The Word Cloud

I curse you, overtime, for I have seen my husband for 30 minuets today as he has come home from working overtime and then left on a call out.He is not a doctor on call he is an electrican; someone needs a light bulb changed forty miles away. I do not mean this in a sarcastic way, that is genuinely the reason he has been dragged out of bed, I curse the Gods of Health and Safty.
I do get time to write, but then I write when he is here anyway, so no real win there.
I have been editing my fantasy novel and have updated the start with a passage I found very hard to write, due to it's rather violent nature; funny when writing what are inocuous words in this context made me actualy feel a little sick; is that the best way to start a book?
I have also been trying to write a synopsis for my finished contemporary novel 'At night all cats are grey,' which I am going through withdrawal from at the moment; having finished it a few days ago, finished the fourth edit anyway; I have sent it to a friend to read and am waiting for her feeback and missing my characters. I want a second opinion because it's vital, I want to hear that she likes it; but in an odd way I would really like her to say it needs more, so that I can go back and write some more scenes in it, because I miss hanging out with them! (Of course, I also fear that she will send them all to the dustbin of history, as am now too close to remain objective) To keep myself going I am having a second go at writing a synopsis, one has been a damp squib as I had missed the point that I need to make it grab an audience and stuck to a pedestrian retelling of the plot; so don't read that one, read this one. Only now I am scared, in case this sounds dull too, I must be brave, if they need a massive rewrite, so be it. Courage mon Brave, as Del Boy might say...
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'In then end, I asked him for a new rug, neglecting to tell him it was to cover the bloodstain. Geoff had never noticed it but I knew it was there even though I had the floor sanded and sealed twice with all the diligence of Lady Macbeths’ dry cleaner.'

 

The trouble with Saskia Coopers very twenty-first centaury divorce is that everyone involved has been so damed reasonable about it. Her ex-husband Geoff, who asked her to marry him so he had a good story to tell about 9/11 having missed the main event; and who left her four years later for Michael, is still the only man in her life; good for their daughter, bad for her. A talented artist with nothing to make art about, she is adrift in a world of pushy soccer mums and interior decorating, a world away from her grey little English childhood and her decadent younger days in early ninties New York.

            A chance encounter in a lower East side strip club she has been commissioned to decorate, brings her into contact with Danko, a charming, foul mouthed, macho Russian ex-con fifteen years her senior and twenty pounds heavier than he ought to be. Despite herself she lets him seduce her and they embark on a passionate affair that both embarrasses and thrills her; much to Geoff’s disgust and despite his attempts to break them up. Sensing danger but addicted to the thrill of her sexual reawakening and the shared experience of mutual revelation with Danko; she finds her creative energies soar as their relationship spirals into a darker place and it becomes a struggle to hold onto what was good against the drag of both the past and the present. Saskia never looses her dry sense of humor, even as tragedy and betrayal threaten as she wrestles with the dilemma: can a man who does bad things still be a good person; and does she really want him to be?

‘It’s truly amazing what you can find out about on u-tube.’

Sometimes...

Well, it's not the writing I hate, but the rewriting.

I just finished editing Mirror, Mirror today and sent it off to the ABNA competition, as well as an agent I've been corresponding with.  

I should be happy, shouldn't I? 

I keep telling myself that.  Self-editing is a horrible experience.  As I went through the novel, I had to keep telling myself to be ruthless, to remember to do all those things I do when I'm critiquing/editing other people's work.

I'm not happy.

I hate my book.  I didn't before.  To be completely honest, I don't exactly hate it, but as I edited, I found myself protesting as much as I have with editors who have edited my short stories (not my wife - she's always right - but I don't like having her edit too much of my work.  It's a waste of her time, if I don't earn any money from it.  Saying that, of the two stories she's edited, one was almost published, and the second will be in February.)

No, I meant those editors who are also writers of bad fiction and think they know what they are doing.  How did I protest?  By remaining silent as they neutered my prose.  I kept thinking that they must have known better than I, since they were published.  

Then I read one of their stories.  That was a big mistake.  My fingers would have been covered with red ink, not to mention the floor after I slit my wrists. No wonder the publisher went belly up, but I have a feeling that was more from poor marketing.  (Yep, just stick something up on Lulu and someone will buy it.  Wrong.  They never even bothered buying the distribution package that would have had their books listed on Amazon. I insisted that they took the plunge for my novella, but four chapters into the edit, the company was finished.)

Where is this going?

I would rather the editor told me what to do and where to do it.  (Aside from sticking my ms up my backside.)   But until I can afford a regular editor, or a publisher does it, I'm stuck self-editing.  

But why do I hate my book?

Because the more I look at it, the more I want to change.  At a certain point, the scale tips, and I think, why do I bother in the first place?  This is such a stupid book.  It's so embarrassing.  I just want to start all over again.  I'm a better writer than this.

"Steve, you've really set my imagination on fire, I love this." 

That was what one of my readers said.  Now, I don't trust it.  Her reading was before my last two edits, but I didn't change the story substantially.

It is all about trust isn't it?

Trust your readers.  Trust your editor.  Most of all, trust yourself.  Don't wind yourself in knots over editing - or by over-editing.  At some point in the process, you have to give it up.  It is finished.  As a composer, I was able to do that, but as a writer, it's harder, because the feedback is more immediate. I can imagine the sound of an orchestra, but it is difficult to judge until I hear a good performance.  Writing prose takes out the middle-man. You see the end product on your computer screen.

It's finished.  You should be happy.

The odds don't favour me winning the competition, but it's the feedback from the agent that I'm more worried about.  He loved my pitch, but will he love my novel?  From that angle, writing the book was the easy part.

Imagine reaching the summit of a peak only to find that you stand on a ridge a quarter up the mountainside.

Ok, so the novel is finished.

But then I need to convince an agent of its worth, who will hopefully place it with a publisher, who will send it back to me for more editing, and more editing, and ... eventually it hits the shelves.  If it is a good publisher, then comes marketing, book signings, readings, interviews.  That's if it make it. Otherwise, it becomes a dusty nothing that languishes on the shelves of the poor shop owner who dared to try it. 

Still, I should be happy to have finished it.

Yes, if you insist.

I've not been around here for a good couple of weeks now - and I am doing it for a good reason.

I need to write.

I need to write without distraction, without worrying about critique (that can come later!), without fretting over too many adverbs or whether I am using the passive voice. Basically, I need to grow some self discipline, and the way I am going to do it is by going cold turkey; rather than wiling away the hours buggering around on the 'net pretending I am going to write later, I am only going to turn on my laptop to check emails and type things up. So far I have completely re-structured one of my fantasy tales (I'm going to concentrate on that for now. The Pratchett competition was a pipe-dream: there ain't no way I was ever going to get that done, and so I am going for my YA story now, with Black Smokers as my back up. I just think I have a better chance with the YA tale overall) and have written an in-depth outline and character bios (along with their motivations) as well as changing a few key plot lines so they make more sense. I'm 17,000 words in now, and I'm not stopping until I hit at least 70,000.

So no more mucking about. By the time I come back here, I want my first draft done, even if it is just a scrappy piece of shit. No excuses.

Thank you everyone for all your help and support so far - it has been invaluable (and has probably helped me shave a little bit of my editing time down). I hope all of your projects are going well!

Take care and I'll hopefully see you all soon,

Ely

xx

I spent a load of time on Authonomy reading and commenting today.  It's hard to summon the energy to read when so much of it is so awful, not my genre, or poorly-written.

Today was thankfully different.  I read 3-4 chapters of three novels, and I backed every one of them, replacing some that I'd only reluctantly shelved last month.  Then, I started looking for another to read, since I was on a roll.  Crime novel, serial killer, more crime, depression ... okay, that was it.  No more today.  So many people are writing about killing now, and I find that so depressing.  Yes, crime sells.  I even wrote a short yesterday about a serial killer, but that had an unusual kick in the tail, which I won't describe - and won't post here because it was written under a pseudonym.

It's all procrastination right now.  Business is slow, so I should be taking advantage of it and finishing the first draft of my novel, only 2 chapters/ca 15K words to go.  Easy peasy.  All the hard stuff is written ... but I find the easy stuff even harder.  I want it to be more than just filler, one little stop along the way to the climax (already written), so I put it off, write a 100 words, put it off again, skip to the next chapter, intending to come back.  I don't want my reader to zone out - like I have - so I wait for inspiration, and wait, and wait.

Maybe I'll go down and watch the Olympics.