writing week – T E Shepherd

Writing Week: Day 4

Thomas — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 22:10:26 +0000

The day has been a little more overcast today than it has been, but no less pleasant. I busied myself with jobs this morning, getting the house all cleaned (in the full knowledge that with seven pesky cats, at least one of them would bring half the garden in with them and deposit it all over the floors – I think my efforts have actually survived quite well!).

And then suddenly it was lunchtime, so I made myself a nice chicken and ham salad, and sat outside and munched it whilst reading another chapter of The Story of Alice. Then I switched back to the novel du jour, Rosie Garland’s Vixen (which I’m discovering is a curious, very well written, but not entirely pleasant tale. And then after a chapter of that, I set to my own writing….

Another 1000 words or so done, and another chapter completed. If I can get another 1000 words written over the course of the weekend (weekend’s are usually less productive than weekdays, I find) then I’ll achieved a nice 10% of my novel written, which I think is a very good start.

7054 / 80000 words. 9% done!

Writing Week: Day 3

Thomas — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 20:31:46 +0000

I have certainly picked a good week to have off, with another day of glorious sunshine and outside living, and another day giving my shorts an airing. I didn’t feel like the words have been burning quite as fiercely today (although I did manage another 1000 words so clearly they must have been), however I do now know an awfully lot more about this story and where its going.

What I’m not so sure about is at what point Louis is going to re-enter the story, but then when he left book one at the end of part two I wasn’t sure exactly when he would reappear. The alternate Lewis has made some appearances in flashback and I’m enjoying the ‘other side of the story’ nature of alot of this book.

5943 / 80000 words. 7% done!

I’ve also been reading more today. Vixen, the book I chose to read based on the cover being designed by a ‘social media friend’ and sister of a colleague, is proving to be an intriguing and enjoyable read. Written in almost poetic beauty about villagers in Devon at the time of the Black Death, I was amused to find that its author Rosie Garland was a singer in a band who sung on the soundtrack to the 1980s film Some Kind of Wonderful.

Inspired by this week’s Radio 4 Book of the Week, I’ve also started reading the non-fiction book The Story of Alice by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, partly because I’ve discovered that Mr Tumnal 2: The Imaginary Wife has echoes of Lewis Carroll and of Alice.

Writing Week: Day Nine

Thomas — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:27:00 +0000

To be fair I never actually got round to sitting down to write today. Starting off the day, I headed out on a nice drive through the Oxfordshire countryside, going through Ayhno and Adderbury in search of hard wax oil, and then cross-country to Brackley to stock up on a bit of shopping. From there I headed over to Wyvale to take them up for 4 bags for Â£12 on multipurpose compost and a couple of rolls of turf and some grass seed. Have you any idea how heavy the trolley was with all that on it, and how difficult it was to stear round the shop and car park?!!

I got home and unpacked and was about to have a late lunch when Emma arrived home after a half day, tired and weary and suffering a bit from her depression. So whilst she had a sleep I set about my sunny springtime jobs of oiling the door to the garage, laying the new turf in the bunny run, putting in the log edging to the shady garden a the end and preparing the lawn and sowing a top up mixture of rye grass.

This evening I am very, very tired, but in a productive, nice way similar to that feeling that I get on conservation holidays. I have enjoyed a nice spaghetti carbonara, watched the excellent Delicious Miss Dahl, and the weirdly fantastic Heston’s Feasts, and subbed my novel, The End of All Worlds to two more agents, after yesterday’s one gave a swift ‘No’ today to yesterday’s submission.

Writing Week: Days 6-8

Thomas — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:04:00 +0000

I’ve had a nice, relaxing weekend with Emma down with my mum and dad in the New Forest, involving activities as relaxed as walking round Exbury Gardens, and as energetic as chasing nine New Forest ponies around and out of a neighbour’s garden. Consequently, not so much writing was done this weekend.

We got back mid-afternoon to be greeted (thankfully) by all 6 cats, present and correct, but a total of 12 hungry mouths to feed (instantly!) – that’s the 6 cats + 4 chickens + 2 bunnies (not counting the sligtly less demanding 2 fish…). After a bit of unpacking and relaxing we set about cleaning out the fishies, and then planted the spuds and the carrots and Emma did some more seed sowing whilst I make a simple if delicious meal of scrambled eggs on toast with freshly made bread and freshly laid eggs.

We saw Cambridge make it the double with the boatrace by beating Oxford in the final of University Challenge, and then I submitted The End of All Worlds off to another agent (the same one that handles the likes of Philip Pullman and Helen Dunmore). Well, when you’ve got a novel that’s set in Iceland at a time of volcanic activity, geological uncertainty and jökulhlaups I find it important to submit it for publication at a time when Iceland is going through a period of volcanic activity, geological uncertainty with the threat of jökulhlaups…

Wish it well for me!

Writing Week: Day Five

Thomas — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 22:52:00 +0000

Being Good Friday, I wasn’t expecting to get any writing done. Whilst it was still fine, I headed outside after breakfast to clean out the bunnies and the chickies whilst Emma hoovered, and then the inlaws arrived for a cup of tea, and lunch, and then a trip to the garden centre for a bit of a browse. After our guests left I planted out some thyme and dill in the garden, and then retreated to the study to write. And an hour or so later I finished up chapter twelve of Mr Tumnal.

19560 / 80000 words. 24% done!

A nice meal of breaded lemon sole and veggies, an evening of Gardener’s World, QI, and Masterchef, and it’s been a very nice and successful day!

Writing Week: Day Four

Thomas — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:42:00 +0000

I woke int day four of my extended Easter holidays and writing week with the kind of sunny morning that I had been hoping for all week. Blue sky and sunshine definitely put in the music for getting up, for buying daffodils and baking Easter biscuits. All of which I have done. I also finished off my project in the garage by sorting out the boxes of miscellaneous kitchen things into things for the charity shop.

It is of course 1 April and thus the day for April Foolery. Strangely and bizarrely I caught some people out even after I preceeded the Fool with the fact that I was useless at thinking up fools and and this was my best attempt?!! Me not understand…

All of this of course has resulted in much procrastination from the job at hand. But I have written a couple more pages and got a bit further into the head of Louis Tumnal. The springtime weather soon deserted us and descended into wind and rain and driving cold. If I was still writing The End of All Worlds it would be just the kind of weather to inspire me but Mr Tumnal requires a quieter kind of weather, late summer evenings with a warmth in the air, and an edge to the wind.

Writing Week: Day Three

Thomas — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:35:00 +0000

A little more procrastination, a little more productivity! Day Three of my writing week started off in a very similar way as previous days, with a bit of shelf-oiling before I headed back to the garage to sort boxes. It went well. Aside from four last remaining boxes of miscellaneous kitchen things which are still left to go through the garage is looking almost habital, and the most like a ‘room’ of the house that is has ever looked.

This afternoon I got down to chapter twelve. I did get lured in a procrastionary-type way back to the garage to sort out a few more things and to put up a new shelf in the downstairs toilet. But then I was back to my desk, with my trusty fountain pen and my leather bound book, surrounded by my books, and I wrote – to a soundtrack of Nouvelle Vague brilliant covers – and another two pages are down, and Kathryn is going for a meal and a drink with Louis…

Writing Week: Day Two

Thomas — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:15:00 +0000

After a bit of a slow start, I had a productive morning. Mind you, whilst it was productive, it was far from the dream of encasing oneself in a room of book and submerging into a sea of newly written words. In other words, I procrastinated. It was productive procrastination though. I set about processing the washing through the machine, I oiled the new shelf in the spare room again, and I set to sorting out the garage. By lunchtime, I had the shelves back on the wall, and the cabinet of lead in position against the wall and had had filtered out some obvious junk into the dustbin. It came onto rain then though, and so I had to hastily pile up the boxes marked to sort back into the garage, but even so its much improved from what it was even before the catatrophic events of last week.

Over lunch I watched last week’s BBC4 documentary In Search of the Perfect Loaf and then set about writing. Inspiration came relatively easily and I’ve written a good four pages into chapter twelve, and I am getting closer to Louis asking Kathryn out on a date. But the question still remains, what will happen when he does this? What kind of hold does Miss Leroy have over his life…?

Direct from the author’s pen

Thomas — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:56:00 +0000

A quote, hot off the press, so to speak, from Mr Tumnal. One, that I think all my publishing friends will appreciate:

‘The rest of the day was spent trying to get an issue makeup off which is not made any easier when I have to deal with egotistical authors who haven’t read the style guide.’