Week 30 - Echoes of the Golden Age

I have now been back for three days from my short mystery-related break.

Many people have emailed with guesses as to where I was going. Surprisingly (to me) Baskerville Hall was a popular guess. I’m not so sure that would quite make the romantic getaway I intended - especially as it doesn’t actually exist beyond the pages of Arthur Conan Doyle!

In fact, I was not so far away - in terms of geography at least. I spent three days on Burgh Island, situated off the south Devon coast and the setting for Agatha Christie’s Evil Under The Sun (and the inspiration behind And Then There Were None).

Within seconds of setting foot on the island, it was clear that this was no ordinary hotel. The owners have taken its Art Deco design and gone the whole way with a 1930s theme. There was a superb band playing songs of the era http://www.artdecomusic.co.uk/ and dinner was black tie with the ladies in ball gowns.

It all made for classic Golden Age happenings, even down to the gathering of the guests in the dining room (albeit without any rotund Belgium detectives in evidence.)

It was a lovely break; but as ever, when you’re in the middle of a writing project, you’re never fully “off duty”. The hotel provided much inspiration and got me thinking about the classics of yesterday. Over the years the novels of writers of the period - especially those of Agatha Christie - have been criticised in some quarters for having “wooden” characters. This has always seemed a little harsh to me - and not really very near the truth.

Obviously, modern crime fiction has moved on a long way from so-called “cosy” murders (although the success of the Agatha Raisin series bucks this trend). Any prospective crime author who ignores the classics of the genre does so at their peril. I have just finished Mrs. McGuinty’s Dead and the characterisation is on a par with many modern novels. It’s certainly worth a read if you are only aware of the author’s more famous works.

Of course, while reading is important, it’s the writing that counts. My short break has reinvigorated me and I returned home itching to get back to my book. It is beginning to tighten up now and the second draft is starting - slowly and sometimes painfully - to resemble a novel. This week will see me introduce my long delayed new character and hopefully he will add that final ingredient to the book so that it all begins to gel together.

The weeks are beginning to pass at a quicker and quicker pace - and it’s with a mixture of excitement and abject terror that I realise that I have just reached week 30. While all this Golden Age reminiscing is fun, it’s time to pick up the pace and get down to the serious slog of writing.

After a cocktail, of course.

Week 29 - ...and the winner is...

When you undertake a project that will last a year, there are always going to be good and bad weeks.

This has been a good week.

As the banner at the top of this blog states, I am now the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook Official Blogger for the next 12 months.

This came about after I bought a copy of what is the writers’ bible back in early September. I read on the inside cover that they were holding a competition for the best blog dealing with a writing or illustration experience. As I was just about to start my 52 week crime novel odyssey, it seemed a moment of Kismet. So I entered and last week heard the news that I had won.

I have received many congratulations - which is nice, including a message from Greg & Kate Mosse and Keith, designer & owner of Scrivener. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/index.html

Definitely a good week.

Of course, the writing world continues and I have still been working through all the structure issues of my first draft, hacking away at its rock face to create something that might resemble a second draft.

Lest my recent success goes to my head, the second draft is proving to be harder work than I imagined. I am hoping that this is because the earlier chapters will need more work because of how the book developed later. Progress has been so slow that I have not got to the point where I am introducing the new character I mentioned last week.

I have just six weeks before the end of this stage when the actual re-writing begins and I still have 24 chapters to work on. Hopefully, the structure will need a lot less work as I progress, especially as I am going away for a few days - taking Kate Mosse’s advice for a bit of distance. http://www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk/advice/28.asp

I will be staying in a hotel that has been the location for one of the great detective novels of the twentieth century. It should be a great experience and will hopefully inspire me to infuse a little of that golden age magic into my modern detective novel.

In the best traditions of the genre, you will have to wait until next week to find out where I have been - and what it was like!

Whatever happens over the next six weeks, I know that a lot of hard work lies ahead, so I will have to turn down all the requests to attend premiers and royal banquets that will result from my blogging success. Sadly, I have yet to receive an invitation from Carla Bruni.

Never mind. It’s still been a good week.

Week 28 - Hello Again

The next stage has begun.

After a few days’ diversion around the byways of note collation and overdue filing, I am back on the main road. I have started my second draft.

As I have previously mentioned in this blog, I am now in uncharted territory and am learning as I go. The current stage is planned to run from now to the end of the first week in May and is focused on structure.

What this means in practice is that I am back on the computer and going through my notes from my read through of the first draft and making changes where necessary. So I am adding and expanding scenes, as well as the strangely addictive experience of cutting scenes. I have just expunged a character from my novel and while in my head she still inhabits the same landscape she did before, she is no longer evident in the book.

The theory is that I make no changes to the prose until the big final stage (10 whole weeks) where I will be fine tuning and polishing my words. It’s actually quite difficult to leave sentences alone when it’s clear they need a little work; but I am trying to stay focused on sorting out my structure.

The next 5 weeks will hold some real challenges. I have to introduce a brand new character at some point and then work him in to the rest of the book. I must admit I have put this off and now that the time is almost here, I am still not sure how I am going to do it.

I just know that somehow I will.

That’s the beauty of working to a deadline - a big one as in the 52 weeks I have given myself to write the novel - but also the smaller ones along the way.

It’s also what makes all the hard work and caffeine abuse worthwhile. Whisper it quietly in the earnest world of letters, but it’s actually quite fun. Knowing that there’s a character waiting for me to give him life and make him interact with others is a strange but exciting feeling.

I also need to weave a new plot strand into the earlier part of the book and this is proving quite challenging - but I have the next week to sort this out, so I will let you know how I get on.

Of course, that’s one of the problems you face with a second draft. You already have a book in place - written in black and white and it can be painful to undo - or even delete - work you slaved over. What’s also noticeable is that as I am back at the beginning of my book and am revisiting scenes that I wrote six months ago, I am making some surprising discoveries.

It’s just like meeting old friends - it’s great to catch up, but sadly some have aged better than others. Of course, that’s life.

And fiction.

Week 27 - Wet Sounds

One morning this week I made my regular sojourn through a city still largely in the arms of Morpheus, on my way to Starbucks.

It was cold, it was raining and my motivation was not at an all time high. As I opened the door to the coffee shop, a particularly well aimed drop of rain ran down my back. Things were not going well.

Then I heard the Beach Boys.

Now the music normally played in Starbucks is nothing if not appropriate to the season. Christmas means crooners, Sundays see smooth jazz gently caressing your ears and most mornings classic seventies’ rock with a bit of singer songwriter thrown into the mix is deemed the perfect accompaniment to your coffee and cake.

But the Beach Boys...in March?

Now lest I get the staff into trouble with the Starbucks bean counters (I couldn’t resist that pun, sorry), I will not give clues to which store I was in. I am sure that going off the official corporate playlist could well end up with the Barista in front of a Barrister for flagrant abuse of the AMC (apposite music clause).

I was so surprised to be musically asked to go surfin’ at 7.30am in a landlocked city that I made mention of the fact to the lady behind the counter.

“The weather’s so depressing,” she said, “I thought what the hell! We need cheering up.”

And that was just what she did.

It’s not that I am a massive fan of the band, in fact I seldom hear whatever music is playing once I begin to work, but what cheered me up was that one little rebellion in a world all too happy to spend its days on auto pilot.

It also got me thinking that sticking too rigidly to a plan, when the conditions seem far from appropriate, may not always be the best idea.

So this week, I have put my own plan on hold for a few days and spent the mornings organising the mountain of notes that I have amassed over the past six months.

They are “stored” in a Moleskin wallet that looks like a mini version of one of those concertina files. The problem is that they are written on a wide variety of items. Among the expected post-it notes and box file cards, I counted five till receipts, ten car park stickers (still considerably stickier that the post-it notes), two passport photos and a folded up flyer for “A Night in Bed” (don’t ask).

I was partly inspired by Kate Mosse’s Tip 27 that I had read the previous night: http://www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk/advice/27.asp but most of all I was inspired by tales of California Girls and Hot Rods (what or whoever that is).

I am now back on track and about to start my second draft; but I feel a whole lot better for the small change in routine. I have also got rid of a job I have been putting off for months and best of all, I have found a great plot idea that judging from the handwriting, must have been jotted down when I was researching one of my character’s liking for malt whisky.

All this due to someone who decided to rage against the coffee machine and go surfin’ in March.

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.

Week 25 - The View from the Crows' Nest

Having reached the end of my first draft, I was reminded of those old maps that had blank white areas around the edges to indicate lands that had yet to be charted.

Once the evening of euphoria caused by completing my first draft had metamorphosed into a dawning despair, I realised I had no idea how to write a second draft. In the cold light of day, I knew it wasn’t just a case of writing everything again, only better. That might be fine if you have endless days ahead with nothing to trouble you but the gentle caressing of finely turned phrases.

I don’t.

I have to carry on with my full time job, writing articles, interviewing people, taking photographs and so on.

I needed a plan.

So I decided to research and lo and behold, going against all known laws of the internet, I found what I was looking for almost straight away.

For anyone at a similar stage, I recommend this link http://www.essortment.com/all/writebetternov_rtsk.htm It’s a succinct guide to working through a second draft - I have printed it on one side of A4 and have annotated it with rough dates for each stage.

At the moment I am reading through my draft and marking passages that need to be extended or cut; characters who need to be introduced or indeed cut out (sorry Amy); and any gaping contradictions (what do you mean the murderer can’t be in two places at once?).

I am about half way through and the task has already borne fruit. I have a much clearer overview of the novel as a whole (it is six months since I wrote the first chapter); I am also happy to see that my writing improves around the time I started to write daily: proof, if it was needed, of the importance of habit in the writer’s life.

It also highlights the importance of being your own critic. Some of it is terrible and my red pen was used liberally; but most of it can be saved. The odd word may even remain unchanged.

Now is not the time to worry about typos and unpolished prose, but to get a handle on the overall structure of your scenes and make notes for when the real writing begins again.

Not that we should get sloppy. I am indebted to Andy Calow - he of Calow Classics http://www.calowclassics.net/ - for pointing out a typo in last week’s blog. As he is responsible for providing the soundtrack to my writing via his classical music shop, it was only fit that I took note.

So as I select some appropriate music from my iTunes library care of Mr Calow, it’s time to get back to my red pen and leave the keyboard alone for a couple of weeks as I work my way through a box file of A4.

Slowly but surely, I am navigating my way towards the second draft.

Week 24 - The End of the Beginning

The other week I was walking in the Peak District. Not walking as in from the car to the cafe, but proper walking. Out on the hills being buffeted by wild wind and the odd wildish sheep. After a couple of hours, I stopped to have a drink. Turning around, I looked back over the path I had walked and was amazed to see how far I had come.

Just like this week.

On Tuesday night I typed two of the most magical words in writing: "The End." After 24 weeks, a number of setbacks, a few too many wee small hours sessions, I had arrived at the end of my first draft.

Now, I would not be telling the truth if I said that I never doubted that I would make it this far. There were times when the whole project - writing a novel in a year, while holding down a full time job - seemed to be on the par with waiting for my local library to get some new books.

So how have I got this far? The main reasons are:

1. I wanted to get this far. It's no exaggeration to say that if you don't really want to achieve a big task, the chances are you won't. Trust me, I know.
2. Habit. Write everyday - or at least six days a week. It is habit forming and your characters will begin to live because you spend so much time with them. Be warned though, this can lead to MWS - mumbling writer syndrome; whereby mothers move their children away from the odd person who is walking through town saying things like, "This would be a good place to hide a body" & "How much weed killer would you need to put in someone's drink to kill them?" (Don't try that at home - I have a feeling the answer is not very much).
3. Organisation (or , let’s be honest, at least the semblance of it). For this I have used Scrivener: www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.htm It has probably made the difference between the printed MSS that now sits on my desk awaiting the red pen of revision and tears and wailing unbecoming of a thirty-something.

I am now talking a whole 5 days off - trying not to think about my novel so that when I go back to Chapter One on Monday, it will be with fresh eyes.

I may not have yet completed the literary equivalent of the Pennine Way; but I'm out there, in the middle of the hills with nothing but empty scenery around me.

It's a little scary; it's a little daunting. But it's also very, very exciting.

The only problem is: however closely I study my Ordnance Survey map, there doesn't seem to be any instructions on how to write a second draft.