Short stories and light nights

No, not a book of short stories but a book about writing them. Last night I finished reading How to Write and Sell Short Stories by Della Galton - a very well known writer of short stories mainly for women's magazines. I would recommend it to anyone if they want to know how to do it. It's easy to read, the examples used are from published short stories - usually hers - and all the points she makes are easy to understand. It has certainly helped me to understand the format of a good short story and it's a book I definitely want to keep on my shelves for future reference.

Maybe we haven't yet got to the stage of light nights but it was light when i got to work and light when I left work so things are improving. I shall be all right again once I can go out in daylight and come home in daylight - probably some time next month.

I'm having Friday off this week so I shall have time to relax and catch up on my reading - I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms.

Short stories

I finished an excellent collection of short stories yesterday - The Sixpenny Debt and Other Oxford Stories. As might be deduced from the title the theme linking these otherwise disparate stories is the city of Oxford. There are tortoises running shops in Turl street, Medieval servants at the university, crimes which have already happened and those yet to come as well as people reminiscing about their past indiscretions. All the stories are excellent and enjoyable in their own ways, but my particular favourites are 'I Love You, Mr Chicken' and 'The Tortoises of Turl Street'. The first is about an elderly lady recalling her past and her favourite grocer in the 1950s and the second about the tortoises and how if they quarrel they may end up estranged for years, because everything moves slowly for them.

I've nearly finished reading The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer - the modern day interpretation of Emma. This is an excellent sparkling story. I was put off when I first started because it is narrated alternately by Emma and Mr Knightley - in very short sections some less than a page. I seem to have read a lot of books with multiple narrators recently and my first reaction was oh no not another one, but I got used to it very quickly. It is very true to the spirit of the original showing how universal Jane Austen's characters are.

Back to work

I had just got out of bed this morning and was definitely not in the best of moods - 6.00am is way too early when I haven't been getting up until at least 9.30am for the last fortnight - when I was asked if I was looking forward to going back to work. Grrrrhhh! No I was NOT looking forward to it, even though I happen to enjoy what I do at present. Once I was in the office things were fine, and it was good to see everyone and find out what we'd all been doing over Christmas. But of course I would rather be at home reading, writing and just generally doing what I want. Winning the lottery would be good.

My current writing project has reached the 20,000 word mark, and I added about 1500 words this evening, so I'm feeling pleased with myself. Once I get further on with it I may say more about it. At the moment I just don't want to jinx the whole thing as my 'novels' usually die at the 30.000 word mark.

I've adopted a rather different strategy with this one in that I am just keeping going even if what I've just written is rubbish. I'm always coming across the advice to just get the first draft written and worry about the quality afterwards. You can edit what you've written, but you can't edit a blank page! Very true. I'm also trying to write about 1000 to 1500 words each day. It doesn't always quite work out like that but we shall see.

I'm currently reading an anthology of crime stories which I will report on at a later date - authors are Ian Rankin, John Mortimer, Lindsey Davis, etc. So there is a nice mixture of police and amateur detectives and historical and contemporary.

Off to wind down for a while otherwise I'll never get to sleep tonight.