After the little grumble in my last post about not having enough time to write, the optimistic aspect of my character, let’s call her Ms Daisy, has whacked me into a more positive frame of mind. It only took a tiny, painless slap because of the amazingly supportive people in my writing group – well it’s not actually MY writing group, but a writing group to which I am very blessed to belong.
I have previously introduced you to some of the other participants: Ms Jaunty, Ms Sweetness and Ms Metaphor. Now I’d like thou to meet Ms Masterful. Ms Masterful is a long time friend and very wise into the bargain. With a few well-chosen words of advice she can stop Ms Daisy from becoming too reclusive, and not only that, the goals she sets herself are well-worth emulating.
About a year ago, Ms Masterful set about writing a 10,000 word story – a challenge presented by Mr Actualisation who is bound to appear in later posts. Did Ms Masterful find this challenge daunting? Sometimes – well, often perhaps – but that’s not the point! The point is that she persevered, the long short story turned into a novella and along the way she bravely took on board all our critiques, rewrote and rewrote, improved and improved, reshuffled scenes, developed the characters, heightened the conflict and tension to spine-chilling effect, and ultimately mastered the whole thing.
And in so doing, Ms Masterful set an example for moi!
novel’s recent home
Now I’ve resurrected a mothballed character from an embryonic novel I began a couple of years ago. In fact, I’ve resurrected the novel – I was less than a quarter of the way in on estimate. On reading it after such a long passage of time, I realise Ms Daisy must have had more than her share of input: passive sentences, lots of telling, flowery descriptions, cringe-worthy cliches, corny, corny expressions, to say the least. But, Ms Daisy’s learned a great deal since then.
I’m going to take a leaf out of Ms Masterful’s book – pardon the pun – and put Ms Daisy back to work on the novel until she masters it!
A Budding Writer 
Di -I love this very humorous voice – I have laughed all the way through reading this post. I’m sure Mr Actualization will be chuffed at his name. And I’m sure Ms Masterful will will be very flattered by your kind words. I’m glad Ms Daisy gives gentle whacks and I’m sure she will be very happy to be put back to work on the novel that all the Ms’s and Mr’s in the group are looking forward to.
This is so wonderful Di! You are a fantastic blogger. proud Charms xoxoxo
That’s a really lovely thing to say, Charms. Can’t wait until your blog is up and running – it’ll be a corker!
Marg – pleased you found the post humorous – it was enjoyable to write and more positive than my last post, thank heavens!
This was my favourite blog…very funny
Ah, Natalie, pleased you found it humorous – and thanks for reading it and leaving a comment. It’s very encouraging to a blogger to receive feedback.