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.