It's Time To Stop Whingeing And Celebrate
30 January 2014
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks bemoaning the passage of time and regretting how little use I seem to make of it. You’re probably tired of hearing me tell you that I never get anything done. Today I’m changing my tune and instead of whingeing I’ve decided to celebrate. And the reason? I’ve finished rewriting Part Two of AS DAD LAY DYING well ahead of schedule. I’ve even given myself the day off from the desk so instead of this being written at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, it’s 8 o’clock in the morning. And there’s no greater testament to the way I feel than when I can afford to give up a day’s writing.
I started out with the intention of whittling the work down from 111000 words to under a hundred. Part Two (Elisabeth’s story) originally comprised some 26000 words of that and I’d set myself the task of reducing it to below twenty by the end of January. So far, I’ve worked 25 out of the 29 days of the month, Part One is down to 11000 words and yesterday I completed Part Two at just under 20000, on time and on target. Other things may have gone by the board, but the priority has been achieved.
I’ve learnt from my experience with BIRDS OF THE NILE not to be too precious about throwing words away – there’s so much dead wood you can get rid of. I remember when I rewrote the first section of that book and eliminated my ‘grammatical crutches’, ie. all those little expressions that make you feel comfortable about your writing. It was a ‘wow’ moment as I sensed the prose literally lifting of the page in front of me and I knew then that I’d become a genuine writer – it actually began to read like a proper novel.
I’m hoping to repeat that with AS DAD LAY DYING. The crunch will come when I re-read the re-write and I see whether I’ve been able to achieve the same effect. In the meanwhile I intend to keep going rather than make the mistake of going back to the beginning now. So tomorrow I start on Part Three (Frank’s story). That currently weighs in at close to 24000 words. I’ll need to read through it first to see if it’s properly paced. I know of one (small) piece that can probably come out but I don’t feel the need to cut this back so much as I did Part Two. A normal word cull and I suspect 22000 words will be ok. It’s a crucial part of the whole so I don’t want to skimp. My target this time is to get it done before Monday 24 Feb as I’m going away for a few days then and it would be great to do so with that out of the way. Then I can relax and enjoy myself.
I know I said I wasn’t going to whinge but as to other matters, I’m still some way behind. It’s quiet season for Lit Fests and I’d said I was going to focus on my online campaign for BIRDS OF THE NILE. I’d hoped to set up a Blog Tour with at least one a week. I’ve managed that for the first three weeks (my thanks to Susan Buchanan, Ben Warden and Lilas Taha) and I have a promise of one in Feb but beyond that I’ve arranged nothing else. I’m not sure how successful those first three were and I’m planning to conduct a review of my online campaign before committing myself to more. Despite some really encouraging reviews on Amazon (10x5*, 5x4* and 1x3*) online sales are not as good as they could be and I need to find an effective way of boosting them.
Face to face sales are a lot better and I need to continue that programme too. And although there are no Lit Fests at present (the season starts at the same time as F1, ie. March) if I don’t make bids now, I’ll have nothing to go to in April, May and June. So when writing was done on Tuesday I spent the rest of the day on the phone. I’m currently appearing at Kings Lynn and York in March and I’ve enquired about Scarborough in April. I’ve a spot at Doncaster in May and I’ve also put bids in for Helmsley, Lincoln and Darlington in the same month. Next bit of ‘free’ time I get I’ll be looking at June and thinking about Middlesbrough, Hebden Bridge, Leeds, Holmfirth and Grassington. Amazing to think that there’s so much literary activity within an hour or so’s travelling distance. I’ll keep you in touch as to progress.
Now it’s time to look at my emails. Yesterday I had 98 from Twitter alone. Oh joy ...
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks bemoaning the passage of time and regretting how little use I seem to make of it. You’re probably tired of hearing me tell you that I never get anything done. Today I’m changing my tune and instead of whingeing I’ve decided to celebrate. And the reason? I’ve finished rewriting Part Two of AS DAD LAY DYING well ahead of schedule. I’ve even given myself the day off from the desk so instead of this being written at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, it’s 8 o’clock in the morning. And there’s no greater testament to the way I feel than when I can afford to give up a day’s writing.
I started out with the intention of whittling the work down from 111000 words to under a hundred. Part Two (Elisabeth’s story) originally comprised some 26000 words of that and I’d set myself the task of reducing it to below twenty by the end of January. So far, I’ve worked 25 out of the 29 days of the month, Part One is down to 11000 words and yesterday I completed Part Two at just under 20000, on time and on target. Other things may have gone by the board, but the priority has been achieved.
I’ve learnt from my experience with BIRDS OF THE NILE not to be too precious about throwing words away – there’s so much dead wood you can get rid of. I remember when I rewrote the first section of that book and eliminated my ‘grammatical crutches’, ie. all those little expressions that make you feel comfortable about your writing. It was a ‘wow’ moment as I sensed the prose literally lifting of the page in front of me and I knew then that I’d become a genuine writer – it actually began to read like a proper novel.
I’m hoping to repeat that with AS DAD LAY DYING. The crunch will come when I re-read the re-write and I see whether I’ve been able to achieve the same effect. In the meanwhile I intend to keep going rather than make the mistake of going back to the beginning now. So tomorrow I start on Part Three (Frank’s story). That currently weighs in at close to 24000 words. I’ll need to read through it first to see if it’s properly paced. I know of one (small) piece that can probably come out but I don’t feel the need to cut this back so much as I did Part Two. A normal word cull and I suspect 22000 words will be ok. It’s a crucial part of the whole so I don’t want to skimp. My target this time is to get it done before Monday 24 Feb as I’m going away for a few days then and it would be great to do so with that out of the way. Then I can relax and enjoy myself.
I know I said I wasn’t going to whinge but as to other matters, I’m still some way behind. It’s quiet season for Lit Fests and I’d said I was going to focus on my online campaign for BIRDS OF THE NILE. I’d hoped to set up a Blog Tour with at least one a week. I’ve managed that for the first three weeks (my thanks to Susan Buchanan, Ben Warden and Lilas Taha) and I have a promise of one in Feb but beyond that I’ve arranged nothing else. I’m not sure how successful those first three were and I’m planning to conduct a review of my online campaign before committing myself to more. Despite some really encouraging reviews on Amazon (10x5*, 5x4* and 1x3*) online sales are not as good as they could be and I need to find an effective way of boosting them.
Face to face sales are a lot better and I need to continue that programme too. And although there are no Lit Fests at present (the season starts at the same time as F1, ie. March) if I don’t make bids now, I’ll have nothing to go to in April, May and June. So when writing was done on Tuesday I spent the rest of the day on the phone. I’m currently appearing at Kings Lynn and York in March and I’ve enquired about Scarborough in April. I’ve a spot at Doncaster in May and I’ve also put bids in for Helmsley, Lincoln and Darlington in the same month. Next bit of ‘free’ time I get I’ll be looking at June and thinking about Middlesbrough, Hebden Bridge, Leeds, Holmfirth and Grassington. Amazing to think that there’s so much literary activity within an hour or so’s travelling distance. I’ll keep you in touch as to progress.
Now it’s time to look at my emails. Yesterday I had 98 from Twitter alone. Oh joy ...
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