Letting Go...

My work is out there, sitting gathering dust on an agent’s desk or clogging up their inbox. It has even been rejected a time or two, but that isn’t the letting go I want to talk about. Oh no, I want to talk about first drafts.

First drafts where the possibilities are endless. Where characters are still forming therefore nothing they do is wrong… yet. Any twist and turn could be the twist or turn that makes the plot fly. Who cares about repetition? Who cares that you have head hopped and changed point of views part way through a scene? All you need to care about is getting the story down.

I am in the throes of a first draft. It feels like the beginning of a new relationship. You still think those little quirks are adorable. That every little thing the story does is fabulous, amazing, life changing. Each sentence unveils something startling and exciting.

This week I wrote about two characters holding hands and in thinking who were the last people they would have held hands with I found a whole new character and motivation.

It is scary, exhilarating, breath taking and the best therapy to stop worrying about what is going on in some agent’s office somewhere. 


Come back on Sunday to hear from Susanna

Getting to Know You

While doing my daily round of the internet last week, I noticed that, over at Dear Author, Jane's #5 wish in her List of Things She'd Like to See in 2012 from the Romance Genre was More Courtship.

"I am not sure whether it is paranormals and the fated mates that have led to the slow devolution of the courtship, but whatever is the reason, we need to put a stop to it," Jane writes. "I love the courtship. Dating is so rife with opportunity and conflict. Where is the slow build of attraction?"

Now, don't get me wrong, I believe in the concept of instant attraction and people who simply belong with each other, but watching while two people start to become more aware of each other is wonderful, too, and Jane's post got me thinking how much I love those films and novels in which the main characters actually go out on dates, get to know one another, prolong the suspense for us. Will they or won't they? The almost-kiss can be as sexy to me (sometimes sexier) than sex itself.

Case in point: Scarecrow and Mrs. King. If you were born in the 80s or later, you most likely won't have a clue what this is, but for a romance-loving teen like me in 1983, it was The Best Thing on TV, my favourite show.

Bruce Boxleitner played a suave CIA spy, teamed with Kate Jackson as a divorced mom of two who got drafted by circumstance into the spy game. Their chemistry steamed up our little TV screen, and watching their feelings develop and grow brought me back every week thinking, "This is it! This is the week that they'll kiss!" Their interrupted almost-kisses were the thing of legend, but their first Real Kiss, right at the end of the Third Season (!) made my heart happy because I had watched all the small little moments that led to it.

Back in the mid-18th century, the Irish writer Laurence Sterne (of Tristam Shandy fame) wrote that "Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood."

Those "quiet attentions" are why I so love books like My Love, My Enemy, by Jan Cox Speas, with its pairing of the young American heroine, Page Bradley, and the dashing English spy Lord Hazard, set against the War of 1812, when a brave but rash action by Page throws them (literally) both in the same boat (well, ship) and Lord Hazard decides that, with Page on her own, he is honour-bound to guard her honour, however attractive he finds her. Which means that they don't even kiss till the end of the 14th long chapter, by which time we've watched while they break down their differences, overcome prejudices, notice each other's small faults and discover the things they admire in each other.

Again, it's those stray little moments: the times that their eyes meet, the times they say small things that mean something more, the few times they touch.

It's those same moments, I think, that mark the progression of real-life relationships, too: that first meeting, or first introduction; the first time you notice what colour his eyes are; the first time you go out together; the first time you hold hands; the first time you sit up until 2 a.m. talking; the times that you wish he would kiss you; the first time he actually does...

It's not all smooth sailing, mind you. Both in real life and in fiction there is angst, and plenty of it, and it's not a state I'd want to spend forever in. It's too exhausting. But whether it takes a full year, as it does with Lord Hazard and Page, or three seasons on TV, or one unforgettable day spent with Gregory Peck (Roman Holiday, pictured above), I'll admit I'm a sucker for stories of courtship.

What about you? What's your favourite example of courtship in fiction, and do you agree with Jane that we need more of it?

(Come back on Thursday, to see whether Julie comes out of her luxury bolthole...)

The View (or The Road Less Travelled)

I applied for a job last week. I haven’t properly applied for a job in years, all the jobs I have had recently have been through contacts or recruitment consultants. So I dusted off my writing skills to completely rewrite my CV and fired up my creative skills to write a two page supporting document stating why I fulfilled the criteria.

I didn’t get the job. I didn’t even get interviewed. Bugger.

But this is not a post saying ‘Woe is me’ this is a post about possibilities. You see the job I went for isn’t something I thought I would want to do until it came up and my burning gut reaction was ‘YES’. OK so I didn’t get this one but it has made me realise that there are other jobs out there. Other possibilities

Instead of plodding gently down the straight road I thought I was on, I feel like I have topped a hill I didn’t know I was climbing and as I look over I see the road dividing. Different directions, sparkling possibilities stretching into the future. And the view looks great. Scary but great. I have decided to just sit here for awhile before I move on. It isn’t often in life that you can take your time before committing, mostly we are running full pelt and it is only afterwards that you look back and see where you took the road you are on.

I have no idea where this will all end up. Whether I will follow the well trampled road, straight and safe or whether I will investigate the turning twisty slightly overgrown lane. But until I have to decide I’m going to enjoy the view.

Come back on Sunday to hear from Susanna