I'm Back, Tired But Happy

I'm sorry about the pic, but I just couldn't help myself. I arrived home yesterday afternoon and eventually managed to catch up with Lost in Austen and laughed (in delight and surprise) at the Darcy water scene (bliss). Sorry, I shall now engage my brain and get on with my post.

Essentially I popped over to London to attend the RNA talk given by Penny Vincenzi, although I also made the most of the time by meeting up with my good friend Andrea. I haven't seen her for a while, so we spent an exhausting day shopping, chatting (sis and Ma were there too) in a lovely little pub and then Rach (sis), Ma and I bade fairwell once more to our pal and we tootled off for an evening of merriment at my step-brother Alan's new house, where my step-father was waiting for us to return (probably enjoying a bit of peace, I should think). Great fun, but I'm still getting over it all.

What a lovely person Penny Vincenzi is. She entertained us all for an hour telling us anecdotes on how each book was written. Basically, Penny doesn't plot in detail but starts every book with a 'what if' in her mind. For example, what if someone came into a huge amount of money, what would happen and how would they deal with it. In 'Windfall', she tells the story of a doctor's wife and the repercussions of this happening to her.

In her present book, An Absolute Scandal, she writes about 'what if' you lost everything. This book, which I've started and am loving, is about the Lloyds scandal in the 1980s, the devastation it caused when people involved lost their fortune.

Most of us find that at some point in writing our books, we get to a part where the story seems to stop and doesn't somehow work. Penny was asked if this ever happens to her and if so, what does she do in this situation. She answered that she doesn't stop writing and go shopping, what she does do is go back to where the story was working, delete the part that didn't and then go forward again. She once deleted 20,000 words and although it was painful, at least she knew what didn't work and then continued with what did.

She said that her characters tell her what they will and won't do and at times they surprise her. She describes how she killed off one character and although she hadn't expected to do so, knew that it had to happen. Mind you, she did receive hate mail when the book was read as the character was loved by so many.

Someone asked how she edited her work and she said that she starts by reading what she'd written the previous day and edits this as she goes through it and then when she reaches the end, she keeps writing.

Penny was also asked if she sets out to write a certain word count each day. She said that she didn't, but does write for a certain amount of time each day and has even written as many as 7,000 words in one day. It takes her one year to write each book, and given that her present book is 881 pages long, I think that's pretty good going.

At the end of the talk, she was kind enough to sign my book. I thoroughly enjoyed her talk and found it not only interesting to learn how she works but also enjoyed her anecdotes. More than anything I learned that despite having written (I believe) fourteen wonderful books, she is very disciplined and doesn't use a difficult days writing as an excuse to take a break from her work. She sits down and works through it and keeps going until it's finished.

Oh no, I've just realized that the dog is due to be clipped in 25 minutes and I'm not dressed yet. Opps.