contemporary fiction novel drafting

It's been a while since my last confession.  Just realised my last update was in April and it's now the end of August so winter has pretty much come and gone.  I have spent that time writing a few poems, working up a story board for the new novel, and writing the first chapter - the latter two in record time. Already well into the second chapter. 

The poetry pieces have been inspired by some deeply personal reflections on identity (see last blog for the poem that kicked it off) and friendship.  Providing the links below to my favourites from that burst of activity:

• https://medium.com/ipoetry/a-glimpse-of-a-maybe-68bf2570be4a
• https://medium.com/ipoetry/unbelonging-b193e7b96f11
• https://medium.com/ipoetry/tribe-492cd848ca77

I've ended up collating the poems written over the last few years into a second volume collection, which is now available on Lulu - https://www.lulu.com/shop/cristina-archer/collected-poems-volume-2-a-gen-x-guide-to-friendship-and-identity/paperback/product-ymvkdg.html? - I'll be honest, it's only 42 pages long, slim for a second volume. I will, no doubt, produce a second edition when the poetry pipeline pushes the page numbers to over 100 pages.  And, yes, it was a deliberate choice to go with the answer to the question - what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything - in the page number I chose to stop at this time around.  I'm sure my nerd friends will get the literary reference there.

I've also been pulling together a curated collection of poems and songwriter lyrics from pieces provided to my composer mentee (see several previous posts about that journey).  I see the value of doing this as bringing together material shared in a handy reference book for future use if/when the lyric writing resumes (and even - as I expect will be the case - if not). It's ultimately a measure of my conscientiousness.

Beyond the above activity, the new novel writing has been a joy.  I haven't felt this inspired for a while.  Perhaps it is because it is a contemporary fiction manuscript I am writing. Perhaps it is because I have based the lead character and hero of the story on an old high school friend and imagining how they might respond to particular situations has been a fun thought experiment.  Perhaps because the story - while peppered with some drama and conflicts between characters - is fundamentally one with a satisfying conclusion.  It's a been a while since I have been writing characters in a world that is what I see around me rather than a speculative dystopian space (though I admit, there have been days over the last few years where there have been days where these two worlds seemed aligned)!

Short and sweet today - I want to get into manuscript drafting for the rest of the day.