What do you like about yourself

Last week From Sand to Glass had a post listing five things he likes about himself and asked his readers to pass it on. So here's mine.

1. I'm a thinker. I like to analyse and I like to understand at a really deep level. I think about things in their own right and how they connect to other things.

2. My imagination. I can be anywhere I want to be at any time; I can see the world how I choose to see it. I love making up stories.

3. My hair. It's long and thick and grows quickly.

4. My sense of humour. I've been accused of not having one because I don't like Peter Kay or Little Britain, but I think I have a highly developed sense of the ridiculous and I spend a lot of time laughing. I also think I'm funny.

5. I have a moral code that I've given some thought to and includes fairness, tolerance, inclusivity and compassion. It's still in development, but I've given some thought to the concept of right and wrong and come up with my own sense of morality. I like the fact that I didn't get it out of a book or just accept what I was taught when I was growing up even if that makes me different to the people around me.

So there we go. It's an interesting exercise. I found I was tempted to say I was kind or tolerant or a good friend but it's not about what other people have said they like about me, it's about what I like. And now it's about what you like about you. Pass it on.

Editing and losing the sense of drama

I've been working on my novel today (applause, applause) and generated some new material. The scene I was writing is quite dramatic and it reminded me of something that's been lurking in the back of my head.

As I've been editing my novel, I've been losing the sense of impact. There are some shocking moments and some violence which as I go over it and over it seems less and less dramatic. The same goes for the emotional tension. When I write the raw material it's very affecting: I make myself cry, laugh and occasionally feel very disturbed (hee).

The problem comes when I start editing and I'm in my rational, focussed headspace. At this point, I'm looking at sentence structure, word choice and punctuation and while I'm thinking about whether I need more detail or more sensation I'm doing it in an intellectual way. After a while I'm so familiar with the material I don't feel it any more.

So, what about everyone else? How do you maintain that sense of excitement and drama with your longer works?

Privacy

I now have a facebook profile, not that there's anything on it. I'm feeling very wary about putting any personal information out there and have set my profile up so no-one can find it. Hee.

It has me wondering about privacy. I've had a LinkedIn account for ages and I love it for work. It is a reasonably full profile but it's all about the role I do for my employer. I have no qualms about people knowing that persona. Which is the point, I guess, because it is a persona. My job involves a lot of networking and having this profile helps me do my job.

And of course, I have this blog on which I occasionally bare my soul. It is anonymous though to people I don't know in the real world and it does only display part of me (even if it is a big, important part of me).

Writing stuff down always helps me think things through and it occurs to me that my wariness of facebook has to do with my dislike of being approached with enthusiasm, or as I like to think of it, over-familiarity.

If I think seriously about privacy I recognise that I enjoy being able to google people and a lot of my information is out there already. Hmm, lots to ponder. I guess I'll have got over it when you see a facebook widget appear in the right hand menu.

On a writing related note, I got some positive feedback on my first critique for critters and I've written a second. I've done a bit more work on the novel - I have some issues with my characters having similar names!

It's been a while

Haven't posted here in a while. I've been away (lovely weekend in Portsmouth), been sick, and just been busy.

Consequently I'm behind in my reviewing, but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing other writing related activities. I've joined Critters Writers' Workshop and I've done one critique and uploaded no stories. I've been working on my novel. I have a technique of writing random scenes and then trying to fit them together like a giant jigsaw puzzle where you have to work out what the piece should be and then create it. Yesterday I spent several hours updating my scenes spreadsheet and trying to put all the pieces in order. The novel has grown by a significant number of scenes since I last did this. Still, I feel like I'm more in control now and that always helps me get over the procrastination thing.

I have now got a Twitter account and just as soon as I think of anything to say that might be remotely interesting, I'll add the link to this blog. Using social media is a big thing at work. I use LinkedIn professionally and part of the motivation for getting a twitter account is to have a play so that I can see how to use it on behalf of my employer. But it's all led me down a rather disturbing path where I might sign up to Facebook. I said I never would, but I didn't anticipate my need for virtual connectedness.