I've only been back at work for 2 days after a week in Cyprus and I already need another holiday (having to drive to Basildon and back today hasn't helped).
Fortunately I have another holiday booked just next week - camping under canvas in Dorset! We went there last year too where I plotted out a whole novel. Hmm, I've only written about 30000 words of it since though, before the multiple re-writing of Taken have distracted me. Need to make more time... Up at 6 tomorrow then!
Sadly I'll miss the August Wrekin Writers though.
I've just finished going through the second tranche of competition scripts and they really are very interesting. There is a wide range of subjects (and standards!) and I am astonished how people can craft a story out of 'mundane' events. I tend to find that kind of thing intensely boring to write, but some of them are quite gripping. Maybe I should have a go at it, and step outside of genre writing?
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Monday, 3 August 2009
Death of a Manuscript?
I've not been too great about keeping this Blog going. The trouble with missing a few is that then you feel pressure and guilt to do something and the longer you leave it the worse it gets until you realise that months have gone by.
Or maybe that's just me?
I've just come back from a great relaxing week in Cyprus staying with my parents who took out their granddaughter every day, leaving me time to do some serious writing. Well actually I have been doing lots of deleting - trying to strip 40,000 words from my Novel without changing the story, and by the way, fleshing out the protagonist a bit more to make her more sympathetic to the reader.
I'm not doing too badly - I've first re-read it (for the 100th time...?) and split every scene up into its own headered chapter, some only 500 words, none longer than 3000, and written down what happened in that scene, and what key story-driver bits of information are delivered. If the scene, or bits in it, do not contribute to the story or plot, then it goes. *Gulp*
It's quite painful really, and not at all theraputic. I've cut out a number of characters, sometimes completely and sometimes merging them with another, so their dialogue is said by someone else.
I once read an interview with Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsett where they were talking about their training and diet regime before the Olympics, and the question they kept asking themselves was 'Does it make the boat go faster?'
Well every paragraph is getting that treatment - 'Does it make the story Go?'
It's doubly hard because I think I did a pretty good job of this the last 2 or 3 times I've edited it. So it's bye-bye Thorkel, bye-bye Juan, so long Anderton as a viewpoint character, lose the Scarlet subplot, dump the mugging scene, drop the torture, make the two Gathering meetings occur on the same night and remove the two intervening days where Roxy learns to feed and pays her bills...
It feels like I am killing it.
Will there be anything left after all this invasive surgery? Dunno, but I guess I'll sit down and read it for the 101st time and see if it works. And if it doesn't, I've still got the old drafts to treasure.
But at least if I get it down below 100,000 words I might be able to hope that it won't simply be tossed on the reject pile without even being opened because it would be too expensive to publish.
But hey, maybe I'm missing the whole metaphor here. After all, Roxy had to die in the first few pages before she was reborn too...
Or maybe that's just me?
I've just come back from a great relaxing week in Cyprus staying with my parents who took out their granddaughter every day, leaving me time to do some serious writing. Well actually I have been doing lots of deleting - trying to strip 40,000 words from my Novel without changing the story, and by the way, fleshing out the protagonist a bit more to make her more sympathetic to the reader.
I'm not doing too badly - I've first re-read it (for the 100th time...?) and split every scene up into its own headered chapter, some only 500 words, none longer than 3000, and written down what happened in that scene, and what key story-driver bits of information are delivered. If the scene, or bits in it, do not contribute to the story or plot, then it goes. *Gulp*
It's quite painful really, and not at all theraputic. I've cut out a number of characters, sometimes completely and sometimes merging them with another, so their dialogue is said by someone else.
I once read an interview with Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsett where they were talking about their training and diet regime before the Olympics, and the question they kept asking themselves was 'Does it make the boat go faster?'
Well every paragraph is getting that treatment - 'Does it make the story Go?'
It's doubly hard because I think I did a pretty good job of this the last 2 or 3 times I've edited it. So it's bye-bye Thorkel, bye-bye Juan, so long Anderton as a viewpoint character, lose the Scarlet subplot, dump the mugging scene, drop the torture, make the two Gathering meetings occur on the same night and remove the two intervening days where Roxy learns to feed and pays her bills...
It feels like I am killing it.
Will there be anything left after all this invasive surgery? Dunno, but I guess I'll sit down and read it for the 101st time and see if it works. And if it doesn't, I've still got the old drafts to treasure.
But at least if I get it down below 100,000 words I might be able to hope that it won't simply be tossed on the reject pile without even being opened because it would be too expensive to publish.
But hey, maybe I'm missing the whole metaphor here. After all, Roxy had to die in the first few pages before she was reborn too...
Friday, 6 March 2009
Exposing myself again!
Well I took out and dusted down my novel, and struggled through a re-draft of my covering letter and then reached for my stack of Writers' News magazines to find the next potential publisher.
As it happens in this months issue which I received this week (oddly dated April 2009), there was one on page 3 - Snowbooks, who even better, only accept e-mail submissions. That meant there was absolutely no recourse to my usual delaying tactic of having to print out copy and find an envelope. I had a browse around the site, www.snowbooks.com and it looks interesting. A quick google search (I always do this) showed up no negative reports about them, so I composed a blurb and a bio, carefully read, re-read and checked the submission guidlines and hit the 'Send' button.
Interestingly I read the rejection letter before I sent it, as they publish it on the website, so I'm not even worried about what it might say!
Now I feel much better about myself, but I'm not going to stop there, because I know that there are many more possibilities in my stack of magazines, and bookmarks that I've been saving up until I'd finished the latest draft, which I've now done.
In case you are interested, this is what I came up with for the blurb and the bio:
Blurb:
Roxy Harker is a single mother, a recovering drug addict and a vampire. Thrust into a shadowy London underworld controlled by immortal beings, Roxy has to come to terms with her need for blood while raising her two year old daughter, Claudia.
She becomes caught up in an ancient feud which threatens the future of humanity itself, and only Roxy can stand in the way of the coming Darkness.
Author bio:
Bryan Vaughan has been telling tales for over thirty years, and learned to craft stories playing Dungeons and Dragons and other, darker roleplaying games. He has become increasingly drawn to horror writing, seeking what it is to be afraid and the slow realisation that however bad things may appear, they can always get worse! Roxy has been haunting him since university at London ten years ago, so he finally sat down and started typing. This is her story.
As it happens in this months issue which I received this week (oddly dated April 2009), there was one on page 3 - Snowbooks, who even better, only accept e-mail submissions. That meant there was absolutely no recourse to my usual delaying tactic of having to print out copy and find an envelope. I had a browse around the site, www.snowbooks.com and it looks interesting. A quick google search (I always do this) showed up no negative reports about them, so I composed a blurb and a bio, carefully read, re-read and checked the submission guidlines and hit the 'Send' button.
Interestingly I read the rejection letter before I sent it, as they publish it on the website, so I'm not even worried about what it might say!
Now I feel much better about myself, but I'm not going to stop there, because I know that there are many more possibilities in my stack of magazines, and bookmarks that I've been saving up until I'd finished the latest draft, which I've now done.
In case you are interested, this is what I came up with for the blurb and the bio:
Blurb:
Roxy Harker is a single mother, a recovering drug addict and a vampire. Thrust into a shadowy London underworld controlled by immortal beings, Roxy has to come to terms with her need for blood while raising her two year old daughter, Claudia.
She becomes caught up in an ancient feud which threatens the future of humanity itself, and only Roxy can stand in the way of the coming Darkness.
Author bio:
Bryan Vaughan has been telling tales for over thirty years, and learned to craft stories playing Dungeons and Dragons and other, darker roleplaying games. He has become increasingly drawn to horror writing, seeking what it is to be afraid and the slow realisation that however bad things may appear, they can always get worse! Roxy has been haunting him since university at London ten years ago, so he finally sat down and started typing. This is her story.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Zombies
So I'm into Zombies at the moment, for some reason.
I'm reading a book called World War Z, which is part of my research into how contemporary authors are handling 'end of the world' scenarios. I've also recently read Survivors and the Day of the Triffids (which the BBC are remaking....again).
World War Z is about a Zombie uprising which devastates the whole planet, and is told from the viewpoint of the survivors after they fought back and eventually defeated enough to retake large parts of their countries. The Zombies in this book are traditional, lumbering zombies like in Evil Dead, which come at you slowly, but relentlessly.
On sunday I watched Resident Evil and 28 Days Later, back to back. Resident Evil again uses slow zombies, but 28 Days Later was a real turning point in Zombie fiction.
They learned to run.
This was a brilliant re-imagining of the Zombie myth, and one that was also taken up brilliantly by Dead Set by E4 last year (by the way, if you want to see something really freaky, go to www.unseenscreen.com). If seeing a horde of unthinking creatures staggering towards you is horrific, then seeing them sprint towards you must cross the line into terror.
It just shows how you can breathe life back into a tired old concept and turn everything you thought you knew on its head.
There are now a raft of Zombie films and books coming out, and they seem to be relentlessly, unfalteringly pursuing me. Who knows, maybe I'll try me hand at a short story or two, featuring a flying zombie, or an intelligent one...?
I'm reading a book called World War Z, which is part of my research into how contemporary authors are handling 'end of the world' scenarios. I've also recently read Survivors and the Day of the Triffids (which the BBC are remaking....again).
World War Z is about a Zombie uprising which devastates the whole planet, and is told from the viewpoint of the survivors after they fought back and eventually defeated enough to retake large parts of their countries. The Zombies in this book are traditional, lumbering zombies like in Evil Dead, which come at you slowly, but relentlessly.
On sunday I watched Resident Evil and 28 Days Later, back to back. Resident Evil again uses slow zombies, but 28 Days Later was a real turning point in Zombie fiction.
They learned to run.
This was a brilliant re-imagining of the Zombie myth, and one that was also taken up brilliantly by Dead Set by E4 last year (by the way, if you want to see something really freaky, go to www.unseenscreen.com). If seeing a horde of unthinking creatures staggering towards you is horrific, then seeing them sprint towards you must cross the line into terror.
It just shows how you can breathe life back into a tired old concept and turn everything you thought you knew on its head.
There are now a raft of Zombie films and books coming out, and they seem to be relentlessly, unfalteringly pursuing me. Who knows, maybe I'll try me hand at a short story or two, featuring a flying zombie, or an intelligent one...?
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Day two
So here we are, day two. The thing to do is to write every day, so that's my goal. Even though no one will read this, in all likelihood. This will be more like a diary, charting my writing and the thoughts and steps I go through, so forgive the stream-of-consciousness flavour.
I'm working on two books at the moment. One is called Betrayed, which is a sequel to Taken, a story about single mother Roxy who becomes a vampire and becomes caught up in an ancient feud and has to look after her young daughter while coming to terms with her need for blood and nocturnal habits.
How did that sound? My biggest problem at the moment is trying to summarise Taken in one sentence so that I can describe it in a covering letter to a potential publisher or agent and attract their attention.
The fundamental 'new idea' as far as I can tell is a vampire with a baby. The rest of the story, while gripping and gritty, is essentially secondary.
Betrayed continues her story as she learns what it is to be a vampire and reacts to decisions that she made in Taken, which have unforseen consequences.
The other story is a Sci-fi story which follows the consequences of a supernova occurring near to Earth. The world is bathed in lethal radiation which sterilises the planet and makes life difficult for the inhabitants. I'm still in the planning stage of this story, and only have a working title of 'Poison Sun' for the moment. I'm drawing on my astrophysics education to help me write this one, which will help as a marketing tool, unlike Taken, for which I don't have any particular skills I can brag about (apart from being a parent I suppose)
Anyway. I should probably just stick with the sentence above to describe Taken, and start sending out letters. I'm pretty sure that I won't get an e-mail from a publisher asking me if I have any novels that I'd like publishing!
I'm working on two books at the moment. One is called Betrayed, which is a sequel to Taken, a story about single mother Roxy who becomes a vampire and becomes caught up in an ancient feud and has to look after her young daughter while coming to terms with her need for blood and nocturnal habits.
How did that sound? My biggest problem at the moment is trying to summarise Taken in one sentence so that I can describe it in a covering letter to a potential publisher or agent and attract their attention.
The fundamental 'new idea' as far as I can tell is a vampire with a baby. The rest of the story, while gripping and gritty, is essentially secondary.
Betrayed continues her story as she learns what it is to be a vampire and reacts to decisions that she made in Taken, which have unforseen consequences.
The other story is a Sci-fi story which follows the consequences of a supernova occurring near to Earth. The world is bathed in lethal radiation which sterilises the planet and makes life difficult for the inhabitants. I'm still in the planning stage of this story, and only have a working title of 'Poison Sun' for the moment. I'm drawing on my astrophysics education to help me write this one, which will help as a marketing tool, unlike Taken, for which I don't have any particular skills I can brag about (apart from being a parent I suppose)
Anyway. I should probably just stick with the sentence above to describe Taken, and start sending out letters. I'm pretty sure that I won't get an e-mail from a publisher asking me if I have any novels that I'd like publishing!
Friday, 27 February 2009
First Post
Hello World!
That's usually the first computer program people are taught to write - printing words to a screen, normally looking something like;
I've just read Simon Whaley's article in NAWG magazine to fall in love with writing again (since I missed his no doubt excellent workshop :o( ), so here's me, flirting again.
I'm not sure what I'm going to write on here, but I don't suppose anyone else does either really, so I'm in good company. I might use it to write my next novel....
That's usually the first computer program people are taught to write - printing words to a screen, normally looking something like;
int main ()so I find it kind of cute that thousands of lines of code have gone into writing the operating system to display the pixels that show the windows that host the web application and navigate the internet, just to allow me to write!
{
cout << "Hello World!";
return 0;
}
I've just read Simon Whaley's article in NAWG magazine to fall in love with writing again (since I missed his no doubt excellent workshop :o( ), so here's me, flirting again.
I'm not sure what I'm going to write on here, but I don't suppose anyone else does either really, so I'm in good company. I might use it to write my next novel....
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