Silver linings

The broken crankshaft of the Hamnavoe - the Scrabster-Stromness ferry to Orkney - was a nuisance by which we lost a day's time there, but we were able to travel on the boat from Aberdeen to Kirkwall instead.  
The return journey allowed me to take some early morning photographs of the entry to Aberdeen's harbour and make notes about the experience of sleeping aboard - all useful background information for 'Not wanted on voyage'

Acknowledgement

I always felt the long list of acknowledgements for assistance in the writing of a novel, increasingly  prevalent it seems, was just a tiny bit pathetic - after all, if they were proper writers surely they could  do it all themselves?

Humbled, I now know different.   A complete stranger, met only through the good offices of the 'whole MS read-swapping' group at WriteWords, not only read the whole of my second draft of 'Not wanted on Voyage', she also made sixty-one comments.   Some were a treat, noting phrases she particularly liked (and henceforth I will always include them in any critique I do), some were small but vital (like pointing out I'd written 'Madigan' when I'd meant 'Mirabel') and several were "too much show, not enough tell".

Having dealt with the minor points I am now tackling these larger ones and already I can see that I am making vast improvements.  Yes - I am making them, it is still my book, but I might not have done so had it not been for her pointing them out, and so I will gladly include her name among other acknowledgements.

And I am very slightly less trepidatious knowing this will be the novel I shall, in September, be handing first to a 'book-doctor' and then pitching to an agent at the York Festival of Writing.

When the going gets tough ...

... or even just because I want to ... And it isn't even procrastination really, just a minor diversion, but this is the (current) version of the cover for the book to follow 'Not wanted on voyage'.   Only a third of it written so far, but I'm wanting to get on with it, which is why I've been head down trying to finish final drafts of both NWOV and 'Making good', the fourth (and possibly, last) in the Bridie and Sean series.

Darn it! - a plot hole discovered

"Although it's likely Walpole will have cleared it up" Madigan, one of my characters says, speaking of possible blood and gore.

But there's been no mention by her, or any of her three companions, that Walpole has been involved in anything.

I know it - it's my story.
The reader knows it - the scene appeared earlier.
These folks, in discussion in the bar, do not know of it.
Damn.
I have to tell them, before page 193.

Counting drafts

And no, not the sort that currently waft through even the double glazing today, swirling the polystyrene snow (and yes, I do know they're spelt differently)

Today I finished reading the revisions I'd made after three read-throughs of  'Holding steady', the second full-length novel in the Bridie and Sean series (strictly speaking, the first three were novellas) and have now put it aside to prove for a bit, while I get on with doing much the same for 2011's NaNoWriMo, 'Not wanted on voyage', which started with the intention of being a sort of detective novel but I fear has a hefty dose of romance within it.

So much so that when a friend thought the cover 'very masculine' I knew it had to be tweaked.

I also finished reading, lunchtime, Jane Rusbridge's 'The devil's music' - recommended (I think) in a Spectator review and bought in Wells nine days ago.  Certainly merited the five stars I awarded in on Goodreads.   Certainly makes me aware of the overly-explained nature of some of my writing.

Progress report - week 18

Readying my report for Write 1 Sub 1 - and aware that in not actively seeking nor being paid for anything I write I consider myself something of a dilettante - it seemed not a bad idea to note where I am so far with current projects:
'Damage limitation' (113k words/396 pages)  - the fourth in the story of Bridie Burdock and Sean Donovan, is ready to re-publish, having been copiously read, re-read and corrected since last July.
'Not wanted on voyage' (128K words/378 pages) - I am trying to publish as to-be-proofed.
'Making Good' - a follow up to 'Damage limitation', currently 38K but I need the characters to begin talking to me again.
'The longest shadows' - currently the preferred title for what is at the moment filed under 'Susannah Elphinstone', a story spurred into being at the beginning of February by one of Lisa Ricard Claro's Book Blurb Friday photographs, further inspired by the discovery of a photograph of a house from my own past and happily progressing - wordcount currently 31K.
It's also pleasing to note that I am trying harder with this latest one to both think a bit more about the plot in advance and include a little more description.
Finally, as I stated in my previous post,  'The blacksmith's wife'  looks set to continue beyond May 11th and currently stands at 1300 words.

Playing with covers again

Having almost completed the first draft of last November's NaNoWriMo novel, and had extremely useful advice from the Blurb Help Team, I'm shortly going to upload this as a proof copy.   It'll be a 6" x 9" Trade book, running to some 360 pages, and at £11+P&P (~£7) it's not a cheap way of producing books but such is vanity.
The final background colour of the cover might change - this worked as a mock up and I quite like it but other colours might, with experiment, look better (and the ships will be the same size ...)

Not Wanted [7] - today's favourite version - and [8]

I have to say I prefer these to the one posted in October ... but there'll doubtless be several more

This has a slightly out-dated feel to it in some ways;  has the look of books my father, a librarian, used to bring home, when book covers had more appeal than their content. I'd have been around eleven at the time ...maybe, but cannot find an example of what I'm remembering in my copy of 'Front Cover'(Alan Powers) 

Book Blurb Friday - truly inspirational!

I made no secret of the fact that my NaNo novel was kick-started by a response to Lisa Ricard Claro's Book Blurb Friday over on Writing in the Buff but I have just checked and as well as #16 ('Not wanted on voyage') I have included characters from #4 ('Thickness of thieves' where Luke Darbyshere and Francesca Lloyd made their first appearance), #5 ('Smile now darling, just for me' which has photographer Davey and the shivering model Fay) and #9 ('Seeing double', Rose Madigan's first appearance).   BBF #13 ('Angels fall') has more Luke and Francesca and there is also a nod back to #15 ('Parts others cannot reach').
I can thoroughly recommend the challenge as an inspiration for plots - and I shall be making an effort with this week's because Lisa is using one of my photos.
And congratulations to Lisa who has reached her NaNo total, despite having been 20,000 words behind schedule at one point.

Day 29 NaNo - 77713 - and verified

In panic mode I have put in all the notes I have made re the endings and the whole thing into one document, and hastily written a final paragraph which tells the ending completely without elegance or subtlety.  And this is the total for NaNo purposes.   But it is a LONG way from finished.   And NaNo have marked my total up by a bit too.

Day 28 NaNo - 72067

Not so much new stuff created today as already-written snippets slotted into place thus enabling them to be counted.

Day 27 NaNo - 70797

Working towards the finale ... and tidying up the anomalies!

Day 26 NaNo - 69698

850 words from today's total were the sort that makes writing so satisfactory:  having had a note in my text, saying "sort confrontation with Peter Walpole" for over a week, which I had found impossible to make progress on, suddenly this morning it all came good and ideas tumbled out.   That and a less-than-enthralling arrest mean that nearly all the loose ends should be tied by next Wednesday ... fingers crossed.

Day 25 NaNo - 67179

Another solid day's typing and a couple of satisfactory long passages which make more sense of the rest.   Thus I believe I will have the bare bones of the story in place by the end of the month while knowing that they are inadequately fleshed.   A mixed sort of satisfaction, partly because I have done better than I expected at putting some of the plot elements in place - at concealing and then revealing, and at explaining - but as so often happens, having reached one rung up the next beckons.   My hope is that I can maintain momentum to get the thing finished properly.

Day 24 NaNo - 64157

Pessimism and the art of patchwork novel writing
I began with lots of brand new, brightly patterned and totally separate oddments of characters, and gaily stitched them all together.   Quite soon I found that they were mis-matched for size, some paired into a nice tidy square and were complete, while others needed a whole new piece or two before they were a section.
And then I found that although while separate they were OK, all the pieces could not be simply stitched together, just as they were, to make a pleasingly-patterned whole, they needed to be cut and cut again and reassembled so that equal weight was more or less assigned to all.   And in between each one I needed to insert a piece of plain to sometimes add contrast but also to unite.
And now it's sort of almost done, except that I have omitted almost one whole column and two halves of other rows, and the contrast/uniting pieces are inadequate, in places.    And today I wondered whether or not I really wanted such a mish-mash of a piece at all?

Day 23 NaNo - 62209

It's been a head down slogging sort of day, progress made, reasonably happily but rarely singing.   Time for that on the next draft I think.
Last year I finished on the 22nd with 61917 words, this year there is lot more to do yet.

Day 22 NaNo - 59050

A MUCH better day - all done with long conversations in which plot details and reasons are being revealed, and yesterday's half-baked snippets were made to fit, and tweaked so as to read better too.   Thursday is three quarters done, Friday about a third.   Saturday is the day for all the loose ends to be tied up, fingers crossed, and Sunday they arrive back in Leith - a couple more surprises and The End.
[Except there are at least two more couples whose tale has to be woven in later, post NaNo.]

Day 21 NaNo - 55288

Considering I've been sat at the computer for hours today I have very little to show for it.   It's mostly been playing put and take, trying to shoehorn conversations and snippets of action into the right day so that they all progress nicely.   But they don't and I have come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is go and read a book.

Day 20 NaNo - 54541

A useful day, albeit unsatisfying.   Useful insofar as I drew up a spreadsheet of what happens when so as to get some idea of when to leak clues in; unsatisfactory because I then did little more than write scrappy outlines notes for each day.   I also completely re-wrote a description of top baddie - having last night made him little better than a stereotype I realised this morning that he just would not do as a 'real' effective person.

And from another site I learnt of the existence of the Writer's diet, which checks the 'leaness' or otherwise of a piece of writing.    Interesting and useful.

Day 19 NaNo - 52446

Slowly making progress ... I think.