Saturday 19 October 2019

   Hi guys,

   I'm back... maybe not with a vengeance, or for long, but at least for now. I've been busy.

   Yes, the rewrites are on going, and somewhat painfully so. I got through to the last three chapters of The Ways In, tired and strung out, aching at the final assault on peak finished. And in a burst of inspiration, having slain adverbs, weaker, somewhat passive writing, I finally set Word up to look for passive sentences... and groaned.

   Then I found this wonderful drug called Idle Miner Tycoon, and I sank (lol) a lot of time into it. Great time waster, and my mines are still earning away, I'll give them a look-in at some point. But it served as solace for two of the most difficult things I've ever had to do - finalise my application for the Australian child sex abuse redress scheme, and an interview with a detective about the abuse.

   My lovely GF said I looked brave the week before I went to police. I felt terrible. But that part is done now, and the waiting game has begun. Since then, with my newfound proofing process, I got those last chapters done, and went back to the beginning... and stumbled upon surprise feedback from the GF.

   Yes, it's rude to wake up at 6am to an email about your writing sitting at the top of your smart phone's lock screen notifications. And even worse when its very, very critical of your sex scenes... And true.

   Oh, the pain. And I got it on a Monday, when my weekend is Friday and Saturday, and I've largely lost my work night write mojo. The horror!

   I'll level off on me, because while good, thoughtful, critical feedback can hurt, it can do so much. And I can't thank the GF enough, even though she's spurred me to rewrite vaguer, not so pornographic scenes, two and a half of which I had just worked on in my neo-proofing phase.

   Yeah, I got a bit angry about it. But I'm back into the swing of things, and delving back into twitter. In fact, one person noted I hadn't been in their timeline in a bit asked if I was okay - and that was very nice to come across. We do forget to check on others. Faith in humanity re-asserted.

   Oh, I waffled on. Soz, just needed to. I guess what I'm saying is: get feedback about your writing, as critical as you can get, right up to the threshold of pain; don't forget to check in on others, and don't disdain things like R U Ok day; and as much as it can hurt going over trauma again and again, in therapeutic settings, as part of the investigative process, etc, if you're a survivor of any kind of abuse, it is brave and right to do these things, and people will care and listen to you.

   I'll leave it at that. Not sure when I'm blogging next, it'll happen when it happens. For now, I'm rewriting the raunch, then getting on with the rest of the TWI before I call it quits and throw it at an editor. 15 chapters to go.

   Have a good one!
   T. M.

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