Struggling for Words - 5th May 2024
This week’s newsletter includes a little bit of history, an invitation to chat, the next free chapter, and some info on a useful guide.
How could I not write about this?
I’ve been on this road of publishing Struggling for Words for a few weeks now, and it’s so nice to see it’s being read and there are a few followers for the free chapters of A Handkerchief for Maria.
After I put out last week’s chapter, which explored a court-room scene in 1908, a reader left a comment about the principal magistrate which flagged up that whilst A Handkerchief for Maria is a novel, it is based on real events.
This particular event was the sentencing of my grandmother and her brother, by the Petty Sessions, to be sent to two different Industrial Schools until they reached their sixteenth birthday. She was 8 years old, he was 6 years old. Their crime? Having been found begging and destitute on the streets of Arklow, County Wicklow, whilst their father was in the workhouse fever hospital suffering from tuberculosis.
They never met again for over twenty years.
Let’s chat
Today I’m announcing a brand new addition to my Substack publication: Struggling for Words subscriber chat.
This is a conversation space exclusively for subscribers. Feel free to post questions about any of my novels, or just about writing generally, and we’ll hopefully get a conversation going.
As I’ve promised, subscribing is free, no paywall, nothing.
Next free chapter
The latest chapter of A Handkerchief for Maria is up, for free, on Struggling for Words along with all the previous chapters. As always, I’d love to hear your comments.
How long is a piece of text?
This week I received some advice about serialising a novel, and it was suggested a good length is about 1,000 - 1,200 words. I’ve been breaking the free offerings of A Handkerchief for Maria into the chapters as they appear in the original novel, generally between 2,500 - 3,800 words.
Is this too much? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Either leave a comment or pop over to the Chat area and start a discussion.
A useful guide to Scrivener
Those who’ve read my posts on Struggling for Words or my website will know I’m a fan of Scrivener. I was pleased to see a really useful video guide to how the programme works on Simon K Jones feed. Take a look here.
Mind-mapping
Last week I apologised for not including anything in my Let’s talk about Writing section and said I’d try to post something during the week. Well, if you’ve been peeking, you’ll see I didn’t manage it until today.
I’d referred in a previous post to my use of mind-mapping, so have expanded on it here.
That’s all for this week.