I'm going to warn you that this post may not make a whole lot of sense. My brain appears to be slightly scrambled today and I'm not sure why. True, I haven't slept so well for a couple of nights and I'm really in a time crunch on a couple of projects but um, wow. I'm kind of sucking it up today. Anyway...
"I've finally discovered why my house is haunted!" I said as I walked into the kitchen this morning where Sean was making Mo, Luke, me and himself fried egg sandwiches for breakfast. My kids knew, of course, that I wasn't talking about my actual house, which (darn the luck) isn't haunted (although the garage may be and that's why I don't park in there), but about the story I'm working on.
"So why is it so evil?" Mo asked.
"Because in medieval times it that land was used as an execution spot."
"Oh that's good!" Mo said. "How did you come up with that?"
"I'm sort of loosely (very loosely) basing it off of a real area in England. I had to find a map of England this morning and try to figure out exactly what distance a horse drawn carriage could have travelled in eight hours. Then I went down the direction I said they were heading and found a town. Then I read about its history and there it was. Kind of. Actually the execution spot is on another hill near the town but since the story is fiction and I made up a name for my town and all...I just wanted to get an idea of the general area and geography."
I'm lucky. The kids get involved in my writing. Mo reads each days work and corrects typos and things like that. Sean listens as I read it aloud and picks out errors. Mo has read the story a couple of times and I've read the whole thing through like 20 or so, but I read it to Sean once and he points out that at the beginning I said there were seven in the group and then introduced eight characters. How did I miss that? And that's why EVERYONE needs a good editor or at least a good proofreader.
Sean is also always willing to play the "what if" game with me and help me brainstorm out plot points. Sometimes when I'm stuck, all it takes is that little bit of discussion to spark the writing again. So as much as they distract me and take me away from the computer, I don't know what I'd do without them.
1 comment:
Ha, ha! I fixed my blog and can now comment again.
Personally, Spot, I believe your house is haunted, but they're not evil ghosts so just go with it.
It is great you have everyone involved in your work. Yvonne and I are like that as well. We're both each others biggest fans.
If we come out to visit you one of these days-and we should because you're a good per son who lives in a haunted house- Yvonne and I can help with the cooking. Yvonne has plenty of experience, what with running her day care and all her kids, and I was a chef for awhile and owned a diner even.
Have fun!
Blaze
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