Kindles,Rewriting and Polishing

And no, I don't mean the feather duster type of polishing. 

As some of you may know from my previous rambles I have at least five and a half 'works in progress' sat around my desk. I hesitate to call them novels, because they aren't, but they could be. Perhaps. They are all in first raw draft. Some written for the NaNo challenge, others, particularly the first painfully scribbled over the first few years of my serious writing endeavours and probably the one that should be sent to the writing refuse bin in the fire.

I have written about editing (what I call rewriting) before, but as you can see I waffle on about it to my hearts content but actually getting down to the task has proved really difficult. I don't think this is because I can't do it from a skills point of view, I think it's more psychological. I'm not sure why it should be but I have a sneaking feeling it's to do with confidence. 

So following a recommendation I purchased a copy of 'Revision and Self-Editing'  by James Scott Bell. The person recommending this book has written real novels, and ones that have been published so it was based on good experience. But I didn't buy a hard copy - with the dreadful weather at the time not even efficient Amazon could have got the book here in time to sieze the moment. I downloaded a... Kindle Edition. What! I hear you say - but you don't have a Kindle. No, I don't but I do have the Kindle App for  my PC. I shall report on that particular experience later.

Anyway the recommendation was sound, it has bitten through my fears of approaching what seems an impossible task and has helped me understand my 'stories' at a deeper level. So much so I now can't stop thinking about the rewriting - of all of them! But one step at a time. I'm starting with the most recent and have committed to submitting chapters to my faithful gang of writing supporters over at Writers Abroad. So I have to get on with it. And the polishing? Well that can always wait, can't it?

Until Later...

BLACK HOLES

Monday Meditations
I've finished the second edit of The Promise! Yippee! Well, it would be but it's left more questions than answers and there are large gaps, scrawls and scribbles throughout the eighty thousand words and 270 pages length worth.
At first I felt relieved, but I've suddenly realised how much work I have got to do! When am I going to learn that writing is never about what you first put down on paper, but about making sense out of what you've got left once you've visited it several times with a red pen!
My most burning question right now is how to handle a large gap in time. The story is divided between events that happened in 1945 and twenty one years later... when a promise is finally delivered. I have made reference to the intervening years through dialogue with the two characters but it doesn't feel right at the moment.
It is so obvious to me now that this needs careful handling but how? There is a huge gap in time rather like a  huge black hole! Do I fill in all the blanks? Do I start from the beginning chronologically or start from the end and work backwards? Do I try and emulate Kate Mosse who handles this so well with chapters from each timeline interwoven. I need to sit and mulch this over a little more and hope that it all becomes clear and if not, that a kindly fellow writer and reader of this blog, might help point me in the direction of the exit to the black hole!?
Until Later...

HAPPY ENDINGS?

End of Week Progress Report

I've put All Will Be Well to one side this week. I need to let things settle, the ripples soften out and accept some of the hard decisions I made during the analysis. Well, I say that but I've been thinking about it a lot (which to my mind is part of the writing process, but that's another story). A week on and it still feels like I've made the right decisions so I'm sure that must mean something. I shall now set a plan for the bits I need to rework, those I need to write from fresh and at the same time maybe look at some new markets for submission. 

The biggest dilemma I have at the moment is whether to change the ending. In the draft I have two major characters who I kill off. Now as many members at Writers Abroad know I am good at killing people off. But their feedback has always been spot on and I think most of them who have read the synopsis would really like a hint of a happy ending. I know it doesn't really always reflect real life, but if that's what the readers want, should a writer give them what they want? I've mapped out different endings and I suppose at the end of the day, I have to just make a decision and go with it. Someone once told me I was good at doing 'sad' and I like reading 'sad' but I get a lot of enjoyment out of 'happy endings' too. And I'm hoping that my novel will find its happy ending , hopefully on the shelves of some major book store. Well you have to dream, don't you?

Catch up next week...