{"id":15865,"date":"2012-09-12T06:30:43","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T18:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=15865"},"modified":"2012-09-11T19:31:04","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T07:31:04","slug":"what-im-doing-daughter-of-blood-the-wall-of-night-book-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/09\/12\/what-im-doing-daughter-of-blood-the-wall-of-night-book-three\/","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Doing… “Daughter of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Magnolia stellata<\/p><\/div>\n

It is now officially spring here, as my posts of September 1<\/a> and 9, here<\/a>, attest—but those posts were all about the ‘balmy’ and the ‘mild’ and the spring flowers, whereas spring, as you probably well know, is also the most changeable of seasons–so yesterday, the mild (warm) norwesters were banished by the southerly, blowing in from the Antarctic and bringing snow to many regions and hail showers to Christchurch. Which was ok, as it turned out, because the power stayed on (by no means a certainty post-earthquakes) so I was able to stay at home with the heater and the cat (the two being pretty much a “single unit deal” these days when it’s cold) and work on writing Daughter of Blood<\/em>,<\/strong> The Wall of Night<\/a> Book Three.<\/p>\n

Just before you get the wrong idea, it wouldn’t have mattered what the weather was like, I would have been writing Daughter of Blood<\/em> anyway—but there is something about cold blustery weather outside, keeping you indoors where it’s warm, that is very conducive to writing. Rainy weather is also very good…<\/p>\n

So I thought you might like to know, whether because of the southerly (also known as the ‘southerly buster’, which may give you some idea) and the hail or not, the writing went quite well. I have been working on a section of the book that has proven particularly difficult, with sections moving in and out and around—all very fluid—not to mention ‘characters behaving badly’, by which I mean, having their own idea of what they want to do, which may or may not marry up with mine. But over the past few days all the pieces of the puzzle have finally been clicking together—which is rather a nice feeling, especially when it involves sections of story that up until now have been behaving as though they are irreconcilable.<\/p>\n

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Storm on the Wall of Night; artist, Peter Fitzpatrick<\/p><\/div>\n

One thing I have learned in my writing life to date though, is that nothing is ever completely irreconcilable. It’s more a matter of me, as the author, being patient and listening to the story and the characters and “working with” them to find the “right flow and direction” for the book, rather than trying to impose my will unilaterally from above. So far, that has never ever worked for me in terms of achieving a good result for the story.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, it is both a very nice feeling and a considerable relief when the pieces of the puzzle do start fitting together.<\/p>\n

It’s also very rewarding, as I think: “Yes, yes<\/em>, this is exactly right for the character”, and not only that, but the story really starts to move along!<\/p>\n

And right now, as I “pen” this post, and that wild southerly wind is soughing in the wattle outside my study window, I can’t help thinking about those far more terrifying storms on the Wall of Night, and what difficulties and adventures Malian and Kalan might be encountering right now, whether together, or separately…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is now officially spring here, as my posts of September 1 and 9, here, attest—but those posts were all about the ‘balmy’ and the ‘mild’ and the spring flowers, whereas spring, as you probably well know, is also the most changeable of seasons–so yesterday, the mild (warm) norwesters were banished by the southerly, blowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-what-im-doing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15865"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15881,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15865\/revisions\/15881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}