York day 3

At home I prefer to eat alone, but mealtimes here have been stimulating and the perfect example of how, if you sit yourself alone at a table, within five minutes you've been joined by three more folk and quickly find yourself discussing, for example, daft names for detectives, going blind and (inevitably) What Agents Say.

'Tension' followed yesterday's 'Pacing' - a bandying about of words such as conflict, claustrophobia, deadline and morality and a warning not to skim the surface of interleaving events.  Then, 'How to write a sentence' with some yet-to-be-properly-perused handouts.  Followed by the art of plotting.

Also some mild encouragement to continue with my second wip, utilising lessons learnt from the first, which, since it is a far less weildy plot might be simpler.   I say 'might' now rather than the 'should' I used yesterday, since I have been thinking for an hour on the balance/interweaving of plots and sub-plots and trying to decide which of the three main characters should become the mainest of them

Inevitably, if you choose all workshops on similar themes there is overlap.  Some are more properly called lectures, the giver of them reading from prompt cards, some (the best) get us working so the lessons they impart are better understood, but the hard work, enthusiasm of these and the behind-the-scenes work of the organisers - as well as the staff at York University itself - could not be faulted.

S.J Bolton, whose work I so much admire, said when her book is finished, before final submission, she takes four or five days to read the whole thing aloud.  I've just tried that with a couple of paragraphs of mine and seen where they stumble (although at times I think a case can be made for internal reading to be different from aloud)  She also talked of the desperation to see her books upon bookshelves, to the extend where it hurts to go into a bookshop.   I don't have that, not that burning passion about anything really, but I DO want to write the best book possible so I will write and re-write and by the time I'm done the desperation might be there.

After all Sheila Hancock is writing her first novel at the age of eighty!

Now to absorb all I have learnt.