Fancy a mince pie or a finished manuscript?

I just fancied one, or four, and I had the ingredients so what the heck?   Think outside the box, nudge the rulebook and be daring; I do.

I’m so excited to share with you that I have today revamped the first four chapters, in order that my new plot twist which comes much later in the book, could work.   This new twist crawled up my limbs the other night as I sat holding a pen which hovered over the pages of a blank and unused 2017 diary.   I had planned to do my time-line properly, you know, to make sure that the characters’ ages and their past endeavours all matched with the history which is referred to at times.  The ‘goings-on’ – as my granny used to say –  in the manuscript need to fit neatly together.  No point in having someone aged ninety in contemporary times referring to her time in Italy being a twenty year period when it evidently needs to have been a forty year stint.  Then this idea for a great twist tapped my subconscious and added a whole new element to the story – yippee!

Nigella cheats sometimes, so I do too.  Someone else made this pastry and sold it to Mr Tesco, so I merely unwrapped, unrolled and shaped it.   Marvellous and anyway, I am a busy and proper writing person of fiction, not cookery books (you didn’t need the flour really did you).

As well as working on my manuscript, I sat and read the magazine which comes, I believe seasonally, to members of the RNA (Romantic Novelists Association).  It is full of inspiring articles but this one particularly struck me today.  Three published authors; three members of the RNA, all of whom started where I am now; unpublished but hopeful and ambitious.   I know at least two of them were also past members of the New Writers Scheme and their work was enjoyed, nurtured and formed into an actual real life BOOK!   How cool is that?   Knowing that they, too, feared their words being read for the first time by the NWS ‘readers’ but that they welcomed the constructive criticisms, working to knead their stories towards a readable and saleable shape gave me massive incentive today.

One word of warning when biting into a mince pie straight from the oven.  Don’t do it; they are HOT!

Now I don’t normally bother recommending TV programmes to my readers, but should you be in the UK right now, and have nothing better to watch, I suggest you sit and give yourself a treat for the next hour from 9:15, may even be a tad longer.   A bonkers idea – four couples of the verge of break up went to a holiday destination and swapped couples .. sort of WIFE SWAP on steroids .. overseen by a (rather nice if I may say so .. you may not.  Oh) psychologist of relationships.   It is one of the most fascinating studies on human behaviour I have every witnessed and following many months of self-study last year, I want to shake some of them and hug others.   See how their habits and learned behaviours have led them to treat each other, and themselves… will the experiment have been enough to teach them something?  Will their eyes have been opened to potentially different ways to conduct themselves?  Can their marriages be saved?  Let’s see ….