31st March, 2025 - coughs, copy work and April challenges

That 1 extra story I mentioned has taken be the best part of a month to finish copying out. First because its longer than all the others I copied. Second because I've been annoyingly, mildly ill which has caused all routine to be thrown out.

I've not even been properly ill. Instead I've felt mildly feeble with occasional coughs and stuffy nose. Symptoms I'm still not rid of.

Regardless though, I'm setting myself a new challenge. I like a monthly challenge. For the month of April I'm going to do my usual habit of reading a poem each day, but I'm going to add to that and read a short story and an essay each day too.

1 poem.

1 short story.

1 essay.

I think Ray Bradbury may have recommended that somewhere. I think he suggested 1000 days. I'll start with, how many days are in April... 30.

1st March, 2025 - that was a quick month

I sat down to do my copy work this morning and realised I've already completed my challenge. I've clocked in my 420 minutes (7 hours) of copy work for this month. I've really been enjoying it actually - I'm tempted to continue for another month.

So far I've copied out:

• Christmas by Gabriel Josipovici

• Sheba by Ben Pester

• Mother's Son by Tessa Hadley

• Resting Bitch face by Lucy McKnight Hardy

• You Can't Be Too Careful by Claire Keegan

• and Rostrum by Eley Williams

It's a great and varied collection of stories and what I've found is that doing the copy work makes it much easier to spot the craft techniques I'm learning about. Right now for instance I'm reading up on dialogue. One of the simplest things I've learnt (which seems insane that I didn't already know) is the different forms dialogue can take: Summary, Indirect Speech and Direct Dialogue. As a writer I currently lean into direct dialogue a lot more than I maybe should so starting to utilise the other forms will help me a lot I think. The copy work has made it much easier to spot instances of these techniques.

I think I'll finish up my copy work by doing 1 more story as I've already sat down at my desk with it. I'm going to finish up with 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates. After that I'll go back to focusing on my craft notes for dialogue and maybe diving into a writing project to apply what I've found.

1st February, 2025 - a challenge for the month

I've set myself a challenge for February.

Every day of this month I'm going to complete 15 minutes of copy work. Not a lot of time really but by the end of the month that will be 7 hours spent copying the work of writers I admire.

I've done odd bits of copy work before and have found it a useful exercise. It's a great way of close reading. I find it almost like a cheat: like I'm hot-wiring the ability to engage deeply with a text. All I have to do is copy it out and I automatically start noticing things that I can simply take note of.

I've started this morning with Gabriel Josipovici's short story, 'Christmas'. It's a great story that's heavy on dialogue. Narration is striped down to the bare minimum to keep us moving forward.

Already there is so much to be gained from this story:

• Its ability to draw attention to facets of the story's background with little more than a few well chosen words in a line of dialogue

• How little narration you really need to progress a scene

• The way it builds tension and intrigue by withholding information to make the reader a part of the story's creation

• The way characters become defined by their relationships and interactions with one another.

Day 1 done. 27 more to go.