2nd Trial: Finding rhythm in the small stuff, finding Words-Worth the scene (see what I did there?)

Weekly hours spent writing or in the pursuit of plot:  9.5 (Jamie was out of town!)

Weekly choice of tea:  Minty black tea from Abisko, Sweden (can’t read the label)

Greatest Success:  FINISHING first draft of Chapter One

I have recently received an exemplary book on William Wordsworth, his life and the poetry that spanned it. I am amazed to have known so little about him, and come June this year, I will be visiting his house in England! But more on that later–I fear you all will be well plagued by my excitement the weeks prior to and following my adventure to the Lake District! And so I have acquainted myself with Wordsworth this past week, and am enjoying the rhythm of his poetry. I absolutely love it.

“I heard a Stockdove sing or say

His homely tale, this very day

His voice was buried among the trees,

Yet to be come at by the breeze:

He did not cease; but Cooed–and cooed;

And somewhat pensively he wooed:

He sang of love with quiet blending,

Slow to begin, and never ending;

Of serious faith, and inward glee;

That was the Song, the Song for me!”–from ‘O Nightingale! thou surely art’

Rhythm. I am typing up chapter one, newly finished (a sigh of relief, for though a first draft, a milestone accomplished!), and can tell areas that surely lost such a rhythm. My largest struggle I found this week was working through the movement of a character through a room or within a situation. I haven’t seemed to master when to be descriptive and when to just move on, and can tell after re-typing a scene when I was even bored while writing it. I laugh when I read Jane Austen sometimes, how she has the ability to skim certain circumstances, as if by now her readers are well versed in similar scenes she has already written about. For example, she bypasses several conversations by stating a general sentence along the lines of, and forgive me for not using language adequately comparable to her tongue:

“He entered the drawing room in such the cordiality of a gentleman’s station, and resumed in conversing on all the normal pleasantries deemed necessary by polite society.”

You already know what her character talked about:  the pleasing decor, the enjoyment of the dancing, the weather, and indulging in the perfect situation he found himself in! At least, you know all of that if you have read ANYTHING by Austen! And yet she herself is master at dragging description on to no end.

And so Chapter Two will begin this week, and I will focus on my identifying words worthy for the scenes at hand.