Short Stories

I can’t believe that its March already – this year really does seem to be slipping through my fingers.

Despite that I had a reasonably productive month in February.  I carried on the 500 words per day writing challenge until well into the middle of the month, by which time I had four new short stories written, some of a longer length than I usually write. At this point I stopped writing any more as I decided that I needed to do something with them, so I typed them all up and plan to edit them this month.

I also edited a story I had written a while ago and sent it out to my writers’ group for a critique.  As usual they gave me some very constructive feedback and suggestions of things which didn’t quite work.  Some of them were things which had been niggling me, some which I hadn’t thought of but once they were mentioned, were glaringly obvious.  I mulled over how I could make changes to the story to make it better and today have re-edited and sent it out.  Fingers crossed it gets accepted.

It’s a story about a young teacher who takes a class of primary school pupils on an outwards bounds residential.  Rather fittingly today I waved off my youngest on a four day trip – the house is weirdly quiet without him and I’ve had to close his bedroom door tonight, because I can’t bear seeing it open when he is not there.  Even the toothbrush holder with one toothbrush missing is a poignant reminder that he is missing – but I digress, he’s probably having a ball and not missing me at all.

We are told to write about what we know, and although I’m not a teacher, I have been picking my kids brains to work out likely scenarios – they’ll probably want commission if the story does get accepted.  Let’s hope its good luck, sending it out on the day he went on his trip.

It might be a slow start to the year, but I feel like I'm getting back into the short story swing of things.

And now back to the editing.

A Long, Slow Process

I haven’t blogged much about writing recently but that’s because I’ve been working on a long, slow project.

For a few years now I’ve been working on a couple of novels but one in particular is the most complete.

It’s a novel about a working mum, who struggles to find the right balance between her work and her home life.

After completing a very rough first draft I started an online course with Writing Magazine where for each assignment I submitted a chapter which was critiqued and re-written before sending the next chapter.

The course was good and really gave me the confidence to improve the rest of the novel. 

It took me a while but I completed a second and then a third draft and then sent it for feedback to the Romantic Novelist’s Association for a critique on the New Writers’ Scheme.  After receiving some positive feedback I redrafted it again and then sent it to my online writers’ group.

By this stage I actually felt that it was almost complete but it was still too long, so on my next read-through I cut out all the superfluous words and sentences I could find, aiming to reach for a total word count of 100,000.

I slashed and burned and killed my darlings but by the end of this draft I still had a wordcount of 108,000 words.

So, during January I have been laboriously working through the entire novel and yesterday I managed to achieve a word count of 99,999 words – yeh!

Now I need to dust off my synopsis – thankfully already written, research possible agents and then hopefully, in the very near future, I will be in a position to allow my child to fly the nest. 

I’ve been working so long on this project that I day I send it out for the first time will be a champagne day as far as I’m concerned – regardless of the outcome.

Catch Up

I can't believe that its already the middle of July and I haven't managed to post a single blog this month.

I just don't know where the time goes these days and its not because I've been writing. Working, yes, but not writing.

I am, though, trying to slot in the odd few minutes of editing whenever I get a chance. I'm currently working my way through a novel I sent to the RNA New Writers Scheme two years ago, but its a long, slow process.

Its the novel that I have done the most work on and its been in the pipeline for more years than I care to think about, but even so it has still  needed a lot of editing this time around.  My writing group have been looking at it too and giving me some valuable feedback (as ever) so I'm pleased about that.  So far they are enjoying it and say that they are disappointed that they can't read on when they get to the end of each section.  (Can't be all bad then).  I'm hoping to send them the final installment soon, so I'm keen to hear what they think of the finished story.  

Then its back to the drawing board and reworking the first three chapters so I can knock it into shape to send out to agents.  I'm looking forward to having it in a format that I feel happy enough to send out, but no doubt will have to steel myself to receive the inevitable rejections.

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say, and at least it will feel like I've achieved something, even if it does come bouncing right back to me.

Hope you are all being a little bit more productive than I am this summer.  

Linda

A Return to Chaos

The day started off well, I edited an old assignment story and sent it off to Take A Break Fiction Feast, and then I edited a story I wrote on holiday and sent it to my writing group for a critique. Then I completed a mailshot for my freelance work and was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

This was all done before my eldest, who was off school with an Inset day, dragged himself out of bed.

Then, I gave up the computer so that he could catch up on his homework.  The only problem was that, because he was off school, he'd decided that he was going to spend the day on the Xbox.

During the ensuing meltdown, my husband came home and decided to redecorate the kitchen, so I ended up trying to supervise homework and get everything out of the kitchen so that he could crack on. 

On the one hand I'm really pleased that progress is being made on the house but I'm having to grit my teeth too.  Trying to make some lunch for us, with everything under the cover of dust sheets was certainly a challenge.

This afternoon, the joiner turned up to do some work in the living room, and I retreated to the spare bedroom to try to do some decluttering, because it's been decided that that's the next room to be attacked, next week.

Now I say spare bedroom, but its a downstairs bedroom which is basically used to store coats, bags, shoes, boots, stationery, filing, laundry and anything else you can possibly think of.  Its the only room in the house which has remained practically untouched since we moved in nearly ten years ago and is painted in a sickly yellow.   I'm looking forward to it being redecorated but its going to be a painful process.

You know the saying that you can't make an omlette without breaking eggs, well all I can see at the moment are shells!

But, I always try to look on the bright side. Firstly, I'm glad I managed to get some work done in the relative quiet of the day, and secondly I know it will be worth it in the long run.

I must say I'm looking forward to the day when my husband is working out of town, both the boys are at school and the house is just in its normal level of mess.  That day will be blissful indeed!

Second Draft Dilemmas

I have been a bad blogger this month - I keep meaning to blog but never quite find the time - slap on wrists.

My only saving grace is that I have been writing - or should I say editing. 

My 80,000 word novel wot I wrote in November and December last year has come under scrutiny because I want to send it to  to the New Writer's Scheme at the RNA this year.

In January the months until August stretched languidly ahead of me but as the first draft is only a very very rough first draft I have quickly realised that I really need to put the hours in if I'm going to lick it into some kind of shape in time for submission.

So how do you redraft?

Well I've started by a quick read through to remind myself of the whole story.

I know alot of people do a a scene by scene breakdown on index cards to give them a better handle of the structure of the plot.  I've done this too but now that I have I'm not really sure what to do with this.  So for now I've put the cards to one side and am going through my script line by line and chapter by chapter.

This seems to be working well.  I'm tightening text and adding info and looking at whether I think the plot is realistic and the characters' motives believeble. I still have quite a bit of description to add - ie locations and intricate details but I'm highlighting these to deal with on the next draft and am concentrating of the flow of the story.

Once I have reached the end of this, I'm going to print this off again and then add the description and then I'm going to look at it again and see if I've got it right.  And then I'm probably going to panic because how will I know?

The answer is I won't - at least I don't think I will. Which is, I suppose the reason why I'm entering this for the New Writer's Scheme.  I just want to get it as good as I can before sending it of for  professional input.  I've part written novels before - even completed a first draft and half of a second draft but I've never got to the stage where I think it is as good as it can be. 

So that's my aim I suppose - to get it as good as I can and then see where I'm up to.  And then, when it comes back from the RNA, I'll probably have to start again.

But then I guess that's what this writing lark is all about. Learning from your mistakes until one day, one day - well maybe - who knows.

How do you edit?