In my defence I would say that this morning was our turn to man (and woman) the Oasis Coffee Bar in town and then the wife went off on her travellings on the 13.30h train. She's gone off to see her Mum for the weekend which is all part of the multi-generational support services we seek to provide.
When I got home it was gone two o'clock.
I did add a thousand words to Chapter 14 and then I made an audit of the chapters I have accumulated over the past month. I had this nagging feeling at the back of my brain that all was not as it should be. I knew, to be honest. I had stacked up chapters and ticked them off but I knew that many of them were a mess, incoherent, a jumble. It was as bad as I feared. Part One was disintegrating, had disintegrated.
I made a list. I went through all the chapters from one to fifteen and noted the major topic for each 1000 words. I analysed the list to remove obvious duplications and inconsistencies. I rewrote the list by topic in line-of-sight order, that is, chronologically and I highlighted the topics for which the protagonist was present and created a chronological, protagonistical topic list. Some order began to appear.
After dinner (fish for Friday), I settled down to a bit of tv, an episode of CSI: NY on 5USA followed by Eugene Onegin on BBC4tv, and reviewed my analysis. Simon Keenlyside as Eugene Onegin proved the perfect companion for listing the now logical protagonist-driven plot line topic by topic and reassigning the topics to chapters. I ended up with thirty-three topics attributed to ten chapters. It made a lot more sense.
Of course, it is only a list. Did I say that I was rewriting my novel? I have rewritten my novel. I am rewriting my novel. I will rewrite my novel. I will have rewritten my novel. Eventually.
Tonight's episode of Season One CSI: NY on 5USA
Eugene Onegin from The Royal Opera House on BBC Four tv
This is a wonderful production. See it if you can.
Information on Simon Keenlyside
Ends
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