Thank you, Ben Huberman and Discover Prompts for today’s title prompt, Focus. My inability to do just that has been a problem during recent weeks, and I’ve even just eaten my last biscuit without noticing.
As the Coronavirus pandemic started to take hold, Discover Prompts decided to post daily prompts throughout April to help us all regain our writing rhythm and, for me, it has been a blessing. Writing is a lonely business at the best of times, let alone when everything you know suddenly becomes an alien place.
The prompts have helped me to move away from the dark place my writing was falling into and they drew me out from my gloomy Life Under the Covid-19 Cloud posts. I suppose, confronting Coronavirus through our writing is something we all needed to get off our chests, but not if it takes our focus away from the writing we love.
I am not someone who is going to be writing a suspense novel about a pandemic-busting superhero any day soon. I just want to make people smile. I was well into my second novel, a murder mystery spoof set in the fictitious market town of Didsbrook when everything kicked off. I had planned to finish it by the end of April. Then, poof! The pandemic pushed the comedic focus out of my head.
At my virtual Jersey Writers Social Group meeting this morning, I was asked.
‘When are we going to hear more about Didsbrook?’
‘Soon.’ I said. But, you know what? Thanks to Discover Prompts, I’m ready to focus on what really matters in my writing life, and that would be, The Doyenne of Didsbrook.
Categories: Fiction, Writing, Writing Fiction
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I like it. Thanks for the tease. It is tantalizing.
That’s good to hear!
Enjoyed visiting your “niche-less blog.” That’s about what mine is, too: a bit of everything, since my writing has never been focused. I usually do the Ragtag Daily Prompt, but don’t get around to the others very often. Started doing the Discovery prompts, but lost locus. 😉
Good luck with your book. Do you have some interesting action and dialogue as an opening to your story before you do this bio and description of the area? Die-hard mystery readers (pardon the pun) need a sharp opening hook before they’ll read a lot of narrative. Something like “And where did you say you found this?” DI Jones examined the blood-soaked T-shirt in his hands, then glared at her suspiciously. Lucy squirmed, avoiding his gaze. How could she ever explain this? 😉
Thanks for your comment, Christine, and thanks for wishing me good luck. I will need it! This extract is not actually from the opening chapter, but I will definitely be taking your comments on board!
A year ago my husband signed up for the Jerry Jenkins Writing school and we were watching him take and edit Page One from a number of different works-in-progress. The sessions were called, “How to be a ferocious self-editor” and it was definitely an eye-opener watching him delete, delete, delete to tighten up those story openings!
Being on a Jerry Jenkins course must have been amazing. I would like to be more ferocious when it comes to editing. I’m working on it!