When I first visited Iceland in the summer of 2001 I fell in love with the landscape, the people, the history, the folklore – everything about the country, and I knew that I had to write a story set there. I didn’t know what the story would be. Then in August 2001 there was a story in the news about a girl who was lost whilst hiking in the Peruvian mountains. I can’t remember what happened now, and I fear to find out, but the idea got lodged in my brain and together with ideas surrounding Iceland, the seeds of the story was born.

So, it was conceived in August 2001. 110,000 words; 430 pages; 250 days in the writing; 5 years in the making. Blood & Fire, as it then was called, was finished on Tuesday 19 September 2006. Another three years of revising later, and I started subbing it to agents and editors but, as is so often, these days I only got the classic ‘our lists are full’ or ‘we like your writing but you as a writer are not quite right’…

I got married, and started writing Mr Tumnal and left The End Of All Worlds as its now called on the shelf for two more years. In that time technology changed and self-publication – Indie publishing – became something that actually worked. With the the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 other events since then, some of the themes of The End Of All Worlds have become increasingly topical. I decided that ten years is a long time to live with a novel. I needed to let it go free and for other people to read it.

I will write about the process of getting the novel to this point, today in future articles, but it has been a journey these last few months. But today I have reached it. I have published a novel out there, to the world and I will wait, if nervously and with large amounts of trepidation, to see what the world will think (if indeed they notice).

All day, friends have been posting messages of congratulations on my facebook and twitter accounts. I feel a bit of a fraud about it really because yes my book is published, but I published it. Surely congratulations would best be saved for when a publisher decides to publish my book… And then I thought, no. Lots of people can claim to be writing a book, still more to wanting to write a book, but only the few actually complete the book, and then work to make it in some shape or form half-decent. To publish a book, even by the self, is still no mean feet. It’s still something to be congratulated.

And so to those who have congratulated, I thank you, if humbly and diffidently…

It’s an odd experience. Thankfully, I had a copy of ‘s Foxglove synopsis as a form of guidance on the road. 🙂

Next step, to work on my synopsis and send the unsolicited mss out there to someone who still accepts unsolicited mss (and yes that includes agents as well as publishers).

I need sleep.

Time was, that there was a box of bone, carved by the huldufolk, in my novel. I’ve since changed that to a silver cup, and it works better as such, but I have wondered upon the magic that I bestow upon it later in part five; it’s always been a different kind of magic to anything that I’ve had my characters encounter before. Today I realised that actually, with a few subtle tweaks and it could be the same magic as in the pools that Eleanor jumps through to go between the worlds.

Of course Emma would like me to write and enter (The Curious Tale of) Mr Tumnal. I find this a bit difficult. I really like Louis Tumnal’s story, and I really, really want to write it. In fact I can’t wait to write it because I do think it is pretty damn original, and intriguing and compelling. At the same time Blood & Fire has been part of my life for so long I have to finish it now. I have to do something with it… :-

This part is entitled Midnight Research, and refreshingly it lives up to that with most of the action taking place in the middle of the night, during which time, a lot of study and learning takes place amongst my characters. This is a good thing.

The other thing I notice, particularly in what will become the early chapters of Midnight Research, is the return, big-time, of my chopping and changing style. The problem I will face here is reworking this is that whilst in the early parts of the books where I would cut fast between two different places in the same time, here I am cutting between the different times and places, and building up the meaning by their juxtapositions with each other. Altogether a different matter, this will definitely be interesting.

*grins*

So here’s the thing. Originally, the idea for calling the novel Blood & Fire, is that the blood would reflect the family saga of the story, and the fire would be volcanoes beneath Iceland.

Keeping with this idea of having a title that conjures up family, legend, magic, and climate change, what do you suggest? Please comment here with your brainstorming.

Pretty please…?

I find this discovery very pleasing. I must be learning something about the revising process.

Whether or not what happened next is cause and effect or just rather nice coincidence, I then proceeded in working well into my Blood & Fire revisions, finishing the completely new passage at the beginning of part three and getting stuck into the line editing of what’s already there. Good times…

I’ve been thinking about Blood & Fire. I’m wondering whether it would be a better story to be told in first person, present tense with multiple POVs? And if I did make this change, how much work would it be to convert 100,000 words into the first person – bearing in mind that I’ve already edited around 33,000 of those words?

Isn’t it great, how creativity works?

This afternoon, for whatever reason, my mind has been continuing on with those creative thoughts, so when I needed to visit the toilet, I took my pen and notebook with me and got a couple of paragraphs of ‘airport storm’ written. Is there nowhere that I can write?

2. Spent the rest of the morning and lunchtime reading through Between Floors and making notes before the play meeting this afternoon. I think we are almost there. Almost there to get some people in to read our play.

3. Some more good crits in today on Blood & Fire – a couple on chapter five and six from Louise, and one for chapter two from Ntn.

2. Spent the rest of the morning and lunchtime reading through Between Floors and making notes before the play meeting this afternoon. I think we are almost there. Almost there to get some people in to read our play.

3. Some more good crits in today on Blood & Fire – a couple on chapter five and six from Louise, and one for chapter two from Ntn.

Part One covers Eleanor getting lost in the mountains from Ben and Hanna’s perspective with occasional glimpses into how Eleanor is getting on.

Then in Part Two, I roll the clock back and go back over the same period in time but from Eleanor’s perspective.

Nothing wrong with that you might say. However, currently Part Two currently starts where Part One left off and is a little prologue to Eleanor’s story. I then go back to the beginning and tell Eleanor’s story as if in the current time (ie. not a flashback). I’m thinking that this is going to get very confusing for the reader.

So what would you suggest? I’m thinking maybe it’s best to chop the ‘prologue’ from the beginning of Part Two and work it in to narrative when I get there. But my only problem there is that I have Eleanor’s story dovetailing in and out with ‘the present’. Ggrrr, I’m not really explaining this very well, which probably doesn’t bode well for it…

Views and opinions gratefully received!

For my Mum, she had read an earlier draft of the first bit a long time ago, and found it a lot better. For my dad though, it was a first time reading, and he loved it. What’s more my climate change science bits were apparent great, and spot on! And you know, he should know. Not bad for someone who got no higher than C at GCSE Science, and is an artist at heart. Obviously those breakfast table discussions did rub off on me after all!

Ah well, I always new the first chapter might bring this, after all, it does have the end to measure up to now…

It feels right to try out this critiquing site (recommended to me by aurora_floyd) because it was set up by a couple of Icelanders, and indeed has a Big Sister Icelandic site – so to post a story set in Iceland seems right…

Oh the joys of revising…!

That said, I am improving it. Or be it slowly…

I’m pleased, and I’m bereft all at the same time. I want to go back and read it again, and revise it, and make it better, but I am afraid. What if I read it again and I hate it? What if it makes sense? What everyone I show it hates it? Then I will be going through what any writer goes through. And it’s all part of the natural process of making it better.

For now, though, I rest, and I look at it sitting on my desk. A reem of paper – a reem of my words…

Like Hanna, I am trepidacious. Kill the right one, and I too will be free. I can close out the story…

And then…

I’ll be done.

“Helen no!” Ben leaps forward and pulls the dagger from his sister’s hands, casting it aside at Erik’s feet. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket attempts to wrestle it into Helen’s palms. She protests and pulls, flicking her wrist and scattering droplets of blood onto the ground.

“What are you doing?” Ben rounds on his sister, grabbing her by the shoulders and staring her into her eyes.

101,886 / 100,000 (101.9%)

100,146 / 100,000 (100.1%)

Okay, well I did always say that the hundred thousand thing was always just a guide. So I’ve gone past it, and I will go further past it, but I am on the cusp of finishing the story. I am into the penultimate chapter, and I now know, just like Helen, exactly how it ends.

Well … more or less anyway… *grins*

Gunnlaugr laughs off Hanna’s words. He gathers his companions together and takes a step forward. Hanna holds him back with the power that she draws through herself and out through the palms of her hands.

“Do you prefer Gyrdir? That’s what’s the Alfar call you. Svipal maybe? Vak or Ygg? Bolverk maybe suits you better.” Hanna takes a slow, deliberate step closer, gritting her teeth in anger, “The Þurs don’t call you anything other than what you are. How many names do you have Ódinn?”

99,059 / 100,000 (99.1%)

This said, my rhubarb tastes good. My wisteria is on the cusp of blooming (so here’s praying for no more frosts!). And I have settled for long enough to write a good amount today…

88,566 / 100,000 (88.6%)

The Thermo Tunnel is almost ready. Ódin has been revealed as his true identity. The scientists are putting together the pieces. And Helen, Hanna and Ben are forcing the Þurs to make a decision…

Oh, and did I mention what a glorious week it has been. Fantastically clear, bright mornings, and sun streaming through the windows onto my desk all day, and then driving home in the evening, winding back the big electric sunroof of my car for the first time this year…

Amongst writing this weekend, and re-digitising the complete Barchester Chronicles tapes that I have, I have finally planted out Christmas Tree c. 2005 in the front garden, been keeping on top of the bl**dy ground elder and pulling up all the leaves as they emerge – bl**dy things (mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble), watching the rhubarb grow (looks like it might be a particularly good crop this year), cutting back some of the shrubs in the back garden, tieing back my Last Rose of Summer, and giving the lawn (if you can call my small patch of pathetic green stuff a lawn) a much needed first cut of the season.

I feel enlived. Spring is here. And at over 86,000 words and over one fifth of the way through the final ‘chapter’ six, I am finally on the final straight of my third novel.

And so, I stand at a kind of precipice; about to launch off into the final chapter, both excited and scared by the prospect. Maybe this is why I have been stumbling towards the edge of chapter five, because of what this means. Now I have to put my characters through the final conflict, face their greatest fears and strive to succeed in their various quests. It’s no secret that there is a devastating jökulslaup to come and the return of previously thought-forgotten themes…

Can I pull this off in the way that I originally invisaged back in the summer of 2001?

Against a scarlet sky stand two figures, high above on the ridge; cloaked and hooded, against the biting wind. In the valley floor, amongst the pitted rocks and scrubby birch, Helen hides from view. Alongside her in the wilderness is Jóhanna. She turns her attention down river to where Finnbjörn is waking his way along the valley floor, making his way to an opening in the rock.

Helen turns to Jóhanna, “It’s time?”

Jóhanna nods and Helen turns again; looking down the valley, and to the cave. It is time.

82,775 / 100,000 (82.8%)

The end of the bridge
and you’re on the way home.
The end of the bridge
and you’re half-way there.
Hanna leans into the song, her face taught in emotion. Wind blows through her hair. Alongside her Halldór fingers the chords on his electric guitar. They are flanked by Bryn, beating out the rhythm, his drum kit amongst the rocks on the ridge, and by Jon standing against the fractured sky, a silhouette with his keyboard. High up in the mountains, they sing; words and nature bound in one.

Not quite there, yet. But I’m close. Close that is to the end of the penultimate chapter. Just working myself into the twist that will spin my characters full on into the final chapter six…

Am loving your style, and the story certainly has me gripped.

—Laura, from my crit group over at WriteWords

~~~

Charles Ancell is British and as ordinarilly human as they come – but he has Icelandic heritage – his family were cast out years ago. He knows the secrets, he knows the power, and he knows the possibilities, but he has no loyalties to the land of his forefathers. His only loyalties are to making monetary profit by whatever means.

76,782 / 100,000 (76.8%)

Which leads me to another question. How will I cope, once I have finished this?