good morning Ms. Havisham. I'm up because I'm being writerly.

So, edited successfully, I think. Shall I post it here? It's rather dauntingly long. RL, darling girl, if you want it in e-mail, it's yours.

RL, I write like Deb. That's part of what gave me the courage to do this.

But it's awe-making and very cool to me, to discover the myriad ways it can be done.

And being with other writers who automatically understand what it's like to have words assault you such that you have to stop and drop everything to get them out of your head and onto paper. Other people who are obsessed with pens and journals. Other people who understand the relentless pursuit of that one elusive word, or phrase, or what have you.

My whole thing is, I'm a storyteller. It's people, in a story;

Which is why I lurk in this thread, though I don't have nearly enough of that English thing to post anything in it.

Steph, I haven't posted 'with' you in so long, so I take advantage of my content-free post here to send you pain-free vibes, find-the-cause-quickly and cure-accordingly vibes follow, of course {{Teppy}}

Mmm.

Email it to me (Word doc is best) and I'll HTML it and host it for you.

Okay. Um, I sent it to Ple and Perkins and I have to send it to sj, because she's the one who asked for it, and to you because it's the dream, and I think you'll like it. I haven't gotten back all the responses, so do you want to hold off hosting until I've got it DONE done?

My whole thing is, I'm a storyteller. It's people, in a story;

jealousy

For me, it's people. And places. Getting a story to happen takes a great deal of medieval-style torture and mountain-moving. My characters are all lazy bums - they'd much rather just lay around talking endlessly.

'morning, Ms. H and Nilly and Rebecca and all.

RL, keep in mind, I started out life first as a musician, then as an actor, then as a director, as a lyricist the entire time, and finally began writing because Nic suggested that every single bit of creating I'd ever done was about telling the story. I was a mediocre actor, because I had to interpret other peoples' stories; telling my own? Far better at it.

And honestly, please don't be suspicious of me. It's just the way I write, is all, words and music together.

This is-- I know of so many people who just write, and by some accident of luck and insane organic talent, it's amazing, the language is technically brilliant, I'm sobbing with envy. And I just don't *get* that model at all. I don't do that. I'm conscious of every single word and how it affects the text as a whole. I can't turn that off, in fact. I'm in awe (and, to be honestly, a little involuntarily suspicious) of skilled writers who don't feel that.

I suspect that they just make it look easy. I've come to the opinion that being a good writer is like being an Olympic athelete. You have to have innate talent, yes, and plenty of it, but you also have to train your ass off and then some. You have to train until it's instinct.

The fact that you're aware of every word is a good thing, honest!

Somebody somewhere said that mastery of writing takes a bit longer than mastery of other art forms. I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions that prove the rule, but I think there's a ring of truth to that.

And good morning all. And Steph, if you're still awake - go to bed!

My characters are all lazy bums - they'd much rather just lay around talking endlessly.

Bwah! Mine do a reasonable amount of talking, certainly, but - well -

OK, Deena has only just read Plainsong. She'll know what I mean here: it began as I was in the middle of writing Fire Queen. I was doing a tense, dreamy bit, in which an incredibly dark characer, amoral by choice, finds himself in a sacred grove and realises that it was deliberately planted (this is all circa first century BC). I was writing away, seeing it, easy as pie, and I read it back, and what I'd written was all about a man in bathrobe, standing in a meadow, painting, with four talking ravens named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John critiquing his work.

So, well, organic. Stories happen.