Diary of a Writer – June Prompt

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It is always a prompt to remember that you’ve done it before.

From Lume Books, Courting the Countess, tells the story of Melissa Pateley who was badly burned in a house fire and is under threat from fortune hunters, including a stalker. It opens in the Border country but quickly moves to Regency Edinburgh where Melissa is nurtured by the handsome, Harry Gunn and his family. A fairytale inversion.

Round Robin – May 2022

What are your favorite things to do when you need to get away from a stalled writing? Does it help you to resume with new ideas on the book you are writing?

The above two and related questions are what our little group is pondering this month.

Well, yes, I am floundering in a ‘stalled writing’ state, I think. Having had such a productive Lockdown x 2, it’s hit me rather hard to be unable to progress a story I really want to tell: so reaction to question one:

Go on holiday. It’s now permitted and the UK is full of wonderful historic sites and beautiful gardens. Gardens are balm.

At this time in May, there are many rhodedendrons to see in huge bursts of colour and many, many smaller flowers like the Iris above. Taking a meander through places like Bodnant and Bridgenorth, listening to the bees, watching the birds frantically feeding their young and finding treasures such as an historical novelist will drool over, is a good answer to question one.

And if anyone knows what a chimney like the one above was part of, please tell me in the comments.

Does it help me? I think it does. the mind resets. The brain benefits from being away from the desk/computer and my eyes certainly do, too.

Of course, I took a book away with me. Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell’s award winning book about Agnes/Anne Hathaway and Shakespeare’s son’s death from the plague. I read it for the book group and arrived home with just enough time to get along to the discussion. I thought the book was a wonderful work. Does it inspire? Oh, yes, it does. Time to knuckle down and get on with it.

What are your cure-all techniques? Maybe you’ll find inspiration in the posts of my fellow Robins, below.

Anne

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Dr. Bob Rich — https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2CG

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

A.J. Maguire http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/

Rhobin Courtright http://rhobincourtright.com

Diary of a Writer – Admin

Some time ago

Tackling some long-g-g-g overdue admin tasks included clearing out a file dated 2010. Imagine my surprise when this fell out!

My ‘book’ tells me the story was called The Man In the Moon and it went on to be sold after the comp to Story magazine.

Off to the bank soon as the actual fiver is paper and I’ll need to change it for a plastic one. Despite the huge difference in what it would have bought and will now buy, I was really chuffed.

And I now have a working (for me anyway) synopsis. Relief doesn’t begin to describe that reaction.

How’s your writing world this grey Monday?

Anne