Tuesday 25 May 2010

I have offically jumped out of the middle ages and landed in the world of blogging. It seems to be a very nice world, and has opened up endless opportunities for procrastination and public bad spelling.

Principally, I am going to write about the final stages of editing my collection of short stories The War Tour, to be published soonish with Comma Press. I imagine my blog will be extremely dull and read like an academic critical commentary. This is because I have spent many years in academia and I don't know how to do anything else.

Anyway, after some insightful and encouraging feedback from a workshop this weekend with five wonderful writers, I'm trying to develop my story about Rosa Luxemburg. Up to now, the story is very much about her as a public figure and revolutionary. It focuses on the last few months of her life (the structure is influenced by Alice Munro's story 'Too Much Happiness'), but hasn't quite brought out her inner life. And indeed, what am I trying to say about Rosa Luxumburg? What is the crux of the story?

Hmmmmmm.....

5 comments:

  1. Welcome to the blogosphere, Zoe. I'll look forward to reading more (and possible bad spelling!).

    Nik

    ReplyDelete
  2. Like the sound of your collection Zoe. Which is Munro's Too Much Happiness? Are your stories in TWT a similar length to hers (i.e fairly long as I remember them?) Already your blog is calming me down, where mine just winds me up - must be to do with the spacing & acceptance of spelling errors to come? Good luck with it.

    BB

    ReplyDelete
  3. Too Much Happiness is a great collection....except the title story!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi. Let me know when your stories are published. How does it compare to writing a thesis? How do you feel post PhD?
    xx

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hmmm, I have only just realised you have all commented! I'm not quite used to this blogging lark. Thanks for your comments. Some of the recent stories have become quite long. They are so long I'm not sure I trust them anymore. Finishing the book feels harder than the thesis, or perhaps the pain of the thesis has faded in my memory...

    ReplyDelete