NaPoWriMo - Day 23 - Sonnet

I fear I am getting lazy. This will be the second day in a row that I have dredged up one I wrote earlier for NaPoWriMo. I am ashamed at my lack of stickability for writing something new. Oh woe is me!

Okay, today is write a Sonnet day and this one is an apology to Shakespeare for it's rampant plagiarism but I like to think he would have smiled. Well, may be not. I think I have been looking for the chance to use this comedy of errors and here we are! Waste not want not.

Sonnet

(with apologies to Shakespeare)

If I compare thee to a summers day

Thou would be dour and less than perfect

Rough winds may shake the darling birds of May

But nothing could ever make thee worth it.

Sometimes your temper rolls like stormy wind

Gusting through my life without a care

Well, let me tell thee something, thou art binned!

When I get back, don’t want to find thee there

Like summers lease thou hath such short a date

The light went out the moment anger raged

Your attitude to me soon sealed your fate

And all those sorrys now seem, frankly, staged

No more to fall at your attempts to woo

That ship has sailed, go find somebody new.

Self doubt (again)

I seem to be in a quandary. I am writing virtually everyday, sometimes for several hours, yet I am unsure what to do.

The writing itself is going well. I have chosen to publish early short chapters on Scriggler.com. I've had some positive feedback which is encouraging. I'm just not sure how much to publish there. Do I keep most back and then try sending it to a publisher/agent?

I started this particular story after I 'scene wrote' in my head one night when I couldn't sleep. It's a mapcap account of one man. I had no proper plot but the words kept coming and I published the first short chapter almost straight away on Scriggler. Since then I have an ending and notes (most of which are being superseded!) as the story has taken a turn I did not see from the outset. I have gone with it and so far it is working. Although I want it to continue as a comedy, this adds some depth to the character. I am just having doubts about my methods of publication. I have in fact written 18 short chapters, about half way through the novel.

I already have one 'free-to-read' story on a blog which is ongoing. Should I continue or am I burning my boats? I have no writing buddy to share work with, I don't belong to a writing group and most of my friends while encouraging have not even bothered to look at my blog. One said to me, 'if you ever bring out a book, I'll read it, but I don't read stuff online.' I guess I've become discouraged (again). The only motivation I have is mine. If I didn't love writing so much I'd have given up long ago. However, is this type of self promotion damaging? Thoughts please.

On a slightly different note I was speaking to a lady at church the other and she is considering writing a book set in the Spanish Civil War. She already has a degree in Spanish (it may be literature or history, can't remember which) and she was given the advice to maybe do an MA and then she might get some help with the book. She couldn't contemplate it after years of study and I told her not to. I really don't think doing and MA will get you a book deal. At least I was able to have a decent conversation with someone about writing and books. Chats like that are a lifeline.

Next time I put up a chapter of my comedy novel I'll try and link it here and to Google+ Some feedback would be greatly appreciated (all previous chapters will then be found by clicking on my name).

Pondering on ways of writing and the influence of comedy

Rough notes for 'Austin Stapley'.
 I don't mind sharing this as it won't mean much
to you, but it does to me. This is only one
half  anyway.

While uploading the second episode of my online soap I noticed something strange. Before I cut and paste from my Word document, I take one last read through for any errors or wording I want to change. It's like I am looking at it for the first time and I find things (this morning there was a typo), like a word I'd prefer to use. I hope this doesn't mean I should have done further edits, but no I am not worried, particularly, I am excited. I am re-living the whole story and being with my characters again is like coming home. Writing this taught me a lot about planning. On the whole I worked out what was to happen in each episode a few ahead, but not by much because I didn't want a rigid structure. Often I will think things will go one way and then suddenly a character will say I want to go this way. Sometimes I had complete light bulb moments and connections I'd not even realised where there. The only real rules I had was to keep each episode within an approximate word count (1,200 - 1,600) because I don't like reading long stuff online, I'm much more a book person, and how many episodes it would run to. I also tried to keep the tension going by quick-ish scene changes.

When I first began to write it, I mainly wanted it to be fun. The serious stuff came later, and I had to edit earlier episodes to make sure it was a natural progression. My way of writing certainly seems to be an idea first, write the first chapter, or some piece in my head that needs to be set down. After a while I realise I am going nowhere! This is when the planning comes in - notes, timelines, back history, character profiles, research. Once I have enough rough stuff I continue writing. But it never ends there because other things crop up, new characters, something I want to write about which needs researching (if I have no personal knowledge).

At present I am writing a series of short chapters on Scriggler with a working title of The Adventures of Austin Stapley. This is a piece of humorous writing which started as whole scenes in my head one night when I couldn't sleep. I got as far as Chapter 5 and then I left it to concentrate on other things. I came back and couldn't see a way forward. So, yesterday I began my planning. It's a rough outline, subject to change and order. These are mere outline notes. I have only published two chapters on Scriggler so far. I want to keep a few chapters ahead because once on I cannot edit again! Not on there anyway. It is a working draft and far more immediate than the year it took me to write and edit the online soap. There is no way I could have put that up as I did it!

Writing is still a learning curve as discover new or easier ways to work, but I've always been imagination first, the rest later. Maybe that will change in time, who knows. I am not sure that I could ever write something totally serious. Humour is in my blood (I blame my Dad), I see the funny side in most things (which my Dad did). Looking at comedy my favourite TV programmes are the silly but great comedies - Dad's Army, Blackadder, Monty Python, 'Allo 'Allo. I love the humour in Doc Martin (I was beside myself on Monday when I watched) and I love Coronation Street for the same reason. It has serious issues but humour is never far away. I love reading the serious stuff, but I'm not sure if I could write it.