Handbags and The Catalina

What does a handbag market in Florence have to do with The Catalina?

Read on and I'll explain.

Since my last Behind-The-Scenes journal post, I’ve pushed aside thinking about the ‘next’ story I want to write.

Quite frankly, I’m struggling to arrive at one. I thought my idea of writing about Ruby—one of the minor (but important) characters in The Catalina—could be okay, but the more I thought about it, the less inspired I was to explore it further.

And to top things off, after reading more historical fiction novels, I’m second guessing myself (again) on my choice of point of view (POV) for The Catalina.

You might remember I originally wrote it in first person present tense. Then rewrote it in first person past tense.

I keep telling myself to wait until January when I will receive a professional manuscript assessment, but this week I couldn’t resist and started writing the first chapter of The Catalina in third person past tense just to see how it felt for me.

Florence, Handbags and The Catalina

My wife Liz has this crazy idea (at least to me), that she needs to ‘try on’ a handbag before she buys it. She needs to see how it looks. I get that for clothes and hats, but for handbags? Forty two years of marriage has taught me she is right of course.

I think that’s what I need to do more of. Not try on handbags but try on the different approaches to tell a story.

The other night when Liz and I chatted about this, (story telling not handbags), she asked if it was frustrating me with these thoughts of rewriting in different ways.

My reality is, it’s all part of learning this craft of fiction writing. So, no. It’s not frustrating. I’m in no hurry. I’m just trying different styles to expand my creative writing.

And, what I’ve learned after dipping my toe in third person past tense storytelling, is I do like writing in that style, but still unsure if The Catalina could be a better story told that way.

So, I will keep playing around, having fun learning, and who knows where it will all end up.

What I do know is The Catalina story is worth telling and at some stage, along this journey from first draft to getting it ready to submit to a traditional publisher, it will be told in a way that readers will paint their own vivid pictures of the towns of Koondrook and the surrounding communities, the Murray River and Gunbower forest in full flood and walk in each of the characters’ shoes, sharing their thoughts, goals, actions and journeys.

But then again, who knows how I’ll be feeling about all this next week.

Oh, and I've just received some very exciting news about my manuscript assessment. I’ll let you know about it next time.