What I'm Reading...

I've been reading quite a lot lately. Recently, I finished Octavia Butler's Wild Seed - do you know it? It's quite an old book, having been published in 1980 (the year of my birth, coincidentally). The great thing about this book is that there is no waffle, no expedition. Everything is told in a very manner of fact way, everything relevant to the incidents of the scene you are reading. Butler knows exactly where her story starts, and doesn't preamble to set tone, universe, etc. That doesn't mean that the writing isn't lyrical or the world is lacking in some way - it is a very absorbing story. It feels like a very honest way to tell a story, and something that I'm going to try with my own writing.
I've also just finished reading Orson Scott Card's Hart's Hope. The narrative unfolds as a series of stories told by a mysterious narrator to one of the title characters, going over events that have shaped his life in order to persuade him not to kill his son. At first I found the conceit a little trying as the stories were not perhaps as engaging as they could have been. But by the middle section, I was hooked, and I'm not sure why - perhaps it was when, finally, we were given a hero to root for. Aside from Point Fantasy and the usual children's classics, I think this is actually the first alternative world medieval-esque fantasy book I have ever read,which is quite depressing when I think about it.
I'm now reading Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. I am enjoying it so far, although I think I can tell it's for a younger audience, as a lot of the world-building stuff about the politics of the universe is presented to the reader on a plate. But aside from that, as I said, I'm enjoying the story, though I'm only about a quarter of the way in.
I've been reading Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories which I've had for a while but haven't tackled before. I've only just finished chapter two so far, but already it has proved insightful when analysing my own work and the plotting problems I've encountered. The chapter I've just finished explains the plot Booker has named "Overcoming the Monster" which covers everything from Star Wars, Little Red Riding Hood, The Magnificent Seven, the James Bond films, and, obviously, Beowulf. The hero/heroine gets "the call" - he/she must defeat some sort of monster that is threatening their home/mankind/the planet, and, equipped with "magical weapons", he/she goes off to face them. There is a stage where the hero first mets the monster/bad guys or their associates, and they win. Then they get captured/face the monster again, and it all looks like it's over for our hero until by some superhuman means, they overcome the monster at the last minute and save the world/get the "princess"/get the treasure. It's interesting, to me at least, because my own failed Inter Vivos sort of followed this story pattern, and comparing it to this very basic formula it's easy to see some of the places it went wrong (of course, to say this is it's only fault is being extremely simplistic!). My heroine Nox set out to defeat a monster that wasn't particularly threatening. Big fail.
So I've been enjoying reading lately, trying to write around it, think about the things that I want to do. I have been working more on my Corrie Flint-inspired novel, which is set in London and focuses on many different supernatural creatures that live there (the Banshee story sort of fits into this universe). It's been fun reinventing the troll and the leprechaun into 21st century London, and I just wish I had a little more time coming up to really be able to work on it more, rather than having to steal an hour here or there.
So things are looking up at the moment. I'm at Alt.Fiction on Saturday, so if any of you happen to be there, please come and say hi! The Speculators newspaper is free in the goodie bags apparently, so you can read my short story in there too!

Chatsworth

This past week I've been off work, using up some of my holiday. And it's been bliss. I've planted tomatoes, strawberries, runner beans and both red and green peppers in the garden (as well as a patio rose bush), did a little writing, and, on Friday, hired a car and went to Chatsworth House. It was absolutely beautiful. The house is striking in its grandeur against the lush countryside around it. To be honest though, I was a little disappointed when touring the house - the state rooms were lovely, but the rest of the house we were allowed to tour was more like a museum than a residence, and it's the people that interest me. The gardens, on the other hand, were magnificiant. If you can't find inspiration for a Fantasy world setting there, then I don't know where. The rock garden in particular was beautiful - going to bore you with a few photos, but you get the idea!

Officially I am now part of the Speculators group, which is a SF writing group that meets every week on Queens Road. They're producing a magazine to promote the group, and this was the motivation to finish my short story "Tick", which is the steampunk reworking of Inter Vivos. The word limit for the mag was only 1,500, so I think I'm going to go back to the story and develop it further.

Development for my Corrie Flint/Selena Waterford/Mattthew Gray story is coming along, although I still don't have anything to link all the stories together - aside from the fact that they all take place in London. I'm sure my brain will puzzle it out eventually though.

Hope you all enjoy your bank holiday Mondays!

Catch-Up

This post may be a long one. Don't say I didn't warn you. You wait months for something interesting to report, and then it all happens at once. I'm going to report things in reverse chronological order, just for fun.

The Monastery OK. So here are a few photos of the lovely abbey.

It was so peaceful, even with a boarding school in the grounds. The monks wore black robes, and were perfectly lovely and polite, if scarce. Apparently there were only 30 there. I had supper with the headmaster (a monk) on Sunday evening, and had cajun chicken and tequila-laced salmon, drank wine and elderflower cordial before retiring to my room at 9:30. It was a good event, the Higher Education bit that I was there for, and a pretty unique experience I suppose. Yorkshire is lovely - I think I may have to have a special day trip to explore properly another time.

The Writing Industries Conference I had a very good day, with the quality what I've grown to expect from a Literature Network/Writing East Midlands event. The programme was just about perfect, and they made up for the fact that attendees couldn't attend everything I wanted to by recording each session as a podcast. There wasn't too much waiting around for sessions to start, but similarly it didn't feel rushed. The theme was about New Media, and the need for writers to diversify to become successful. My agent one to one went very well, but probably not for the reasons you might think. He tore my work to shreds, pointed out the gaping holes that I have been in denial about, and made the most liberating suggestion of my life (in regards to Inter Vivos anyway!). I hate it when people give feedback and they're afraid to hurt your feelings, so they use stock phrases and platitudes, and this guy did no such thing. I know some people couldn't have sat there taking it without crying or arguing or something, but I thought it was great. Because it means that I should not waste anymore time on a project that is fundamentally flawed (no matter how hard I try to resolve those flaws) and that I should work on something else.

The day after my meeting, it did hit me that I wasn't as far ahead as I had thought, but - well - nevermind! Back to the drawing board. I'm going to salvage what I can from Inter Vivos, perhaps take a few characters that I like and play with them a little, and treat Inter Vivos like you do your first ever boyfriend - you look back fondly but think, what was I thinking?

So what does that mean now?

Well, I'm going to stick to Fantasy, which is where I'm more comfortable, and I know a little bit more about. I'm going to have a think about what it is I want to write, what I like to read, and go from there. I may revisit the Banshee story, because I think that has some potential, although the plot still isn't clear to me. I'm going to write more short stories and practice the "craft". And I'm going to be more honest with myself. I knew IV wasn't working - I couldn't get my head around the core science in the book, and no amount of characterisation would fix that. There was a reason I hadn't been able to finish it for NaNoWriMo, why I'd been working on it for 4 years with little success, but I'd blinkered myself to it. Everything negative that the agent said, I knew already but had been denying it to myself.

So all in all, the Writing Conference was extremely valuable. Now I just have to work out what to do next.

A Post About Work...Mainly

Sigh. Feeling very tired today after my one-day weekend. Spent most of Sunday lying on the sofa in sort of a swoon-like position, trying to see the telly past my gigantic Valentine's bouquet. Not that I was really watching the telly as tuning out from the rest of the world for a while. I did watch Adventureland though, that was good.
Work is still busy, as I'm organising events for between 500-1000 people twice a week until March, plus in a couple of weeks time I get to go and stay at a monastery, which I'm both petrified and excited about. What if the room I'm staying in is haunted by dead monks? Dead chanting monks? Dead chanting monks with no feet or faces? *shudder*
Because work has been difficult, my writing has had to take a bit of a back-burner, but tonight I start editing again. It is taking forever. But I'm stubborn, so I'll keep chugging away. Come on chapter five!
I found out at the weekend that I've got an agent one-to-one at the Writing Industries Conference, which is cool. I'm doing my research and planning, and have come up with questions I'd like to ask, so that's good. What would you ask, if you had 15 mins with a literary agent?

Will Try Harder Next Time...

I'm finding it very hard to blog at the moment. I'm trying to save money, so am not doing a lot of extracurricular activities; I'm really busy at work, and am still editing Inter Vivos, which is very slow work and hardly worth blogging about.
If you're finding it hard to live without your tri-weekly Lucy fix, you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter. In the meantime, I promise to become more interesting soon!
I did go and see Vampire Weekend yesterday - they were very good, and played my favourite song right at the end!

Editing

I'm feeling a bit down today. One, because I got an email yesterday saying that one of my stories was rejected from a magazine, and two, because on my way to work today I went arse over tit and fell over in the snow. Was very embarrassing (and painful).
Editing Inter Vivos is time consuming and not very exciting. It is good when you get to a part of the story where you suddenly find yourself swept away by it, but those moments are few and far between, and most of the time I'm rewording clumsy sentencing, or else cutting scenes altogether. Chapter one has had to go entirely, which has meant rewriting half of chapter two to make it make sense.
Sigh.
Anyway, on a positive note, I've an idea for a story but I don't know really where to start with it, and whether it might be a short-story or a novel. It is set on a dying Earth-like planet, where the rotation of the planet has stopped completely, and most people now live in the shadowy part along the world's equator, sandwiched between freezing cold and boiling hot. I haven't written anything yet, but I think it might be something I work on in the future.

New Year, New Post

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had good holidays. Watch Doctor Who? I'm a big fan of the show, but even I thought the last ten minutes were too sentimental and self-indulgent. Also, internally inconsistent: In the past the Doctor has never been able to control his regeneration so he can go visit all of his loved ones and stare at them before disappearing again in the Tardis, and I don't see why the Tenth Doctor should be any different. Plus, since when has the Doctor shot lightning bolts out of his body during regeneration powerful enough to destroy the interior of the Tardis? But then again, maybe it's not as tough as it used to be; the Titanic space ship was able to crash through it after all two Christmases ago.

So, anyway, I came to the library to work on Inter Vivos. Then I realised I had forgotten to put a file on my USB. Oh well, never mind, I can look at the proofs instead. Then the battery in my netbook goes. Nevermind, I'll move upstairs where there's a plug socket. Then I realise the notebook I need is in fact still sitting on my bedside table at home. So that is why I am now blogging instead of doing any actual work.

I'm currently working on the first chapter, which needs to be completely rewritten as I've cut that scene and decided that that information should be discovered by my narrator (and the reader) later on in chapter three.

I've been thinking a bit about growing up recently. The future is a really scary place. Well, OK, thinking about the future is really scary. It's full of Grown-Up things like buying houses, starting a family, that sort of thing. Not that I'm going to be buying houses, etc any time soon, but now that I'm approaching my thirties, I've been forced to think about what I might like to see happen before the beginning of my next decade. I mean, I don't want to be forty and think, shit, I'm homeless. And likewise, I think I'll regret it if I don't work hard now and try to be a paid, bone fide writer. Of course, it helps when you remember your notebook... But the point is, I don't want to have any regrets, noone should have regrets about things they wish they had done when they had the chance.

So that's my New Year's Resolution. To do things that mean I won't have regrets when I'm forty (in 2020 aargh!).

What about you guys out there? Any Resolutions you want to share?

seasons greetings

I'm writing this via my phone on the train to a wedding, just so you get a sense of where I am so you will hopefully excuse any typos!
I have been giving all of the Absolute Sandmans now, and I have all of new Who, so am very happy in a very geeky way. Love early Christmas presents.
Am working on a new first chapter of Inter Vivos at the mo (like, literally, a minute ago on the train). I'm trying to make it more engaging right from the beginning, rather than from chapter 11 onwards.
Plans for Christmas involve going home to Shilton, visiting Alex, and starting to edit IV. I also want to read Sandman volume 2, but it's not the most portable of books.
If I'm not online before then, merry Christmas everyone!

Mid-Write Crisis and Book Launches

Hello all,

I'm actually re-reading Dorcas Grubb at the minute, which was the story I wrote for last year's NaNoWriMo. This is the first time I have been back to it since finishing it back in Nov 08. And *whispers* it's actually quite good so far. I mean, I'm only on page 4, but still. Perhaps I'll work on this one after Inter Vivos is finish.

Urgh, Inter Vivos. It sucks. Well, actually, chapter 11 was better, but the first 10 chapters (as I said before) are terrible! Maybe it's partly because the rewrite that I did sucked some of the initial excitment and passion out of it.

Reading through Inter Vivos has made me wonder whether I'm cut out to be a writer. However, I grit my teeth and continue on, and try to be optimistic that I can turn this turd into something that people might want to read.

If writing and getting published were easy, then everyone would be doing it.

I'm hopefully off to the Inkermen book launch at Loughborough University on Friday afternoon, as I've managed to wrangle out of work before our office Christmas party. I'm a bit scared actually. Not hundred percent sure why, as I don't normally get nervous. Hopefully it'll be fun.

The Cartoon Me!

Goodness, I've been bored today! Does anyone else have days like that, where there's plenty to do, but you still feel bored anyway?

To try to combat my boredom, I "Mad Men"-ed myself (see pic left, looks like me, no?), have looked on Ralan for new anthologies I could try to write stories for, and have tidied my desk at work.

Reading through my first draft of Inter Vivos again is so depressing. It is not good. I still have an ounce of optimism that is telling me that I can make it good, but I also know that it is going to take me ages. Which makes me want to stamp my feet and through a hissy fit about it not being perfect now. Writing novels is a mug's game, that's what I'm starting to think anyway.

So, to give myself a treat whilst I'm angonising over IV, I'm going to try to write some drama again. My last play (Hoodies, if anyone remembers) was written in April 2007 - it's been almost three years since I've written any drama. That's actually quite scary. I hadn't realised it had been so long... Anyway, I guess there's no time like the present to jump right back in again. My problem is though, I don't really have any ideas about what to write about - what do I want to say? I'm feeling very blank at the moment.

So yeah, right, well, stuff is sort of happening, but it's all going at a snail's pace, and it's driving me crazy. Maybe that's why I'm bored?

Winner!

Sorry about not posting sooner. I think I've been so occupied with the writing, that I've not had time to write about writing, which is a good thing overall, no?
I won NaNoWriMo 2009 with The Banshee. I finished on Sunday, though had to wait til Monday before I got internet connection so I could upload my file into the official word counter thingie. Sunday was hard. I had basically written the story to the end, but had about 3,000 words to go until my target, so I gave my banshee and her best friend a nice Christmas dinner together.

I'm not sure what I'll do with my Banshee novella, whether to write it as a novel or adapt it as a short story or play even, or whether to just leave it in the drawer for the foreseeable future. I think it has potential, and the characters seemed very real to me, but as I mentioned before, I think I'd have to introduce some sort of exciting sub-plot to liven things up a bit - currently, Tom meets a banshee, falls in love with her, whilst his best friend falls in love with him, they run around a bit, whilst also trying to save the man the banshee is assigned to escort to the underworld, and then people die. It was at the "running around" part that things got really boring.

Anyhow, for now, it's back to Inter Vivos. I'm reading through all the way to the end without making notes. I'm on chapter three right now, and so far can say very definitely that the first three chapters suck. I think because I still wasn't sure at that stage how to begin my story, so I left out vital pieces of information and wrote really formally for some reason. All stuff that'll need to be rewritten in draft 3. Sigh.

No rest for the wicked!

Rut Be Gone!

I had a lovely birthday (thanks for the phone message, Mekon!) and am now feeling pretty chipper. I guess I was just depressed two days ago when I wrote that post, but a day off yesterday + sushi means that I'm feeling better today. Saw Men Who Stare At Goats last night, which was actually good (I thought I mightn't like it, after hearing it was a "military satire"). The cast were really strong, and the story simple and strangely optimistic, and it was amusing (not 'wet your pants' funny, but good).
I have just under 6,000 words to write before I reach 50,000 for NaNoWriMo, and my novel is almost finished. The banshees have bansheed, and my cast is one character lighter, but it feel good. I still don't think the middle is that exciting - I think if I were to write a second draft, I'd have to add an interesting and adrenaline-fuelled sub-plot to raise the stakes slightly.

So once again the cup is half full.

As soon as this is over, I'm going straight back to Inter Vivos. I have started reading it through, and am half-way through chapter two at the moment. It's really difficult to read it without wanting to take notes and mark it up, but I promised myself I'd read until the end without getting my pen out once before going back and dissecting it to pieces.
I have to admit, the beginning so far isn't very good. There are some good bits, but like the flowers in my really messy garden, they are being smothered by crap.
I got a rejection from Weird Tales about one of the stories I had sent off, so have sent it back out to another magazine, and hoping I'll be second time lucky for a sale.
I'm really hoping that this new year will be when it all takes off for me, so for now I have to keep slogging away.

NaNoWriMo Day 11

Things are still going well for me, NaNoWriMo-wise. I'm one whole day ahead of my target word count, which I'm hoping to add to tomorrow and Friday as I have a hen weekend to go to this Saturday, and chances are I won't get any writing done.

In terms of word count I'm doing well. In terms of story though...it all feels a bit rushed. I haven't read back over anything I've written yet, so I don't have anything to really reflect on, but I feel like at the minute I'm merely capturing scenes, rather than feeling and living them. I've moved away from 3rd person singular to 3rd person multiple viewpoint, so that now I can jump into anyone's head that I feel like it, depending on whose is the most appropriate mind to view a particular scene from. It's working so far. Plus, it's nice to get out of Tom's head. He's a bit dull. I might have to inflict him with a lisp or something to make him a tad more interesting. If he was a Sim, I probably would have drowned him by now.

I've had quite a productive year this year. I've written Inter Vivos draft 2 from scratch starting in January, which amounts to just over 120,000 words in its unedited state. I've completed three short stories, two of which are making the rounds at the moment looking for publication. And now I'm almost 19,000 words into my new Banshee novel.

I'm not sure what I'll do when I can finally say "Inter Vivos is finished" and start sending it off to publishers and agents. I will start working on another novel, naturally, but the decision will be between Dorcas Grubb and Banshee, and possibly something else, depending on how long it takes me to finish IV. I also want to work on a collection of interlinked short stories, ordered a bit like Pulp Fiction out of chronological order with occasional recurring characters.

It's good to have options.

So that's it really. Still reading Juliet Barker's Brontes biography, which weighs a tonne. I've drawn the conclusion that Charlotte wasn't particularly likeable, rather selfish actually and quite condescending. My favourite is Anne, the more practical, realistic one. Going to read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall next.

Done!

Just a short post this time to say that I have just finished my second draft (or first proper full draft, depending how you look at it) of Inter Vivos! Woop!
Sure, the last couple of paragraphs are a bit shit, but that'll all be fixed in round 3: Editing. Roll on December 1st for that one!
So this leaves me free to write my new story for NaNoWriMo. Very excited.
Still no story for Hallowe'en though, unless I can come up with something later tonight.
Anyway, I'm too happy to stay now, so I'm off to Morrisons. Woop again!

A World Of My Own

I'm taking a break right now from writing what will hopefully be the last chapter (or at least the last part) of Inter Vivos. All I can say is "urgh!".
I've been working on Inter Vivos since November 2006. Not exclusively, mind you. This year I have pulled my finger out and tried to make a go of things, tried to get the story into shape and all that. And now I'm on the last chapter, and you'd think it'd be easy sailings, but no. Now I have to invent a whole political system for my new society. And I know diddly-squat about politics. It's sort of fun to make up your own system of government, but the problem is that I'm fundamentally lazy. And there's a voice in my head going "but it's the end! You shouldn't have to work anymore!" But I do, and so that's what I'm here doing. Urgh indeed.
It takes so much discipline to write something of novel length. And I know that once this last chapter is finished, the manuscript as a whole still won't be completely. I have to go back over it and check it for consistency and tone. I already know there are passages that will need to be reworded or corrected, either because I was having a bad day that day, or because a character changed slightly during the course of the novel.
But, the positive side is at least most of the "hard work" will be done before NaNoWriMo. November will be a month of experimentation, spitting out a whole new novel to worry about in years to come. Then December will be time to re-read IV and note down what needs changing, and then January 2010 - well, that's when the "hard work" starts again.
And I still haven't even thought of what I can write for my hallowe'en story. Well, I have a vague idea, set on a different planet (or our planet millions of years in the future) but I'm not sure how that will fit with the hallowe'en topic. I could always add zombie-vampires to it, I suppose.
Right, break over. Back to work. (I'm such a slave driver...)

Good Female Roles in Stories

My life is completely boring right now. At the weekend I did nothing but watch series 4 of How I Met Your Mother and play The Sims 2. Hardly worth telling the internet about, but I feel like I must update regularly or else what's the point?

Tonight I'm off to the library to try to finish Inter Vivos. I just want to write something where the plot of the story isn't "girl trying to get boy to like her". I do enjoy romantic comedy, but I've been getting a little bit annoyed that most films with a female protagonist tend to be about relationships. Now, Alien is an obvious example of a film with a strong heroine who doesn't spend the entire film wondering whether her crush will ask her out, but that part was famously written for a man before Sigourney Weaver was cast. Is that telling? Can anyone suggest some good non-horror movies that aren't about women bitching about men (or their lesbian crushes)?

Anyway, my heroine Nox is more concerned with the fact that she's murdered folk, rather than trying to win the heart of some handsome prince, so that's alright then.

Monster Story

Hello all. How've you been? I've been feeling pretty tired of late, so haven't been up to much. Been watching Men In Trees on Virgin on Demand, which I'm really enjoying. A less sexy Sex and the City, with some nice characterisation even if I can predict not only the plot but also some of the dialogue (which I'm finding kinda comforting - weird?).

I finished a new short story last week, and I'm just putting the finishing touches to it. Well, I say "new" - I actually started it last November during Damien's writing class, and have only just gotten around to completing it. It's currently called "The Eye That Came To Work", though the more I type that, the less I like it. Still, I think I'll be sending it off shortly to see if I can find a home for it in one of the e-zines. Fingers crossed.

As per usual, Scary Duck's condensed movie made me chuckle. This one's The Hobbit/LOTR: http://scaryduck.blogspot.com/search/label/Condensed%20films

Inter Vivos is still ongoing. Going to head off to the library tonight to do some more. Must work on The Maiden not being a very bad pantomime villain. Think it'll help though when I have a completed first draft, so I can look at her role the whole way through, and decide what to do with her. Gotta stop her monologuing - that's for certain.

Hallowe'en is coming up, and I'm having a Mary Shelley party, where we all have to write a horror story to read to the group. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to write. Hannah said she'd do a comic, which sounds excellent. If only my drawings didn't look like those of a five year olds...

Cleaning

So, I'm having a massive clean-out now. Our house is a complete sty, so I am attempting to fix it. Half of the kitchen is clean, half looks like the plague has hit it. The living room is coming along, but the front room is the worst. It is my fault, mostly, as there are still two big boxes in the middle of the floor from when we moved in a year ago. But when it's all tidied or chucked away, I think the room will be nice. Going to buy a nice arm chair for in there, so we can use it as a study. Perhaps then I can invite people round without The Shame of living in a pig hole.

Good news, Anakin Skywalker and Scarlett O'Hara were voted worst movie boyfriend and girlfriend respectively. Now that would make an interesting pairing:

Him: Sulk, sulk, no one appreciates how good I am. Sulk.
Her: Me, me, me, me, me, me, me!

Classic.

Work is crazy busy right now, but back to the writing tonight. Finish Inter Vivos by end of October? I hope so, because then I can spend November "having a break" doing NaNoWriMo, and then get on with the editing in December.

September Greetings!

Hola everyone. I have just got back from a week off from work, from leaving the house, and from the internet. It's been really blissful, in a 1995 sort of a way. I've been mostly sitting in front of the TV, watching Buffy (OK, 1998 then), reading some not very good books, and generally just zoning out. It's been really nice. And now that I know I can survive without the internet for a week at least, I'm actually getting more done at work because I'm not constantly distracted. Which is nice.
I haven't worked on any of my stories whilst I've been off. Yeah, I know. Naughty me. I had hoped to have IV properly finished by now, but I'm still working my way through my revised ending notes. I watched the last episode of the BBC version of Jane Eyre whilst I was off, and it struck me how much the end part of IV that I'm writing now is like the bit in Jane Eyre after she runs off from Rochester and is found by St John. I have previously referred to Inter Vivos as "Jane Eyre with Cyborgs", but had picked Jane Eyre simply because it is one of the best known examples of a Bildungsroman. Having read the story in my first year at university, I could only really remember the middle bit, Jane's time at Thornfield up until she runs off after the wedding. So I'm rereading those couple of chapters from the point she leaves right up until she gets found, in the hope that it inspires me when I'm writing Nox's journey from Calista to Aquarius after she leaves the Governor's mansion. It was purely coincidental, but it is kinda cool to think of Jane as Nox's very distant ancestor.
Anyhow, hopefully in the next month or so I should be able to post some proper updates about writing and stuff. I've sort of "fell off the horse", or "off the wagon" or whatever other phrase you want to choose, so it's time to pick myself up now that I'm rested, and hop back on.

The End is in Sight!

OK, so I've reviewed Inter Vivos, after what I wrote in my blog post here, and I find, actually, that it's not that bad. Shocker.

So, in actual fact, I don't need to rewrite 25,000 words. I went through it, and I think I need to make 16 minor changes, and then write a slightly different last scene and I'll get rid of my passive heroine and tie up all my loose ends without it seeming too devised.

I found, on rereading the six penultimate chapters, that I liked my novel. And not just that, but I like my characters too. In my head, Nox is played by Nemi; Cyrus by the old man (now deceased) who was the blind man ("Duncan") in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; Thaddeus by a young Jared Leto; and The Captain by Chris Pine or Eric Lively (who I've never seen act in anything, but he looks about right in this imdb picture). A motley crew indeed.

So that's what I'm working on at the moment.

I'm also trying to decide what is going to be my next NaNoWriMo project - the banshee story, or the Nevada story (of which Corrie Flint is a part). I'll end up writing both eventually. Well, I still have another 2 months to decide.