<p><span style="font-size: small;">Occasionally the moment arrives when everything that's been worrying you about the work in progress (WIP) falls away and the words drop into the screen.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Next, after such an occasion, you send the completed piece off to an editor to read. They may hoard it, delete it accidentally, or on purpose, or send it back with an apologetic 'not this century, thanks' type note.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;Or, they may say, I'm interested in this. How about if...</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Filled with confidence at such a reply you get to work: and work: and then again you work.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">That's where I'm at folks. How does anybody else get the original synopsis out of their head and run along the editor's suggested new rails?</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: x-small;">I hate snow. No matter how many words for it the Inuit have in their vocabulary, I hate it in all those guises too. Nature will not be denied her fun and if that makes the rest of us too miserable for words so much the better she seems to say. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Right, I've done the weather. It does have some compensations, however, and I got back into the WIP last night as we couldn't go out to the dinner we'd been invited to. The characters were waiting for me and a thousand words pinged onto the screen before I could draw breath. Now, is that a good thing? I haven't been back there yet this morning, but I noticed the quality of my National Short Story challenge went down in the last episode when I was working against the clock to get it up, serve dinner and be settled in time to watch Strictly, the results. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Strictly, particularly in this series, tells us at least one necessary fact of writing life. The reader knows what the reader wants. No matter how good your prose with&nbsp;its&nbsp;perfectly placed participles, perfectly selected metaphors and perfectly adjusted punctuation,&nbsp;if you don't tickle their fancy in the first paragraph, the readers&nbsp;won't hang about.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">I've always felt sorry for Anton as he has never seemed to be allocated the better dancer. That, in this series, may prove to be his strength. Ann has said he'll be allowed the Glitter Ball for his mantelpiece.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">My vote is for Matt. His passage to the Glitter Ball is, therefore, doomed.</span></p>

<p>Gosh I wish it was as easy to lose a dress size as it is to lose the top layer from the floorboards.</p> <p>I'm typing this to the background sound of floor sanding upstairs. Husband mine has decided to smarten us up and you know what the average anti-social, self-absorbed, physically lazy writer thinks about that. There may be spin-off benefits because I did get out to the badminton group. Even organised exercise is preferable to the noise of a sanding machine!</p> <p>And what of that writing? Well, I did re-write the Regency on the lines suggested by the RNA reader. I have sent the first 3 chapters and the re-written synopsis out to a publisher and await developments.</p> <p>Other stuff just keeps failing to reach the required standard. Why? don't know. I keep telling myself art is subjective but do have the sinking feeling that someone needs to re-set my dial. It feels as if I'm not quite on the wavelength when I get so much positive feedback but am so often second.</p> <p>Anyone out there with ideas on tweaking?</p> <p>On a positive note I can report a filler in this month's Scottish Memories. On, would you believe, My first Day at School.</p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;">My laptop's just come home from the clinic and the diagnosis is don't plan on writing a saga!</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Martin has de-bugged it; re-connected the printer (Yippee!); put on a trial of free anti-virus softwear and handed me a spec for 'The new machine. For a writer.'</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">It may be a truism, but if you haven't got the tools of the trade getting anything written and out there is seriously difficult. I know I said I was passing the Quill Pen onto Moosey as Writer of the Month, but I didn't mean it, Moosey, honestly. Please do use all the electrical hard and soft wear at your disposal.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">So now I'm ready to meet my characters again and, as the machine is running so much faster than when it went into the clinic last week, that should be easier and more of a pleasure. We do get used to almost anything and sometimes that's a mistake.</span></p>

<p>It has gone.</p> <p>Together with the two extra lots of stamps for onward transmission and the stamped postcard to confirm arrival, it's on its way to the organiser of the new writers' scheme of the romantic novelists' association.</p> <p>Fingers crossed folks, please.</p>