Time to write.

Last year, 2010,  marked the 6th year that I have done NaNoWriMo.  The first three years were failures of sorts, i.e. I did not finish.  (Mostly health reasons.)  The last three years I finished my novels, but I do not think I will be publishing any of them anytime soon  

So that means I have three completed, and three uncompleted manuscripts in my drawer.   So, enough with the rough drafts David, time to actually finish something.

This year I am committed to finishing one of these novels.  Well, actually two, because I will be combining.   In 2006, I wrote a novel with the stunning title of I Made the Devil do it.  How can you not like and want to read a novel with a title like that?  It is half-finished, but it was a little… bland.  It needed spice.  Which is where my 2005 novel Only Tuesday, comes in.  I wrote about 25,000 words on this novel, but I never got anywhere.  There were lots of beautiful scenes, and dialogues.  But no point to the novel.  So I am going to rip the guts out of it, and stuff them into I Made the Devil do it.  Then, with some editing and re-writing, I think I will have a decent completed draft to start polishing. 

Watch your bookshelves, because there might be a David Seven original arriving soon.

 

Editing again

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am busy editing two of my old manuscripts with a view to making one, coherent, novel out of them. 

With this is mind, I have been reading the drafts again, and I must say I am surprised.  My draft from 2005, Only Tuesday, has some interesting moments and observations.  On the whole the writing style is rather amateurish, and it is full of one-liners and amusing observations that seem more about the narrator showing off than advancing the story.  However there is one very compelling character, and I am trying to figure out how to transplant her from the novel into my next one.  Apart from that, not much worth saving.  She gets all the best lines I think.

My second attempt, from 2006, was much better.  By a factor of 10 I would say.  Don’t get me wrong, I made the Devil do it, is still a very rough draft, and the writing style needs a lot of work; but I am not  embarrased by it, and actually look forward to finishing writing it so I can see how it ends.  I even found it amusing, and laughed out loud in places.

Lessons I have learned from this experience:

1. Everything they say about your first novel being crap is true;
2. Once you get the crap out of your system, it is actually easier to write;
3. Leaving the novel(s) for three years gave me a new appreciation for how much good was actually hidden amongst the bad;
4. Nothing is scarier than thinking “I wish I had written that,” and then realising you did.
5. Don’t edit while you’re writing, because there is a lot I would have cut from the book, that I now think I can use with a little work.

So watch this space, and expect news about I made the Devil do it, but only on a Tuesday. 

 

2010 project

I have been trying to decide what to do this year.  I wanted to keep the momentum going on my novel, but I also realise that what I wrote last year is a pale shadow of what should be in the book.  More like a plot-line than an actual novel.

So I have decided to take a break for a while from last year’s project, and re-open an old one; or two.

I am taking the half-finished drafts of the novels I wrote in 2005 and 2006 and tieing them together into one.  I made the Devil do it, which I gave up in 2006 due to illness, is a fairly compelling story, and I liked where it was going.  Only Tuesday, which I gave up in 2005 due to boredom, is pretty crap, but it has a lot of good dialogue and a few workable characters.  I will be scrapping the plot (plot?  there was a plot?) and working the material into the 2006 one to make it more rounded, then finishing it this year hopefully.

And the plus side?  Both novels were typed, so I don’t have to re-type it from my handwritten journals like I would with my latest novels.  🙂