This how relationships end

Nine years ago I was fortunate to find a really high calibre writing group. Four years ago I found a different, yet equally excellent, second group.

Prior to these groups, I’d been bumbling around trying to find people who could help me develop as a writer and hadn’t found what I was looking for. Just at that moment when I was deciding to actually start working towards publication, I finally found them. I feel very lucky.

What I’ve come to realise though, as 2013 has progressed, is that what I need has changed. It made me very sad to realise this, because it’s the natural precursor to me leaving them.

There are great people in both groups who I’ll no doubt only see at the occasional convention or book launch once I do. I will miss those wonderful guys and gals.

But, I’ve made some great friends who I hope I’ll know far into the future and that’s really been the added bonus of my writing group experience. I’ve grown as a writer and I’m proud of where my craft is at – very much thanks to all that feedback – but I didn’t have any writer-friends ten years ago and that’s a revolution in itself.

The re-write report – part 5

Not that the rewrite is going to stop once I start full-time employment again, but I figured I should get one more report out now as I’m sure it’ll slow down for a few weeks.

Yet another surprise in the rewriting process… I’m actually complete re-imagining a couple of chapters. There was a chunk coming into the last third of the book that were a bit fragmented and I realised I needed to do something more there. So, I girded the loins and made a start.

The funny thing is that I, of course, will now have a section which is all ‘first draft’. Which means I will be having to come back over these chapters with a very critical eye again sometime. Though, given how much I’ve altered in POVs etc that probably goes for the whole book.

I’m determined it will not turn into the edit-what-never-ends though!

Gleeful Morning Person

During a recent job interview, the potential-future-manager told me they had a flexible policy on start/finish times. I suspect I did a bad job of hiding how gleeful that made me.

Not that I’d ever take a role purely because I could choose to do early start/early finish, but oh my does it put a smile on my face when that’s an added benefit.

Being one of those terrible – and I sometimes think endangered – creatures known as A Morning Person, I love the opportunity to start early and be home by 5 or 5:30. Can you guess why?

Because it means I have time to unwind, maybe even watch a movie, definitely make dinner and still have 2-3 hours to write.

Sadly I didn’t get that job.  But I did get another one, so yay me!

The writing break is officially over.

The internal and external applications of Structured Chaos

Over the years I have developed a method for organising stuff, which works for me. I generally think of it as Structured Chaos.

It involves broad categories of stuff grouped together in containers. So, for example, there are plastic tubs for knitting paraphenalia and for long-hand notebooks. Within each tub, though, is complete chaos.

Funnily enough that’s how I write novels.

There are (mental/electronic) containers called Start, Middle & End, into which I put scenes covering major events. I keep adding scenes to the containers, in no particular order, until each container is full. That’s the first draft.

Now, in the physical world, tubs can get so full that I need a contents list or I’d never find anything. At a certain point in each novel I also do this with my writing tubs; creating a list of chapters that helps me see what needs fixing.

I don’t know if it surprises anyone that a writer’s internal life is reflected in the external, but I found it kind of amusing. Partly because I’d been successfully applying Structured Chaos to my writing long before I realised how to do it in my cupboards!

Oh dear, not again

In taking a break from the re-write I have, a few times over the past month, sat down with paper and pen to just see what ideas would come.  I love doing this, but the problem has been that in the course of playing with new ideas I’ve managed to hit at least 3 novel-sized ones!

Oh dear, not again.

I don’t have space to work on any more right now. Not to mention this is what got me stuck in the multiple-concurrent-project quagmire in the first place.

I swear novelists will be the first in line for brain-in-a-jar clones. Just as long as they’re hooked up to a stylus or direct story download system. Except most of us will be too poor to afford the top-end version so they’ll all be black-market knock-offs.

Hang on, I could write a novel about that…

The re-write report – part 4

I could have called this post ‘stuck in the middle’!

I have become bogged in a mire of middle-of-the-book chapters that need a bit of loving, but are refusing to work.

My writing demon and I have been having a stand-off about how much re-writing they need. He’s of the opinion that we should just leave them alone because no one seemed to notice their ugly, bumpy bits the first time round.  I, on the other hand, have an itch to get them all smooth and tidy. So now he’s gone on strike and is refusing to come down from the ceiling until I give in to his demands.

Pesky little so-and-so.

Still, for all that I’ve hit this patch of bumpies I’m still making progress around them. In fact I’m in spitting distance of the last section of the book. That’s going to be a whole different safari. I wrote most of that with a much more confident hand, but also in a greater hurry. Who knows what beasties will lurk among the foliage?

The re-write report – part 3

January saw the work on the re-write go on hold. Partly because of some other work and partly because I hit a chapter that just didn’t want to be re-written. A POV shift that works better for the story at that point, but that character wasn’t about to tell me what they wanted to say or do just then.

Once I got them sorted, it was all go. Now I’m about half way through the chapters!

The nice thing about being roughly in the middle, and having done some further tweaks to the already visited chapters, is that I feel like I’m not just making minor improvements. I actually feel like this will be a “superior version” to the original.

Of course that’s what you want with a re-write if you draft the way I do, but I was slow to hit my stride with getting the kinds of improvements I wanted.

 

Breaking good

The opening of February 2013 spells the close of my recent break from working life. As such I thought it’d be nice to talk a bit about what it’s meant for my writing.

Overall it was probably better for my reading than my writing (!) as I’ve been wearing a groove in my library card, but it was undoubtably good for the writing too:

• The Mansfield Park project began.
• The rewrite of the sci-fi novel has gotten a bit over the 3rd-way mark.
• I’ve written two short stories.
• A thousand odd words of something else flowed out of my pen too.

I’m feeling pretty ok about that.

It hasn’t been as productive as my break in 07 but I actually didn’t expect it to be because then I was focussed on finishing a novel, whereas this time I was after a recharge and time to spend on my house and garden as well.

Obviously, I won’t start a new job tomorrow so there’s space for a bit more writing to be done between sending out the resume and full-time employment. I have every intention of using that time to advantage!

The Next Big Thing

Earl Livings kindly tagged me for The Next Big Thing, giving me an opportunity to talk about the novel I’m currently re-working.

So here goes:
1.   What is the [working] title of your book?

It’s actually just called ‘The Sci Fi Novel’ right now.  I’ve given it different titles at different times, but to be honest I haven’t found one that’s stuck yet.

2.   Where did the idea come from for the book?

Where do ideas for books come from? I’m not sure, but with this book it was some mix of my interest in the Gaia principle and a fascination with telepathy.

3.   What genre does your book fall under?

Science fiction.

4.   What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Idris Elba to play Avin

Summer Glau to play Bo

Emily Blunt to play Zharn

Paul Bettany to play Fos

Michael Chilkis to play Krist

Moon Bloodgood to play Shakrel
5.   What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Zharn is a telepath, born on a sentient planet, and it is this long hidden truth that will change the lives of friends and enemies alike, as she is pursued across the Fdei System in the final act of a decades old persecution.

6.   Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I imagine it’ll end up self-published because it’s not a kind of sci-fi that’s fashionable right now.

7.   How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About 20 years! In reality I outlined the complete idea in my teens, started to write the novel in my 20s and then finally sat down to creating a proper manuscript in my thirties. It was a very stop-start process.

8.   What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Probably books like Asimov’s Nemesis and Alfred Bester’s My Destination the Stars.

9.   Who or what inspired you to write this book?

No one / nothing in particular.

10.   What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

For those who like themes, the core theme of the book is about the nature of freedom.  But it also has fights, mutiny, escapes, ghosts and a couple of different planets in it, as well as the odd tech touch.

Well, there you go, that’s my novel!

To continue the circle of Next Big Thing I’m tagging Ellen Gregory and Sofie Bird.

The rewrite report – part 2

So I’m up to chapter 22, and I’m still finding the process interesting.

The biggest challenge so far has been a very long chapter which was hard to wittle down to an appropriate length. It led to a lot of examination of how much each piece of information needed to be in there.  A lot goes on in that chapter so I was actually surprised when I realised it had reached the right length.

One or two chapters have shifted to a different POV (it’s a multiple POV novel), and that’s been interesting too. Shifting POV means, sometimes, finding clever ways to get in info that you need, but the POV character wouldn’t have known in the previous version.

There is nothing more satisfying than when you come up with an idea that ties in with a later event!

Other than that, it’s really all about voice and setting. Some chapters specifically voice, but pretty much all of them are getting setting tweaks.

There’s a whole other post coming about my relationship to setting, but all I can say about the rewrite, is that if the overall wordcount is a bit longer at the end it’ll be additional setting.