The rest of the plan
The first glimpse of what I’m relying on the finish the second draft. This is the very cool ending I have in store for my characters.
Once this bit is done, the next job will be to post the synopsis right here at this little blog.
I am aware, by the way, that this is late on Christmas Eve. Welcome to the writing life.
Read MoreSong lyrics
This novel has a lot of music running through it, virtually all of which is fictional, which means I have to write a lot of song lyrics. This is a song by the fictional Martin Orville Elliott – a thinly disguised amalgam of two of my favourite musicians. I’m hoping “spot the influence” will one of the joys of reading the novel.
Read MoreThe home stretch
I may have already intimated this, but the second draft is far more intensive than the first. The first skimmed over details and left big blank holes, made curious intellectual leaps without much justification, and was generally rough as bags, as the saying goes. A lot of what I’ve been doing in the last month is taking great chunks of narrative, chopping them up into bits and redistributing them throughout the manuscript.
You know what I’m a shocker for? I write the big final scenes first without realising they are the big final scenes. I then struggle through the rest of the story trying figure out how I top those first scenes. Madness.
As evidenced by the posting of notes over the last few days, the hardest work is behind me. Now I’m in the fun process of tying up all the loose ends and steering everyone into the story’s climax. Traditionally this stuff happens quickly. As a reader, I always power through the last third of a story (good ones anyway) and writing is no different. The excitement is transcribed to the page.
The final third notes are in my hot hands and will soon post up here too. For some reason it doesn’t feel so weird exposing all my working notes to the strange little audience I pick up on this site. Not sure what anyone gets out of it, but I hope you all appreciate it.
By the way, with the novel ready for submission soon, this blog will take a strange turn in 2008. Get ready for the switch of hats, from writer to salesman.
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The Books
