The Woodsman - A quick update

It’s been a little while since I posted on this.

I’m still finishing off the structural rewrite. There was not much that could be salvaged from the end other than the very loose skeleton of the story and so it’s taking longer than expected, despite me working on it every day. I’ve also had to add in some crucial extra scenes in order to pace the action better. It’s tricky work but I’m getting there - chapter twenty is nearly in the bag.

It remains to be seen whether it will be of commercial length or indeed more importantly worth.

Once that’s done it’s going in a virtual draw for a couple of weeks while I write some shorter material for the Arvon course I’m attending and then it’s back to it. I have to finish by August as I have the first draft of my second novel, Forever, sitting in a draw demanding to be turned into a second draft.

That’s where I am at the moment.

Ready for my close up

Assuming of course you’re shooting a film involving a bespecled, bearded chap dressed like a tramp and sporting a full set of luggage under his eyes.

Apologies for the lack of bloggage. It’s been a bit frantic this week with family stuff (Niece being born), work and my stuffing up my time management due to last week’s trip to Wales and thankfully I have tomorrow off. Which, judging from the amount of soy sauce I just spilt down my white shirt, is a good thing.

I have a list of things to be posting about that are backing up and so expect some content to be coming your way soon. Just caught a glimpse of myself in the monitor.

Oh lord, I look frightening today:

Not so much web 2.0 today as Hobo 1.0.

Sticky Bits

Things I learned this weekend:

- If feeding family home cooked ham with sticky bits it’s best to stand back
- Pineapple eaten whilst bouncing on a pink ball following a long walk induces labour
- A golden retriever can hear a banana being peeled at fifteen paces
- You don’t want to know what a sweep is
- Be careful what you leave lying on the kitchen counter
- Never ask G to navigate unless you like adventures in the valleys
- It is not possible to ask a question to which the answer “sticky bits” does not produce instant innuendo
- In the event sticky bits doesn’t work just ask my sister, E, how she likes her peri peri

Things What I Learned

I’ve been chattering on about my novel for long enough. Obviously some of this has – hopefully – imparted some wisdom along the lines of not doing what I do i.e. setting wildly unrealistic deadlines. However I’ve learned loads through this project, about myself, about writing and about fiction; mainly I’ve learned through mistakes and that’s part of what makes it fun. I thought it might be of use:*

1. There are no rules – The most important lesson, requires constant re-enforcing courtesy of a state education.

2. First drafts should be written as fast as possible – if you can’t write quickly at least separate the creative process from the editing process, for example: write in the morning, edit in the evening; or vice versa; or write in the week and edit at the weekends; you get the idea.

3. World building is not wasted time – if you’re writing other world fantasy or SF you need to generate as much material as possible here to avoid running out…quite literally…of ground around the middle of Act Two.**

4. Leave time between drafts.

5. Don’t leave too long between drafts – a fortnight is probably enough and if you leave it longer then you – like me – will find yourself working on the manuscript years after the first draft and rewriting simply to reflect what you’ve learned in the interim. At some point you have to move on.

6. Plotting by scene cards is really useful.

7. Plotting by scene cards is the devil’s work.

8. Plot happens whether you plan it or not. Go with whatever gets the thing finished.

9. Never try to incorporate a ideas that don’t ring true for you. Even if it’s meant to be a pastiche or tribute to another writer, include what’s true for you – you may even create something new and, even if you don’t, I guarantee your readers will thank you for it.

10. Copy edits are best done by reading the text aloud. That way you are forcing yourself to think as a new reader, if you can’t say it they won’t be able to read it.

And of course never forget the unwritten rule: always check you haven’t inadvertently picked a Kevin Bacon film as your story title.

*Although I’d encourage you to find out for yourself.
** Please believe me on this – you do not want to be doing research and redefining the landscape in the middle of drafts.

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Father’s Day

It’s father’s day. I probably should have mentioned that.

I’m never sure about blogging about stuff like this. On the one hand it’s nice to give your folks a shout online, makes them feel like they’re appreciated - and they are - but on the other hand lots of people don’t have their folks around anymore. I would imagine these days are hard for them.

All this is a long winded way of saying I did think before I posted this. I apologise if it makes anyone feel sad. It’s not the intention and yes: this post is mainly about my dad.

And so I wanted to post something about my Dad. There’s lots to thank my dad for, too much I fear, to go into here. However, as many of you know, reading is a big feature of my life, I buy books like most people buy pints…come to think of it in London they cost about the same…and it’s fair cop that one of the authors who has had the greatest impact on me is J.R.R.Tolkien.

Where is this going?

Well, along time ago, for me anyway, I was in a bookshop with my father. I was quite young and so if I was in a bookshop in those days it was with one of my parents. I had just passed the point where I was reading novels for myself, in my head, rather than out loud and I’d been chewing my way through Dahl, Blyton, the usual suspects.

And I remember this time because it was the first time my dad bought me a book.* For no other reason than to buy me a book. I didn’t pick it, he did. He brought back this small paperwork with silver writing on the spine and a dragon on the front cover. It was “The Hobbit”.**

And I never really looked back.

So here’s to you dad - hope you’ve had a great day.

* I should point out my mum also deserves a mention because without her I wouldn’t have learned to read at all. It sure as hell wasn’t my schooling.

** I still have that copy of The Hobbit now, although it’s rather more battered.

Deadline…what’s that?

Well, today has nearly gone. As expected I failed to finish The Woodsman today although I have managed to get to Chapter 17 - around eighteen thousand words to go. Of course - although it is a major rewrite - it is the third draft and so not quite as daunting as it sounds. Feel free to rib me mercilessly.

I’m probably a week to a fortnight of finishing the structural rewrite. Then, due to the amount of new material, I’ll need to do a line rewrite. The latter will probably have to wait a few weeks for me to distance myself from it a bit and then it’s off to my test readers. Hmm. Still seems like a lot.

My main aim now is just to finish the structural rewrite as soon as possible. Mainly because I haven’t really been writing any short stories - other than flash - while I’ve been working on it and I need to produce some in time for mid July. This is because I’ll be attending an Arvon course in late July, and I want to make sure I have some material to be ripped apart critiqued.

I wasn’t the only one who missed a deadline. Today is the day my brother’s daughter was expected to be born - I still can’t quite believe it: seems frightfully grown up. Anyway, I’m looking forward to going home soon and seeing everyone. It seems like ages since I was in Wales.

In other news, work is continuing on my new site. I’m struggling to find a theme that I want to use and so I’m considering whether a) I want to show advertising from day one or wait until the traffic is there and b) whether I want to just design the styesheet myself. To be honest I’m thinking I might be better off just getting content up there and worrying about a snazzy advertising integrated theme once I have the traffic.

Any ideas?

Time machine needed

So I’ve been working hard on the redraft of The Woodsman and managed to tidy up a major character’s exit without too many headaches.

However, it’s the 11th June today and my self imposed deadline of the 15th looks increasingly unrealistic. The structural changes were, on delving into the manuscript, far more substantial than I thought and I’m now basically rewriting the remaining four chapters from scratch. This means that I will need to do a final copy edit before the thing can go to my test readers.

Even if I did a copy edit on the back of finishing the rewrite (NOT a good idea) the manuscript is too long (probably going to wind up at around 85-90k) to do that in the time left. But bugger it, I’m too far along to quit now.

Trust me I’ll make some noise when it’s done.

In other news: I thought it was worth explaining why book reviews have all but disappeared of this site. Any new content that is, the old ones can still be found if you look for them.

The reason for this is not because I’ve gone mad and given up reading but because I am working on a new site project that will involve this type of content. I have the domain, the cms, the analytics and the hosting. I’m just working on the look and feel. As ever time is at a premium slowing things down to an annoying crawl.

Again, once it is in a workable state I will post about it here. What I can say is that like my reading it won’t be genre specific; anything will be fair game.

That’s it for now. I may post about the age banding proposal from publishers (about which I can and do rant at length) if I have…you’ve guessed it…time.

Wild Man

So it’s my birthday. Apparently I’m 29, that wasn’t in the script. I’d like to speak to my agent. Now.

I have the day off - never work your birthday - and as soon as I’ve finished this coffee I’m going to nail chapter fifteen to the floor. I had a quick glance at what else was happening in 1979: I knew about Thatcher coming to power, I had no idea Three Mile Island happened that year, I was bemused that Mountbatten shuffled off that year…or more accurately was kicked off and Star Trek The Motion Picture premiered. Of course, my source is wikipedia and I wasn’t exactly paying attention at the time so who knows what really happened.

Anyway, plans for today mainly revolve around not turning myself neon again, writing me a bunch of words, reading in my garden and consuming my own body weight in haribo (other sweets are available). If I’m feeling brave I may even pop to Greenwich.

Yes readers: I am a wild man.

M.O.T Monday

Another year, another M.O.T. After last time you’d think I’d be organised, find a reliable garage that would sort out my service without having to auction my kidneys. Alas, you’d be wrong.

What actually happened was that I managed, somehow, to be less organised than last year, phoning through my booking to Kwik Fit two days before the damn thing ran out. Why Kwik Fit? Well, I used them in the past, thought they were good, heard they were good and refused to use Ford after last year. Having confirmed with the bloke on the phone that they would definitely be able to do both the service and the MOT on the Saturday I felt reasonably confident I’d done job.

Oh how wrong can one man be?

Very, it turns out. First up I managed to get lost in Erith - just two miles from my house. Next on getting G to phone the garage we discovered that the chap who had helpfully taken the call had neglected to tell the manager or write it down. No booking, no MOT and around forty-eight hours until the certificate ran out.

I had a moment.

Next up G, ever calm under fire, has to phone around half of London to get an appointment in a suitable time frame. The good news is she finds one, the bad news is it’s Ford and it’s in North Essex. Remember: I got lost two miles from my house. North Essex is NOT two miles from my house. This was not going to end well.

And that’s how I found myself at 10AM this morning driving through Essex in the sunshine. Seriously, it could have been a disaster but it wasn’t, I managed to get there, drop the car off, wander round the town centre, amusing myself for several hours and wander back without so much of an incident.

I even managed to dodge getting landed with a massive bill.

Of course there is the minor detail, a tiny thing really, that being: you could currently fry an egg on my forehead. You see I was to busy wandering around enjoying the sun to remember that I didn’t have sun cream on, that I had left my hat in the house and too dumb to notice that I was starting to resemble a baked potato. Judging by the headache I’ve got I really over did it.

So that was Monday. All in all quite good. After all I’ll be saving money on gas tonight, for tonight Matthew I am the human grill.

Bargain.

Bombs Away

There was a bomb alert today, a few buildings up from my office in central London.

The cordon ran from about a foot from the entrance to my office up to the far end of the street, something like ten buildings long. I arrived to find a number of people milling around taking advantage of the drama to catch some extra UV before the rain takes hold again.

To be honest it wasn’t the alert itself that captured my attention. It was the reaction or lack there of. No one bats an eyelid now, we’ve had so many of alerts the typical reaction is oh there’s another one and (if it’s not close enough for us to be evacuated) the obligatory joke about moving down the far end of the office. In the event of an evacuation you’re more likely to hear people whinging about having to leave the office than worry about shrapnel.

And it just struck me that was a kind of cool thing about London. Maybe it’s true of other places as well, I don’t know. I just like the fact that London’s reaction to this kind of thing (terrorist threats) is a one-fingered salute and a return to discussing the football/apprentice/whatever. I like it because it’s so refreshing in an age when we’re told to be afraid of everything from Diet Coke to men with beards - it’s nice to see we still have some backbone.

Now if we could just get the trains to run on time…