Forbidden words

Justine is saving me the bother of blogging about words writers may not use. Go over there and have a look. It's funny.

Well, happy Spring.

And happy birthday, Dad!

I've got lots of work on, including some writing but we'll just pretend that's not happening for the moment. Don't look at it and it might turn into something of substance.

Everyone's blogging about how to write novels at the moment—which is handy for me, eh. Justine (see link on right) has a deceptively simple sounding method, and I'm trying a few things on it, though not, yet, a spreadsheet. Not at the spreadsheet stage on anything right now (she says gloomily). Some people are very big on nailing everything down before they start, which always kills a story stone dead for me (unless it's junior fiction, in which case it seems to work just fine); I need to blunder around for a while and just be messy about the whole thing.

The weather here is just outlandish. It's sunny for half an hour, then we get ten minutes of cyclonic winds and rain, then it stops, bam!, and the sun comes out for another half-hour. This is all probably because Al Gore is in town—although the presence of Tim Flannery doesn't seem to pack the same punch.

Not very cheering news from overseas. Some of it is sekrit, but I think it's OK to tell you that Black Juice is doing pretty badly in the UK despite the extra story and the gorgeous cover. Open it up, look inside! No, put down that silly Fay Weldon! It's short stories you want.

The upshot of it all is: finish a novel, Margo. Which part of n-o-v-e-l do you not understand?

*growls and jots down another short story idea*