One small moment of enlightenment.................

It has dawned on me that I lose interest in writing my novels because they are boring.

They are boring because they are history tomes with a few fictional characters thrown in; the history takes centre stage and the characters and minor incidents are incidental.

I realised this because I find writing my short stories exciting.....and that's because I'm making them up as I go along and they have only a tenuous link with reality.

Soooooo I have one Hell of a lot of re-imagining to do. I'm not depressed by this I feel liberated because I've given myself permission to invent stuff.

Now, let's see, when and where did I last see my  imagination? I might have left it on a bookshelf somewhere or possibly in my trinkets box,.
 Gotta go and hunt it down.

Writing and Volcanoes

It's proving hard to tear myself away from my pc and write short stories; as for the novel, it languishes.
I'm completely absorbed by Bardarbunga and check web-cams and earthquake data a dozen times a day. It would disrupt any routine but when you're trying to get a story straight in your head and onto the page it becomes a real bugbear.
I'm not sorry to be so taken up by something extraneous. I have been drifting along on the foamy billows for too long. I am still getting short stories done but whether they're readable is another matter.

I should be getting the garden winterised too!

I confess to an addiction

Over on 'Whatever Comes' there's another dazzlingly brilliant short story.

The novel is proceeding at a snail's pace, but you can't have everything, especially when I've been glued to webcams watching Bardarbunga.

 There are times when I love technology and this is one of them. I'm getting an almost continuous stream of data on earthquakes, displays of lava flows and conversations with vulcanologists; short of actually being there this is marvellous. I'm in Heaven!