A General Update

Smoke & Mirrors: It's coming along little by little. Things have been slow because recently I just don't seem to have been able to find more than a few minutes here and there, so it's just not possible to build up any kind of momentum. Right now the typescript is at about 43,500 words, so it's going to be a while before I get the first draft completed. I'm also thinking about a better—or at least different—title, since there are a number of other books around by that name including one by Neil Gaiman (who is one of my writing heroes, by the way).

An idea: If you follow me on Twitter you might have seen me mention that I had a new story idea that came from something I read on a can of beans. In case you're interested, gentle reader, it was a can of Bush's Original Baked Beans and the label said "Secret Family Recipe". The can was turned so that from where I was standing I could only see the part that said "Secret Family", and it struck me as intriguing. At this stage it's no more than an idea; I've scribbled it in the notebook I keep handy for ideas, and I may explore it further when the time comes. It just goes to show, as many people have said, that sometimes ideas come from the most unlikely places.

The day job: Things are very heavy at the moment. I pretty much finished my work for the quarter on the main project I'm involved in, so I was asked to take on some work from another couple of projects. No real sweat there—but since then we've had a number of problems on the public-facing web servers that it's my job to watch, and troubleshooting the problems means that those other two side projects have had to take a back seat. That means that they're beginning to slip behind. (And in case you're wondering, I write these posts a bit at a time as I get a minute here and there, then usually post them in my lunch break.)

Social stuff: I've been using Twitter for a while now (something like sixteen months, I think) and haven't really had the urge (or time, to be honest) to use anything else, although I did create an author page on Goodreads. Recently I was persuaded to set up on Facebook and Google+, and also to make some proper use of the Goodreads author page that I'd hardly used. So I have. None of them is very active just yet—most of the Facebook stuff comes from my tweets, I haven't really done anything with Google+, and my Goodreads updates are limited to saying how far I've got reading this or that book. Also, I'm probably not going to accept many friend requests over and above the ones I already have but still, if you're interested by all means look me up and follow me if you like.

That's all I have time for today, except to say Happy Valentine's Day! to all my readers but especially to my wife Kate (kiss, kiss).

A Quick Update

I spent most of my time in the office today reading a truly awful technical document - the thing's 364 pages long and is really, really boring. Luckily for me I was able to skip to the sections I really need to be able to do the work that's related to it. Tomorrow I should be able to put the damned thing to one side and get on with the real work. I hope.

Right now, though, it's 10pm and I've done a bit of work on one of my 'scripts, and now I'm taking a few minutes to write a few sentences here about how that's coming along.

I have two typescripts on the go right now. One is the "completed" one that is with a publisher. I'm sure that it'll need quite a lot of editing before it's in a suitable shape and ready to be published, and I have a pretty good idea of some of the things wrong with it that'll need to be fixed, so I'm planning to make a start and get a little ahead of the game. That way, when I do get the full list of changes that are needed I'll have at least made a dent.

The other 'script is of course the current work-in-progress, tentatively titled Smoke & Mirrors. It's a bit more than 40% complete (based on my estimated final word count), which technically means that I'm quite a bit behind my self-imposed schedule and highly unlikely to meet my self-imposed deadline for a first draft. Ah, well. What with one thing and another I haven't been able to spend as much time on it as I usually would, so things have slipped. I have in fact started to get some decent work in on it over the last couple of days, though, and I'm getting back into my routine. Here's hoping I can keep up the momentum.

I was in a bit of a quandary about which one I should be concentrating on. I simply can't neglect the editing work; it's far too important, and no doubt I'll be working to a deadline. But on the other hand I don't want Smoke & Mirrors lying fallow for an extended time either, for fear that I'll lose the thread with it.

So I've made a decision: at least until I have to focus on the editing exclusively, I'll be splitting my writing time 50-50 between the two. (And even when I switch to editing, I should still be able to find some time each day to work on Smoke for a bit, so I don't let it drift too far off the beam.)

It's getting late, and I do have to get up for work so I'd better get on. I want to spend just a few minutes on Smoke (I'm about three hundred words into the scene I'm currently writing) but then I really have to call it a day.

Until next time...

Learning to Write

Every book that I've written has taught me something valuable about my writing, and it's usually a lesson learned after I've finished the 'script to a point where I consider it "complete". (Quote marks required; is a book ever truly finished? I don't think so. There's always something that you could do to make it better but if you insist on holding back for perfection you'd never finish a book. There comes a point where you have to say that it's good enough, and move on.)

Pavonis taught me that I need to work harder on endings and pacing (and self-publishing it taught me that there is a whole lot more to self-publishing than many people think, and also that I'm terrible when it comes to marketing - but that's another story). The Artemisia Chronicle taught me the importance of reviewing and refining storyboards before beginning the actual writing. Gunn & Bohemia has taught me... well, let me go into this one a bit more.

As my regular readers (Sid and Doris Bonkers of Ealing) will be aware, I submitted Gunn & Bohemia to Xchyler Publishing late last year and that resulted in a contract offer (woohoo! Still can't think about that without my pulse going up).

However, it's resulted in much, much more for me. As part of the process I had to assess the 'script as objectively as possible, putting myself as far as possible into the boots of The Reader. It's difficult, looking at your own work like that, but I did find several deficiencies that I really hadn't seen up to that point. Lesson 1: in future I'll be adding a self-assessment like this to my process and applying it to every new 'script I write, probably right after finishing the first draft.

One thing this assessment made plain was something that I already sort-of knew but hadn't really acknowledged to myself, and that is that my character building is weak. So at this point I'd like to thank Penny Freeman for making an excellent suggestion that has become Lesson 2: be your characters. By that I mean that you have to get to know them, understand the way they act and think and speak. Penny suggested writing diaries in first person from the point of view of each major character. After a while of doing that you find the characters, grow them, learn everything about them. Once you've reached that point you can speak for them - you have their voices.

(I should say that I've had a lot going on at home over the last couple of weeks and haven't been able to spend as much time on writing as I'd like to have done. Things are getting back to normal now and I'm getting back into my old routine.)

Actually having written the diary for one of my protagonists I took a slightly different tack for the others. It occurred to me that I don't want to know so much how they'd write about themselves; I needed to know how they talk, their mannerisms, what they look like. And so I changed this a bit. Instead of writing a diary, I considered myself to be transcribing a video diary in which they speak in their normal voices, run fingers through hair, pace about, avert their eyes (or not) at embarrassing admissions (note: put those actions in the transcript!). It seems to be working, at least for me. I really feel that I'm getting to know my characters - what they'll do in a given situation, how they choose their words when they speak, the painful secrets that they don't like to think about but that affect the way they behave.

For all 'scripts that I create in future this is going to be an official step in my process, probably after I've got the story fixed in mind but before I turn that into a scene-by-scene storyboard.

Talking about my process I'm thinking of writing up a blog post all about it, in detail. It might be useful to other writers, and it would certainly give me a handy reference. For now, though, I'm out of time and I have (paying) work to be getting on with. Better get to it. Later on I'll get back to some writing - at the moment I'm splitting my time between those character-building exercises and continuing work on Smoke & Mirrors; working on that one keeps me sharp. Until next time...