing meaning of BM!).

So, I’ll be writing the story as a single title, with older protagonist. It will be unsaleable, of course, but at least it will be unsaleable as the story I wanted to write, not the story I thought I ought to write!

A lesson I need to learn.

Still waiting to do the post on my CP’s wonderful debut. Launch is delayed a couple of days. My next post… fingers crossed.

Oh, and the photo has no relevance at all to the post! I couldn’t find one I liked that did, and I love this one.


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Working on the writing shed, anticipation, and a new plan

So I haven’t done any writing, since submitting the Christmas story. I played with some ideas for the next story, and know which one I want to go with, but haven’t done anything more than note down a few ideas..

It feels strange not to be writing. I’m restless and antsy.

That’s good. When I start back into writing again, I’ll be raring to go. I’m using that energy getting a lot of other stuff done, all that decluttering and sorting out stuff I don’t usually have the time or the oomph for. It shows just how much energy writing uses. Those last few days working on the story I ended each day exhausted. And how much energy the Day Job sucked out of me. I’ve achieved more in the last two weeks since dropping back to part time hours there than I did in the preceding two months or more!

Today, the big job was clearing the shed, ready to start the fixing up work on Tuesday. I’d hoped to start sooner, but today is the first day it hasn’t rained, and I’ve been waiting for supplies to arrive. Anyway, we got it empty, and I got an unpleasant surprise. One corner has rot. The whole side wall was mouldy where something was leaned against it, trapping moisture  that never dried out as it’s the shady side. And the supporting timber under the corner has rotted right out, letting that corner get damp.

So that meant a lovely few hours scrubbing the entire wall with bleach. Three times!

Luckily, now it’s clean and drying out, it’s only a tiny patch of the floor that’s soft. I’m hoping I can just fix the underfloor support and the damp issue and get away with it. Because fixing it properly by replacing that floorboard would mean dismantling the entire shed, and that is NOT going to happen. The other surprise is a patch of what looks and smells like engine oil on the floor, but that’s not a big deal.

It’s also been a day of anticipation.

It’s release day, for one of my CPs., Robyn Thomas  Her first book, “His Unexpected Family”, a contemporary romance with a thrill-seeker mountain climber hero and a newly bereaved mother heroine.  Tagline- ”Family may be the biggest adventure of them all.” It’s a wonderful story, tenderly emotional yet sexy too. I adore her voice and can’t wait to read her final edited version. If that story sounds like something you’d enjoy, come back tomorrow for some cover love and a link! We’re all desperately waiting for it to go live on Amazon so we can buy copies. Clicking and fricking, as Jilly says, hitting refresh constantly on the search box and getting nothing. Grrr!

So I’ve made a decision on what to write next, too. Rather than dive into the rewrite of the last story, I’ll wait a couple more days, then edit Believe in Me again. Let it be the length it needs to be to tell the story best. I suspect that will be around 20k, maybe a little longer. I’ll sub it out to some other publishers who might take a Christmas romance novella. I’m thinking Samhain, Ellora’s Cave Blush, and Grand Central’s Forever. Maybe Carina.  If I work on the other story first, it’ll be way too late to sub a Christmas story by the time it’s edited up.

I’ll combine working on the shed with editing fours or five hours a day, so I don’t get burned out on either job. By mid-August at the latest, I’ll have a finished writing space, and a story that’s really ready to go, not rushed to meet a deadline and mangled to meet a word count.

If I can get it out again within a few weeks, a month tops, I’ll still have time to self-publish if they all reject it.

Though that depends on the reason for rejections. If I get form rejections, or rejections with criticisms, I need to reconsider. Maybe the story isn’t as good as I think it is. I don’t want to put it out there if it’s truly not good enough for publication. Of course, some epubs, like Carina don’t give encouraging comments on R’s. Nothing in between form rejections and revise/resubmits.

If I consistently get the sort of r’s that are along the lines of they liked it, but it’s just not what they are looking for in their Christmas list, then self-pubbing is the way to go. Of course, those sort of R’s may just be a politer way of saying it’s still not good enough! I’m sure most editors would find space for a sensationally good story, even if it didn’t quite fit that month’s list.

Maybe I can start working on the story tomorrow. Take it on the train to read and annotate. I’ll know if it’s too soon to start edits, if I can’t see anything wrong with it! If I can see the issues that need fixing, and I’m pretty sure I will as I knew before I even subbed the thing, it’s time to start the next round of edits. Put back in some of what I took out. Add what’s needed for readability, flow, and reader understanding.

Then it’s time to take a deep breath and hit send again.


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Hit send – and wait!

I’ve done it! Submitted my novella to a lovely editor at Entangled.

I’m happy with what I sent. Okay, I did attach the not-quite-optimal version of the synopsis (hint: if you decide to do some last minute tweaks, DO NOT attach the document while the tweaked version is still sitting on your desktop unsaved, you will be sending the old version!), and my blurb for the query letter sounded a little too generic rent-a-romance for my taste (by that stage I was way too tired and last-minuted to do a good enough job on this, unfortunately).

I just have to hope the story speaks for itself and he likes it!

I’ll know within the next three weeks, anyway. The great thing about Entangled is the short wait times. Also, everything I’ve heard (and my personal experience with my last sub) says the editors there give the best rejections around. Getting R’ed sucks, anytime, but a nice friendly personal rejection is soooooo much better.

So, tonight I’ll just wait for the post-submission crash. I’ve run on diet cola and adrenaline the last five days, getting this story written and edited.  Off to the Day Job in the morning. The Thursday I can start work on the Writing Shed. Sitting crosslegged on the bed with my laptop on my knees works okay for short stretches, but can be a killer for twelve hour plus writing stints three days in a row! My back and neck are not happy right now.

Getting back into some carpentry again will be fun. I’ll be insulating the shed, and lining it with pine tongue and groove boards, then building in a desk and shelving. After that, once I’ll make curtains or a blind, and a couple of cushions, it’ll be ready to move in. I got a lovely white cane office swivel chair on ebay for £8, which made me happy (compared to £60 for a new one)!

My Writing Shed will rock!

In the meantime, I’ll move on to a different writing project too - the rewrite of the Valentine’s Day novella to send to Entangled. Seeing an Entangled editor say in the July Wish List she wanted small town romances made me very happy as well - maybe the Haven Bay series? They also need complete rewrites, but I love those stories!

I also need to catch up on the lessons and homework for the online writing course I’m doing, which will mean more planning on the big fantasy romance.

I just found out (thanks to Lacey!) that Harlequin are doing So You Can Think You Can Write 2012 in September, though they’ve changed the rules (again!) and it’s more like last year’s Mills and Boon X-Factor style New Voices contest. Guaranteed publication for the winner again. I’m guessing that means NV won’t be happening this year. Interesting!

I’m not sure I’ll enter, as I’m feeling I want to be monogamous with Entangled right now.

 


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Finished first draft- and my first day writing in the shed

I’m a happy girl tonight- I finished the first draft of my Christmas novella!

Made an epic push today and wrote four chapters, plus a short scene to drop into chapter three to strengthen the heroine’s motivation.

Three things helped. A crazily close deadline. Stubborn determination to sub this story. And using the shed to write in for the first time.

As you can see, it’s a very temporary set up. The shed still has some junk and tools in it. I haven’t even started cleaning it up. Too busy with this deadline. But I bought a cheap old folding garden table and chairs set on ebay, and they arrived on Thursday while I was at the Day Job. Possibly the set is a little more shabby than chic, but I like them.

Today, it worked great. I could go in there and lock the door while I wrote the chapter on my Alphasmart. Getting into a different space, somewhere just for writing, made a huge difference. Being where it was harder for my husband to disturb me improved my focus, too.

Actually, the Alphasmart is probably the fourth thing that helped. I had to use it, as I don’t have power connected to the shed yet, and my laptop battery is getting old and won’t hold much of a charge. The Alphie works forever on two AA batteries. Well, not quite forever, but I’ve had it a while and only now is it showing any change on the power meter, it dropped from four bars to three and a half.

Using the Alphie is great. All it does is let me type and store my writing. I can’t get distracted looking something up on Google. I can’t check my emails. I can’t do anything but write on it. It’s not even easy to go back and edit things, because the tiny screen only shows two lines at a time. Then once I’m done, I take it inside, plug it into the laptop with a Word doc open, and just like magic the words appear in my document. I love it!

So first draft is done. I like some bits, and some bits suck, especially the early chapters when despite my planning I was writing my way into the story. I had my nice neat outline, but the story changed. I think for the better, but there will be things in the first half I need to tweak to make it fit the new end.

Worst of all, I’m way over word count. I know there’s stuff I can trim from the first part. I also know I am way too repetitive. I like repeating words, The sound of them. The way they look on the page, The echo and rhythm of them.

But when I’m 5k over required word count on a short novella, some of those words have got to go. Okay, a lot of those words have got to go.

There’s still a huge amount of work to do, and only four days to do it in.

But this stage is finished, and that feels good.

 


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A starting point- with my writing room and with the story

Planning is hard work!

It’s been a busy weekend. I’ve planned the work I need to do to transform a small garden shed into a writing room, and I’ve done more planning for my new story, a Christmas themed romantic novella.

I almost have my full shopping list of what I need to buy to fix the shed, I just need to do the sums to work out how much of the timber I need to buy. Insulation, tongue and groove spruce cladding boards to paint a light sunny cream, trim for the edges, perpex to reglaze and double glaze the windows. A big sheet of white coated mdf or similar for the desk, stretching wall to wall, then white bookshelves down either side right up to the door. Touches of bright lime green  and turquoise in the accessories. Cork tiles to use as a pinboard between the desk and a high bookshelf.

I can see how it will look finished. I just hope my skills are up to the job of transforming it!

I’ve decided to leave starting work on this until July. Two reasons- I won’t start the part-time job until mid-July, and I started the new novella with a deadline of July 10. Meeting the deadline will be tough enough without taking more time off from it to work on the shed.

And I’ve just realised tonight while doing the homework for the writing course I’m doing, Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways, what it is that’s been niggling me about the story over the past two days. I’m doing lesson 4, Good to Great. I knew I had a good idea, yet I couldn’t get it to work in a way that felt right to me.

In the past week, since I read the Entangled Call for Submissions, I’ve written nearly 6000 words of notes. I’ve almost completely filled in a Beat Sheet (word counts tweaked for a short novella length) and GMC charts for each character (fabulous ones, I’ll post them here as soon as I get time).  I wrote the first 1500 words of the story. But I knew I didn’t have it quite right. My instinct was telling me the story was somehow off, like a wobbly unbalanced wheel, but I couldn’t figure out why or where.

I thought the problem was that I didn’t have a good enough handle on the ending. It was too dependent on outside factors, and not driven enough by decisions the characters make, the emotional growth that’s needed so they can have their happy ever after. I asked before I went to bed for the answer to be in my mind when I woke up. I slept badly, my mind was too active on a million and one things that had nothing to do with the story. I woke up and started morning pages and didn’t have a clue about what the story needed. My mind seemed a total blank.

I asked again anyway. And out it came. the perfect ending to the story. Even five or six hundred words of actual story. Fast and effortless and exactly what the story needed. Amazing. I love it when that happens.

But something still nagged at me, felt off. Not the ending, something else.

Tonight I figured it out. I completely misunderstood my heroine and her motivation and what Christmas meant to her and what that song meant to her (the brief is to write a short romantic novella based on the song Santa Baby). I didn’t have the hero right, either. I have to scrap my first idea of who she is and who he is, and almost do a 180 on it, but it’s right. It makes sense of the story. It fits the ending and the middle I see.

So strange how that happens, but I know it’s right. The story developed way past my initial very literal conception of her character and how she related to the song, but I clung on to it anyway and tried to shoehorn it into the story it didn’t fit any more. 

Now all the pieces click together, with that lovely satisfying clunk, I can really start to write. I have the feeling this story could be less of a challenge than turning the interior below into a cosy all year round writing space!

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