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| courtesy of www.fairydust.com |
And so as festive busyness gathers pace, I continue my
rewrite. Latest reports from my writing mentor insist that I must clear more clutter from my
text, working even further to remove the sighs, thumping hearts and glances that are slowing it down.
I think I understand now about backstory: you don’t put it
down on the page, but it is a living thing that takes root in your mind. As I
remove whatever might not be needed (the musings, the explanations, the
characters harking back); my protagonists retain their wholeness for me. Once in
a while I am moved by what appears on the screen about them, because their backstories live
in my heart. The magic* lies in conveying this to the reader.
I hope that something better is emerging as I prune back to
the parts of the story that matter. I have pinned my hopes on this way of
working leading to **success, which for me means my writing being good enough
to be published.
With that heartwarming thought, I wish everyone reading this
a ***peaceful and happy Christmas and all good things in the New Year.
* This ‘magic’ is not available in
fairy dust form, and may in fact involve months or years of painstaking work,
including wrong turnings, periods of crippling self-doubt and repeated
devastating rejection.
** Success is by no means guaranteed.
*** Results may vary according to the temperament of family
members, the onset of hyperactivity in children and the incidence of turkey cooking time dilemmas.
