First real Frost of the autumn this morning, so a quick shot from my garden in May.

Am currently getting over a nasty stomach bug which hit me out of nowhere – Horrid!

Not being able to read without feeling nauseous is totally unfair.

So trying to ease myself slowly back into work today:

* Working on the character arcs for my hero and heroine to make sure that they are solid before completing the discovery draft – always pick up something interesting but needs complete focus and attention which I don’t have today.

* Author Amendments to ‘Her Moment in the Spotlight’ arrived and for some reason the copy editor has gone-mad-with hyphens in the strangest places so I will have to go over every line in details. Probably a couple of chapters a day at most.

* Trying to sort out a great stack of craft notes which have been building up. Have to be tough here, since there are so many print outs and a lot of it is duplication.

Came across this gem from Lajos Egri who wrote ‘The Art of Dramatic Writing’ some 60 years ago:

“Setting up the conflict, the roadblocks on the hero’s path, is obviously necessary task. Equally important however, is illustrating your heroes emotional reaction to these roadblocks. Don’t be in a hurry to get your protagonist over the next hurdle; instead, take a moment, or scene, or sequence, and show how unexpected hurdles and setbacks change the emotional make-up of your character. If you take the time and do that, the next bump in the road might, the different emotional mindset, turn out to be something your hero sees as a launching pad to his goal.”

Great stuff! I’m the worst offender when it comes to rushing through my characters from scene to scene without taking the time to let them truly respond to the emotional impact of what has happened and react fully.

The good thing about sorting my stack of notes is I can do it while lying on the sofa.* grin*