The Plan

So, I've taken a couple of days. I've read my agents comments on the manuscript, I've been over my own notes from our conversations, I've done some thinking and scribbling of notes and ideas and outlines.

And now I have a plan.

I know what the book needs; it's gotten bogged down in the magic and the logic and the whys and the hows. It needs to be lighter. It needs to float and glitter and have the magic in the air rather than the text.

I know what the big change is that will help me put this in place, and it's all about my main characters attitudes - one of those "if such and such didn't happen, or if she didn't know it had happened, she'd be an entirely different person" scenarios. It should work, without destroying the basic plot.

So now I just have to write it that way.

And I need to revise the text, then edit and polish, and get it back to Lizzy before I fly to Texas on March 13th. That way, she can be reading it while I'm off enjoying myself.

So, I have a schedule, the first part of which is:

rewrite the existing text, on screen, by Friday 22nd February.

That's nine days, all in. The counter's going back to zero, and we're counting in pages this time.

Wish me luck!

Sunday

Okay, aside from the usual 'clean the house, do some laundry' Sunday stuff, I have quite a lot of writing things I have to achieve today - namely type in edits for the outline and first seven chapters of Breaking the Spell.

I'm breaking it down into bits to make it feel more achieveable, and will come in to this post and cross them off as I get through them.

• Outline - 20 pages - done!
• Prologue - 8 pages - done!
• Chapter one - 17 pages - done!
• Chapter two - 18 pages - done!
• Chapter three - 15 pages - done!
• Chapter four - 14 pages - done!
• Chapter five - 17 pages - done!
• Chapter six - 17 pages - done!
• Chapter seven - 19 pages - done!
• Send the whole thing over to Lizzy - done!

See, doesn't that look more managable than 146 pages of edits to type in? Gulp.

All finished, and I'm off for a walk round the park before it starts raining again!

What I've been up to this week

Well, so far I've done the write in edits on the outline and first seven chapters of Breaking the Spell.

This evening and tomorrow, I need to type them in.

I want this thing off my desk and over to Lizzy by the end of tomorrow - Monday morning at the latest, if I want to give things a final look over once my eyes have stopped bleeding.

I've got Monday off work as a flex day - a make up for all the hours I've been working since I got back from Christmas. I have a very long list of things I could do with my day off - and the wonderful knowledge that I don't have to do any of them.

But my day of peace, solitude and the cinema is all off if I don't get the revised chapters done tomorrow...

Wish me luck!

Done for the day

Okay, 37,197/90,000. Except, it looks like this thing might run long, if those first 7 chapters are anything to go by!

Anyway, done for now. I'm going to set the thing to print, then go have a bath. Tomorrow, I can start tidying the thing up. And maybe cutting, a little!

Oh, and the hotpot was delicious, for those who care about such things.

On target

Not bad for a day's work - I'm now at 31,347/90,000, but I'm going to keep going for 3 more scenes to bring me to a fabulous stopping point - my hero and heroine's first kiss.

Of the other things on the list, the house is tidy, dust free, the bathroom is clean and the books have been sorted. Hotpot is in the oven, so all that's left is the couple of bags of Christmas stuff outside my study door, and a long hot bath with a good book. I have jasmine and fig bath bubbles, too!

But first, just one more chapter - around 5,000 words - to go.

Starting at 20,961/90,000

Hell of a week in work this week, but I still managed to keep working on the book. Because I'm re-editing text I've already written to fit the new backstory and outline, speed varies quite considerably. Some scenes I can plow through with minor changes here and there. Others need considerable re-writing. And others, the new ones, just plain need writing.

Still, the plan is to be at the 30k benchmark by the end of the day. That's how much Lizzy says she needs to start submitting to editors, or how much she needs to know I need to finish the book before we do. It's the number we've been working to since August when this whole thing started, and I'm constantly amazed at how that 30k mark falls at a different point in the story, every time. On the other hand, it always falls at an important, life changing point for my hero and/or heroine, which helps.

So, the plan for the day is as follows:
Write

1. Tidy house
2. Write
3. Clean bathroom
4. Write
5. Dusting
6. Write
7. Sort books in spare room
8. Write
9. Sort remaining Christmas presents in study
10. Write
11. Cook Lancashire hotpot for tea
12. Take bath and get stuff ready for tomorrow's workshop in London
13. Sleep

That's five sessions set aside for writing. So, that's 2000 words a session, give or take.

I'll post my progress here, if I remember, just to make me feel guilty if I'm falling short...

If I hit target, then tomorrow I can print out the text and start polishing! I'm giving myself this next week and weekend to make the 30k and the outline as good as I possibly can. Then it's being emailed over to Lizzy on Monday 21st. Which, coincidentally, is pay day. I think there may be a small treat reward from Body Shop for any me that gets all this done...

And back in the office

First proper day back at the day job - and a variety of things had exploded in my absence.

Still, managed to put it all aside to work on the book this evening - and finished rewriting the first big multipart scene that sets up the whole story. Phew.

This is about the seventh rewrite of the opening chapters to fit subsequent revisions of the outline - all involving major changes in plot and backstory. I'd actually forgotten that the opening scene of Chapter One never existed in the original pages I sent to Lizzy.

Still, now the plot's actually approved, hopefully this might be the last big reimagining of the action. I know that there will still be changes, and notes, but perhaps nothing quite so big!

Most importantly, this version, this outline, really feels like the story I want to tell. Now I just need to tell it.

Back to Work

Today I finally felt well enough to get back to work on the book - thank God!

I've revised the outline, and rewritten the prologue and first part of chapter one, and am feeling quite pleased with myself.

Now I just need to plough on tomorrow before work...

We apologise, but 2008 is experiencing a slight delay...

2008 doesn't start until Monday 7th January. I've decided.

There's not enough time otherwise. Normally I have all those days between Christmas and New Year to get myself ready, but this year I came down with a fever on Boxing Day and have just started taking antibiotics for the resultant chest infection yesterday. I've been too sick to think about 2008.

Add in the breakup of two close friends' five year relationship, just before Christmas, and the fact that one of them is (probably) moving in with us tonight until he finds somewhere new, and the New Year really does seem to have snuck up on me.

So I've postponed it.

It actually makes sense - because of the chest infection (which my husband swears is not consumption... but how does he know?!) I'm off work until Monday anyway. So, hopefully I'll be all nice and healthy to start my new year.


2007 was an excellent year in many, many ways. I sent my book out to my number one agent and actually got a phone call, a meeting, and many, many subsequent conversations. Admittedly, these were because of the huge changes the story required, but on December 21st, we finally agreed the basic outline for the book. I'm still doing some tidying as per her notes, but they were of the "Can they argue for longer here?" and "Sorry, what?" variety. The characters now spend more time fighting, and everything should make sense. I think we're there, finally.

We got a title, too - one that I love, that fits the story I'm telling now, and reflects the sort of things I want to write in the future, too. So that's good.

Of course, I still need to now rewrite the book in line with the new outline. Which is not inconsiderable work, but it should be fun. I just need to get back into my habits.

So, 2008 writing goals:

1. Finish re-writing Breaking the Spell so that Lizzy can submit it
2. Work up outlines and sample chapters for the next two books I have in mind
3. Rewrite Black Cat Hollow
4. Update this blog once a week (yes, really, Bonnie)
5. Read one new fiction and one new non-fiction book every month

That's it. The reading goal may look small, but it's just that left to my own devices I tend to re-read stuff a lot. I want to make sure I'm hitting new stuff too. I love my library.

Right. I think I might be almost ready for Monday!

November, Nano & the Worst Holiday Idea Ever

I was really looking forward to Nano this year. I had an idea; a book I really wanted to write, but that was one that needed to be written fast, without too much thinking, to make it work. I was excited.

Then events started changing my plans...

First off, the book previously known as The Fairytale Way. Once it became clear that there was actual interest in the novel, and I started working on it with an agent who wanted to sign me, I figured that I could use Nano to bring it to a swift conclusion, before the inevitable rewrites. It wouldn't be a true Nano, but it would be close.

Except, by the beginning of November I still wasn't in the position I had hoped to be - with an approved outline and the freedom to write until the thing was done.

Work continues, sort of apace, but it's hard going. The main problem seems to be that, in discussion with my agent, we've added all sorts of stuff that makes the story stronger. Unfortunatley, until last week, we'd forgotten to take anything away.

Cue cut of entire subplot and two major characters, and a quick reshuffle of the remaining facts and figures. I think I've just, now, got the actual events and so forth in place, but the first thing I need to do is go back and rewrite the first 60,000 words to conform to the new plot. And that's not the sort of thing you can do for Nano.

It's also not really the sort of thing you can do with confidence in my usual fifteen minute stetches. It's the sort of thing that requires concentration, and time. Bearing in mind that while trying to write this Sunday morning blog entry I've continued several conversations with my mother, dealt with a teabag crisis my husband was having, and solved a variety of Vista issues on my parent's new laptop, it's clear that peace and quiet to work is not available in large quantites.

But what the husband and I did have as a surplas of holiday days to take from work before the end of the year. And so was born what I am now terming the Worst Holiday Idea Ever.

We drove up to the parents in Wales on Friday night for a couple of days, and tomorrow we're driving over the mountains to spend the week in the family caravan on the Lleyn peninsula. It's going to be very cold (snow predicted on the mountains) and probably rainy. Everything's going to be closed because it's November in a seaside town. The TV only gets BBC 1&2 Wales, Harlech TV and S4C, the Welsh channel. There's no internet for miles.

We've prepared well; we've packed dvds and books and playing cards and games and things. And we've made a deal; Simon lets me work on the book in the morning, and then we can go shiver at some castle or Neolithic burial mound in the afternoon. The evenings are for the dvds. We're packing extra blankets, possibly a heater, and Simon bought me a hot water bottle yesterday.

And by the time we get back, I want a full synopsis and revised opening chapters to send to my agent.

Wish me luck!

My Brain Hurts

I spent an hour on the phone with my agent this evening, discussing the whys and the wherefores and the way forward with The Book.

The good thing is that she still loves the story. She just wants to make it bigger and better. She wants my little book to be all that it can be. This is great.

But it involves a lot of work, and a lot of thinking.

When we first met and started making adjustments to the book, the main things that changed were the location and the magic level. And somewhere along the way, implementing these changes has buried the why of the story underneath a stack of tarot cards and empty coffee cups.

So, while she's away in Wales next week, I'm going back to basics and thinking about what the story is about, and what the individual character tales are.

1. It's about language. It's about the stories we tell, and how they change into what we want to hear. It's about how what we're told is what we believe, even when it's a lie. And it's about what happens when people start telling the truth.
2. It's about the town, now. It's about how this little market town in Hertfordshire isn't like anywhere else. It's about how that affects the people who live there. It's about the history of the place, and its people, and how that's not what they've always been told, either.
3. It's about family. It's about sisters and about brothers, and about how there's no limit to what you'll do for family, or, in some cases, what you'll do to them.
4. It's about magic, and the magical in the everyday. It's about the feel of the seasons, the world, and the inexplicable things that happen. It's about fate and fortune and destiny, and how they're not always world changing futures; sometimes they're about cookie cutters.
5. It's about fairytales, and how to live them. It's about knowing that you can live a charmed life, and have your happy ever after, but that they're not always what you'd expect. And it's about how, if you work at them, sometimes they can be better than the stories.
6. And most of all, it's about love, and how real love doesn't need magic, or fate, or fables; it needs understanding, passion, trust and patience.
7. It's also about tea, calligraphy, getting what's coming to you, and hot chocolate. And a cat.

So, yeah. I guess that can be summed up as: Truth, and making your world the way you need it to be. Or something.

To summarise - my brain hurts.

Absent

Now, I know I haven't been here, but I have been working hard.

I'm finally hitting the home stretch - the almost final revisions of the first six chapters and synopsis are due over to the agent before Monday. She's already had the top forty title list... and we still haven't decided on one. She'll have a better idea once she's read the revised chapters - so much has changed, it's hard to keep it all straight.

I'm working a half day at the day job today, and plan to spend the afternoon in my local Costa with a large latte, my printouts and my pink laptop.

It's all very scary but exciting. Agent keeps saying things like 'I mentioned it to so-and-so, an editor at Big Publisher, and they're very excited to see it.'

Hopefully by this time next week, I should know what the next step is.

On the cards

In the first chapter of The Book Previously Known As The Fairytale Way (I either need a new title or a symbol of some sort, I feel) one character, Fliss, reads her love interest's fortune, using tarot cards.

In the original draft, I'd skimped over this a bit, and one thing that came up in my meeting last week was that the agent would like to see a fuller reading in the scene, for a variety of reasons.

Sadly, I don't know a great deal about tarot. But I do have a book. So last night I pulled out my cards and my book and I did a few sample readings for my fictional character, Mac, just to play around with the meanings and the combinations and the spreads.

I wasn't expecting Mac to be the unluckiest bugger ever imagined.

Seriously, no matter which way I cut the cards or shuffled them, every spread ended up with the ten of swords in it, and me reading the words 'unavoidable disaster and ruination' in my book. And that was just one of many feared cards that kept landing in his fortune.

For a secondary character with a happy ever after planned, this was not a particularly good sign, I felt.

Anyway, after removing most of the ill-omened cards from the deck, I was able to cobble together the sort of fortune I think Fliss should read for him. Still, I'm now worrying about what Mac's got in store for me in the later parts of this book...

Exciting news

I've been a bit quiet lately, because exciting things have been happening.

The most exciting of these was a meeting I had with a very lovely agent in London on Tuesday. As an upshot of that meeting, I'm currently revising (and finishing) the book previously known as the Fairytale Way, which has yet to find a new title. It also used to be set in London and now... isn't. Which is why the counter on the left is about to go back to the beginning and start again, although since I've already written the stuff once, hopefully it will move a bit faster this time round!

The changes we're making are strengthening the story, though, which is all that really matters.

And, unless I do something really dire to the thing, once I've finished, she's going to try and sell it for me.

Told you it was exciting.

Back on course

The last month or so has been unexpectedly busy, as evidenced by the way I dropped off the planet here.

Still, things have finally quietened down, and I seem to be getting back on course.

It's always hard to get back into the habit of writing when I haven't for a while, so I've been building this up slowly, with a nice, leisurely plan, and I'm back on course for finishing The Fairytale Way by the end of August.

And then I have all sorts of interesting new things to start in on...