Monthly Archives: December 2012

End of Part 2

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Somewhat to my surprise, I've chomped through the whole of the rest of part 2 this afternoon.  I am significantly happier with it than I have ever been; I need to do my timeline chart again to see how much different it looks; but it feels to me as if something significant has changed in the structure.

The next job is to fire up Smashwords and see if I can make it Kindle friendly, so I can press it on unsuspecting victims, and have them read it to tell me what I've missed out which needs to go back in; there will definitely be some of that, but I refuse to worry about it.  That which I feared I would never be able to do has, in fact, been done, and in time for the new year, too.

2013 marks 10 years since I first sketched out an idea for a short story.  It would be really nice if I spent the year trying to sell the thing rather than trying to endlessly rewrite it.  Stay tuned; and if you have a Kindle and fancy reading two-thirds of a novel, just let me know

Oh, and Happy New Year (we're not there yet, but it's not so far away now)

 

Revised word count: 86,168 - down from 97,742: nearly 12%.  Pretty much on track...

Progress

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It's slow - well, today it has been quite surprisingly rapid, but generally, it's slow.

However, a solid day at it, and I can see the light.  The monkey on my back is showing signs of moving.  It's not gone yet, but things are improving.  My problem has been that I know part 2 is uneven and poorly structured, and I haven't had the willpower to do anything about it.  Well, this afternoon, I sat down, put on the Last Night of the Proms from the summer, and started work on it.

It's not easy; much needs to come out, but I really think it's working.  In the course of the afternoon, I have radically reshaped the first chunk of Part 2, and done the painful bit - ruthlessly editing some of my favourite parts, so that the story can flow without repeating much of what has already been said.

I've just added things up - I've taken 11% of the existing text out, which is more or less what the books say should happen when you rewrite, and much to my surprise, I really like how it feels now.  I'm perhaps a third of the way through rewriting part 2, but it feels right; it has a balance and a flow which has never been there, and my fear that we don't get to know Anne well enough turns out to be baseless; in fact, by trimming some things, I think she becomes a more believable person; a little less eccentric, and more likely to do the things she does.

More tomorrow?  Bring it on.

 

Rewritten word count: 41,757.  Down from 46,408.  This is a good thing.

Getting Back on track

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Many things have happened since the last update, some of them related to getting this book written, but over the last couple of work-free (or work-free-ish) mornings, I have actually started to make progress.

One of the key things which has become clear to me is that my old beginning, derived entirely from the original short story, didn't work in the context of the rest of the first part - it was too choppy, and too eager to answer some of the questions, rather than letting the reader wonder about things.  I'm delighted to say that I have finally taken the plunge, rewritten the first 10 pages or so, and changed the opening so it has a bit more drama about it.

It's one thing to know these things have to be done, quite another to make yourself actually sit down, think about them, and do them.  What's also clear to me now is that I need to continue this process through the whole of Part 1, and with any luck, move smoothly on to the mental block I have about part 2.  It's really starting to move again, aided in no small part by encouraging noises I hear from people who have read bits.

No-one ever said it was going to be easy.

New opening line:

Andrew was tense, sweaty and lost.

 

Word count of Draft 4:  5,190 - it's going to be a long road, but I'm finally on the path that all the textbooks tell you is there...