Time is a traveller

I haven’t written for a while, and time goes by so fast…I am always reminded of one of my favourite songs, Tenterfield saddler… when the lyrics call time as a traveller and as a writer…I am always dealing with time… mainly timelines… who was doing what and where, and where… Like all writers, you have to try and keep the balance and it all stays connected. Sometimes, you find you are three or four chapters down the track and realise that you have two characters in the same place or have had a character doing nothing for a few days. I started a spreadsheet, but I am such an organic writer that backstories weave and move and nothing is set in concrete until the end.  I read somewhere that constructing a crime novel is like braiding cobwebs… sometimes that’s true.

I am nearly halfway through a third draft…and it’s shaping up nicely..although I have one character who doesn’t feel settled on the pages..so I have to think about what to do with him. Maybe he doesn’t want to be there.  I have also arranged for an alpha reader and hope to have this rough draft to them by the end of August.

It is the middle of winter here in New Zealand and I live in a beautiful part of the country and the weather is usually spectacular…and it is hard to write in such dazzling conditions. So, when it is grey with rain and I cant see the mountains across the bay.. the mood and the conditions for perfect for me to rug up and write.