Archive for March, 2006
March 31, 2006
party
I’m very excited–tonight I’m having a party celebrating my first two books’ release, which I’m having at the wonderfully Victorian Gothic Reading Town Hall.
My dear friends Anna Lucia and Kate Walker came down last night, and we had a wonderful evening full of food, wine, and conversation. I was so excited to see them that I gave them big hugs and kisses on the street.
Poor Anna has been drafted in to help me make vast quantities of popcorn–because of a key element of Featured Attraction, we’re having popcorn and chocolate covered raisins at the party. No condoms, though, I quickly add. Sorry.
I’ll post photographs this weekend.
March 28, 2006
collapsed
…Sorry I’m not updating my blog…I am Officially Collapsed. I seem to be fighting off various infections and viruses and need to spend lots of time lying down either watching Battlestar Galactica or reading I Capture The Castle.
Though last night I watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. What a most bodacious film, dude! I’d forgotten how much I loved how Socrates and Billy the Kid become like best buddies, tossing a Nerf ball around the Middle Ages and stuff.
So as you can see there’s no writing going on here but plenty of culture.
Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!
March 26, 2006
aftermath
Original manuscript:
450 pages
91,174 words (computer)
112,500 words (250 wpp estimate)
New, chainsawed version:
319 pages
67,974 words (computer)
79,750 words (250 wpp estimate)
Which gives me an average cuttage of thirty per cent. Not bad for a weekend’s work.
Now I am going to go collapse somewhere.
March 25, 2006
cutting frenzy
I’ll come back to the sexual tension thing later, I think. I’ve left that novel aside for a couple days.
This weekend, my project is to cut 10-20,000 words from my 90,000-word mainstream novel, in order to submit it to a publisher who wants a shorter story with more focus on the romance.
So far I’ve gone through about about a third of the book, and I’ve cut 37 pages, 6600 words. Whole chapters are going out the window. I keep on giggling with wild abandon as I cut lines that I love, secondary character development, subplots.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! Die book die die die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I’m keeping the llamas, though.)
Update 10 pm: I’ve now cut 82 pages, 15,028 words.
March 24, 2006
sexual tension
I always make things difficult for myself.
Last book I wrote, I wanted the characters to have sex with each other within ten minutes of meeting. The first sex scene was in chapter two. So along with having to try to make up two characters who would do such a thing and not appear like utter sluts, I had to figure out a way to keep them apart for the rest of the novel so the sexual tension didn’t disappear.
This book, I decided that while the heroine is massively attracted to the hero, the hero is not attracted to the heroine at all. When he first meets her, he’s too distracted to notice her much, and afterwards, while he likes her, he’s completely sure she’s not his type. And she’s not going to make a pass at him because she’s sure he’ll reject it. So no flirting, no mistaken touches, no sudden meetings of gazes.
So how do you have sexual tension when just one of the characters is feeling it?
I’ve been sticking mostly to her point of view so far, mainly for that reason, but I’m about to go into his, and I’m not really sure how the sex ten is going to hold up.
Before now I’ve always written books where both hero and heroine are immediately and strongly attracted to each other. This is all very new and quite disconcerting.
The moment when he does realise he’s attracted to her will be like a bolt from the blue, and will be very fun to write. I’m hoping I’ll make it through to that stage without throwing myself off a cliff or something in frustration.
March 23, 2006
staying young
One of my colleagues went to see Breakfast on Pluto last night. This is the film I went to in order to stalk–er, appreciate Cillian Murphy, when he appeared at a showing of it in London.
She loved the film, and immediately I asked her what she thought of My Cillian. “Oh, he’s lovely, those EYES!” she exclaimed, and of course I exclaimed back, “Oh my God, I LOVE him! He’s so beautiful!” and she said, “I know, that BONE structure!” and we both did this little giggle thing and my other colleague looked at us with an amused expression and said, “You sound just like the students.”
Note: You will be glad to know that this post has an 8th-grade readability level.
March 21, 2006
am I dumbed down?
One of my colleagues at school writes geography textbooks and I co-opted her to talk to my A-level English language group today. One of their units is Editorial Writing, which requires them to pretty much do the job of a professional writer in exam conditions, and so it was good for them to hear how a pro selects and rewrites information, and adapts it to the needs of her audience.
Anyway one of the things I learned was that it’s possible to find out the reading level of your document in Word by going to the spellcheck options and ticking the “display readability” box.
Imagine my chagrin when I found that the first three chapters of my latest novel are written at a fourth-grade reading level.
Methinks I must need introduce polysyllabic vocabulary, forthwith!
whining
Last night I did no writing–I came home from work, read a book for half an hour, went to an exercise class, came home and had dinner, went to bed and read for an hour, went to sleep, getting a full eight hours’ worth.
How come I’m exhausted this morning?
And how come it’s now officially spring and it’s so durn COLD!?
muttermuttermutterwhinemoancomplainmuttermutter
March 19, 2006
great news
My friends and regular visitors to this blog, Kate Hardy, Kate Walker, and Liz Fielding, have all won best book of 2005 in their category in the Cataromance awards!
Hooray!
March 18, 2006
new hero
Imagine this guy waiting outside your apartment door, refusing to leave.
Or discussing bear traps.
March 17, 2006
it’s coming together
Over 5000 words in on this book and it’s starting to make sense. I am officially writing my first properly sarky heroine, and she is also desperately vulnerable. At the moment, hero and heroine are squatting in a closet discussing designer shoes. (No, he’s not gay.)
I think the defining moment, though, when I knew I knew what I was writing, was when the hero and heroine were in a bedroom talking about a bear trap.
New provisional title: “I Left My Clothes In The Bronx.”
New soundtrack, so far:
When the Sun Goes Down, Arctic Monkeys
Somewhere Else, Razorlight
Golden Touch, Razorlight
No Tomorrow, Orson
Love at First Sight, Kylie
Only With You, Teenage Fanclub
These Words, Natasha Bedingfeld
I Believe In A Thing Called Love, The Darkness
March 16, 2006
timer
Anna has a writing strategy for when you’re too tired or pressed for time to write: set a timer and just write for that amount of time…but do nothing else.
I’m going to try it for the next 30 minutes, and see how it goes. Word count stands at 3418.
…update 40 minutes later…
3892. Not quite half the 1000 words I should do every day, but in 40 minutes when I thought I was too tired to write, that’s not bad.
