Writing: 2600 Words This Afternoon

Half day at the office and home in time for lunch before Valerie zooms off to her bowls match (which, by the way, her team won). 2600 new words and another new aspect to the story. How I enjoy this creative process, when the words just pour out onto the page. But that doesn't mean the editing, which for me is a second stage thing to be done entirely separately, is a chore. The way I write involves me in composing action scenes, dialogue and anything that moves the story on. I neglect most of the descriptive stuff during this phase. I know what the scene looks like; it's there in my head. But, when I'm editing, I need to let the reader in on the way the places look, smell, feel, sound etc. And I need to let the reader share the emotions of the characters. So, I add this at the first editing stage and this makes that into another creative phase. Once all the words are down, I read the whole thing, trying to do this as a reader instead of as a writer. Then comes the nit-picking, the destruction of the darlings so beloved of the writer but deemed unnecessary by many readers. So it's a knife job; cutting out the dead wood and tightening the story, reducing the word count without damaging the narrative or causing confusion through lack of detail.
Now, after a light meal, I'm on my way to my writing group to talk about books and writing; it's a great life and I love it.

The picture shows the palace at Knossos, Crete.