Author: janetstockwriter

I recently was lucky enough to tour the 13th century Greyfriars building in Lincoln, a Grade 1 listed building and possibly the oldest standing Franciscan buildings in England being built around 1230. It was a wonderful, surreal and atmospheric visit. 

St Francis created the order, and soon the Franciscans spread far, with many of them being priests and men of learning. The development of towns and cities meant large numbers of homeless and sick, and the franciscans had the mobility to deal with these contemporary problems. They were not tied to monasteries and could take the gospel to the streets and minister wherever they were. They were referred to as greyfriars because of the colour of their habits. 

In 1538 the order was expelled as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

The surviving building is the remains of the infirmary, and along with its original features it has mid 19th century additions. The friary precinct occupied a large site and had a stone-vaulted first floor added later in the 13th century. Just like Lincoln cathedral, it is amazing to look up when you’re inside and see the amazing vaults above you. There is some great graffiti to spot as well, many are from various school pupils from the 16th century until 1900. The undercroft was a spinning school and there was a mechanics institute from 1833 to 1862. A famous participant of this institute was George Boole.

Other friary buildings including the kitchen, refectory and dormitory were excavated in the 1990s as part of the Central Library redevelopment. And now City of Lincoln Council are looking to relaunch the building as a heritage attraction. The project, called re-imagining Greyfriars is very exciting and I can’t wait until it’s up and running. I hope you’ll come and visit this treasure!

https://www.visitlincoln.com/things-to-do/greyfriars

So, what is the general consensus on Census Day, how many people will fill their details in with writer or author as their profession?

Will we have hundreds of thousands of writers in the UK? Millions?

What do you think?

I’ve just chopped a character out of my first draft of The Wait’s Son! It feels weird getting rid of someone after spending time crafting their character. But it just wasn’t working out. The character was confusing the story and in the end she just did add what I thought she was going to. Oh well, bye, bye…I’m sure she won’t be the only one.

Tomorrow it will be 3 years since I turned 50 and decided to take my writing seriously.

Since then I have self-published 3 short works, but I’ve still not completed my first novel. I’m not going to beat myself up too much, as I can see now that I spent too much time doubting myself and jumping from one course to the next to try and find a way of writing that worked for me. After just completing Plotstormers with @Writer’sHQ, I feel as though I have written more quality work in the last month, than I have in the last year.

I’m understanding now what my novel is about and I’m feeling confident that I will get my book finished this year. I’m under no illusions that there’s still a lot of hard work ahead, but I do think that I’ve finally found a method that works for me.

Onward and upward…

To plot, definitely, always, without a doubt. I know this is a subject of some debate, should you plot or just let the story take you where it will, but I can honestly say, for me, I cannot write a book without a plot.

I’m just coming to the end of the plotting course with Writer’s HQ, and it has made me see where the holes and weak spots are in my book (I’ve already written 60k words), and given me the confidence to now go on and actually get the book finished. Which is what I hoped I would get from the course.

Plots, themes, inciting incidents, conflict, resolution, story arcs, all the things you hear people saying when talking about writing a book have suddenly come into focus and all has become clear! I have re-read a couple of first chapters of my favourite books and I can now see that I was not just reading a good story, I am getting a masterclass in storytelling. And that is why they are so successful.

If you’re a pantser, I take my hat off to you, because your brain at some level must be able to contain all the info needed to write a book, without having to type it out, plot it out and have it laid before you like a roadmap.

But for me roadmap it is, and now I’m ready to start the journey.