Crossing bogs

Apart from a blip last week, I’ve been working steadily on a full draft of this latest book and am just embarking on Chapter 5.  This is a tricky phase, with the yawning danger of a sagging middle ever present.  One of Georgette Heyer ‘s heroes, faced with a tricky situation, has a wonderful line about the need to get over rough ground lightly  (of course I can’t remember which book, and if I stop and look it up I’ll never get my book finished ) and I always think of it when I get to the middle three chapters.  I aim to cross by leaping lightly from one tussock to another but am all too prone to landing in the bog instead, where the story wallows around, sinking deeper and deeper into  pointless dialogue or irrelevant situations. 

The first draft that I was feeling so relaxed about turns out (surprise, surprise)  to need major rewriting, but I am going along with the help of some Scottish music to keep me in the mood.  Every book has a soundtrack.  I tend to listen to one CD obsessively while I’m writing the book, and once it’s finished never put it on again.  Now that I’m at one with technology, that’s all changed, though.  iTunes has changed my life, and I can now create a special playlist for each book on my computer.  For this book  I’m listening to a mixture of Runrig (a new discovery)and the soundtrack to Local Hero, plus a recording of Flower of Scotland – schmaltzy, I know, but there’s something about it that always brings a lump to my throat.  Must be my Scottish genes coming out.

Anyway, I’d better get listening … Think of me floundering through the bog towards the quagmire that is Chapter 6!