Happy holidays, happy reading!
Dec 14, 2021 6:13 am
Hello again!
[Things may look a wee bit different in the newsletter—I've changed to a different email provider, let me know if there are any issues!]
December is a busy time for many. The month is filled with religious and secular holidays, the air in public spaces is filled with Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey, the TV is filled with re-runs of Christmas specials. It's a special and unique time of year.
My family gets together around Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for lunch, gifts, and board games. Christmas is at the height of the Australian summer, and the whole thing about Aussies putting 'shrimp on the barbie' in summer is half-true. We do cook meat on the barbie—just not usually shrimp. And we'll usually have big prawns, boiled with the shell on, instead of puny shrimp.
Christmas time has a strange effect on men of my father's generation. They will temporarily become obsessed with procuring prawns in bulk for the entire duration of December. Then they'll brag to their mates about their haul. These men measure themselves by their ability to get the largest amount of prawns for the lowest price, and they all have a 'guy' they go to for the discounts.
I like prawns. They're nice. They go well with a lot of things. I always eat my fair share of them.
But the gigantic bowl of cooked prawns my Dad gets every year usually goes to waste. I think it's not really about the prawns per se, it's about what the prawns mean. They're just as tied to Christmas as sleigh bells, reindeer, and the beer we leave out for Santa (since we don't leave out milk in the peak of summer)
However you celebrate, happy December!
How do you celebrate the holidays? Do you do anything particular with family, co-workers or friends?
As for writing ...
I've been busy editing 'The Elixir of Power', and recently passed the 12% mark. I'm hoping my speed will pick up from here on, because the first chapters needed some of the most intensive editing.
Usually, if small changes or typo fixes are needed, I'll just open up the original draft document and tinker with the sentences. But in cases like this, when plot points and characters need to change, I have a more thorough method.
I re-write heavily edited chapters, almost from scratch. I keep notes and a copy of the previous draft open in one window, and type the fresh draft in the other. This way I get to keep the flow of my original draft, borrow some good descriptions, while generally improving things and ensuring I don't miss details that need to change.
With this particular book, I wanted to change the writing style as well. As a result, my efforts to rewrite the first five chapters has been slower than I would like, and I probably got into a bit of a perfectionist mindset. Like I said, hopefully things will move quickly from here. I aim to finish the editing by February, and offer it for beta reading then.
I wrote some blogs!
You can find them here on my website
I wrote one based on a long post I did on the /r/fantasy sub-reddit, which is an analysis of the prose in the first passage of Titus Groan. I also wrote one that explores my method for taking different ideas and fleshing them out into an outline, and why I believe those things work.
My third blog is about the emotion of shame as it relates to writing with ADHD. It's a bit strange to put my intimate thoughts and feelings out there, but hopefully some good comes of it. It always helps me when I read about the experiences of others—that kind of thing lets you know that you aren't alone.
Let me know what you think of them. I am still in the early stages of the blog, deciding what I want to focus on and so forth. So I'm very open to feedback — what would you like to see more of or less of? Are there completely different topics I could write about?
(Currently my plan is to write blogs whenever I fancy, about any topic that grabs my interest.
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Book Recommendations
Thanks for reading!
I hope you enjoy reading all the books and blogs mentioned in this newsletter!
Let me know what you think of the blogs, and don't forget to let me know how you spend the holidays! I love hearing about everyone's unique family tradition.
Until next time!