Alex's Historical Fiction

Voice

I think I don't yet have a 'voice' to my writing. When I go back to writing stories, I shall be thinking about this carefully. In the mean time, I'm keeping my eyes open for useful articles on the subject. Via Lady Tess's Blog, I found a really good one by Julie Leto called Ditching the Book of My Heart for the Book of My Voice. It really nails it for me.

To clear the decks for my archaeological Magnum Opus, I am looking at the stuff I currently do in my spare time, and considering ditching things that aren't contributing very much. For example, I don't have any HNS novels to review, instead devoting the time to my huge to-be-read pile, and catching up (there are some Dark Age goodies in there, which I'll let myself read as a treat rather than mag-opping). There are one or two fixed points, like I won't give up the re-enactment next year, but I won't be trying to turn out to every show, or doing any extras. Writing of any kind is hugely time-consuming, and doing my mag op will require a lot of research, writing, and finding of pictures. I had a look at what is required for a book proposal (there's a great guide at Alan Sutton Publishers - scroll down the page for link to download), and I need to get myself well sorted out! I've got to do it, and to make it just a tad easier, I need to prepare the ground carefully.

posted by Alex Bordessa @ Monday, October 03, 2005