I started again on Rukan yesterday, after my freak-out. Right from the beginning. I wrote slowly, carefully. I put down about 600 words. Not much. But they were good words, they made me happy. They sparked.
I switched to present tense because I needed a new way to approach the story. It helped me feel immediacy with the scene and get into Rukan’s head. I think present tense isn’t considered favourably by some of the literary establishment (Philip Pullman called present-tense narration a “silly affectation which “does nothing but annoy” – lucky I’m not a big fan of his!) and I really don’t know how acceptable it is in genre fiction. Although I see from my little Google search just then that The Hunger Games is first person present tense and I don’t even remember that! And the Kindle app on my phone isn’t working so I can’t check it to re-read a bit again. Damned Kindle app, or maybe it’s damned Telstra’s amazingly inconsistent mobile web access.
Anyhoo. Right now I can’t care who thinks what, because I have to write what makes me happy. I am going to set aside all the words I had (ouch) and begin (again) from here, with these 600 words. It’s a good idea, I told myself yesterday. Have faith in it.
