Rejections and Promises

A fairly productive week this week.

I finished working through the second draft of the first half of Act Two. The last two chapters aren't great and may need to be redone but that's because I'm setting up things for the second half. As soon as I get a new printer I'll print out chapters 21-30 and do a third draft read-through and see how it stands.

I was rejected by F&SF and Weird Tales this week, which was nice. Those stories are going elsewhere now and this weekend I'm doing a final draft of Promises, Promises which is looking to be a very strong story if I can just get the ending right.

Joe Abercrombie has a great entry on his blog about his second drafts. In a word, Intimidating.

My Own Little World

For the past hour I've been writing with the light off. The only light comes from the glow monitor and the only sounds are the gentle rush of traffic outside, the hum of the heater beside me, heating my cold room and my fingers on keys. Nice to be in my own little world for a bit.

But now it's time to switch the light back on. Grrrr. But this week has been good. I'm roughly half way through Act Two and its ok. I'm a bit apprehensive about the second half but I'll deal with that next week.

No new rejections and I still haven't sent RWBW to Black Static. My printers out of ink and I just want to get a new one. I should also get a couple of lamps.

What do you get the man who has everything? Lamps, it would seem.

Thanks for reading.

Meeting with the Man

All is going well, this week.

Still in the swing of Act Two, a wobble here and there, there are still bits I'm not happy with, that I don't find convincing just yet but I feel I'm coming to a point that for some scenes I'm going to have to move on, leave them alone and see to them in the third draft. That the story and everything that happens in them is fine, it's just the language I don't like and that's what draft three will be about. Draft two is about the story, Graeme, let draft three sort itself out when the time comes.

Cemetery Dance rejected me with a standard letter, which is nice. It's been a while since I've heard from any mag, I was beginning to worry. RWBW will go off to Black Static next, I reckon.

And, of course, yesterday, I went to the Terry Pratchett signing and was so excited about talking to himself I almost cried. It was a bit weird because after all he's just a guy but I asked him why his bog computer had six monitors and he told me it was like having a big desktop (I'm paraphrasing here). Instead of all that minimizing windows and such it's just easier and more intuitive to have the window on another screen. Plus, when you have six big screens with the Matrix screensaver it looks awesome. He signed my book, we both agreed we disliked editing and left it at that.

Was nice to have seen him. Will hopefully have more news next week, maybe I'll even be working on a new bit of the novel I haven't before. That'd be nice.

Thanks for reading.

The Buggerallto Report

Hello,

little to report this week. Now that I'm sort of back in the swing of novelling I was hoping for a relaxing weekend writing. Instead, I had a relaxing weekend of sleeping and being ill.

Doubts still linger with the book, blah, blah, blah, I'm not enjoying this why would the readers etc, etc. But I'm shoving all those deep down and just getting on with it.

The magazines are quiet. Kinda worried that they just haven't received the stories. I can't wait to get a good old rejection.

Thanks for reading.