Getting Ready for Book Talk

16 January 2014

Well, another week of 2014 has flashed by and although I’ve set aside an hour or so to tell you about it, I’m not sure I’ve achieved enough to warrant making a record. As I said last time, I put things on my ‘to do’ list but it just keeps getting longer and longer and making myself document things in this way only serves to remind me how little I seem to get done.
But throughout all this there is one ‘must do’ priority – and that is to continue writing. I was forcibly reminded of this on Tuesday evening when I went to Keighley to give a talk to Airedale Writers Circle. They had requested ‘A Defence Against The Dark Arts – Writers’ Block And How To Beat It’ which is undoubtedly the most popular of all my talks. In it I speak about what a writer needs to give up in order to write – what sacrifices will we have to make? All too often it’s the writing itself that gets sacrificed and I’m utterly determined that won’t happen to me. So the writing comes first - and if I manage to get anything else done, that’s a bonus.
So I’m making steady, if unspectacular, progress with AS DAD LAY DYING. Day 12 of the re-write and I’ve reached page 53. You might think that’s quite slow but this is a root and branch re-write in which I’m dissecting every line to squeeze the best out of it. I’m also looking to cut the word count substantially. I began with 110000 words and I want to get that down to below 100000. This is a good discipline as it’s making me tighten the prose more than I would otherwise have done and I’m hoping that it will read much better as a result. It needs to, as the original wasn’t that great. But that’s what you have to do, time and time again until it’s right.
Meanwhile, my blog tour for BIRDS OF THE NILE is underway and last week I kicked this off with Susan Buchanan. Tomorrow I will be the guest of Ben Warden and next Friday I’ll be with Lilas Taha in the States. Beyond that, I have nothing else in the diary but I’ve put a couple of feelers out and I’m awaiting replies. So when I said last week that I needed to focus on February, that was what I meant. Needless to say, acting on this has been one of the things to go by the board while I’ve continued writing. Do you remember those juggling acts where the artist was required to keep a dozen plates rotating on sticks? Now you know how I feel. I’m sure you feel the same.
Something I can’t afford to let go by the board is Book Talk. This is my new monthly radio spot with Elly Fiorentini on BBC Radio York (due to first go out on Monday 20th Jan between 4 and 4.30pm). In fact I spent yesterday afternoon preparing what we might talk about and emailing her my suggested format. I’m proposing to review two books each month plus do a bit of chat about local events. To start us off I’m going to be talking about THE UNIVERSE VERSUS ALEX WOODS by Gavin Extence (you may remember it’s my Book of the Year 2013) and then I hope to say a few words about THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield (the TV adaption was shown the other week). I’ve also decided to dedicate my blog to Book Talk in the future so I’ll be making some changes there too.
Busy times. No wonder I never seem to actually get anything done ...