Reading to write

The new writing idea I’m developing involves finding out about things I have ideas about but not a lot of information, so I’m reading, both on the internet and in books (oh, hail to the Wellington Public Library!) and writing a little. And there' a lot of thinking going on, and sketching of family trees to keep the generations clear in my head and hence on the page. (Once I inadvertently had a minor character have a baby at age 11, when I didn’t pay enough attention to dates and generations.)

I also plan to get my collection of short pieces, the one I tentatively call Stones Gathered Together, into final shape and published as an ebook. My self-imposed deadline for this is the end of this year, so I must remember to give it attention; the excitement of a new project tends to take over my mind. Here’s a photograph I took that might make it onto the cover. Although design experts say you should not use obvious images on a cover, I do l like this one.

Pleasing news of the week—a story I entered into the New Zealand Flash FIction contest (http://nationalflash.wordpress.com/) has made it to the next round.

My ideas about the new project change as I read, and I’ve never been keen on talking about the content of work in progress, so there’s not going to be a lot of plot revealed in these notes.