More coffee please....

It's Monday morning and I'm quite gripped by the week ahead, or at least the prospect of the what the week ahead might bring. Although...although...my mind is also drifting somewhat, however a little more about that later on.

What's whipped me up into such excitement? Firstly, there is the continuing nail biting, nerve jangling wait for feedback from the agent about my children's book. I was reading it again at the weekend and it made me smile. Not the prospect of trying to get it published, although it goes without saying that I would probably internally combust with pride and excitement if it ever gets that far. No, it made me smile because I think it's a delightful little tale that will make other people smile when they read it. I haven't tested it on any poor, unsuspecting youngsters....yet....so it's just my own childish mind that connects fully with the story.

However, that is now out of my hands, which means that my second buzz of excitement is the continuing evolution of my first full novel. I'm determined that this will be the breakthrough week where the manuscript is fully formed to first draft stage, as I currently sit at about 85,000 words and will end up around 100,000 ish after the three remaining chapters are completed, I'm almost there.

Now, this might not sound all that impressive, but to me it really, really is. No doubt this will resonate with quite a few folk out there, the fact that I have lying idle in my folders something along the lines of 7 stories that I have started over the years, with the furthest point reached being around 45,000 words. That might sound wasteful, but it's all part of learning to write such a mammoth project as a full novel. You see, it doesn't just happen. Sure, there are days when the words flow onto the page as if they had already been written, yet there are other days, soul destroying, brain aching days when barely a word will spill out. Reaching the milestone of a first full draft means that, for the first time, an entire story made up of my own imagination will be sitting in cyber space waiting to be given some more love and attention. Which, fortuitously for this slightly babbling blog post, leads me seamlessly onto why my mind is drifting.

Because I have already fully mapped out the last three chapters and the finishing line is in sight this week, my mind has already started to turn itself towards the rather daunting task of editing. This is the second element of hard, hard graft that it takes to write a novel. If you think about your school essay being 2,000 words, or a masters thesis being 10,000 words, you start to get an idea of the scale that comes with writing a fantasy novel.

In my first few attempts I was rubbish, and I mean monumentally rubbish, at holding my concentration, hence the number of unfinished manuscripts. I tended to have an idea, begin furiously yet aimlessly writing, then when I couldn't think of the next stage of the actual story line I would go back and edit what I had already written. At the time I would justify to myself that this was a very productive way to approach the project and would inevitably save plenty of time in the long run.

Except, that wasn't the case at all. What it actually served to do was to stifle my creativity and thought processes. There's absolutely no point having 10,000 perfectly written words, if you then hit a brick wall. All you've actually done is waste a lot of time, energy and creative resource on something that you have no idea how to finish, therefore you end up putting it away in a dark cupboard feeling rather frustrated.

Where has all of this led me? Quite simply it's led me to a different writing process courtesy of time served mistakes. This time I have fully formed my story from beginning to end, with a follow on story and a prequel, should I desire to write them. The issue with this writing process is that when I come to editing, there will be a very large piece of work that needs to be done, but somehow this just seems to be the right way around....for me.

Let me explain a little further what I think are the four challenges that I'm going to face editing, and which are already starting to consume my waking thoughts.

Firstly, there is the actual story itself. It evolved you see, I didn't realise that it would, but it did! I first had the idea for my story on New Year's Day when walking around Loch Muick. The Cairngorms had been blighted by some quite astonishingly bad weather for months and months, and had suffered significant floods and damage, not least in Ballater where the felled trees and swept away caravans can still be found loitering in the fields alongside the River Dee.

On that walk I encountered three stunningly beautiful Red Deer Stags, landslides, floods, a dangerous traverse and a few more things that captured a child like mind such as mine. By the end of the three hour walk there was great excitement for the children's book I would write, which would be a great adventure of biblical proportions. I headed home and formed my ideas and notes and then, a month or so later, began to write.

I still couldn't tell you exactly how or at which point it happened, but it did. What happened? It evolved. The first few chapters were written in a style and storyline that were aimed at the early to mid teens age bracket. Then, without warning, it grew darker, older, more sinister, more complex and, before I knew it, the story was a great fantasy adventure of magic, mythical creatures and great battles. Ergo my first editing task will be to pull the story into a completed shape, so that the first third of the book is fully aligned to the second two thirds.

Secondly comes the characters themselves. I know who they are, because I have invented them. But do my readers know who the characters are? I doubt it, because in my view I don't form them well enough from the outset, and rely on the story and the adventures to reveal the characters detail. I don't think a reader will get to know them well enough, soon enough, to connect to them. There has to be an empathy from very early on to carry a reader through the story in a way that they are utterly engaged and mesmerised.

Thirdly, and this is possibly at a more detailed level, I need to be sneaky. Maybe, just maybe, even a little devious. Because my writing style can be quite intense, which is just my style so I'm not particularly being critical of myself, I often reveal parts of the story that intensify the moment, yet detract from the suspense of being a little more coy and gripping my readers for the longer term. In other words, I'm spoon feeding anyone who reads the story instead of respecting either them as a reader and their inner purpose of reading. I don't know about you, but when I read a book, I want to allow my own imagination to run free quite a bit. That doesn't mean that I don't want a book to have a structure and form that takes me from beginning to end, it simply means that in between those two points I want my mind to be able to wander and play with possibilities, only being brought back to the truth in small steps.

Finally, yes finally, there are words. Quite an obvious statement I would agree. But still, not something to be underestimated. I need to make sure that I haven't used to many, or too few, to adequately describe my scenes, my characters, or the chunks of story where I zoom in, or out, of detail with the passage of time. This is probably where we get to the real style of a writer. As a die hard poet I'm hoping that my imagery converts into this form of writing and offers people a rich and rewarding sense of who my characters are and what they are experiencing. I guess only time, and plenty of feedback, will tell on that subject.

That was quite a babbling ramble, wasn't it? Thank you for your patience, it's been much appreciated. You possibly haven't connected that this little titbit has been very therapeutic for me and has enabled me to create a clear passage of what I need to tackle to bring the next stages of my book to life. After all, if somebody is ultimately going to pay hard earned money to buy and read my work, I have a duty to make it as joyous an experience for them as I can possibly make it.

15,000 more words to go, so I had better pick up my britches and shall see you on the other side. Now, more coffee please, it's going to be a very long week....