A Quarter of a Century

It's my birthday today. Quarter of a century. That sounds old so lets stick to 25.

I always see birthdays as my new year. I can either restart any resolutions or think of new ones. I seem to be doing pretty well with most of them. The driving is progressing - the theory test is in 2 weeks time, going to the gym and losing weight is one of those longer-term goals and the editing is progressing, slower than I thought but these things can't be rushed. The whole writing one story per month is a bit of a squeeze so I am adapting it to be 'write something new every month.' This will include non fiction too. 

Image from Google - searched for 'birthday.'

Inspiration for Chapter Two

Chapter two started life as a short flash fiction published over at Six Sentences last year. Full Stop. I remembered struggling to write the chapter and ended up creating a smaller piece. This was a turning point in the story as I hadn't yet decided on having two voices for the novel but ay that moment I realized that I wanted to tell both sides of the story. So I wrote the one of the Character A, living in the city first. All the 'odd' number chapters. This took the longest - she seemed to be a harder character than I first imagined. However, Character B's chapters were pretty quick to write. I knew where she was heading too even though the second chapter was really hard to write. Using shorter fiction to explore the chapter helped me think more about what I wanted to say.

I am currently editing chapter five. There are a lot of scribbles across the first draft. Plus I introduce three new characters in this one and seem to have forgot about one when I wrote the rest of the plot. Is introducing three characters in the space of one chapter too much?

One of the cats is currently using chapter five as a bed. At least the pages will be warm. They are heading back to their Mummy tonight. The zoo  My house will be empty.

A Bus Stop Reader

Hello to the person who is visiting me from a Bedford Bus Stop. I googled the postcode and found you. Hope you have caught your bus by now because Bedford is a scary place when the streetlights go out.

P.S. Watch out for a learner in a Fiat 500 in the Bedford area - I am still struggling with controlled braking. Only kidding. I only mount the curb if there is a chav walking past. Only kidding, again. I can drive. Just about!

Another Coming Soon Post

My snowman love story will be making an appearance over at Metazen. This should around the beginning of March. This was the first story I wrote after finishing the first draft of the novel.

Also, I will be appearing at Teresa's blog at the beginning of March. I will be writing about my writing process in Teresa's How do you Write? series.

It is also my birthday soon - quarter of a century! I planned to retire at 25 when I was younger. Somehow, I don't think this will be happening.

Editing Update

It's quite curious how this novel needs varying levels of redrafting. Some need reworked sentences or paragraphs removed while other chapters need to be tossed aside, ready for a better version. I have already convinced myself there will be another BIG edit after this edit. I want to make it as good as possible.

Chapter One  was clunky and full of false starts. I have saved back some information. I don't want everything being explained in the first chapter. There needs to be a reason for reading onwards.

Chapter Two did not need too much work. some of the paragraphs needed swapping around at the start but other rather that, it seems to flow okay.

Chapter Three needed a small section taken out - it didn't advance the story - Still need to add notes, changes and additions to my 'draft 2' file.

Chapter Four has had to have a complete makeover. Back to the foundations and start again. It has been a bit of a headache but the big chunk of flash back in the middle broke up the 'present action' - I am currently experimenting with feeding it in with the action .

The First Edit of Chapter One (I)

I have done the first edit for chapter one - I am already thinking about the next edit - breaking down into scenes - looking deeper.

I have used wordle to help me first, create a nice pattern out of the words in chapter one but second, to also help me see which words I over use (ones in the big font) - ouch 'LIKE' is one. Must remember to stop using it too often.

Now, back to the second chapter.

Coming Soon

My first submission of the year has also become my first success of the year. woohoo. My short piece of fiction, Sandbox, about the world drowning in sand, will appear around April time on The View From Here website and then again in the print edition in May.

My second submission of the year is still in an inbox in the internet world. It is quite a seasonal story (about snow) so I have a feeling that this story will be rejected. Fingers-crossed that they say yes. The story is also a love story (my one and only romantic story so far) so they might like it for Valentine's day.