My Writing Journey

This week I wrote each day. I am pleased with the progress I have made on my WIP (work-in-progress). There are nineteen chapters (at the moment) and the story I outlined in January is closer to completion. I have edited about half the chapters, have one to finish, and one that might be deleted or changed in some way. The outline I wrote has been helpful in finding my way to this point. I hope to have the completed first draft of the novel finished by the end of this year and in January I will do a final edit. Christmas celebrations with my family and friends will slow the writing down. When the final draft is finished I will send it to the publisher in early February and keep my fingers crossed.  I will then work on the television proposal with Dave Sabben. The siren song of another story is calling me although I am not sure if this will be the one I will write. The story will be set in Australia (as part of my WIP is) and will not be a time-split novel (as my WIP is) but set in one historical period. It will be based on a true story that I came across some years ago. The story have stayed with me since this time. I will need to research the historical facts and also visit the area where the story is set to take photographs and visit dwellings. I won’t discuss the story itself as I don’t want anyone to influence how I go about writing this story. Once I start the writing of it I will document my journey here.  I will take  several empty notebooks  with me when I travel. I have six large notebooks of notes for my WIP. I don’t look at them I am writing but I will skim through them when I finish the final draft in case some gem of forgotten information is hidden there that I can use. When I start my research I read widely from contemporary diaries and novels and biographies set in the period. It is a constructive period of osmosis and the information surfaces as needed when I am writing.  Someone once said (Lytton Strachey?) that they needed three lives: one for leisure and friends and family, one for reading, and one for writing, how true! Good writing to everyone…Best, Elise