I love writing weekends!
Not long ago I had a solid three days of writing and am now approximately half way through my manuscript. I say approximately, because I’m aiming at around the 80,000 word mark while quietly hoping for closer to 100,000. I’ve also given myself a deadline for completion of the first draft so I really need to get cracking and find more blocks of concentrated writing time. I’m sure my boss would prefer I didn’t have a 3-day weekend every week!
While I had planned for this weekend, and told everyone I knew that I would be writing (and therefore, not able to do lunch or dinner or get-togethers of any kind), I was also blessed by the weather. Dull, drizzly days aide my creative flow much better than sunshine and blue skies.
Can’t hang washing out in the rain and the clothes-dryer is too much of a drain on electricity to be going more than once a day
The garden does not beckon for my attention when its pouring rain
Nor do chores like sweeping, changing sheets on bed, or anything else that might entice me to domesticity
A glorious weekend indeed!
While writing, I made a few little discoveries that I’d like to share with my writer friends and anyone else who might be interested.
Tired brain cells do not creative descriptions make (does that even make sense???). So, looking for new ways to talk about common things, I happened upon the Discriptionari website. It’s awesome! All you have to do is type in your “thing” and a list of creative writing ideas incorporating some beautiful descriptions, quotes, and inspirations pops up on your screen. It’s a lovely website to navigate through as well.
My perennial favourite has to be thesaurus.com. When I can’t think of a word, I type in a vague approximation and up comes a list of synonyms, antonyms, and words that might be similar for me to choose from. Love it!
If you follow my sometimes rambling posts, you’ll know I love old maps. I’ve been using Dove’s Plan of Sydney 1880 regularly. I’ve even printed a few out, put on my walking shoes, and gone out into the streets of Sydney to see how far we’ve come since then. Well, this weekend I discovered digitised maps from the 1850s as well (same place, so I’ve obviously been blinded by my loyalty to Dove). The clincher is, City of Sydney have updated their webpages and these maps are easier to find (not necessarily easier to use online though – too much space allotted to headers and banners rather than maps). Here’s the link so you can go check it out: Historical Atlas of Sydney.
I’ve been posting lots of links to Twitter as well: interesting articles on writing, history, research tips, a few book reviews and the like. Really, whatever takes my fancy. Follow me: https://twitter.com/PatriciaLeslieA
I have another multi-day writing weekend coming up (you might call it Easter. I call it opportunity!). And while that's still two weeks away, the weather is already on my side (it's been raining all day).
In the meantime, see you in the Twitter-verse or if you're totally a visual person - follow me on Instagram: @patricialeslee (link at the top of the page)
Oh, I nearly forgot. Once my first draft is finished, I'm going to be kick-starting my email list so don't forget to sign up for exclusive give-aways and other tidbits as we get closer to publication date.
