It's been a long time

Hey kids,

Sorry I've been so absent. Do you ever go through stages of just not being able to write? That's how I've been for the past year or so. I go through stages of either writing loads or reading loads. I've been through a lot of books this year and am currently reading Claire E. Smith's The Duke's Trumpet. A gripping read so far but because I would talk with her as she was writing and planning the novel it's made me realise that I need to get on with mine.

It's been long enough now that I've had time to get my head around Sanctuary. I know the technological advances I'm going to make to the base and the characters. I just need to get the peril sorted.

Another friend of mine said she was planning on writing a novel and it got us talking. I said that I wanted to get back to writing 750 words per day but it was so difficult when I wasn't inspired. She said that instead of trying to write some of the novel every day, just work on it. Genius! So I've just finished an hour-long planning session in the middle of my day.

I think I'll be back for a while now. I'm feeling inspired. I want to get this draft written and beta'd to see how it pans out. I'm currently writing a scene-by-scene plan that I can follow. I think there's one plot thread missing, but hopefully I'll be able to find that before I finish. It's the piece of the puzzle that will cause peril and give the characters something to fight for.

I'm now self-employed (woohoo!) so finding time to write should be much easier... in theory.

Improving on your first drafts

If you've read some earlier posts on this blog then you may know that I might not be the best at taking critique. Mainly because I've never had to do it before. My writing had always been for me and only me, that was until I began Sanctuary. I want to get it published so it's with beta readers.

Since sending it to those readers I've realised where I've made technical errors, I've learned more about structure and I've realised that the beginning chapters are too sparse and need fleshing out. I need more description and I need to fix the awkwardly worded parts. But I think I have a good story, there are twists, turns and peril. Hopefully it's a little scary too.


One beta reader who has finished Sanctuary is an amazing writer. I know her line-edits will help me improve and I can't wait to hear what else she has to say. I know that most of her critique will lead to me having to change and rewrite quite a lot. That's what Sanctuary needs, I feel there's something missing and there's something not working for me.

This is why beta readers are great. They can pinpoint all the little things that we, as writers, may miss because the world in our story is so firmly cemented into our heads.

I also have another beta reader who is putting together a document on how I can make my soldiers more military and other medical/army stuff I don't quite understand. I'm excited.

I think I'm going to find the critiques hard in the sense that I'll feel the need to fix Sanctuary instantly. I'll know that my writing is substandard in some way. Once these critiques come back don't expect to see me for a while.

How do you all feel about critiques, how do you feel when you read what someone has to say about your work? Positive or negative.

Here's to improvement! 

Don't delete anything!

I keep seeing a lot of writers saying 'don't be afraid of the delete button'. While it is true that you shouldn't be afraid to get rid of some of the crap from your novel, you shouldn't delete anything. If you work from one master file then at least cut the bits you don't like into a dump document or something. They might give you inspiration later!

When I finished the first draft of Sanctuary I renamed it to 'Sanctuary Draft 1'. I then opened another instance of it and named it 'Sanctuary Draft 2'. I then went through draft two and edited away, changed and deleted everything I needed to. The raw first draft still sat untouched in my drop box.

I'm now on draft three and that has its own document too, as will further drafts. This means I can go back to earlier drafts, see what's changed, see how I'm improved and maybe even read all those scenes I had to delete. Plus when I'm famous that first draft will be worth loads. (Planningaheadok)

Life shake-up and editing

The last few days have been the most stressful of my life and while a lot of this isn't to do with writing I think I need to get it off my chest. Apologies for my irrelevancy.

Ben and I looked at a house at the weekend. It was a glorious, huge four-bedroom new build in the centre of one of the quietest little neighbourhoods I've even had the pleasure of being in.

When we had decided we wanted it we asked if they were putting in flooring. They said no and that if we wanted flooring in our new house we'd have to pay a extra £4k. Trying to find £10k for the deposit was going to be difficult enough. We said that the sales lady should ask her manager because that would be the thing that made us say yes.

That evening we got a phone call with 'no'.

I smiled and said I was relieved, it meant we didn't have to deal with money worries associated with buying a house a little too soon because of a once in a lifetime deal.

Then I cried, tried to pass it off as floods of relief but I was so upset. I got it out of my system, mourned the loss of a gorgeous house and got on with my life.

Until I got a voicemail from the sales lady with a story.

'Jess, I went to a sales conference in Chelmsford today, the director accidentally tipped a cup of coffee over me. He said, "oh no! Whatever can I do to make it up to you?"


'I said, "well, you can give flooring to the couple eager to buy plot 125." He agreed and you can have to flooring! Isn't that great!'

I sat at work and cried, I had a miniature breakdown on Twitter, could do nothing to get in touch with Ben and spent almost two hours trying to hold back tears whilst at work.

To make myself feel better about the loss of the house I'd convinced myself we couldn't afford it. We'd have to borrow too much from parents, the monthly repayments would be too much, Ben wouldn't be able to pay off his credit card.

Then to know that you can have the house after convincing yourself that it was a bad idea just leads to all sorts of terrible conflicting emotions. We went to see Derren Brown that night, those few hours were the only time I didn't think about that damn house. Ben was swinging more of to the side of saying yes whereas I was very indecisive but swinging towards no.

In the morning I woke up, went downstairs to see Ben making me a cup of tea and I said to him, "let's do this." I kept thinking about how devastated I was when I was told we couldn't have the house.

The sales office for the house is shut until tomorrow but first thing in the morning we are going tell them YES!

Things will change dramatically over the next few months, I need to reign in my shoe habit for a start...

Editing

What I'm trying to get at is that all of this has taken a toll on my creativity. All I can think about is a huge lounge, reading corner, space for the cat to play and all the wonderful things that await us in our own house. I managed to edit 20 pages today which puts me at 58/160. Sanctuary draft three will be done before things get any more stressful. While I'm worrying about where to hang a picture, my selected readers will be immersing themselves in a post-apocalyptic London in 2098!

The last leg of the editing process

Courtesy of jjpacres on Flickr

I'm nearing the end of the second draft of Sanctuary. It's very exciting but it's been a bit of a slog. Actually, it's one month ago since I started typing up my hand-edits. It's been quite a quick, albeit difficult, process.

The Process

I finished all the writing and set it aside for a week or two. I then printed it all and sat down with a red pen.

I went through, marking any errors, striking through bits and adding notes. Almost 200 double-spaced pages later and I had a manuscript covered in scribbles.

That was at the end of Feb. Since then I've been going through my electronic version and making all those little grammar changes as well as cementing in a plot twist that came to me at the end of writing and adding in a whole new sub plot.

What's next

I'd intended to email this to a few readers who could look over it and give me some feedback (family and friends at this stage) but I think I'm going to do another draft before I do that. Just a quick sweep to fix any continuity errors and find any remaining grammar issues.

The shiny 3rd draft will then be sent to a few people and I'm not going to have much to do with it while they all read it. I don't know if I should give them a list of things to look out for or if I should just let them read and leave it to them to mention anything they think I should know. Advice?

That then brings me to the dilemma of choosing between Forgotten and Heat of the Moment for my next main project. They're both around a similar wordcount and I'm having issues with both. Hopefully once I know Sanctuary is out of the way I'll be able to focus a bit more.

Tell me, what's your editing process?