Revision Central

My role as Attila-the -mum is working. I feel awful when the boys tell me they want to go to the gym to escape. My body is in revolt...five days in a row at the gym...However it has to be done - both the gym and the revision.

But for me this is a weird time....I know my revisions are coming but I don't know what they are. I have been on a huge high and now find myself in limbo. I don't want to touch A CORNISH HOUSE. I haven't read the script since I completed the changes that my agent wanted. This I think is good because as always before I go in for revisions...distance is good-any distance.

So while the boys are sweating blood around the dinning table I have been looking at story structure. Here's a brilliant link Screenplay Mastery by Michael Hauge. PENDEROWN has balance issues because I am working with two heroines and AUGUST  ROCK is reasonably okay but I need to heighten one of the key turning points. What I need to do is just focus on one of them or begin something entirely new....as suggested on Twitter...It was a dark and stormy night when...

Sentence Struggles

Sorry for my absence from blogging, but traveling kept me busy and also away from my resvision. Now back in the warmth of Dubai I find I need to reaquaint myself with A Cornish House to find the flow again (I had reached page 251 of 391). As always I found mistakes and tweaked a few sentences, but all was going well until eight lines from the end of the chapter. One sentence - one key sentence just didn't say what I wanted it too. Now this particular sentence and I had wrestled several times before - word by word. I thought I had nailed it but no.

For readers unfamiliar with the story in this chapter we have Maddie arriving for the first time at a house she has inherited from a distant relative. She is a grieving widow with a bolshy teenage step-daughter. Most important fact for me in this sentence is that she is an artist.

Here's today's starting version in bold:

She needed a plan, but didn't know where to begin anymore. How could life once be so clear and now so opaque? As she entered the kitchen, her eyes fell on the massive window that dominated one end of the room. It's hand-blown glass offered an alternative vision of the view through each pane.

Through each one of its hand-blown panes an alternative vision of the scenery beyond was framed.

Each pane of hand blown glass framed an alternative vision of the scenery beyond.

Its hand-blown panes framed an alternative vision of the scenery beyond.

None of them quite captures what I want. I guess I need to leave it and move on for now. Hopefully the old unconscious will resolve it or maybe one of you has a solution???? (and yes, Susie, I know I am thinking too much :-) )

Playing With Colour - Another Little Revision Exercise

Followers of the blog will know that I am a seat of your pants writer. Once I begin a story (usually with only the beginning, end, my main characters, and location), I write the first draft feeling my way. Not very scientific or organized but that’s how the story teller in me works – I like being surprised.

This slapdash method has huge pitfalls and I have fallen into each and every one of them. However I can’t ever see my writing method changing so I need to tackle how to fix the problems without killing my voice or the life of the story. Herein the difficulty lies.

When I took the fiction mantle back onto my shoulders in 2004, I thought it would be easy. I could write and I could tell stories. Simple. No. I can see with hindsight that from 2004 until today I had to relearn how to write prose again. Now I need to work on the mechanics of making my story better, tighter, and correctly paced. These, with those previously tackled, are the tools of writing. They need to be in shape so that the stories I need to tell are conveyed in the best way they can be.

These past five years have taught me is that this journey is not a race. Finally I have embraced this apprenticeship time. The current state of publishing is also a bonus for the unpublished writer. The pressure is off because things are so bad. Now is the time to fine tune skills and write books for the joy of it.

So yesterday I played again with my highlighter collection. Using Scene One, I looked at exactly what was there – description (pink), dialogue (orange), action (green), introspection (no colour). I wanted to see how the balanced or unbalanced it was. When in the full flow of the first draft, I never consider these things – my only thought is to get the story onto the page. Now ACH has been worked on before and I think the balance reflects this - so it would be interesting to do this exercise on a scene from Penderown which hasn’t been touched to find out whether I naturally balance these things or I am totally unbalanced (my suspicion). I do know that when writing dialogue – I just go for it. I don’t put speech tags or actions in and I need to layer these in afterwards.

So have you looked (visually) at the balance of a scene? And if so has it helped?

Finally a few links....

- a brave and thought provoking post by JA Konrath

- see above The Bookseller reports on Sara Lloyd at Frankfurt - Digital World Is The Present

- This link came via @BubbleCow on twitter Behler Blog gives Tough Advice

A Little Revision Exercise

So yesterday the revision of A Cornish House began in earnest. I know I have many things to address, but on day one I wanted to be able to say I had achieved something...anything really. So I tackled Scene One. This consisted of first reading it in hard copy (just over four pages) and addressing anything that hit me in the face - and yes there were plenty. Next I inputted those changes and printed again. For my second go through I wanted to narrow the focus on my verbs, yes my verbs. See photo. I highlighted them. This helped my easily distractable mind to FOCUS. So then I asked myself these questions:

1. Any obvious repetition?

-answer yes, need appears far too much

2. Needless/Lazy use of 'to be'

-answer yes

3. Passive?

-Yup (it's the Irish in me, I swear)

4. Are they the best verbs for the job?

-yes and no

5. Finally looking at them as a group do they help convey the point of the scene?

-interestingly for me the answer was an overwhelming yes

So the question for today is - have you ever done this and has it helped? BTW I did another two passes through of the scene and that's it done and dusted until the final read through - I think....

Past the Half Way Mark

Well, I have past the half way point of A Cornish House on this read through and quite edit. Thus far I am pleased to say it all hangs together - miracles never cease:-)

Of to enjoy the sun on the beach if manages to stay out!!!

To the LIghthouse

Yesterday we decamped to the north coast and spent a glorious windblown few hours huddled by some rocks. The kids did a bit of boarding and general messing about on the beach. It was a day to clear cobwebs and anything else lingering in my head.

This morning I woke early and finally sat down to do a critique of another writers work. When I first attempted to do this last year, I was too scared to be as hard on her as I was on myself and also didn't think I had any skill for it (she has assured me otherwise). I was also feeling guilty that I would be totally hopeless at helping with grammar and spelling.......However when I finally took the plunge I had no idea how much it would give me back. By being a tougher reader for her I learned how to be tougher on myself. So I am now hopefully setting myself up for a brutal read through of A Cornish House. I must be ruthless. I have found myself going through first pages of books in shops again trying to find what makes them work for me and what doesn't. I am also seeing things which I think could have been cut. Let's just hope I can hold onto this vision for Monday morning!

Have you done a critique for another writer? Was it helpful to you? Was it horrible? Did you gain anything from the experience?

p.s. the photos is of the Godrevy Lighthouse which V. Woolf used for her book To the Lighthouse which somewhere in the back of my mind i know I have read but can not for the life of me remember it.

Recovery Time Required

Finally after much blood letting this rewrite of A Cornish House is done and dusted. I was beginning to think I would never get there. I hope that for all the pain it caused (which included my mother desperate desire to read the end before she left which was 4 am this morning) it is a stronger story. I do know without a doubt that it is more Maddie's story than Serena's - so even if it's crap I have at least proved to myself that I could re balance and intensify the story. For this I owe a debt of gratitude to the lovely Julie Cohen for reminding all things have been written before but it's what you bring to the story that makes it different and the Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook.



Now I will not touch it until Monday - I promise. I need the distance to get perspective. However as I woke early this morning (Have been rising about five every morning to have peace and computer time) I was twitching. I think if I begin rereading on Monday that gives me a clear two weeks to play with it and then I can send it of to the RNA New Writers' Scheme as an unpolished but complete work. It was the best I could hope to achieve with the end of August deadline.



I have to say there is a part of me also that is itching to begin writing the book in my head which began brewing last summer at the RNA conference. However that must wait until September even thoughI have found the house that will be the basis for the setting......

So Close I Can Taste It

I haven't been blogging - not for nothing to say but the time issue again. My parents are here which is bliss. My house is now sorted and the kids are sorted. Life is good but time keeps disappearing. DH arrives today :-)

Yesterday I woke at 4:30 and couldn't fall asleep again so I crept downstairs and began revision work. I had spent the six hours the previous day while the car was being serviced this week. I sat at the kids table in the local vauxhall garage with a printout of A Cornish House and Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. I began at page one and worked through his chapters and the connections in my head started flying. My poor heroine is having more and more dumped on her but best of all - it all fits.

This leads me to the marathon revision day yesterday. So I revised from five am to six pm yet I didn't reach that crucial stage where these new key scenes need to go. I know what I have to write and I now know where they need to fit in the story but truth be told I might just be a little bit afraid to write them. Why you ask? Well, they will hurt Maddie and me. I will have to pull on all those dark corners of pain that we shove away to make these scenes work and I'm just not sure if I can do them justice.

I have wrestled this story from Serena's (the bolshy teen) grip and placed it back with Maddie but it has come at a huge emotional cost for her. I keep saying what else can I throw at her? So now I sit on the edge of writing some pretty painful stuff.......DH keeps saying as I mention what else is going to happen to her - and this is going to have a happy ending, it sounds more like a slash your wrist job. But Maddie will have her happy ending, I promise, it's just that both she and I will have worked bl**dy hard for it.

Have you had any scenes that it took all your reserve to write because you knew how much it would cost your hero/heroine?

Finally some links - over on C. S. Harris's blog there is a great post on lessons learned.
And finally from d.o.t's blog I found this blog How Publishing Really Works which carries much worth while info......

Bank Holiday Rain

I might the only person in the UK enjoying the rain today but the sound is lovely as I sit here. Sorry I have been away so much. The rush up to leaving and then staying with friends meant that I have been off line for a while. I was twitchy at first but managed to survive.

It is lovely being back in my home. All is not well here - the shower is disintegrating and the garden is sprouting weeds from every corner but overall it is bliss. So come tomorrow I need to contact my builder do some research for what will replace said shower and the floor which is now warped do to leakage. That plus all the others things I needed to do. The most important of which is too love my boys who have grown on me again - yes they have grown - it wasn't me shrinking.

So my blogging will remain bad I'm afraid. The revision is still progressing and I'm am still pleased with the progress. It is now reaching the stage where the heaviest layering will take place. I will confess to being a bit frightening but am pushing forward.

So how's is your bank holiday?

Wise Words

So okay the revision has stalled due to life. Trying to put everything in place before I leave the DH and dd alone for a week while I am back in the UK with the boys. I am iching to work but life interferes. The highlight of the interferance this week is the Bon Jovi concert in the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. I can't tell you how excited I am and it has nothing to do with the fact that I fancy Jon Bovi like mad of course. The Dh is very tolerant of this crush of mine but was none to please when dd said she would rather have a poster of Bon Jovi on her walls than him. At eight she has broken his heart. This is compounded daily by her singing It's My Life at the top of her lungs because she getting ready for tomorrow night. Yes, she is going to her first concert!

Now onto wise words. During my lunch I stopped by the wonderful Kate Walker's blog where she has been answering questions. This particular question was by a writer who had been told her books are still too plot driven. There is an excellent answer but the wise words that hit me were:

"One final piece of advice is don't put in any 'event' unless you know why it happens/how it changes things and why it changes things."

As I am rewriting that is a good question to keep in mind me thinks. Thank you Kate. If you are writing romantic fiction and haven't checked out Kate's 12 Point Guide to Romance - do. It's a gold mine.

Update

Sorry I have been so invisible but I have been working hard and life has absorbed the other time as it tends to........like lost marriage certificates and things (long story I may one day tell).

A Cornish House is being carved and redesigned. At the start of this rewrite I had 391 pages. Currently that stands at 335 and I'm thrilled about it! I am working on page 201 and the story has moved to become Maddie's without lessening Serena's. (Mark's pov of has disappeared - for the answer to that delema and I actually think it makes him a stronger character) I have thrown so much at poor Maddie that I do worry about her but she is showing just what she is made of. With all the cutting I have done it is leaving me the room to develop all the twists in Maddie's life. My biggest concern is that I can remember them all and pull everything together at the end. I will only begin to know this at the end of this rewrite.

Now keen blog reader will remember that I set myself a deadline for the end of this rewrite of 23rd May when I fly back to the UK for a week. With my head down I just may make it so I will still be in absentia in the blog world for another week. Wish me luck!

For The Curious

Well, I took the plunge and posted the lastest version of the prologue and Chapter One of A Cornish House on my web site here . Brave? Foolish? I'm not sure but I do feel the beginning is now taking shape........back to the revision cave!

Useful Procrastenation Link

Over on Calsitro's blog she found a fabulous link that tells you whether you write like a man or a woman. Try it here. I found it a useful tool even if it was procrastenation! I was pleased my chapters in the male pov came out as a man writing and my heroines female. What was deeply intriguing is that Serena's chapters come out male - I guess it's all that teenage angst! But then by the end of the book her chapters come out female............ I guess it shows she has changed at least verbally.

This whole thing leads me to where I am struggling today. I have reached page 150 in the rewrite - the first fifty pages I am much happier with and feel I know them well and have layered in some good emotion - which is good. I am learning my way through the rest. However I realize that I don't introduce Mark's pov until page 97 although he physically appears on page 6. Now it and the subsequent three chapters in his pov are good but here's the question.......is page 97 too late to intro a new pov? Does it dilute from the strong female thing going on? Can I get his pov across without being in his head?

Well, at least I know that when I am in his head I am writing like a man :-)

Returns of the Day

Today I hit a middle milestone and I have to be honest here and say that I would prefer to hit it in better shape. Just last week I was declared clinically severely obese ( I carry all my weight about my middle), I am in the throws of menopause (a bit early not not unusually so), our life here is still on a temporary standing, and I still haven't cracked the getting published thing. However being the person I am I have to say that despite the above I am in good health as is the the whole family (thank God), we are not broke, I love my husband and children and they love me. So basically life is good in fact very good.

On the writing front I know that it will probably be at minimum book five or six that will break me through. Does this discourage me? A bit if I am honest but it won't stop me. Even if i never reach publication I will continue to write and hopefully to grow in my writing.

And with that thought I am back into A Cornish House trying to release the emotion that I know Maddie has but I have withheld from her..........do you deny your character anything?

Tinkering

Okay, I can no longer see the forest for the trees. I reworked those first 50 pages of A Cornish House so many times I don't know what I've left and what I have cut out. It no doubt makes no sense at all any more.

So I just want to sit and read the rest of the book without doing anything yet I can't. I can not read my own work without a pencil in hand and continuous reworking........what to do? Can you read your own work without tinkering with it?

Transition

Something has shifted in me or my writing. I am not sure when I crossed this boundry. It seems to have snuck up soundlessly. I am back deep into editing and rewriting ( and loving it) however this morning I spent twenty minutes trying to find and use the right word for a simple action. No surprise there, you say - well for me there is. I am formost a story teller and I have not dwelt on the words individualy. It was getting the story out that mattered.

So this morning I looked at the action I was trying to convey. It was simple. She was placing something somewhere away from her. I suddenly realized that this was a key thing. She was moving on from the past and all it held. So the did she place it? Did she put it? Did she thrust it down? Did she deposited it? Did she park it? Plunk? Rest? Stick? Settle?

See the problem.......I realized that this was a the first turning point in the novel. What was she thinking? How she handles this bust of her dead husband would tell a great deal.

To many of you - this is something you do all the time but for me this was new. In the past whatever word first came to mind stayed but I am now looking at the sublte nouances of the words...........something tells me that this rewrite could take a long time!

Confession

I normally write Explosive Dreams just before they are published but I'm afraid the next weeks chapter is done and dusted thanks to events in Dubai this morning......sometimes life hands you writing details that you just can't pass up. So I confess that I am ahead of schedule.

Also this morning I have plunged back into A Cornish House. It's been two weeks since I looked at it with the new delevelopments. I read through the new prologue and right now I do feel it does put the story squarely back in Madde's court and I am suddenly excited about the changes I need to make. So fingers crossed this works.

Laughter and Learning

I had a very high brow post planned for today but my day began with hysterics after DH read this headline from the Gulf News - "Lovers fight after man breaks wind. " You can find the full article here. It's well worth a read. I am still trying to recover.

Things for A Cornish House are starting to fall in place, I think. Having the lightbulb moment, while reading Pillow Talk by Freya North, that I haven't given Madde a voice I realized yesterday working with Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook that I hadn't really given Madde much of a story. Now, I know that sounds funny but it's very true. Here's my protagonist and although her story is interesting and touching it just isn't enough to balance out the story of Serena. So this is why she takes over even though she controls fewer pages in the story - her story is more compelling. So when I had been pounding the pavement around Safa Park here in Dubai in the mornings I worked through some aspect of Madde's story that I could change but it seemed pat as I said a few days ago. But then Julie's words...The key is to write them in such a way that only you could have done it.

So the brain went into overdrive with the questions posed in Donald Maass's book. I could make this work and tell it my way which would make it unique. So while I circumnavigated Safa Park this morning more of the new plot line fell into place and it will make this Madde's story and Serena will take second place. However I know this won't be an easy rewrite. I just hope I am up to the task because I will have raised the stakes and I don't want to let Madde down now that she has become more vulnerable and more flawed.

I finished Pillow Talk earlier this week - Delicious. The book is a pleasure to read and I enjoyed every moment of it. A truly romantic story for the Romantic Novel of the Year award.

Madde Doesn't Have A Voice

First thank you for all your support while I looked at my writing or lack there of and fell into the pit of despair......Several things occurred to me. One is how wonderful the are people who visit my blog and two what a trememdous amount of knowledge there is out there in blog land.

A light bulb moment has just literally occured. I am enjoying a lazy Saturday morning thinking that well if I can't write I can bl..dly well read. So I have been stretched out on the sofa with Pillow Talk by Freya North. This is the book that won the Romantic Novel of the Year and I must say the pages are just turning.

Anyway in the back of my mind was the comment from Julie Cohen regarding the fact that my writing is too pat. here is her comment (hope you don't mind Julie):

"I think it's almost impossible to tell if your own ideas are "too pat". I write things that I think are obvious all the time and someone will always say she didn't see it coming (though perhaps they are just being nice). Of course the ideas are obvious to you, you thought them up yourself. The key is to write them in such a way that only you could have done it. "

I love Julie's books. Her slant on life is fresh and lively. Her voice is unique. So you are wondering where I am going with is this I can tell. Well, I have been struggling with A Cornish House and the fact that Serena, the 15 year old, dominates the story even though page for page there is less of her. I have spent hours thinking of how to balance the story and what can to do to Madde to make her story as compelling. Then reading Freya's book I realize that I have starved Madde of her voice. I have told her story although in her viewpoint in dialogue and action but none of it really in her head and with her thoughts. I know this is a funny thing to say but I felt freedom to run riot in Serena's head which is sucessful but I held back from Madde's because I was incorrectly thinking that being in Madde's head was telling and showing and make for bad writing if that makes any sense.

Suddenlty thinking about this I think this may be what holds August Rock back from being the book it could be .......but I am not going to rewrite that one now. However having decided this morning that I was going to give myself a week to work on the new book I know now I am going to go back into Madde's head from the start and let her voice be heard!!!

Here's a great link if you haven't seen it before - it gives one hope.

Rewrite

I keep telling myself that rewriting shouldn't be hard. The words are there after all so all I have to do is look at them critically! I also keep wondering why this is taking me so long - dread, fear, procrastenation?????

I do know that I'm learning though. As I work through this rewrite of A Cornish House I can see things I never saw before - and the bonus is I know how to fix them now. So why is it taking me so long? I think it is too much other stuff in my life at the moment and fear. I do think I really feel I could mess this one up badly because the story has so much potential that I may let it and me down.

I also find I'm working differently now. Currently I print off twenty pages and read through for typos and repetition (to be sure to be sure) and just the general feel of the story. Once that is complete I print off again and read the work aloud. I hate doing this but what a difference it makes. Awkward sentences jump out at me and require fixing. This is very different from my past working methods. I used to do much more work on the screen and work with long pieces of the script. I think I like this method but we'll see.

What I'm not yet doing which is what I fear most is fixing the plot holes and dramtically changing the story. I haven't really dealt with ACH is months so I need to reaquaint myself with my character and remind myself what i wanted to acheive. It's hard sometimes to realize that I have written 94,000 words and may not have aceived what I wanted to or may have to change the whole thing. So after this rewrite I will have 94,000 well written words that don't tell the story I want them too! Help!

This week there have been some great things on blogs. Directly related to what I have been working with this week is here here on Michelle Styles blog. She talks about how it's fine to tell and not show in your first draft and then how to convert it in your second. I particularlly love RUE (Resisit the Urge to Explain). I think I may need that branded on my forehead.

As a follows on from C.S. Harris's post here here which talks about how a writer writes about the body's reactions to danger ( love her words Cardiopulmonary Reality) Steve Malley goes through the way a body reacts to danger - here. It's a great reference.

Finally there is a fantastic debate/discussion on two blogs that is well worth a read on two accounts - one it's content on the relative merits of catagory romance which begins from the male pov as he reviews one he's been challenged to read here and continues on the author's (Julie Cohen) blog here and two as it shows how how brilliantly the blogging world can work for enlightening and thoughtful discussion.