Planning

A delayed post again.

Luckily little has happened. I'm working hard on a scene in chapter 31, hasn't quite come together yet, just haven't found the right mixture of things to add to it to make it sizzle yet but I'll get there.

This week, before launching into chapters 30-39 I made a book plan. Now, normally I don't do plans, I just like to add ingredients and see how they work, I like to go with the flow, following my finger, find out what the characters want to do and steer things a little by just adding the right ingredients to alter their courses to where I want them to go, it is a very subtle manipulation that I hope will work out. But at the moment I needed a book plan, to lay out on paper all the themes and events I need to happen so I can set them up, add hints, think them through, sometimes it's nice to just brain dump onto a single A4 sheet of paper and make sure all the important things have been considered. So far it's worked quite nicely and once I've got past this scene I hope that chapters 31-39 will be fairly smooth sailing.

And now I've just jinxed them.

Life on the Fast Lane

I can only apologise for missing last week's post.

Luckily, there is little to report these past two weeks. Things have been progressing very nicely with the novel with chapters 21 - 25 now complete (until draft three, that is). I still have niggling feeling about them. There's still a lot of stuff I want to put in on the theme but I think any more might be too much, these things need a delicate touch, I fancy.

All stories are still with magazines, especially hopeful about RevolutionSF and F&SF, either one of those on my credits will be a godsend.

Should check my logs and see when I sent Of The Father to Something Wicked. They did say they have a long response time but maybe I should just double check. Hmmmm.

Anyway, back to work.

Thanks for reading.

On a Break

Me and the novel have decided to see other people for a month.

I've just been struggling with it for so long (the past 3 months!) that I think it's best to put it aside for a month and have another crack at it later. It's quite disappointing to have to do that but hopefully it's for the best and I'll go back and see exactly what needs doing and all will be well.

In the meantime, I've had a look through Do All Prey Dream? One of my short stories that's been sitting on my To Do pile for months. I've always been suspicious of it as it's the one story that came out near perfect in the first draft. Reading it again, I'm worrying if it's not a little bit boring. Really going to have to get some second opinions before I start sending it out to magazines.

Also written the first draft of a new story Promises, Promises. I'm happy with the first third but the rest needs work. It's not just the story it's the feel I really want to nail in this one. I want it bittersweet and I'm not sure as yet if I can achieve that.

Anyway, back to it.

Thanks for reading.

A Lonely Business

The redraft of part one is printing as I type, so that means I'm a third of the way through the book. I decided that now is a good time to go back and edit so for the next few weeks I'm going to be reading through the print out and trying to make the whole piece as good as good can be before moving on to Part 2.

Things have been moving so slowly recently to be bordering on depressing. My head's full of doubts is this any good, is it too long, am I wasting my time? All that jazz. I tried reading some online writer's advice pages to see if I could find anything that would cheer me up, convince me that all these hours I could be out having fun at the pub / generally bumming around isn't actually a complete loss. If anything they depressed me more; talk of how some agents don't even read the manuscripts they're sent, how unlikely it is to get picked up by an agent at all, they get hundreds of manuscripts a week. It does make me want to scream. It's like being one person in a vast herd, all of us screaming 'I'm different!' to the agents up on their balcony, just another face in the crowd.

But I suppose I've just got to have faith in myself. I'll never know unless I try, eh? Plus, I've worked a slush pile before and a good 90% of the stuff was quite rubbish, sloppy and only half finished. People who have written the first draft and been so excited at finishing they've sent it off already. So, I'm convinced that sitting here taking my time over it is going to pay off.

Well, I'm not convinced really. There's still the chance this is a pants novel and no one will like it and I really aren't that great. But I think that about all my work and those nice people from Murky Depths seemed to like it.

Argh, tis a lonely business this writing malarkey.

Thanks for reading.