Idyllic retreat

We're coming up to crunch time -- the end-of-semester marking spree, and never have I had more subjects to mark, so I can't say I'm looking forward to it. For a few weeks, it means I have to live, eat, breathe and sleep marking. I have had years where I've stayed up till 4 am and then got up again at 6 for another burst. Can't say it's very conducive to good health, but the mountain has to be scaled.

It also means my own work is pushed to the side. For a few weeks of the year, I barely even think about it, and I can feel myself get toey about it. So, with all this in mind, it was fantastic to get away with a few members of the SuperNOVA novel writing branch for a writers' weekend.

My mother tells me off when I go away like this. "You've got a family," she says. "It's selfish to leave them behind while you go on holiday." She's missing the point. This isn't a holiday per se: it's a chance to spend intensive time working on your novel. We do write. Or edit. And we do do it for most of the day. And the evening. And well into the night.

When I've been out with Western Women Writers, half the group wants to spend the whole time writing (I'm in that half), and half wants to spend half the time writing and half socialising. There's nothing wrong with this, of course. Balance is a good thing -- if you're not too time-pressured. I relish the time to be focused. And I get a lot done. 

There's something about being away with other writers -- we all inspire each other to write lots. Procrastination is frowned upon. My friend Ellen is the task-master and gently keeps us all in line. Like me, she's not there to muck around. We measure success sometimes in words, or sometimes in more esoteric terms -- the feeling of having reconnected with your novel after time-out, or of nailing that difficult scene.

The worst part, always, is having to come home, and this weekend was a particularly short one, because of traffic concerns. But it's wonderful to have had dedicated time to spend with dedicated people -- something every writer needs.

Back to the novel

The best way to write is to write a little every day. There are a thousand excuses we can find not to do this, and I have times where I seem able to exercise them all. But the hard truth is the writing flows best when we are at it every day -- it is then that the juice oozes. The words come easier, and the ideas zing.

I would like to say I'm capable of writing every day, and that I manage to achieve this, but it would be a lie. I invest a lot of time into my students -- into workshopping their work, into preparing classes -- and this year, teaching a new class (always a big time consumer), and this semester doing double my workload is really taking its toll. It leaves me thinking that next year I have to cut back my hours: after all, I'm a writer, and I want to write.

James N. Frey talks about this in his book How to write damn good fiction. One of his chapters is on the seven deadly mistakes a writer can make, and one of these is leading the wrong lifestyle. He tells of the advice he gave a would-be writer whose husband was an obstacle between her and the writer's lifestyle, and that was to get a new husband! While I do think that extreme, we do, in the end, have to decide on our priorities: what it is we want to achieve and what we're prepared to pay for that. There are no right and wrong answers -- only answers that suit you and your circumstances. What if your job is interfering with your writing? It's up to you to decide what to do. I've known people who have been in a position of having to choose and who have gone with their job. Sometimes, they've admitted to a great sense of relief on having made that decision. That's all right. They might come back to writing one day, and they might not. The world has enough writers; what it needs -- what we all need -- is more readers.

Think about it. The writing life is a hard one. There is little financial gain for most of us. After all, how many hairdressers can make a living out of hairdressing in this country? How many writers? Even of the best writers in the country, most have to supplement their income. And we're already talking only of those in the top echelon who get published. Much easier to be a hairdresser. Or bank-teller. Or anything really. It's a life full of rejection (unless you're one of a very elite few like Isobelle Carmody, who has never had a rejection letter), a life of harsh criticism and pulling yourself together and getting your work out there again and again and again.

But we have to do it.

We are driven.

And those who do give it up often come back to it. Writing is the nectar that feeds us.

Those struggling to find time, do find ways of carving out a niche here or there. Or don't.

I know when I'm not writing, I feel angry and frustrated. I am filled with self-loathing at my own patheticness. But when I finally unstopper that testube, then the creative potion fizzes up, a flood of it. In the meantime, I keep it ticking in my head. I think about my characters; I play out scenes in my imagination -- even scenes I've already written. I flesh out backstories, and sometimes, sometimes, I get fired up enough to find the time I need to write.

Reading and writing

Sometimes we get students who apply for our course who hardly ever read a book. They seem surprised that we expect them to read. I mean why would we? Being a writer who doesn't read is rather like being an architect who never looks at the buildings around you, who never browses the latest in the architectural magazines. If you were hiring an architect, wouldn't you want someone who was up with what was going on, who felt inspired by the amazing things that other architects were doing, who wasn't just peddling the same old, same old? I know I would.

Some writers use the excuse that they don't want to be influenced by what other people are doing -- as if they would have no control over what they were doing and might be impelled to copy ideas or plagiarise actual phrases or sentences. That's a rather naive attitude. Ideas sometimes seem to have a currency -- there's nothing worse than finishing a short story or a book, feeling that satisfaction, then picking up a new book for relaxation -- and there's your idea! What a gut-sinking moment. Only, you know they didn't copy it from you, because your version isn't even out there yet. And you didn't copy it from them, because you hadn't read this book before.

Still, if the book's been published, people might think you've copied whether you have or you haven't. So aren't you better off being aware what's out there so that you can make sure yours is different? How else are you going to become aware of the cliches of your genre?

Fine, so you should read widely in the genre you're writing in -- and I maintain you should write in a genre you know and love, not one that you don't respect but think is easier (is there such a thing?) or that is more likely to make you money. If you don't have absolute respect for the genre, it will show through in the writing. Fans will sense the disrespect and respond to it -- even if they can't put a name to it. But is reading widely in your genre enough?

No.

You need to read widely to teach yourself how to write well, and if you are already writing well, to keep raising that bar. Different types of fiction will teach you different things. Want to know about suspense? Go read some crime. What about language use or characterisation? Look at lit fic. Plot? Try a thriller. Experimental fiction might help you take risks you'd never even thought about. Who knows where you might end up? But if you don't read, you won't ever know.

My sessions at the Writers' Festival

I booked for five sessions, but because of a family crisis ended up missing one. Still, four isn't too bad.

The first of the sessions I attended was on creating worlds -- I was particularly looking forward to hearing Margo Lanagan speak, as I love her short stories, particularly the sublime "Singing my sister down". If there is one short story I wish I had written, that has to be it. This was a good session, except that a fair portion of the time was spent in writer readings, which I'm not a big fan of. I'd rather read the book myself, and have the extra time hearing the writers talk about their craft or their processes. I caught up with my friend Ellen, who I was meant to be spending the afternoon and attending an earlier session with but, regrettably, that was the session I missed.

The next weekend I had three sessions.

My second session was on love. Now, there was a separate session on the philosophy of love, so I was expecting this one to be on the craft of love scenes, but it wasn't. It had a philosophical bent and included the love of writing as a major component. I love how I go along to these sessions, and they're often different to what I'm expecting. Some (a few) disappoint, and some are unexpected gems. This was one of the latter. 

My third session was two writers (David Malouf and Michelle de Kretser) talking about the books they loved as kids: the books that inspired them. This also involved readings, but readings of passages from other authors that they loved, and I really enjoyed hearing them talk with such passion and enthusiasm. What I didn't enjoy as much was the introduction by the past editor of a highly esteemed literary magazine (which I won't name) who talked about the uselessness of writing courses. His take was they don't work, and he's in a position to tell because graduates of these courses used to send him stories, and most of these stories were unpublishable in his magazine. Okay, that predisposes that most of graduates want to write that kind of story. Most of our writers are not writing literary fiction, and really why would I encourage them to if it's not their passion? At book length, it's not as marketable as mainstream or genre fiction -- and, interestingly, in a conversation I was having with a book publisher last year, she told me how great it was that we had such strong stories coming out of our course. So, yes, publish in a lit mag with an erudite but low readership, or publish more widely to a less-educated audience? I have nothing against literary fiction -- I think there are some brilliant lit stories out there -- but I do believe that writers should write what they like reading -- I've had other writer friends who were doing courses receive low grades on genre fiction stories that ended up being published and winning awards. What a shame they weren't writing "literature" -- we have no such snobbery. This isn't to say that perhaps the said graduates hadn't done their research, but then there are always the people who send off something inappropriate anyway, but have it picked up because an editor wants to try something new. Go figure. Okay, rant over.

My fourth session was a reading. Let me fall over right now, because I never normally book in for readings, but this was a poetry reading, and I particularly wanted to hear one of the poets. I won't add details, but it's someone who's highly esteemed, and I don't get why. And, really, this didn't change my mind. I don't get it. All right, I don't get it. So, it was worthwhile going just for that... But I did enjoy the readings (most of them) anyway.

I must say the move to Fed Square has me looking forward to next year's festival!

Melbourne Writers' Festival at Federation Square

The last two weekends, I've been attending the Melbourne Writers' Festival at Federation Square in the city (Melbourne). This is the festival's first year at Fed Square, and I've had some debate with writer friends about whether we think it will be a better or worse venue than the Malthouse Theatre, which is where the festival's been held in the past.

I've been firmly in the camp that it will be a much better venue, for two reasons: commuting and space. The trouble with the Malthouse is trying to get a park -- hard enough in itself, but trying to get one for any length of time... More than once I've missed part of a session because I was out moving my car, joining the half a dozen other sharks doing the circle, looking for spots. And as for space, the Malthouse between sessions was sardine city. Literally, pushing through people to breathe, let alone move.

Fed Square means I can catch a train in, because parking in the city -- well, forget about it. It can be done, but be one minute over (or three as my husband found out the other day) and you'll find yourself ticketed.

So, what have I found? Fed Square is certainly more spacious, with more seating in the theatres, and a choice of coffee shops and, as a bonus, a second-hand book sale as well as the festival book shop. What I hadn't expected though was the fragmented feel. A lot of the people at Fed Square aren't there as part of the festival, and festival goers are spread all around the place. I can't even tell who's a festival goer and who's not. It's meant that I've felt far less sense of community, and I think that sense of community is something we all need. It's probably something I have more than many writers because I'm teaching writing and surrounded in my day job, therefore, by writers. And because I belong to two writers groups I'm mixing with writers outside my work hours as well. Over the years, I've gradually whittled away most of my non-writer friends -- something that saddens me, but that's just how it is. Given the choice of shopping with the girls and working on my novel, sorry, but the novel's going to win out every time.

But even so, my writing life can feel a bit insular. Attending writers festivals gives a broader picture -- small fish in a big sea stuff. Usually, at the MWF, I see a number of people I know -- people I've done courses with or been students with or whom I've met through other writers. This year I saw only two (other than my friend Ellen, who'd I'd organised to go with): Kate Eltham, Clarion organiser extraordinaire and representative of the Qld Writers' Centre, and Kathy, one of our students, but not one I'm teaching. It was lovely to catch up (no matter how briefly) with them both. 

So, better venue or not? I'm currently undecided. But my loathing of the parking at the Malthouse is such that I've often chosen not to attend, whereas now I'm much more excited about going back next year. Perhaps that's all I need to reflect on!

The hardest but most important word for writers

I'm one of those people who hate saying No to people, so I hate it when people come asking for favours. Often it's because I work part-time -- so obviously I have a lot of free time on my hands. I don't. I'm currently teaching 0.6, but have taken on an online subject, which I guess makes me 0.8. When I was 0.4, my husband reckoned I did the same work as a full-time worker, which some weeks would be an over-exaggeration, but on marking weeks would be an under-exaggeration. I go to a writing group one afternoon a week and have stuff I have to do for them. I have home commitments (as most of us do), and writing commitments. Other people don't get that.

Writing commitments -- what are they? Surely, writing is that stuff you squeeze into your spare time -- and other people see their pulls on my time as more important than anything squeezed into spare time. Sorry, but they're not. Today, I had an email from someone who wanted me to look over a chunk of manuscript. Writing related, sure, but I had to say no. It made me feel rotten -- truly -- but I'm not getting enough time for my novel at the moment, and that *has* to be my priority. 

For others, other people (or tasks) demand time for less writerly reasons. It might be the neighbour -- whose concerns and needs are genuine. It might be a mother or father, a cousin or aunt. It might be the man in the butcher's shop, or the girl you see by the lake. In the end it's up to us: we have to decide whether we want to write or not. 

A few years ago, Robin Hobb spoke at a Melbourne SF convention. In her Guest of Honour speech she said something along the lines of: you will never have more time to write than now. If you put off your writing until you retire, or until your neighbour moves out or whatever, you won't write because there will always be new demands on your time. If I got nothing else out of that con, it was worth going just to hear that. It's one of the great truths of writing. Write it down and stick it by your computer and then think about what you want to be at the end of day. Do you want to be a writer or not? If you do, you need to make time, not excuses.

The value of communication

Awhile back, I had a short story published. Nothing so unusual in that. I agreed to the terms of the contract, which were fairly standard fare, and then I waited for my cheque to arrive. Only it never did. Then I hummed and hahed about what to do next because I hate chasing up money. So I emailed a friend who had had a story in the same collection, to see if she had been paid. Perhaps I had just been overlooked, right? Wrong. She hadn't been paid either. As far as she knew -- she was a bit woolly about this.

So, being a professional, I had to do something about this. I sent a polite query letter off via email (as all our business had been done electronically) but didn't get any response. Now, at the moment, I'm having a few email issues -- the day before yesterday I came home to over 40 messages, most of which were failed-to-send notifications, so there is some chance that this email was never received. So, I sent off another polite query. This one did get a response -- an apology to say that things were difficult, but that the editor was endeavouring to pay all the contributors.

Some months later there was still no payment, but a mass communication arrived, apologising to all the authors and assuring payment would be made. Some time passed. A lot of time. I began to write the story off, with a note to self not to send to that market again. This week another missive came, again apologising and begging our indulgence, with a promise of payment soon.

Others might rail at this communication, but I must say I was relieved. Relieved to know I hadn't been forgotten. Relieved to know that our contract was being honoured. Relieved to know that it wasn't only me.

As an editor of a small press magazine (one that only pays contributors only in copies), I know how hard it can be. I still remember all that catering we did to provide seeding money for the magazine in the first place. It sucks for the writers, but the reality is that small press publishing in Australia is done on a shoe-string budget because the market is so small. We do all our editorial work -- hours and hours of it -- for the love of it. So I'm prepared to wait. I know it's absolutely not a matter of the publisher sitting back rolling in all the money while his starving writers are hard at it in their garrets. The small-press publisher is starving too!

Elizabeth George's THADs

Have you ever been accused of writing dialogue that is just "talking heads"? I must confess my earliest fiction was probably guilty of this a lot of the time -- something an agent told me once before declining my book (and telling me she thought it would be published!). I think she was the first person who had pointed this out -- that my characters were just like disembodied voices chatting away. Sometimes things like this come as a giant wake-up call, and we wonder how it is we never saw this before. Or how it is that we weren't aware of this type of problem. We all have our own types of problems. For one of my friends, it is plotting -- something that has always come naturally to me. But she is brilliant at description and characterisation!

But back to the talking heads: since then I've always been conscious of trying to avoid this scenario, though sometimes a scene does slip past me, which is why it is helpful to have readers going through a manuscript before it gets sent out. We're always blindest to our own errors. I can spot talking heads from a thousand km in a student's manuscript, but sometimes overlook it in my own.

How to address such problems? Research. There are several ways of doing this: talk to other writers and see what they do, read other writers and see what they do (i.e. read as a writer, paying attention to the craft), read books on writing. As a teacher, I read a lot of books on writing. But even before I was a teacher, I always read a lot of books on writing. I love reading books on writing. My friend, Sherryl, and I could start a very decent bookstore with our writing books -- if either of us could bear to part with them, which we can't. (I think being a teacher has just given me justification to buy more and more and more writing books without having to feel too guilty about it -- something my husband hates!)

Often, these books say similar things, but sometimes one comes at something in such a new way that it's almost an earth-shattering moment. Sometimes it's not so much that the insight is new as the way that it's put strikes a chord and gives me a real WOW moment. So it was with Elizabeth George's Write away: one novelist's approach to fiction and the  writing life and her discussion of what she calls THADs -- Talking Head Avoidance Devices.

A THAD is something you get your characters to do in a scene that would otherwise consist solely of dialogue. As well as fleshing out the scene, this can show character, be a metaphor or reveal information. She talks about knowing she has the right THAD when she feels a surge of excitement. I know what she means. I felt it last night.

Last night my students were doing an editing test. Usually, while they're doing a test, I have workshopping to do, but we hadn't yet started workshopping in my novel or poetry classes, and I had forgotten to bring in anything else to do, which is the first time I've done that in eight years! So, I was sitting wondering what I should do, when I started thinking of one scene that my reader had pointed out was talking heads. And as I contemplated a few different things I could do in the scene, I hit upon the perfect THAD. How did I know? That surge of excitement. I wanted to leap from my chair, get to my computer and get working! All around me, my students were sweating their test, and I was so infused with enthusiasm that I felt guilty for not having more empathy with them at that moment. I haven't tackled the scene yet -- am still thinking it through, but still think it feels exactly right for the scene!

Want to know more about THADs? You'll have to buy the book. (It's published by Hodder & Stoughton and is highly recommended! After all, every teacher has to love a book that has a chapter titled "The value of bum glue" -- and, trust me, every writer needs a book with a chapter with that title.) 

Dennis's book launch

Dennis McIntosh launches his book at Readings, Carlton

Sherryl's already blogged about our mate Dennis McIntosh and his booklaunch the other day, so rather than rehash what she had to say (which you can read at the Books and Writing link), I thought I'd put up what I had to say. Dennis asked me to speak at the launch -- just for a few minutes. I was following another friend, Margaret Campbell, so sat down that morning to think about what I wanted to say. (I hate public speaking at the best of times, but teaching has made it a bit easier. But this isn't a post about that. That's for another post.) And so I wrote a speech.

And here it is. It's not what I said verbatim, because I didn't read it. (Mind you, it was very handy that I had it in my pocket, seeing as I went blank about halfway through. Not one of my better moments, but I just sallied on anyway.)

I first met Dennis in 1996 in Sherryl Clark’s TAFE poetry class. Dennis was the only male student with his own harem of girls, following him around, and I guess I was one of the harem. Being the only male might’ve daunted a lot of students, but not Dennis. He revelled in it.

One day he asked me to read something for him – a book he was writing for his daughter’s 21st – Nicole’s Story. I’d just started editing so he thought perhaps I could edit it for him. Even back then two things were immediately clear about Dennis and his writing: the first was that he had a story to tell, a big story and one he was passionate about, and the second was that he had a voice. Now, the non-writers among you won’t necessarily appreciate what a fantastic thing that is, but it’s something that can’t be taught, something that each writer has to find somewhere within themselves, and Dennis’s writing was oozing with it. But the other thing that struck me at the time was his lack of spelling, grammar and punctuation skills – I was left thinking, does this guy even know what a sentence is. And the answer, probably, was no.

Dennis has come a long way since then. Many of you probably know that he used to be a swimming coach and trained elite athletes. In writing, getting a book published is the gold medal at the Olympics. I think all that coaching probably taught Dennis a lot of what he needed to know – and maybe he already knew these things. He knows about persistence, perhaps the most important thing. He knows about wanting to improve, wanting to achieve a “Personal Best” – since our days as students together, he’s studied editing under me at TAFE – even repeated the subject, not because he needed to, because he did pass first time around, but because he thought he had more to learn. He’s gone through university, honours, a masters, finishing with first class honours. Along the way, at different points, he’s been told to give up, he’s not good enough. Many people would have hung up their goggles, but not Dennis. He just squares his shoulders and says, “I’ll show them”. And he has. He’s shown everyone. I’m sure he would’ve gone on and done his PhD and blitzed it, if he felt he still had something to prove, but clearly he doesn’t.

So, if you ask me am I surprised, given his early work, to be here at his book launch, I’d have to say no. I’m not surprised. Dennis always was determined, and that uniquely larrikin voice set him apart from everyone else. But I am proud, immensely proud, of all he’s achieved. I hope his book is a great success, and I’m really pleased to be here helping him celebrate his launch. Mate, you’ve done a great job, and I hope it’ll go on to be an award-winner and a bestseller! You deserve it.

I know I forgot to say the goggles bit, and did say a little more about his memoir: Beaten by a blow: a shearer's story, which for the record is a great read, with a really strong, unique voice. It's honest, brutal, evocative, gripping, often harrowing and uncomfortable -- a total immersion for the reader into the life of a shearer.

Progress: my rant about technology

At the moment, I'm wrestling with my printer, trying to convince it to print out my novel. It's old. A laser printer -- 300 dpi, and it cost me $1100, an awful lot of money at the time, which tells something about how old it is. I'm guessing about 15 years, and it's served me well. Very well. I've never done any maintenance to it, never had any problems -- up till now. (Can't say the same about our inkjet we bought six months ago -- same brand, which is clogged and not working at all.) Now, the paper feeder on the old laser is worn, and every few pages the paper misfeeds, and I have to unjam the printer, ending up with two mangled pages, half a page of wasted toner, and then more and more and more misfeeds. It's enough to make a writer tear her hair out.

My solution would seem easy -- buy a new laser printer, except that I'm using my old computer and Windows 98. This computer's no longer on the internet, and I'm sure it won't have drivers for any new printer that I get, and they won't have drivers compatible with such an old dinosaur.

My problems don't end there. Most of the novel was written using WordPerfect. Can I tell you how much I love this program? Let me say two words: "reveal codes" -- the one thing that gives me so much more control than I seem to be able to get in Word. I love the way WordPerfect looks, I love the little arrows on the toolbar that let me zip backwards and forwards to find the same word, so I can quickly check that I haven't used it too often in too short a space. I love that there's a little window there all the time that acts as a thesaurus, and that I get about four times as many choices as Word's thesaurus ever gives me. And "reveal codes" -- have I mentioned that? Oh, yeah, I did, but it's worth mentioning again. When I'm laying out Poetrix, I can adjust letter space and word space if I need to, I can rotate text ninety degrees to get a shape poem on the page. Trying to do such things in Word would give my brain a meltdown. There would be much yelling in the house. And some swearing.

But, alas, WordPerfect is also starting to meltdown. Now, when I do a table and print it, it comes out in a lovely checkerboard pattern. Nice if that was what I wanted, but it inevitably is not. A waste of ink. And hard to read. Then WP took a disliking to my novel. Whenever it got to a certain page it crashed. In the end, I did what I had to and saved it as a Word file and began working on it in Word, which led to other sorts of problems. I'm using underlining for italics, as all good editors and most good writers do, and, as I've chosen to show my telepathic conversations with itals, I sometimes had successive paras beginning and ending with itals. And what did Word do? Very helpfully underlined all the indents. They were not underlined before. Grrrr. Don't get me started on Word...

Really, it's a sad day for all of us that WordPerfect is not a viable option anymore. I'm using Version 8 -- a beautiful program -- but XP on my laptop doesn't like it at all and now refuses to open it. And you can't get it for Macs at all anymore. If you subscribe to conspiracy theories, there's the suggestion that Bill Gates paid Corel a lot of money not to make a Mac-compatible version anymore. I hope that's false. Lack of competition is not good for anyone, least of all us monkeys at the bottom of the equation. In the past, Word and WordPerfect fed improvements to each other. Competition's good, right?

One of the other great things about WordPerfect (that Word could've learnt about) was compatibility. Ever since one of the really early versions, all the new and old versions have been able tol talk to each other. How neat is that? Just ask my version of Word what it thinks about the new docx format. That could be another rant altogether...

Draft's finished

So this was my plan for the holidays:

2 weeks: working on novel and finishing draft (included going in to work one day for staff meeting)
1 week: stuff for classes
1 week: R&R -- movies, bowling, walking, reading, reading, reading

This is how it's panned out:

3 weeks + : working on novel (and reading one and a half books)
rest: doing the rest of the stuff, which I suspect means very little R&R. Never mind.

This editing pass has taken a lot longer than I expected. The rewrite started at 195 k approx, and finished at 185,663, which was my starting point for this editing pass. It's finished at 178,285. There's something nice about being in the 170s. It's still not quite as low as I'd like, but it's a big story, and I had a horrible thought that I was adding words rather than cutting!

And today it's finished, other than some minor adjustments (I hope) after I get it back from my readers. In the end I cut two-thirds of the words with general tightening -- things like getting rid of prep phrases, cutting repetitions etc. But there were four things I cut at the end that took out a couple of thousand between them:

(i) a scene from the POV from someone whom I'd taken out as a viewpoint character -- so how did this slip through? I think in the end, I'd decided to keep it because it was towards the end of the novel, and he is a viewpoint character in the second, and so it seemed like foreshadowing. The trouble with not using him was that the one viewpoint character in that scene was now dead, and so couldn't convey the scene. In the end though, there was nothing in the scene that was essential to the plot. Wholesale cut. Easy solution.

(ii) cut the guts out of another scene. This was a scene involving a telepathic conversation, where the main character reveals something she's about to do (at the beginning of the next book), which is going to have serious repercussions. I really liked this scene. It seemed like good foreshadowing of the trouble that was to come. The characters she's conversing with used several techniques to get her to change her mind, all to no avail. Heaps of conflict. Snappy dialogue. Fast paced. Working well. Only, when I looked at it again, I thought -- she wouldn't tell them. And she wouldn't. And that was that. It had to go. All of it. All those lovingly crafted words. Gone. A scene has to serve the story, and while the foreshadowing was good, the characters have to be true to themselves. Absolutely. One hundred per cent. And she wasn't being. Really, too, readers are going to get that the consequences for her are going to be dire. They're quite good at picking up the hints -- and we writers have to be good at leaving them room to work!

(iii) and (iv) two nice moments between two of my main characters -- the first from one's point of view, and then a reflection on what had happened from the other character's POV. Neither of these were huge -- a couple of paras each, but this whole idea contained within was no longer relevant after other changes I'd made to them and their relationships with one another. Or not at this point. I may rejig this to reflect something else and use it in the next book. I'm not sure at this point. I do like the idea of what went on, but it just wasn't necessary. Zap. Gone.

On the other hand, there was an earlier scene where I'd cut out a half-page incident between the two of them when I was doing the rewrite, and when I came across it again, I was really sad that I'd done this, so I put it back in the editing pass. Not wholly the way it was. I didn't dig out that earlier draft -- just captured the essence of the exchange in a quarter of the space. It's not essential to the plot, but is a nice character moment for them both, helps define the shifting dynamics of their relationship.

So, as much as I've not had the chance to have that R&R, I have a great sense of satisfaction at having completed this draft. It really is a great feeling!

Making the changes

I'm a bit light on blogging at the moment because I'm fully immersed in my editing pass over my manuscript. The rewriting's finished, and I'm two-thirds (three-quarters?) through the edit, and I'm loving it. The process, that is.

Some days are better than others though. A few days I got to a scene that just wasn't working for me -- too passive, too much telling of things after the event. The fix wasn't too difficult. I moved the scene backwards in time so that I could show the events as they were unravelling. It's not an action scene, but it feels a lot more active now. Of course it meant I added about 400 words, at a time I'm desperate to cut words. That said, I've eliminated nearly 3000 at about the halfway point, so I'm on target. (Well, I would've liked to get rid of 10-15k, but realistically that was never going to happen because I'm also trying to add some characterisation and some non-plot related thinking.)

The day before yesterday, though, I came across a different kind of hurdle. Let me backtrack... When I started the edit pass, I had a brainwave about how to increase one of the main character's motivations so wrote a new scene that I banged in at the start of her story, and have been editing along the way to take this into account. It was all working beautifully until I got to the midway point and realised that I'd undermined one of the basic tenets that I'd based my alien culture's society on. Oh, dear. What to do? In the end such decisions can only be made when taking into account what will most benefit the story. And this time having the stronger motivation is a definite plus, so I've had to rethink that aspect of their society. It took me most of a day to sort that out, so I felt frustrated at the end of the day with how little progress I'd made, but the main thing was that I had made progress, and that I'd ironed out what could've been a problem further down the track. And in fact it still might -- but I'll be looking for it as I continue editing and will be able to fix it as I go. Bring it on!