Traumatic weekend. Not that aliens abducted me and conducted unspeakable experiments on my body or anything. However, after doing a little more research, I realized that, as it now stands, putting my main character in Singapore at the beginning of WW2 may actually be a little far-fetched. I mean, it would actually be stretching the reader’s imagination a bit to have him be where he is, doing what he’s doing, given his background.

It coulda happened. It may have happened. But…it’s not bloody likely. And while this is fiction, after all, and it’s a novelist’s job and prerogative to make things up out of her imagination, when it comes to writing about someone in a particular place and time in history, it does behoove the writer to create someone who would actually fit into that place and time. Otherwise, it’s a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

Arrrrgggghhhh.

Thanks to B., I was able to figure out how to change his backstory so that he could feasibly be in Singapore at the beginning of WW2 and stay there, but it also means changing much of what I’ve already written. Very frustrating. I stopped writing and went back to research, of course. I should’ve known better than to dive in headfirst without doing at least a little bit of background study, but I was anxious and didn’t want to lose momentum. So much for that.

I still wrote, however, just not the novel. The play is coming along even better than I hoped. Ten pages of the first scene. Wrote a 2nd draft of it after I realized that, in the first draft, the mother came across as too passive — just the opposite of my intention. Posted it on a writers’ feedback forum and received a well-written and comprehensive critique the very next day.

I love writers!

Oh well. Today I go back to researching the book. Tomorrow I work on both it and the play. It’s supposed to snow Friday, which will be so lovely and so conducive to staying home and writing. All in all, not a bad week.

MRA