There's nothing like giving yourself rules when you are writing, only to throw them away the next day. I decided yesterday that I needed to plough on until the end of Act I before considering a Big Edit. But I've been gripped with misery - and not just about my novel. My slide into despair yesterday (almost all my problems have to do with money and the ones that don't could actually be cured with money) was worsened by the fact that I wasn't looking forward to writing anymore. If I can't hide away in the worlds I create, then there's no point to living because (almost) everything else is too difficult. A thought edged its way in which I tried to ignore but by this morning, while cursing students under my breath in the uni-library where I work, I knew I was going to have to go ahead with it.
I need to change my novel into the first person. This seems an obvious solution but one I was trying to avoid. I wanted to get inside my heroine's head without her being me. I've managed this before: in my novel V.GOMENZI, I got to understand my hero very well indeed and lived easily inside his head. Or so it would appear. Looking back, I actually couldn't find his "voice" for a year and it took two years to write the novel (it's quite hefty.) Also, the novel switches between characters and I had to get inside the head of several people, all of which was actually quite easy. But this first-person thing must be a stylistic thing. I've just sat down to rewrite the Prologue in the first person and there is my heroine - not only have I found her voice, I can HEAR her. Suddenly my style doesn't seem faux fantasy (something I loathe) but gentle and dreamy, yet filled with very precise clarity. This is quite a stunning transformation.
If only I could solve my financial difficulties so positively.....
I need to change my novel into the first person. This seems an obvious solution but one I was trying to avoid. I wanted to get inside my heroine's head without her being me. I've managed this before: in my novel V.GOMENZI, I got to understand my hero very well indeed and lived easily inside his head. Or so it would appear. Looking back, I actually couldn't find his "voice" for a year and it took two years to write the novel (it's quite hefty.) Also, the novel switches between characters and I had to get inside the head of several people, all of which was actually quite easy. But this first-person thing must be a stylistic thing. I've just sat down to rewrite the Prologue in the first person and there is my heroine - not only have I found her voice, I can HEAR her. Suddenly my style doesn't seem faux fantasy (something I loathe) but gentle and dreamy, yet filled with very precise clarity. This is quite a stunning transformation.
If only I could solve my financial difficulties so positively.....
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