Week 26 - A Game of Two Halves

It’s time for the pieces of orange.

After 26 weeks, I have reached half-time in my year long match between Time FC and myself.

While personally being as adverse to half-time analysis as a 2-0 down Manchester United would be to an Alex Ferguson team talk, I think I can make an exception.

Half a year ago I kicked off on my year-long odyssey to write a novel - while carrying on with all my other full time commitments - within a 52 week period.

It’s not been easy, but then again it never was going to be a walk in the park. Despite this, I have made some progress, having just finished the read through of my first draft. Allowing myself a couple of days to recover (and thus avoiding covering my keyboard with excessive amounts of chocolate) I will be beginning my second draft the day after Easter.

At least that was the game plan.

Just as a last minute goal before halftime can result in Sir Alex throwing a football boot in the direction of his best player (allegedly), I have decided to take a minor diversion, via a change in the formation of next week.

After reading through my novel, it has suddenly become clear that I can sometimes have the memory of a forgetful fish who has just banged his head on the side of his bowl.

My first draft contained a few too many time conflicts and contradictions to convince me that the same might not happen in the second draft. Therefore, I am resorting to the literary equivalent of the football manager’s flip chart.

Scene cards.

While many people use these before they start to write, I bypassed that stage as I knew better. Only of course, I didn’t. So I am going to take the next few days to go back over my structure and use scene cards to ensure I know exactly where I am and exactly when I am. I’ll be using Scrivener’s superb “Corkboard” feature for this http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html, but real cards would be almost as good.

It will be five days well spent. It will also give my characters a little more time to breath, something Kate Mosse recommends in her 26th tip: http://www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk/advice/26.asp

And if that means I miss the half-time break, so be it.

I never did like oranges.