Catégorie : Writing related topics

A week of Diary of a Writing Project: The End of April.

Monday, Day 209

One thing let to another, and… schedule writing time vanished.

It’s not like I have somewhere to go, or e-meeting to attend. Heck, I don’t even entertain the idea of calling friends.

Confinement does funny things to people. For one thing, I’m rather please to be forced to avoid social gatherings of any kind.

On the other end, every park, every library, every place we used go to are either closed or/and closed to more than one person. A person wearing a protective mask, of course. It starting to get under my skin, this feeling of lost.

Tuesday, Day 210

Fellow writer, how you doing?

Short nap time today. Plus, some daycare bad news.

It’s not gonna be possible for this mama to go back to trying to get a job, which would be easy if I choose to ditch writing altogether to go work in the fields, until the end of June. Bonus: the educators will have to wear masks and gloves, and us parents will have to respect a strict schedule and stay in the doorway.

Does it sound like a prison? I think so too. What kind of fun a kid can have when the people surrounding him/her/non-binary are fearing that the virus « bomb » will explode in their protected faces?

So I wrote today. And did some editing. And lost myself in words far, far away from this pandemic.

Is writing a way for you to get away as well? Bless are we to be in love with writing stories.

Wednesday, Day 211

Not enough sleep. Very bad angry mood.

Grrrr…. !

Thursday, Day 212

Kiddo of mine, my sweet lovely amazing kiddo, will you ever EVER go to sleep?

Friday, Day 213

Depressing newsletter, from my editor. Not addressed to me especially, but to every francophone, or writing for a francophone audience, aspiring author out there.

In essence, the newsletter says that now might not be a good time to submit a story.
Some publishers don’t know yet how/if they will be able to get back to business. One thing for sure, the newsletter goes on, the francophone publishers will be very, very picky.

Saturday, Day 214

I would have love to creep out of the house this morning.

With a hot tea, a warm blanket, and my laptop. I would have curled up on a wide chair, sip that tea, and look at the magnificent sky before blogging a paragraph or two.

It such a beautiful day. All I want to do is play in my garden, clean up what’s left to clean, and finally decide where to put the vegetable garden.

Instead, I will try to not go crazy, keep calm and take the kiddo for a walk in park. Yes, a forbidden park.

Kiddo needs to run in the grass, play around the trees, look at the rapids. Maybe see other humans under five years old.

Sunday, Day 215

Cloudy and rainy weather is perfect for confined Sundays, better known as « staying in my pj and not cooking » day.

I’ll find a novel and keep it in my hands at all times. A shield against the new confined week coming up, and all that entails.

This week writing goal: getting to 75K words.

Yes, yes, fellow writers, you read right. I’m closing in on the 75K words milestone. Finally.

Nooo pressure, but if I can achieve that, it would mean I would be only 10K words from finishing my first novel in 2020. Yé!
This year, I also want to at least finish the first draft of the fantasy middle-grade book I’ve been outlining back in February-March.
I haven’t abandoned my Rom-Com for adults, also partially outlined, but I’m less into contemporary context right now. It’s a pandemic thing, I guess.

Many, many thanks for reading, clicking, sharing, fellow writers. I’m forever thankful for your time and patience.

I hope you find these blog ramblings useful, or funny, or tiny-tiny bit entertaining.

From the other side of the screen, I wish you good writings !

Stay safe and until next Sunday!

Diary of a writing project. Day 204: nobody would believe it

I took several writing classes. In one of them, one evening (somehow my favorite writing classes took place after the sunset), the teacher told us a true story.

A one of a kind true story.

A story so surreal, here’s what she told us afterwards: « I told you this story because everything is there: a character in a bad place, a surprising turn of events, a crazy love story, then a disappearance, followed by a very sad discovery. Nevertheless, I challenge you to write a novel, a screenplay, anything with it. I’ve been trying for years, she continued. And fail. Because it’s too unbelievable. No readers, no audience would buy it. »

It’s almost two decades later, and I remember the unbelievable story vividly. Never was I able to make anything with it. Because, exactly: nobody would ever, ever believe it.

Today, a story like that happen, for all the world to know. It goes like this:

« During a pandemic, that has almost every human on Earth in lockdown, an armed man set fire to several houses during the night. Then, he waited for the people living there to get out to shoot them. Then, we would move on to a different location. He killed more than 20 persons before police finally caught with him and shoot on sight, at a gas station. He was heading to a big city. » If you want to read all the details, here’s the link.
Why did he do it?
The two years old son of one of the victims, a teacher, will probably ask himself this question his whole life.

Now, would that make a thrilling novel or movie?

Yes.

But nobody,
not even the eye witness’s of that horrible tragedy, the detectives trying to work out the why-why-WHY, the 30 million people living in Canada who had heard the news,
nobody would believe it.

« The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it » says Lizzie in the 1992 BBC’s Pride&Prejudice.

Right there with you, Miss Bennett.

Right there with you.