When Less is More...More or Less...

This is my morning. Still working on the revisions to The Key to Finlac. Still trying to reduce the first 45,000 words to no more than 10,000. It's a tough call, but I'm, getting there. The question to be asked all the time is: What is essential to the story? If it doesn't move the narrative forward, leave it out.

But it is also important to remember that 35,000 words have not been wasted. They have not been expunged. Not so much evaporation as distillation.

I write this, so I have the heart to go back to the book again tomorrow. It's a reminder to myself as well as a glimpse into the writing process.

French Lessons with Donna Tartt

Apart from the fact that it is again going to be really hard to get back into the discipline of writing, what have I learned from my visit to France last week?

• Normandy is a continuation of Dorset (geologists may tell me I am entirely wrong) and that is no bad thing. I am still capable of writing an ambiguous sentence
• Red Squirrels abound.
• Driving on the back roads is like being in the 1950's, but you can go faster and engines are more reliable.
• My father landed tanks at Utah Beach in WW2 when he was twenty years old. (But he never mentioned it until I said we'd been there - I wish I'd known beforehand. Do fathers ever talk to sons?)
• Language is not everything - but it helps. A smile goes an awfully long way. It's a myth that the French habitually laugh at the English.

WHAT I REALLY LEARNED is not to be daunted by other writers. Enjoy holiday reading. Come back wanting to write as well as Donna Tartt.