The first draft of the novel is done. It’s been a hard slog – at times painful, at times enjoyable – but it’s done. There’s still a long way to go – there’s lots of editing and redrafting to do – so I’m not celebrating just yet. Well, not properly. I have lots of work ahead including the three REs – research, restructuring and rewriting. As for research, I did some before but now I know what the story is I know what I need to get more information on; restructuring – lots of moving things about, putting characters into the past who are in the present, and so on; rewriting – adding words, taking words away (the delightful ‘kill your darlings’ time), improving or smoothing over what is already there (sanding away any words that snag). As has been said many times before by other writers – writing is editing. But when you’re dealing with a novel-sized beast rather than a short story-sized one, it’s a bit more daunting, mainly because there can be ramifications to your edits (as with the butterfly effect – the theorised flapping of the butterfly’s wings leading to the possible formation of hurricanes). But before all of that a bit of distance, a bit of down time and then… back in for the second round.
Month: January 2014
Round-up
Seeing as I haven’t updated this blog in a while, here’s a little round-up of what’s been going on over the past couple of months. On 27th November I took part in a reading for Red Room at Blackburn Library along with Elizabeth Baines, Sarah Dobbs and Carys Davies. The event was a huge success with a warm and engaged audience of Bronte lovers and it was particularly nice to chat to people afterwards – including a couple of people who decided to challenge themselves and re-read Jane Eyre before coming along.