My writing week

Hi all,

Some day, hopefully soon, one of my posts will shock the hell out of its readers by telling them that in the past week I wrote over 7,000 words, read a novel and a speculative fiction magazine, and finally finished critiquing that critter's dedicated reader novel. Unfortunately, this is not that post.

I struggled to give myself enough time to write anything substantial on six out of the past seven days, usually finding that I was getting into the process just as it was time to stop. I enjoyed drawing a floor plan of the house my characters now inhabit. Once drawn, I had to retrace my main character's movements around the house in the current chapter to ensure he hadn't walked through a wall or urinated in a pot plant.

I am about to write up a critique of a story for critters. It seems that even though I am a dedicated novel reader my membership of critters will be suspended if I don't critique at least one story a month. The story I choose was wrongly listened as SF – it is a werewolf story – so the author can expect a wrathful critique - just kidding - but I find it hard to critique horror, especially when I don't find a story horrifying and fail to connect with, and therefore care about, the fate of the main character.

Oh, and I did read a couple of chapters of the novel I am critiquing.

Graham.

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