Productivity
A good day so far with the real work hours still to come. Have mapped out three of the four story strands now, almost completely.The current idea runs something like this. Four story strands run more or less independently of each for two thirds of the story. The last third everything is intertwined as each story climaxes more or less simultaneously.The nature of the story also means that some fairly major story strands actually aren’t resolved, at least not in a neat packaged Da Vinci Code kind of thing.I’d be interested to hear if any bloggers have strong feelings about unresolved storylines. Exciting? Irritating? Do they make you prone to violence?
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Print off
I did the first print off of the manuscript this evening. A hundred or so pages (it’s in separate files at the moment so the page numbers aren’t continuous). Essentially this is the first stage of editing. I’ve got a whole bunch of good material that’s all over the place. Yes, my plan is in tatters, as I knew it would be. I need to rethink how the bits I have will fit into the manuscript. The good news is I have a very clear idea of what it will be. I just need some time to sit down with it and hack and slash. To be honest I actually take a rather perverse pleasure in hacking up my own work. I’d much rather scribble over a printed page than stare at a cursor blinking over pure white.
Read MoreWhere was I?
Oh right. Yes, I’m still in the Valley. Been spending the last few weeks fixing up old text rather than boldly going.
Also been putting together submissions for journals, anthologies, etc. That takes time, you know. And it takes time away from writing fiction. And blog posts.
So anyway, I’ve hit that point where I’ve got a good hundred or so pages to a point where I’m not exactly happy, but I’ll let it slide. now I’ve got to figure out how the rest of the story will go.
I have notes. Didn’t I post them here some time ago?
This is the problem with making notes, at least for me. They’re so terribly unreliable. My current chapter summaries are really for a different story to the one that’s emerging in my word processor.
Hence the reevaluation.
Did I mention this novel has interesting links to music? It actually contains original songs with scores and stuff. I’ll post more later because, frankly, the music side can be really distracting from the difficult business of actually being a writer, which is really what I’m supposed to be. I’ll always have in my defense that i cut my teeth publishing short stories. This is a novel.
I must be nuts.
Read MoreThe Books
