I have really been quite inspired this week (in between fighting off people who have mistaken me for a nice person who would like to do their job for them - you know the kind I mean !! ) by various elements of popular culture.
First of all, Ian Fleming and his notebooks - leifmotif moment here again...warning...warning...
I accidentally switched on a replay of a documentary which ran on the BBC this week and there were NOTEBOOKS - loads of them, scratchy little red ones with only lines and snatches of conversation... my hero after all.... Quantum of Solace was one of those little scribbles and - hey presto - there is a film !!. I am sure more came in between but it doesn't give rise to the money shot of Joanna Lumley diving scantily clad into an azure rockpool - the whole image is a little lost on me, I am more fascinated by how she keeps her eye makeup on.
I look like a panda after having a few sly tears, how on earth does she do that....?
Anyway, I degress....
the second is a book I am reading - well have now finished.
"Divas Don't Knit" by Gil McNeil.
Now this book I quite happily accept isn't going to make a nobel prize winner or any other one - except perhaps in the woman's ASDA section. BUT it is a thoroughly enjoyable, predictable romp through the world of a person I can associate with. She is a young woman, who used to be valued in the workplace, had children and knits... a very dumbed down version of the plot, but the best I can do - whilst being shouted at on a Sunday Morning to come down stairs and do something else...
This got me thinking - what was it about the book that I enjoyed so much?
I could associate with this person's world and empathise with her journey. The narrative was easy and contemporary and it had associations with things I know about - encounters with Alpha Mums, being "volunteered" for things and knitting being only the three I can confess too !!
So all in all, this was a book that I would be quite happy to have written - so that is obviously the genre I am secretly aspiring to in my reinvented version of an author....
Thought moment - what books are on your bookshelf? WHY are you drawn to them? could this be your target audience really - rather than re-writing Tolstoy? There is little snob value in achievement...
or if you can't face binning your synopsis - which is in fact the same size as a paperback novel - outlining your plans for a saga covering 20 books - perhaps you could just take a break for a month (oh during NaNoWrimo - how convenient ) and try writing something totally different - based on your bedtime bookshelf - just to humour me if you can't find any other justification?
Just a thought....
Thirdly - well I have taken to knitting in a big way - procrastination, colour, creativity all in one package and as far away from computers as possible..... so whilst knitting I was watching Desperate Housewives - Series 1 - Episode 5 through to 11 to be precise.
In my defence, before you all email with concerns for my sanity - I was having a really bad day yesterday and decided I just wanted to sit and achieve something - anything - and this was the only way I could do it and be left alone.. apparently I have the "face" when I am knitting - and it is the kind which deters all others from finding me another "job"....
Back to Desperate Knitters - oohps - Housewives...
Yes it is fairly, well words fail me ---- still fail me. I don't get the plot and don't recognise half the characters and as for the fingernails... but they do have some really good lines which weave through the dodgy camera shots and the woman with the jammy looking mouth...
So my prompt today... anashamedly paraphrased and re-written for you here...
"As a mother she spent her mornings preparing her husband and her family for their day, during the evening, she was supportive, loyal and an einstein with the homework - but to know the person you had to know what she did with her afternoons......."
So what did she do with the afternoons...?
Or what did he find her doing with her afternoons?
Twist and turn this little gem.... I have written three seperate plot lines - over three paragraphs on three pages - all completely different starting with the above - now you have a try....
Just a quick update on the travelling notebooks - I WILL get this started this week.... inspiration sort of got in the way......
hugs everyone - please post comments and thoughts... and any tips that you have found recently to get your pen moving....
Shani
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