BLACKWATER WRITINGS

For a lot of people, January is the Monday of the year and for a lot of people Monday is the bluest day that there is so I hope you're all enjoying and making the most of these early days of 2023.  I've stated before that reading is a huge and important part of writing and well, here I am saying it again.  I don't really follow New Year's resolutions, but I do like to try and increase my reading each year and that's exactly what I did last year and what I hope to do this year.  In today's post I'm going to share with you some of the books I read last year and again, like previous posts - take it or leave it! I want to point out that today's post isn't a Top (insert number here), but it is just to give you an idea of the content this amateur writer checked out in the year 2022 and it is also worth mentioning that almost every book I read in the past year was not even from that year, but that's neither here nor there. I would also like to say that ...

For today's post I'm excited to say that work has started on the follow-up to my debut novella, Black Water Valley. This new one is going to be called Pigeon's Port.  Actually, I've just told a lie because work started on Pigeon's Port in around October 2022, but because I didn't do as much background work as I should have, I had to take a break and do more pre-writing work.  What is pre-writing work? For me, it's doing character profiles and plot points. Two important things which I'll get into in a small bit of detail for today's post.  With character profiles, what I like to do is write a profile for each key character that's going to play a role. I'll write down their age, maybe a basic description, their likes and dislikes and also their motives for the duration of the project I'm working on.  And then for the plot points, I usually write down 10 major plot points which need to happen over the duration of the project. If it exceeds t...

     Everybody has the right to write but if you're a little too thin-skinned and if criticism is something that is hard for you to take then perhaps you should just stick to diary writing and shopping lists. In other words, don't go online or expose your writing to the big bad world.   All of the posts I've uploaded are from the mind and the experience of an amateur writer. What I do works for me at this moment in time and even though my output is nothing compared to that of a professional, my work is out there and there's every possibility that crisitism could come my way... and it will, but I can rest easy knowing that I am mentally prepared.  As an amateur writer I know that I'm bound to get more criticism than praise, and I'm fine with that. Of course, we would all like the latter, but if you accept criticism, you'll grow as a writer.  In my experience as a writer I'm fortunate, or should that be unfortunate(?), that I haven't received much cris...

      The last day I talked a little bit about freewriting and today I would like to expand on that. What is freewriting? Freewriting is a fantastic writing exercise that can help increase your writing stamina. I guess freewriting can be approached in different ways, and many people like to do it their own way, so I will explain how I do it and what works best for me. I have been using freewriting for many years. I was introduced to it in various writing courses that I studied. As I mentioned in a previous post I try to write every day, even if that is just writing things in my diary. I am happy as long as I am getting something down on paper, even if it is writing about what I did that day or my plans and ambitions for the following day.  Anyway, let's talk about freewriting and what it is. For me, I get  the stopwatch on my phone and begin writing, with no plan, after deciding how long I wish to do it for, but 20 minutes usually works for me, but I have previo...

     In my last post I shared my approach to "writer's block" and today I would like to talk about comfort and routine. Getting out of your comfort zone is essential, as I've said previously, but it's also highly important to be comfortable so we'll talk a little about that today.  I also want to state that any advice I give may or may not work for you so don't take what I say as gospel.  It's true that if we want to write anything (that's worth putting out there) we need to get out of our comfort zone, but we also need to be comfortable.  I'm not saying that it's necessary to have the best pens, paper and computer equipment (sure, those things do help, but they won't write your masterpiece for you), but what I am saying is how important it is to have your work area in order. We've all heard of writers who have scribbled down ideas on restaurant napkins, and that's fine when an idea hits us, but you'd be amazed how many wri...

Hello again, I don't have any plans to turn this blog into a travel one, but I would like to take this opportunity to recommend visiting where it is I am connecting from  and that is the beautiful town of Cazorla here in the south of Spain. Even when it's raining cats and dogs, like it was yesterday and will be today, Cazorla is a magical place with many postcard views to enjoy.  I'll try to keep this week's post short and to the point and what I'd like to talk about today is: trying to keep yourself inspired.  I don't really like the term "writer's block", but I do know that inspiration comes and goes and when it goes, it can be a god-awful feeling... if you allow it to be.  Writer's block, or whatever else you want to call it, doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. In fact, when it hits me, and it does, I embrace it and remind myself of what it is: part of the journey. I also remind myself that it's a state of mind.  Instead of moping...