Friday the Thirteenth
When you expect the best and pleasant surprises will happen. Expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed!
What I wonder started this the superstition of this rare event? Why should this day, rather than any other, be an unlucky one? Perhaps it has everything to do with the creative minded planting seeds in the minds of the weak and gullible.
Then, once the seed is sown, and bad luck and misfortune expected, it is easily attracted. It’s also easily associated with any negative occurrence that happens by on that day. If you get into the habit of thinking and expecting the worst to happen in your life, then it won't be a disappointment when it happens.
My Journey as a writer?
Yesterday, I listened to the thoughts and comments of JK Rowling, a writer I respect and hugely admire. Why wouldn't I? She is the only billion author ever. Wow, 500 million book sales to date. However, she hasn't always been the success she is today. In fact, it seems her early life was just as difficult and frustrating as everyone else, but she stuck at it! It took her time and effort to develop and evolve the idea which have made her the household name she has become. She struggled, tried, tested, and constantly refocused until she got a foothold.
Great minds and all that?
The most interesting thing for me is that I agree with most of her thoughts, which I seem to have arrived at independently, although many years after her. Perhaps I am rediscovering the same route and recipe as the master. The one thing that really has resonated with me is how much she writes, and is prepared to write or rewrite. Not only content, but thoughts, outlines and in-depth characters. It’s not about how much, but the quality and readability of her narrative. She searched and experiment, getting just the right opening and first chapter it amazed me to learn that she had rewritten the first chapter of her first successful book fifteen times over. The woman is a writing machine writing longhand.
At the end of the day, I know myself and I like toys and gadgets I choose to use. However, they don't make your writing any better, just easier to complete. So with the upgrade of the Remarkable 2 software, I have taken to writing by hand again and loving it. It feels right and as if it offers certain freedom. If this fails-for me, I'll take to writing with ink and recording with voice activated software for dictation. Jo told how she always wrote long hand and showed a photo of her dressed in her best interview clothes. She was using an expensive gold tip fountain pen, and equally expedite note book.
However, the reality of her writing couldn't be further from the truth. She has thick volumes of notes and chapters which seem to be untidy and written on anything which would hold ink. This she keeps in files and boxes and refers to regularly and as needed. Such files to refer to are an essential part of the craft I am learning. So, rather than cumbersome files and boxes of perishable assets which are difficult to carry and transport, I have elected to use Scrivener: and I am learning to use the bits which suit best my developing system.