So I’ve also done a quick’n’dirty conversion to eBook format. I say, quick’n’dirty – I could have been quicker but even when its for my own benefit I still have my own exacting standards to deliver. It has style, and chapter breaks, and a full table of contents. I even had to give it a rudimentary cover (of sorts). And I’ve started to read it too…

There are errors. I’ve got quite a bit of present-tense slipping in. That’s to be expected though, for some of these early chapters were written at the same time as The End Of All Worlds was still a wip. I’ve also identified a number or Louis/Lewis inconsistencies that I’ve had to sort out. It’s therefore not even yet ready for my first of Beta readers to have a go at (and laught at, and tear it shreds), but encouragingly story-wise it still hangs together. It’s still all good. I’m still loving the story of Mr Tumnal.

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.

Over Easter I decided that, finally, things must change. Today, I made the final cut for Hannah Ball, my character who wandered into my novel with Alice Cartwright from my previous novel/filmscript The Mill. From now on, her name will be Kirsten Ball.

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?

2. Procrastination big time today. I’m not entirely sure how it happened. I certainly didn’t intend to do it when I got up this morning, but I redecorated three walls of my bathroom. I have been meaning to for a while, and it does look so much better, and cleaner and brighter, but why today? Why on earth, today? Will have to go out and buy another tin of paint now to finish it off…

3. I’m thinking of getting some new foam for the cushions on the sofa. They’ve not been done for a while and they are probably a bit thin now. Edit: Actually, it may well be 20 years since they were last done!

4. Finished editing down part two, chapter one of my novel. Hopefully it still reads tighter and sharper. Hopefully also, I will have learnt something from the recent crits I’ve had for earlier chapters.

And in case I forget, tomorrow, these pages celebrate their fourth birthday! Happy Birthday Me!

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!

One thing I’ve discovered though, is that CritiqueCircle does seem to be a US-centric site, and as such, I am becoming aware of things that I have previously been unaware of that do not travel across nations. References to this and that, or ways of saying things that are commonplace in our world, lead to confusion over there. The ‘tameness’ in some respects too of American culture seems to be reinforced too (please correct me if I’m wrong here, my US friends…).

For one, the characters in my novel are early twenties/student age, and as such there is a certain amount of going into bars and ordering drinks. One recent comment, was a query as to the legal drinking age in Iceland (it’s actually 20) – and was phrased in such a way as to ask if it was okay for drinking in YA novels. And this of course brings up another difference in perception. ‘YA Fiction’ does seem to be predominantly a US term which has taken over here, and it seems to cover books from anything from early-mid teens up to 23 but predominantly, under 18s. From what I can make out, in America, it is very much teenage books, whilst over here it does seem to be a bit vague. So drinking even amongst students who are legall alllowed to drink in a ‘YA’ book read by early-teens does seem that in some eyes, this could be a problem. In actual fact I don’t think it will be, because there is no drinking to get drunk, and they are allowed. It’s still interesting none-the-less…

2. Sadly, if not unpredictably, by lunchtime it was pretty much all gone. Although having it gone, did reveal some rather odd parking going on down in the car park with people guessing – woefully inaccurately – where the lines and spaces are. More down to luck than to judgement, but after some very impressive space straddling, at one end of the row, by the time half a dozen cars had each reigned themselves in, I was able to just get my wheels *onto* the line.

3. Succeeded in paying for my car tax online. Definitely preferable to the hour-long torment I would have otherwise had to have endured at the Temple Cowley Post Office.

4. In book geek news, I have logged in excess of 500 of my library of books. LibraryThing makes for mildly productive procrastination.

5. In writing news, I am on the edge of finishing draft two of Part One, Chapter Six.

2. Sadly, if not unpredictably, by lunchtime it was pretty much all gone. Although having it gone, did reveal some rather odd parking going on down in the car park with people guessing – woefully inaccurately – where the lines and spaces are. More down to luck than to judgement, but after some very impressive space straddling, at one end of the row, by the time half a dozen cars had each reigned themselves in, I was able to just get my wheels *onto* the line.

3. Succeeded in paying for my car tax online. Definitely preferable to the hour-long torment I would have otherwise had to have endured at the Temple Cowley Post Office.

4. In book geek news, I have logged in excess of 500 of my library of books. LibraryThing makes for mildly productive procrastination.

5. In writing news, I am on the edge of finishing draft two of Part One, Chapter Six.

No actual words rewritten today, but none-the-less productive in my realisation. I just hope that Parts Three to Six do not follow a similar path…

Gemini
21 May-20 Jun

‘Don’t Fence Me In’, a song written by a Gemini (Cole Porter), makes a good theme tune for Twins, most of whom boast an unnerving ability to say ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ simultaneously and sometimes seem to actually bi-locate.

The first challenge of 2007, however, is to stop spreading yourself so thinly and choose from your ever-expanding range of interests. This isn’t a matter of closing down – au contraire, the emphasis on your horoscope’s career sector in the first half of the year lends a radical flavour to professional plans. If you are involved in the digital realm – the media, internet, technology – so much the better.

You do, however, have to prioritise. Put crudely, Saturn in your third house asks you to speak less but say more – the same theme dominated 2006. By narrowing your options, you’ll be ready for the more demanding work phase that kicks in after September.

One-on-one relationships – anything from tennis partners to marriage – are fortuitously starred all year. Jupiter, the planet that spells opportunity, can widen your social circle or introduce you to a wealthy lover, though for existing relationships the ‘don’t fence me in’ mantra may prove resonant. Cut your other half some slack – they will take it anyway.

Pluto, the planet that’s pitched many Geminis into power struggles during its 10-year passage through your opposite sign, is preparing to move on (cue cries of ‘Hurrah’), though not before tweaking birthdays between 19-21 June. If you find yourself in conflict, try not to resort to underhand methods or cling to what needs to be jettisoned.

Pluto aside, Geminis are clear of the year’s planetary snarl-ups. The summer months, when Venus drags her heels, look especially promising for jolly gatherings sipping lemonade on the lawn. Anyone for tennis?

2. Still only had the one CC crit from the ever faithful aurora_floyd. I was hoping that cutting the wordcount in half might bring on some new crits, but it seems not…

3. Struggling with chapter six. It’s the first chapter that really isn’t working in it’s current form, but trying to figure out what to keep and what to lose is proving difficult. I keep on getting ideas, and going to try them out, and then sitting in front of the keyboard idly doing nothing more than getting hot legs from the laptop.

4. It’s a real Dark Is Rising day today. Gloomy, grey skies, and wet underfoot with wind howling round bare and twisted trees.

5. It’s New Year’s Eve, so I guess I should think of some resolutions…

I’ll manage it, but it is a challenge, yes.

2. Applied for a new job on the fish4jobs site. It’s a Multimedia designer for an ‘education-related’ company in Cambridge. The agency guy emailed me back, he would like to talk to me on the phone. I am now scared because although I don’t really have any ties to any part of the country, I am also not sure that I am ready to move away from Oxfordshire completely.

3. Hrmm, maybe I was wrong yesterday. I think perhaps my arbitrarily decided end to chapter three might be about right. It’s funny, this writing business…

4. I have finished revising chapter three of Blood & Fire and posted it to CritiqueCircle. Sadly though, it looks as if I am too late for the next week’s crititiquing and will have to wait till after Christmas for my feedback… :-\

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

Oh the joys of revising…!

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