I read an excellent article on characterization yesterday, and was very interested to see that the author considers the ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ characterization advice to be pernicious and that he would not be advocating it in his article. LOL. I have to say, I mostly think showing IS better than telling, but that like all rules, slavishly following it even in the face of common sense is not a good thing.

There are a (few) times where telling just makes more sense. I’m wracking my brains here to come up with an example, but its early and I have a day of house sorting ahead of me, so I think I’ll skip that .

The removal company arrives on Monday to pack up my house, so if I’m quieter than usual, you know why. My DSL and laptop will stay, though, so you will be hearing from me.

I knew things would get hectic, but looking at the date of my last blog entry, I realize things really have gotten hectic. Someone driving their truck full speed through my steel electric gate and one of the concrete pillars at the entrance to my drive didn’t help, either. But I apologise. It feels as if I just blogged the other day, but it’s been three weeks .

With regard to the gate thing, when I told friends and acquaintences around my town what happened, and then added the driver was drunk, they almost all responded the same way, and not how an English-speaker would have responded. The first thing they said when I mentioned the drunk fact was: “Toevallig.” It was said with a straight face each time. It means “Coincidentally” or “By chance or accident”. They were clearly being sarcastic, and I loved that they all did it with such dry, deadpan faces.

I’m looking forward to the interesting way Australians react to things, their expressions (more colourful than most, I know) but also feel a sense of melancholy at leaving my current town. There is a feast of phrases, interesting world views and outlooks here, and I will miss it. And the peace and quiet, and the (sometimes frustrating) laid-back way of life.

Although I hear Perth is pretty laid-back as well. Something tells me not QUITE as laid-back as here, LOL.

What interesting phrases or expressions from your town delight you?

This is how I feel every time I start a new book. It all lies ahead of me, perfect in my mind. Soon, I will mangle it, and wrestle it like a crocodile as I try to cross the river of pages to the opposite bank, where a crooked and dented sign saying The End has been planted in the mud.

LOL, riiiiiight. Now all of you who thought I was crazy know it for the fact it is . . .

But seriously, I can’t wait to write again. I gave myself two weeks off and I’m thrilled to be getting back into things from Monday. It’s school holidays here, and my kids have been with me these last two (writing-free) weeks, but they are going to playschool from Monday. I have to do a week’s worth of final revisions, and then I start a new book. My heart actually goes pitter pat at the thought of these final revisions. I love this story so much, I hope I can do it justice.

And speaking of new worlds, I can finally make the official announcement that my family and I are heading off for a new adventure, and moving to Australia. My husband was offered a job in Perth, and we have been living in a very isolated but interesting spot for the last 6 years, and feel like we need to do something completely different. So we are packing up and going off to continents unknown. It is not without regret. I am South African from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, and I love this country with all my heart.

If you could go off and live in a new country, which one would you choose? Or are you happy right where you are, thanks very much?

I’m nearly done with my revisions on my historical, and I feel so good about them. I love this story . I can honestly blame these revisions going so well on my lack of blogging. For which I apologise. I can’t seem to sit down at the PC without wanting to work on my book, and you don’t ignore that kind of enthusiasm. Sometimes, forcing yourself to sit in front of the PC is torture. When it is pure pleasure, you take advantage, LOL.

I’m in that great stage where I’m almost wrapped up with one set of revisions, have another set to look forward to (and I don’t mean that sarcastically) and am also mulling what to write next. That’s the hard part.

I have a number of stories I’ve been thinking about and I need to decide which to focus on. This never gets any easier for me. I have gone through it with my last two projects, and I can honestly say I could go any way. All the stories I’m considering are equally appealling to me.

I suppose I should go with whatever sounds the most marketable, LOL, although given the way the industry changes, the least marketable could be the most marketable by the time the book is written, so I don’t really consider that. How do you chose what to write next?

I have just rewritten five chapters of one of my mss. Not revised them, actually scrapped what I had and wrote something totally new, with the same characters. Changed how my story begins.

Although I was more than willing to give it a go, I did wonder if it would work, and I’m pleased to say it really did. But now I have to revise the rest of my story, from where the old version meshes with the new version, and incorporate the new things. Considering how well the rewriting went, I thought it would be just as fun to revise, but not so.

I started doing it yesterday and hit a wall. I felt completely drained at the very thought of going through the rest of the ms and revising it. Ugh.

This morning, I hit upon something that makes me feel happier about doing it, and that’s printing it on hard copy and working with it from there. For some reason, this makes me much more eager to tackle it than sitting at the pc. So it’s printing out as I type.

Do you, like me, prefer rewrites to revisions? Honestly, I’d rather delete a scene and then write it again from scratch than fiddle around with what I have (and don’t like). Maybe that’s why I’m finding it hard to face these revisions. I know I’m going to want to rewrite the whole damn book .