CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

May 7_ 430 words

Good news on the Writing Front, Gentle Readers!





First of all, WDC Frontliners

WDC Frontliners Discussion Forum  (E) A group that aims to motivate and encourage fellow authors to write on. Come join us! #1305931 by It's too hot already!

of which I am proudly Activity Coordinator, is deep in the throes of planning new and exciting activities! Look for information on upcoming contests-poetry and short story!-and later in the Summer, your very own Archie Standwood (myself) will be facilitating a workshop for all you novelists and novel-writers-to-be, using Karen Wiesner's  First Draft in 30 Days. Now I know that the Novel Workshop offered a workshop on that book in April, so many of you may have participated there. I did! But I own the book, and am using it to outline my current series of Civil War Novels.


Even though the book recommends 30 days (and the author sets aside  a week for research) we are going to teach it as a 6- or 8-week Workshop. Great fun, yes?!





On my personal Writing Front, I am ecstatic because my Creative Muse has come through once again. As I have related here often, I wrote a Stage Play April 1-15 set February 1870 back to November 1863 and forward, and that inspired me to write a series set in the American Civil War/War of the Rebellion and in Reconstruction which followed. Using Ms. Wiesner's book, I outlined and planned, did hours a day every day of research reading till the Civil War began to spill out of my ears, and started writing Book One on May 2.





Well, the pump was primed; not freshly painted but still a nice, not-flaking black iron, and apparently oiled, because I had no trouble working the pump. The problem came every time I pulled up a bucket of water from my Creative Well. 4 days were required to write Chapter One and Chapter Two, and the water in the well was covered with green moss and stagnant-in other words, not good writing. I despaired.





Then in yet another long sleepless night last night an idea came. I took the concepts from my Stage Play, moved that first scene-in my mind-to a novel format, and began to write. Today the writing is flowing! It's visual, it's sensory, it's realistic and relevant, and yes-it's dark. I knew that was what I had been missing-dark! And I knew also that I was trying to write a straight historical, and not my trademark “haunted historical.” And that just doesn't work for me. And Gentle Readers-I do not recommend starting three sentences consecutively with “and,” as just I did.





But hey! I'm writing, it's flowing, I am a novelist once again! Boy howdy!!!