This time last week I was feeling really despondent about the critiques I've been getting. For years, people have been telling me that my characters need more depth; build-up needs more tension; narrative needs more showing, less telling - and the one I forgot, which has actually turned out to be the really essential one - I don't use enough sensory description.

In despair I uploaded a new chapter to OWW with a plea that critters would not just tell me these things, but show me exactly where and how to include them. Now most critters balk at this. Re-writing another's work looks arrogant. No sensitive critter will do it. But why not, just now and then, put a practical spin on the adage we keep passing around like a mantra "show, don't tell"? In this case, it turned out to be the final ray of light that illuminated the room where my book lives.

Here's what happened: by (unwillingly, I might add) actually rewriting two sentences of my WIP, crit buddy Ursula demonstrated what people have been telling me for at least five years. Her review lifted me from down-in-the-dumpiness to up-in-the-cloudsness in the time it took me to read her advice. Look at the difference between these ways of writing the same thing.

My original version:
Her visitor strode across the room, swung his pack from his back to the floor and bent to kiss her cheek before taking the seat opposite hers.

Nothing wrong with that. It gets across what happened in a few succinct words. But look at Ursula's rewrite:
He brought a draught of cold air with him as he strode across the room. Shrugging free of his pack he tossed it to the floor and caught her in a hug. His skin was chill against hers as he bent to kiss her cheek.

In that brief passage Ursula caught the essence of what people have been trying to tell me all these years. All those criticisms were saying the same thing, as if my critters were coming into my story-room through four different doors; doors labelled Depth of Characterisation; Tension Building; Sensory Description and the old chestnut, Show, Don't Tell. At last, I've realised these are just four doors into the same place.

Adding sensory detail makes it easier for the reader to see the character close up. To walk a mile in another person's shoes we have to feel those shoes pinching. If we don't feel the sensation, we won't understand what s/he's going through. In experiencing what the character is feeling on the physical level, we more readily feel the tension not just in the character's body but in the situation s/he is in. And through that feeling and experiencing we are being shown, not being told.

To think of all the times I've been reminded to do these things and not understood what was needed! Dear critters, you must have been thinking that I was either dense or stubborn. Perhaps I am both, but most of all, I am obviously a slow learner. But now, please rejoice with me, for reading that passage Ursula re-wrote made me see that all my problems boil down to one: the need for More Sensory Detail.

So although I've written one and a half chapters this week I've actually spent more time editing; playing with the interconnectedness of those four persistent criticisms. Thank you, Ursula, for your kind help, and thank you all the people who were probably dying to re-write my stuff but hesitated because I never thought of asking you to. At last your patience has paid off, and hopefully you'll start to see an improvement in the functioning of all four of those doors into my story!

The promised new chapter is written – but it was a blood, sweat and tears job. It took me all week to psych myself up to writing 1500 lousy words to serve a first draft and while I feel reasonably pleased with the outcome I was totally drained afterwards.

While I don't want to bore you with a load of internal angst, I will share with you the realisation that I am actually pretty scared of finishing this novel. Why? Because I fear it will be another book that is Nearly Good Enough.

Nearly Good Enough books are easy to find. Heck, some of them actually get published. I know I've read several and I expect you have, too. Usually the author doesn't get another chance – at least, not under the same name – and fades into ignominy without even selling out his or her advance. The reading public knows an NGE book when it sees one and is unlikely to look for a sequel. I've already written two NGE books and it's time I wrote a Goodenough one. (Now there's a thought – a new pen name! How would "Satima Goodenough" look on a cover?)

It's frustrating, this fiction-writing. After several years of solid work, I still get crits for the same faults – characters need more depth; build-up needs more tension; narrative needs more showing, less telling. Every time I do a rewrite I think "Aha, got it nailed this time," only to get the same old comments back from critters. They sometimes sound like a Greek Chorus, commiserating with me while pointing out the Fatal Flaws that doom the fruits of my labours to oblivion.

OTOH, all the published writers I've read on the subject agree that there is one characteristic no writer can do without, and that's perseverance. I'm not sure whether to be cheered or disheartened when I read of Writer X who sent a ms off thirty times before finding a publisher and Writer Y who wrote for twenty years before getting published. In one sense, these stories are encouraging, in that they demonstrate the value of hard work and persistence. However, at sixty-four years of age, haven't I left my run a bit late? Shouldn't I be spending my time down at the Senior Cits Centre, playing bridge and listening to U3A lectures?

Ye gods and little fishes, no! So what's the alternative? I know, I know - to get back on that bloody keyboard and write! Be it ever so difficult, unrewarding, frustrating and even heart-breaking, there never really was any other option, was there?

So, Musa volente, I shall write another chapter this week. In fact, even if the muse is not willing I'll do it. Slow progress is better than no progress, after all!

I had a very pleasant day yesterday, as I attended the first writers workshop I've come across in the southeast of South Australia. I only moved here a year ago and I still miss the many wonderful groups I belonged to in Perth. Since Perth is a city of over a million people, you can find groups or classes for almost anything you care to name: in the twenty years I lived there I belonged, at various times, to groups devoted to Astrology, Ballet, Belly Dance, Buddhism (all schools are represented in Perth), Chi Gong, Editing, French conversation, Genealogy, Indian dance (Bharat natyam style, but it was possible to find groups for other styles, too), Meditation, Operatic chorus singing, Personal Growth, Sanskrit grammar, Shakespeare, Spanish Dance, Speculative Fiction, Tai Chi, Writing and Yoga. (There were probably others: those are just the ones I can remember with a couple of minutes' recollection.) In short, there are things happening in cities that simply don't happen in country towns, and those, together with ready access to the state libraries, art galleries and museums are the things I miss most about city life. And that's before I even start to think of dear friends and family members who still live in Perth while I live over 2,000 miles away. Now I'm feeling sorry for myself:-)

Yesterday, however, was an oasis in a desert of days. A group known as Coastal Quills ran a superb one-day workshop called Writer's Journey, facilitated by the delightful Peter Dunn, a writer and illustrator resident in Millicent, a small town some 30 miles from where I live. Peter has cleverly devised a series of reflective exercises to help writers consider the outer journey as parallel to the inner one. We spent time meditating on the history of our lives in writing – when did we first realise we wanted to write? How did the desire manifest? What barriers might have presented themselves on inner and outer levels that prevented us from fulfilling our dreams? What events or defining moments reveal, in retrospect, that the vision stayed alive, even if not manifesting on an outward level? What do we really want out of life? If we want to write, how can we, starting with the tools and opportunities we have in the here-and-now, set tangible, realistic and measurable goals towards fulfilling our writing dreams?

I think every one of the eighteen participants, some of whom had travelled for up to a hundred miles to attend the workshop, went away uplifted, enthusiastic, and no longer feeling quite as alone as they did. For we writers are a queer breed. Generally, we prefer our own company to that of others and oftimes we find the inner life more interesting than the outer one. Yet we crave occasional contact with like-minded others to reassure us that we are not anti-social misfits or crazy eccentrics. We need opportunities to remind ourselves that we have an important place in society. We are the chroniclers of past, present and future; investigators of the human condition in all its many forms, real or imagined. No civilisation has ever survived without such chroniclers, nor ever will.

We are writers. And to the individual writer, the journey of investigation is more important than the destination.

There were five or six people in the group who live close enough to me to make regular connection possible. At least one attendee was a fellow spec-fic writer; others shared my passions for history and genealogy and one or two even expressed interest in joining a Shakespeare group if I form one. Another is a fellow Belly Dance enthusiast and has promised to put me in touch with a teacher. WOW!

Great hopes are in the air and great plans are afoot, therefore. Add to this that my friend Annalou in Adelaide has invited me to stay with her for the duration of the Writers Festival in March next year and you have one cheerful and hopefully unblocked Satima. I plan to set aside a day this week when I will not edit, not critique others' work, not answer e-mails nor answer the phone. I will sit down and write the first chapter of part three of the WIP, even if it's crap.

Now, all I have to do it psych myself up to that – wish me luck!

PS I want to publicly express my thanks to Peter Dunn (get a website, Peter!), Steven Davies and the Coastal Quills crew for putting on such a fine workshop. More, please!

Well, I'm sorry to report that I’m still not back with the WIP (of which more later) but OTOH I'm delighted to tell you about a super new book by one of my favourite authors, Juliet Marillier. Cybele's Secret is another Young Adult book, following on from Juliet's earlier offering, Wildwood Dancing. I have a real weakness for good YA books and this is the second one I've fallen in love with this year. The first was L.S. Lawrence's Eagle of the East, which I also reviewed for The Specusphere. You can follow the links at left to read my critiques, and if they appeal, hie thee down to thy local bookseller and ask for them to be ordered if they aren't in stock. If you love good historical fantasy you won't want to miss either of these.

OK, back to the WIP. Or rather, back to discussion of Writer's Block, the reason for not wipping this fortnight past. After last week's post, I had e-mails and comments from several writing buddies and I'm sure they won't mind my passing their suggestions along.

Carol Ryles says:
Personally I like to go for a walk and listen to one of my audio books downloaded on my iPod. Before I got the iPod I used to listen to cassette tapes borrowed from the local library on my walkman. It's nice to listen to prose rather than read it. It enters your mind through a sense we under use when reading and writing. Already our eyes our tired from reading, our sense of touch filled up from typing, and all the while, we've been closing our ears to outside sounds, trying to concentrate. Therefore, when walking I can use other senses: the smell of fresh air and the sound of prose in my ears. My mind takes it all in and quite often a spoken phrase or paragraphs connects with something I've been trying to write and inspires me to try again.

Carol also recommended two excellent web sites:
Exercises for Writer's Block
and
St Cloud State College Literacy Education
Each offers helpful tips, some of which echo those given here and others that range from the quick fix for temporary blocks to serious long-term projects for the hard cases.

Joel Fagin says:
If it's a case of not wanting to write what you need to write, then I'd say: don't. Write something that's purely fun just for you and come back to the thing you don't want to do after a bit of a break.

Sonia Helbig says:
I've learned three tricks which help me when I'm stuck.
(i) Write out the crap (be prepared to write whatever comes out, be non-judgemental about it, in fact expect it to be crap which gets rid of my nasty editor that perches on my shoulder).
(ii) Believe that I often will have to write my way into the story (keep writing, keep the hands moving, and eventually something useful will appear on the page)
(iii) Have fun (if I'm not having fun, why will my reader)

Over the course of this week, I've actually come to the conclusion that the reason I can't get on with the WIP is that I'm not happy with the way I'm presenting the main character. Several critters have commented that she seems "too nice", lacking depth, even uninteresting. I want to get across what I see as her greatest strengths - her ability to withstand stress without getting riled and her way of treating people, even servants, with humanity and respect. I want her to come across as a decent woman who takes on more than she can cope with when she enters into a pact with an otherworldly being and finds she has to pay the piper. Her biggest fault is her tendency to push unpleasant things aside and when she has to confront sheer nastiness she tends to dither. She's always been the nice lady who helps and counsels people, which apparently comes across as shallow and boring. Problem: how do you write such a character without making her into a Mary Sue?

Any and all suggestions gratefully received!

I'm at the dreaded two-thirds mark of my WIP and find myself stuck. There is no reason why I should be stuck—I have what looks like a workable outline and I'm reasonably happy with the first two thirds, at least for a first draft—but somehow I can't seem to motivate myself to write the last third.

I've struck this blocking point before and I've read of it happening to others, too. I've spent hours in self analysis. Am I really happy with the outline? Am I scared to finish the novel? Is the room too hot? Too cold? Do I need more vitamins? More chocolate, maybe? Or do I just need a swift kick in the pants?

I wish I knew. If you have any cures for this malady (other than an 18 month break, which is how long it took me to get back to my first novel after the same blocking point!) do please share it with me.