I've been deliberately absent from WW for a few days so sorry for not reading stuff! I've been locking myself away in a writing frenzy. I've completely scrapped my Faye and Jack book and am writing like a mad thing trying to get the new story done. I've just uploaded the prologue and first chapter in the archive and would welcome any thoughts as to how it's going.
Sue

I've been locking myself away in a writing frenzy

that's not what Patrick told me...

Welcome back, Sue! Good luck with the new project.
x
tc

It's a big decision to drop one project for another. I've done that recently and the feeling of losing all that baggage is bloody marvellous.

Colin M

tc - did i mention that i'd locked patrick away with me?

colin - don't you hanker after the first project just a tiny bit???

just off to lock myself in again.

sue

Oddly enough, I don't. I have a fondness for the story, and I'm glad that I wrote it, but I'm also content to put it aside. Perhaps this is because it's finished. I'd edited and revised it several times. I'd taken it as far as I could. I got quite close to having an independent publisher take it on, but when it was finally rejected I breathed a sigh of relief.

Odd that - I can't quite understand why I felt like that. The novel dealt with some slightly controversial issues that I knew would wind some people up, but more importantly, I think I just feel that I am moving away from thrillers and crime. Right now, I am thirty-thousand words into a children's novel and I really don't want to take time off from it to go back to editing and rewriting the other script, so maybe that's the reason.

It would have been nice to see it on a shelf. It is difficult to have worked on something for a year or so, only to put it in a drawer. I suppose it begs the question; why do we write? If the publishing world went pop and you knew, without question, that you would never get a publishing deal, would you still write?

I know I would.

Colin M

Hi Colin, I know from experience how difficult it is to bin something that you've worked so hard on, but some times we just have to bite the bullet, accept that things haven't worked out, and move on.

On the subject of why we write, I read an interview with the poet Wendy Cope this morning, and one of the questions said that people who write always long to be published, but people who play the piano can do it purely for pleasure, without aspiring to being a concert pianist. In my view, there's too much blood and toil involved in writing a novel to do it purely for pleasure, but writing shorter pieces or poetry, just for the sake of writing, can be fun.

Anyway, Colin and Sue good luck with your latest projects, and best wishes to every one else who's ploughing that same rocky furrow.

Adele.