Thursday, September 13, 2007

IMPRESSIONS

I was so impressed with myself yesterday; I wrote a whole piece, edited and polished it to what I hope is publishable standard, then emailed it to The Guardian. It's in letter form, an 800wd first person account for their Saturday supplement family page. So my fingers will be well-crossed until I hear from them. I also got around 500wds on the novel; a good day, for me.

Even today, I'm still on that roll; got another few hundred words on the novel using the same exercise we worked up together in my flash group - everyone who used it has come up with something great. I'm a seriously happy scribbler tonight, though annoyed about something else; I asked a question in a thread, in a writing forum, if anyone knew the difference between a novella and a novel, forby the size. There was only one answer, which didn't make me any the wiser. I'd just finished reading a fabulous novella by Susan Hill called 'The Albatross', and was so impressed with it; how tight the focus and the writing was, how it grabbed me and wouldn't let go - still won't. I suppose the best person to ask will be Susan but she'll be really busy right now with the writing course. I'll ask her later. I really wanted to know how the structure differs from a novel - maybe I should read more of them and find out for myself.

A serious money day today; had to visit the cheque-cashers for a pay-day-advance so I could put the cash in the bank to cover my loan repayment. Poverty here I come, back on that roundabout again. But I am working towards a new job so hopefully I'll be earning by the end of next week.

On a lighter note, all the lovely Asda shopping was delivered this morning. Isn't it wonderful to wake up at 10am and answer the door to bags of groceries that you didn't have to get yourself!

2 comments:

Anne Brooke said...

Well done on the submission, Irene - good luck with that!

And I do think novel/novella is actually rather an artificial division. It's purely a question of length. You could just as well call a novella a long short story, or a novel a very long short story.

And sorry I haven't done the challenge - not much time or energy for it this week.

Hugs!

A
xxx

slippingthroughtheworld said...

thanks for popping in anne. i think this link to blogs on ww is great. i pop over there all the time and have a read at everyone's.

i did get a couple of answers from emma that satisfied my curiosity.

irene