A work in progress...30

My friend Jenny the successful writer has got back to me with comments about the three chapters I sent her.

On the whole she thought it was good, she liked the opening and the main character. She did however criticise the detail, or over use of detail and thought it was weighing down the narrative. She also liked the evocation of smells and iconic imagery, which was good.

It proves I can write, which is also encouraging.

Her comments were particularly interesting and I'm going to take them on board. I was afraid that my prose may come over pedestarian or plodding, after so many years in journalism, and was consciously trying to make it come alive with detail. I may hav gone overboard a bit with the similies. This is not a problem, as they come quite easily, literally one after the other, which I try and avoid. I just love writing and the richness of writing but maybe I should try and be more controlled. It's finding that fine line between being boring and non-descriptive and imaginative, while keeping the narrative going.

I feel as though it's quite pacey at the moment so if I edited it down further I may find that medium. At the moment I'm just writing, writing writing, trying to get it all down. It's all over the place at the moment, and I've started to write in the first person, so it's very confusing, but I'm still focused on the main plotline but really just want to get the foundations up and write 80,000+ words.