Rewrite: Day 21. While it was still dark.

Happy Easter! It's a very special day.  The women went to the tomb - while it was still dark.  The tomb was already empty.  A good friend tweeted that early this morning.  That's what friends are for.  It is while it is dark,  while I'm in the dark,  I need reminding.  Creation cannot be held in check. It will out.  The Lord of Creation himself sets the pace.

Rewrite: Day 20. The Saturday Between.

Somebody tweeted that Holy Saturday is like the pause between the full-stop and the capital letter.  I like that. I like the idea of the pause, the space. The meaning always lies in the spaces between the words. As a writer, what I want to do most of all is to create those spaces. For others to find the meaning.

Rewrite: Day 19. A Birthday.

I managed nothing on Friday. It was Good Friday but there was little time for contemplation. We were celebrating our grandson's second birthday with family. I did look at the blog a couple of times but my mind was a complete blank. We are staying at a Premier Inn so this is my 30 minutes free wi-fi ... and it's amost up. Happy Easter! (when it comes).

Rewrite: Day 18. Ordinary Lives?

Away. Traveling. Sorry.  This is all I managed on Thursday.

Our lives are humdrum. That's why we read. We read to touch something beyond our normal experience and yet there is nothing more fascinating than other people. But, it is hard to write about ordinary lives. Ordinary lives can be boring. One such novel nearly put me off reading for life: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes. Luckily, I was reading other books at the time - mostly science fiction and stories set in exotic places.  I was 14 or 15. Most of those books I have forgotten but I remember some from that time: Silas Marner by George Elliot, Hard Times by Charles Dickens and, different this, The Inheritors by William Golding.  The first two are books about ordinary lives lived against a background of others' wickedness. Silas Marner discovers human love in place of gold. Stephen in Hard Times finds it in the muck of industrial revolution.


It is hard to write about ordinary lives.

Rewrite: Day 17. Driving the plot.

It's a driving day today, and it will be again tomorrow because I'm off to Bristol and Beaconsfield for family birthdays and Easter. Not much writing, but I'll be thinking about how many plates Broderick can keep in the air and what he needs to do to keep them spinning. 
More plates! More plates! I hear you cry. 

The problems come when the plates take on a life of their own which they tend to do, especially when they are people as they are most of the time. People cause problems. There are, it is true, 'circumstances beyond our control', 'forces of nature' and even 'Acts of God' but these need to be used sparingly. Or maybe not. It depends what sort of book you're writing. Why not let rip all the forces in heaven and earth? Could make for an interesting ride. I will be thinking as I drive.

But here's a little something I came up with yesterday. 

What Broderick did [OHJ flies in?] [OHJ meets PAS] [Aerial survey] Drove van Talked to Rachel Recalled Edinburgh Met Hashay (f/b) Made pass at Rachel Looked for Berenice Found Berenice Received news

Motive Pursue crooks Make connections Find Nighthawks Get home Assess progress Companionship Explore origin, confess Attraction Parental responsibility accidental [Job or no job]

Value Spin story Personal chemistry Problem context Link drama Fix story progress Deepen relationship Reveal backstory Conflict relationship Add complexity Show values Personal stake

It's a chapter action chart. 
The idea was to focus my attention on What Broderick Did. Does it help? I'm not sure. I made one for both Chapters 8 and 9 at the top of the chapter, scanning through the paragraphs very quickly to pick out the main events and then analysed them, crudely, for Broderick Action.
I could add a fourth column: Spinning plates.
 
I'll see. After Easter, I will revisit the idea. 

What do you think? Could be helpful? Yes... or No... ?

Ends

Rewrite: Day 16. He came. He saw. He conquered.

Today, I sent off my short story to The Bath Short Story Competition and I crunched Chapter 9 of the novel but I'm struggling with the dominant point of view in the story, that of the protagonist, Broderick. It should be straightforward but it's not. I can't blame the paper or the pen. I can't blame the computer. The problem is in my brain. 
What did Broderick do? 
He came. He saw. He conquered. 

I went looking for help on the web and here, below, is a summary of some of what I found.  Imagine ...

Life is hard 
A crisis devastates the protagonist’s world
It is a lose-lose situation for the protagonist

The protagonist (Z) is working against the clock
Z walks into trouble
Z works against insurmountable odds 

Z is teased, tested and tempted
Z has too much to handle
Z is run ragged trying to please everyone and keep all the plates in the air
Z is moving towards pleasure and away from pain

Ultimately, up the ante.

Know what the protagonist wants but frustrate its fulfilment
Distract, interrupt and delay
Add conflict, barriers, complications and failure

(OK. I'll see what I can do.)

All this good advice, and much more, can be found at Writers Digest.
In particular,
Nine tricks to writing suspense fiction. Simon Wood. 
How to up the stakes for your main character. Victoria Lynn Schmidt.  

Ends 

The Rules. The Rules.

Apologies, but I have to get this write, right.

It is submission day. The story is complete and ready to go, bar one last spit and polish. So, what am I trying to do? These brief extracts from the rules are for my own benefit (and the comments are my own); my brain does not deal well with rules.  
These are The Rules for The Bath Short Story Award.

• Any theme or subject (OK)
• Maximum length 2,200 words (OK)
• Typed, double or 1.5 spaced (think I can deal with that) (OK)
• Plain legible font (what the heck? Times New Roman? boring) (OK)
• Each page should be numbered (Yo!) (OK)
• Each page should ... carry the title of the story (Header/Footer, right?) (OK)
• Online entries must be submitted as an email attachment (No problem ...) (Done)
• Online entries must be submitted ... in PDF format only (... hells bells! PDF?) (OK. Sussed it)
• Closing date ... is Saturday, March 30th, 2013 (Under control. OK)
  
• There is a fee of £5 for each story submitted (Oh-kay... Oke Dokie. Dosh, eh?)
• You may pay via PayPal (Yeah. Got that, done that, somewhere, sometime, somehow; I'll ask the wife) (I did. She knew. Done)
• Entries must not have been previously published (No problem-0: OK)
• Do not put your name on the pages of your story (No, no, no) (OK)
• On the entry form:
• Contact details 
• name
• address
• tel. no
• e-mail address (Yo) (Done)
• The title of the story(Yo) (Done)
• Wordcount (Yo) (Done)
• (Yo-Yo) (All done)

That's some load of rules: legible font? PDF format? PayPal? Hope that's all of them. This is seriously challenging. Good job I've got four days to complete submission. Where to begin?
Existential panic. (Arrrrrh. All done. Sent. Scary moment.)

The Bath Short Story Award: The Rules - the real rules, unexpurgated.

Ends

Rewrite: Day 15. Long story, short story

I achieved three things today: Chapter 8 of the novel, 750 words on 'morning pages' and a short story for The Bath Short Story Award.
Chapter 8 is the door into Part Two of the novel. This is where it gets exciting, isn't it? If Part One of the novel is the set up and Part Three is the run-out, then Part Two is where it all happens. Part Two is, it seems to me, where novelists can enjoy themselves, break all the rules and let rip. In her interview in The Guardian on Saturday, Julie Myerson is reported as saying: 

"I increasingly feel that writers aren't taking risks and that disappoints me. I like brave writing."

Part Two is the place for 'brave writing'. I'm not sure if I managed any today but ...

One thing that could help 'brave writing' is the 750 words webpage, which gives you a platform for your daily free writing. Write anything you want, but write 750 words. This morning was my first serious attempt and I ended up with more than I needed. After 350 words or so, I got lost in the writing and only came to the surface with 920 words on the board. I didn't notice the words tick by.

The third thing was the short story. I added some material and then polished and etched the text to make it shine. I think it's ready. I have been reading through on the Tab2 but when I wanted to make a correction involving more than three words the Tab2 crashed. Three words? I dashed upstairs to the studio and made the corrections on the laptop. All fixed now, I think. Tomorrow will be submission day - but I'd better make sure I read the Rules first. Not my strong point. It's sub clinical autism. Well, that's my excuse.

• The Guardian, Julie Myerson interview: A life in Writing
• 750 words webpage: 750 words
• The Bath Short Story Award : The Rules

Ends

Rewrite: Day 14. Week 2.

No rewriting today.
It's Sunday and time to back off for a few hours. Although I did add 700 words or so to a short story to bring it up to length for The Bath Short Story Award. That will need finishing tomorrow and then I'll have to send it off.
There are the stirrings of some ideas in my mind that are relevant to the rewrite - about how to engage with some of the antagonistas and about how to tell story.

Tonight we watched Beasts of the Southern Wild on DVD. That's storytelling. Perplexing. Entrancing. Touching depths. Magical. I'm still reverberating to Neil Gaiman's storytelling heard on the Neverland radio serialisation and seen on the YouTube May Tale video (see previous posts).

So, a new week begins tomorrow but it's a short week - only two days! with Easter at the end and family birthdays to negotiate en route - so I need to do five days work on Monday and Tuesday and after that I think there will be silence. For a while.

Beasts of the Southern Wild - webpage

Rewrite: Day 13. A short break.

No rewriting today. I'm taking a short break to regain critical distance.
It is a short break in another sense, too.
The closing date for the Bath Short Story Award is rushing up. To quote Rule 3:

Closing date for receipt of entries is Saturday, March 30th, 2013 at Midnight GMT.

'Midnight GMT' and then the clocks go forward and we are in British Summer Time. We hope. It's like something out of a fairy story.

I had hoped to do some work on a short story during my writer retreat but that didn't happen so now I have to crack on with it. I had done some work on a story before I went away and I had been thinking about it in terms of structure. I don't really understand short fiction. It leaves me feeling inadequate. Although whether that is the fault of the fiction or something I'm missing, I'm not sure. My wife suggested I should dig out a story I had half written once before, several years ago, but I didn't feel convinced. I didn't know how to finish it. Then, this morning, inspiration came, in the form of a facebook post by my daughter, and I knew how to finish the story. I saw, in my memory, my daughter, aged four or five, playing at shops under the stairs in our house in the hills in Mid-Wales. We don't live there now but, in memory, it is an important place for us all. We lived there for eight years and the children did their growing up there.
 
This afternoon, I dug out the half written story. It's not bad, as far as it goes. It stands at 1,170 words or so. Perhaps, if I develop my new ending, it will come up to scratch. It's worth a try. It falls within the word count range required. To quote Rule 2:

Maximum length is 2,200 words.

The other story, the one with structural problems - I'll try and work on that too during this little Sabbath. That story stands at 4,400 words at present and it needs a good pruning. Something for tomorrow. On Monday, I get back to the day job and The Rewrite. The Rewrite will go forward into Part 2 and Chapter Eight. The temptation is to go back and re-rewrite Chapter One but I must push on. Chapter One needs fixing but it can wait. 
I'll fix it later.

• The Bath Short Story Award:
• The rules
• My daughter's facebook page:
• Crafty Bella by Rosie

Ends

Rewrite: Day 12. Driving home - a parable

This is last night's post.
I didn't blog last night. I was depressed, a little. I was in The First Circle of Despair. I'd made the mistake of reading through some of the stuff I'd done during my writer retreat before driving home. It was rubbish. Hence the despair. You spend three whole days devoted to the stuff and it turns out rubbish! I mean! ...
It's OK. I've had a sleep. I'm home. There are advantages to being home. One of them is going for the mandatory walk with the dog, and the wife, if I can put it like that without, you know, offending anyone. One of them always has something sensible or encouraging to say. 
But that's for another blog.

It took me FIVE HOURS to drive home yesterday afternoon. Of course it was my own fault, my own choice. I plotted a route designed to avoid the worst of the incoming weather (snow from the north), the Friday night madness on the motorway and the toll for the Severn Bridge. I had no money in my wallet! OK? So I went up the A38, onto the M5, off the M5 at Gloucester and onto the A40 to Ross-on-Wye. What could go wrong with that? I checked the travel maps on-line before I left. There were no reported incidents. Road works. Queues of traffic. Filton. M5. A40. I must have spent the best part of an hour crawling along at an average of no more than ten miles an hour and it took me over two hours to get to Abergavenny. It takes half an hour if you use the Severn Bridge.

By Brecon, though, the road, the car and my mind were perfectly one, attuned to the greater reality all around. It was one of those out of the body experiences. I could do no wrong. Careful. Do not try this at home. But when it happens it is a gift. Part of the awareness of the greater reality is an awareness of the unpredictability, let's say, of other drivers and their behaviour. Perfect separation from danger is one of the feature of this state of transportation. Approaching Llandovery I passed the monument to the tragedy, last century, no, the century before that, when a stage-coach drove off the cliff in foul weather. It reminds one of the possibilities.
A quick stop in Llandovery and back on the road again, back in the groove, running on rails.
What has this to do with writing? This: Frustration; Slog; Nothing going right; all of these were surpassed in time by the sublime. It can happen. It does happen. It will happen. I got home last night tired but strangely elated and aware that there were other possibilities - other realities - and that there was something worth striving for. This morning I was confirmed in this new optimism by two things:

• My daughter's stall in Beaconsfield Village Market (FaceBook pages):
• The Poster for the Market
• Crafty Bella's stall

Rosie's blog:
Crafty Bella 

• A Neil Gaiman short story on YouTube:
• May Tale (It's brilliant.) 

Neil Gaiman:            ‏
@neilhimself

Ends

Two Top No-Nos: Why your submission fails

A very helpful post by Kristin Nelson (which came to my attention via Twitter) on why, as an editor, she passes on scripts. She says two reasons why your manuscript/chapter submission may fail to attract the attention of an agent/editor are: 

A: There is no 'plot catalyst'  
B: There is nothing at stake 

• Read the original blog post (This is much the best idea.)
• Think about it (I've been thinking about it ever since I read it yesterday.)
• Look at your own work (Mmm. Catalyst? Stake?)
• Go for it.

Read the blog here:
Kristin Nelson

Pub Rants

nelsonagency.com
top-2-reasons-why-i-pass-on-sample-pages
 via Martina Boone @MartinaABoone

 Ends

Rewrite: Day 11. Venetian Blind Syndrome

Have you noticed, with Venetian Blinds half closed or half open, when you move your head, that something seems to move outside the window. It is an illusion but it is a very persuasive illusion and it is one you can use in your writing. Why does it happen? The Venetian Blinds cut the outside world into slices. It is a bit like an old television screen, where the picture is built up of lines. We can create the illusion of movement in the 'real world' of our story by cutting our story up into slices. If we interleave the slices, when the reader 'moves his or her head' across the page, an illusion of movement is created. 
As I restructure my novel, each chapter becomes a series of layers or slices creating, hopefully, the illusion of action. It may not work but ... when I move my head, something seems to happen. 
This was a writing day and this was the last full day of my writer retreat and tomorrow, I go home, weather permitting; although there is snow in the forecast so perhaps I'll get snowed in. 
Today, I have been working on Chapters Six and Seven at the end of Part One. I have discovered stories within stories as characters develop their skills as storytellers in their own right. It is quite fascinating. In Chapter Seven, story becomes legend further interpreted in song. 
Story, myth, legend and song. Blink and you miss it.

Myths and Legends 

• Here's a lovely 2.5 minute clip of Michael Morpurgo from the BBC Learning Zone
• Step by step myth writing from Creative Writing Ideas and Activities
• A myth writing workshop with Jane Yolen from Scholastic

Ends

Review: Donna Leon. The Jewels of Paradise

Page 119!
I've just reached page 119 in Donna Leon's novel The Jewels of Paradise and I'm hooked. But it was hard work getting here. Well, no, not hard work; perhaps that's too harsh. Let's say it was uphill. But now I know why I kept coming. Those few pages, the ones I have just finished reading, from the bottom of page 117 to the end of Chapter 13 on page 124, have turned the whole story round. 
They are a delight.
It is the account of a conversation in a restaurant; this is Venice, of course. It is a conversation between two people, one man and one woman. I am not going to tell you any more. You will have to read the other 117 pages first. You owe it to yourself.
In these pages, the atmosphere changes and the writing flows. Two minds meet, explore one another and they find something that might be the beginnings of joy. It is a magical moment, pure alchemy, and it is for moments like these that I read books.
The rest of the book might be rubbish but I doubt it. Donna Leon is too good a writer to lose what she has gained. I'll let you know.
It is interesting, though. I don't as a rule read at lunchtime. I read at bedtime. But somehow today I went and fetched the book to read with my after lunch cup of tea (It is green tea today.) There must have been something, last night, as I closed the book and turned off the light, that alerted me to what was about to happen. Otherwise, why was I so keen to go and get the book today?
These are the mysteries of the mind, and of writing, and reading.

Ends

Rewrite: Day 10. A life in crime.

A writing day.
I have been working on Chapters 4 and 5, cantilevering great blocks of text out of earlier drafts and balancing them delicately on the structures already set upright in the earth. It's like building Stonehenge.
What has this to do with crime?
Nothing.
On my morning constitutional around the grounds of this extensive estate, surrounding my retreat, I was thinking about writing a crime novel. In fact, I had been thinking about it all night in that I went to bed thinking about it and I woke up thinking about it. What makes a good crime novel?
The answer seems obvious. Let's unpack it. This is my take on how a crime novel works, it may not be yours. First there is the investigator, then there is the call. The investigator responds to the call. He goes to the scene, which is the residue of the crime itself. Then he investigates the scene and, if he's lucky, he calls in his colleagues to help. 
This is the Crime Scene Investigation. The investigator and his colleagues look for evidence: fingerprints, bloodstains or whatever it might be.
Of course, it doesn't have to be a 'he'. You can substitute 'she' if you wish.

• The investigator
• The crime
• The call
• The scene
• The investigation
• The evidence

Forget about the crime. That is the sequence. You can apply it to any novel.

• The protagonist
• The precipitating event
• A call or invitation to the protagonist
• The situation that relates to the precipitating event
• The interaction of the protagonist with the situation
• Extant signs gleaned from the situation

Every novel is a Crime Scene Investigation.

Here are two blogs worth reading:
How To Create A Plot Outline In 8 Easy Steps by Glen C. Strathy - 8 steps
How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson - Snowflake

Ends

Rewrite: Day 9. What kind of book?

The question is quite innocent.
What are you doing with yourself in Bristol all week?
The answer: Writing. The reaction: He's doing a course. At the university.
No, I'm not doing a course, I'm just writing. I'm on retreat. Writing. There is a pause, a little space, while this information is digested.
What are you writing?
A book.
What kind of book?
This is where I get stuck. Inside me, there is panic in the circuits. I don't know what kind of book.
Just a book, I say.
"What? A Novel?"
"Yes, a novel."
"What kind of novel? Crime? Romance?"
No, not either of those. Both of those. Just a book.
I am writing a book about people, about our lives, about how we live and why. A book. What else are books for? There are plenty of answers to that question of course. Books are to entertain, to inform, to fill the shelves in the library, to make money for the publisher/agent/author/bookstore/retail mega-corporation.
But, no. Books are for living.
In the end I settle for this:
"It's a book about an archaeologist."
It is enough for now.
"Let me have a copy," they say, "when it's finished."
That's the rub. When it's finished.
I have work to do. I must get on and get it finished.

Jancie Hardy has blogged on genre confusion here:
The Other Side of the Story
[via Roz Morris ‏@dirtywhitecandy] 

Ends

Rewrite: Day 8. Writing

Today was a writing day.
I am on my writer retreat in Bristol and I have spent all day working on chapters 4, 5 and 6 apart from a brisk welly walk round the estate morning and afternoon (in the sunshine!) and the necessary breaks for the preparation and consumption of food.
In Chapter 4, Broderick, the protagonist, has another bad day at the office. In Chapter 5, he goes travelling in pursuit of his professional and personal interests and in Chapter 6 he comes home with the intention of taking his wife out for a meal at the Italian restaurant in the city, which he does. Their evening is interrupted first by Broderick's chief antagonist in person and then by a phone call from a damsel in distress.
It is amazing how structure still dominated the process of the rewrite. The main plot points are secure but secondary events are still fluid. Did this happen then or then? If he did that there, then he couldn't have been there then. If they met on the train ... How can he have done that without her knowing about it?
This is all part of the fun. Plotting your way through your own novel can be as fascinating as reading someone else's, and more so. It can be fun but it can also be frustrating. When you see your story dissolving in front of your eyes for the nth time, sometimes you despair. But there is always another day and today was one more day's journey realised, another milestone made along the trail towards the ultimate goal of the finished novel.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) will be a driving day as I am going to see my Dad in Wincanton in Somerset but I will, if I can, squeeze in some rewriting when I return.

Ends

Rewrite: Day 7. On Retreat.

I have arrived at my writer retreat in Bristol. 
I've unpacked the car, put the perishables in the fridge and plugged in the laptop. I've switched on the Wi-Fi, made some supper and poured myself a glass of wine and I'm ready to go. It is time, perhaps, for a review of the first week of this madcap scheme.

• It all started on Monday with a declaration of intent, to blog for ninety days in the hope that I could rewrite this novel in that time. Day One.
• Tuesday was Llandovery and Chapter One in which protagonist Broderick gets the call. Broderick is an archaeologist. Day Two.
• Wednesday was the National Library of Wales, archaeology and, in the first half of Chapter Two, Broderick went to investigate. Day Three.
• Thursday was Newquay (Ceredigion), The Hungry Trout, and the car MOT. Meanwhile, in Chapter Two Broderick tangled with his antagonists. Day Four.
• Friday was - well - the less said the better. My laptop went berserk mirroring, to some extent, Broderick's problems in Chapter Three. Day Five.
• On Saturday, I was saved from deep depression by Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, the Welsh rugby team and my wise, sane and sensible wife. Somewhere amidst all this chaos, Broderick got to the end of Chapter Three. Day Six.

What was found in Chapter One and Chapter Two was lost in Chapter Three, creating  problems for protagonist Broderick. I'm not saying any more. In the week to come, I intend to rewrite three more chapters. The story hots up, so stay with me.

Ends

P.S. I'm loving this keyboard.

Rewrite: Day 6. Disaster turns to inspiration

After the weekly shop, I spent the morning alternately fighting and avoiding my laptop. It went from bad to worse. About 3.45pm I had an inspiration. If the keyboard is part of the problem, bypass the keyboard. I had seen someone in the library using a laptop with a stand-alone keyboard. Get another keyboard. Argos. £10. Logitech K120. It works.
The day had already been redeemed by the broadcast of the first episode of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere on BBC Radio 4. You can catch it on iPlayer Radio for the next week. And to make a disastrous day glorious, Wales beat England in the rugby to win the RBS 6 Nations Championship.
But no writing done today on what looked like a writing day, from a distance.
Broderick, the protagonist of this novel, is, by the end of Chapter Two, engaged in the investigation that will carry him through Part One. In Chapter Three something dreadful happens that throws everything out of gear.
Tomorrow is probably not going to be a writing day but let's hope I get a chance to work on Chapter Three before the end of the day. Even if only a little bit, laptop permitting.

Rewrite: Day 5. Not driving but ... a small difficulty

It was not a driving day but neither, it seemed was it going to be a writing day. The morning was taken up with manning the coffee bar down at the church and although I entertained hopes that I might get some writing done if things were quiet, realistically, it was unlikely. It was raining cats and dogs so with a bit of luck people would stay away. But no. Every time I sat down to log onto my Tab2, the door opened and someone came in wanting a mug of drink or a toasty but I did do a bit of the stuff for Chapter Two that I wrote yesterday in the camper van in Newquay.
But today was supposed to be Chapter Three.
Back home, after sitting in the sun for a while - it may be the last we get for a few days - and walking the dog at the beach - at the fringes of the world - and chopping a load of wood ready for when I'm away next week, it was five o'clock and I sat down to write. I did some. Admittedly
it
was
more
editing
than  
writing.
Help!

I would have published this last night but ... My laptop started eating my words and now the 'iiii' key won't work but, ah ha!, spll chck will correct it. And Return won't work.....  Melt down. Not a good sign for my writer retreat next week. If my laptop isn't working I'll be reduced to 1 finger typing on the Tab2. Not an encouraging prospect.                  ... ends

Rewrite: Day 4. Yesterday

Sorry, I failed. Here is yesterday's post.
We went out for the evening. It was a great concert: BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the Arts Centre under their new principle conductor Thomas Søndergård . The Stravinsky Symphony in C was simply riveting . Then the internet dropped out.
It was not a writing day. It was a driving day and we went to Newquay (in Ceredigion which is in Wales if you were wondering). It was a beautiful day; the sun shone, the wind fell light, it was out of season and a handful of boat owners were peeling covers from the yachts stacked on the seawall for their winter hibernation. There was the sense of summer coming. I had dropped my wife at her morning appointment and walked down to the little harbour to hunt out a place for lunch. If you are ever in Newquay (Ceredigion) looking for lunch, go to the Hungry Trout. Cockles. Pasta. White wine sauce. 
We went in the camper van, the car being in disgrace, and after a vig walk down to the harbour and back - there had been a frost - I had an hour and a half in which to write. The good thing about the camper van is that there is a table and there is somewhere to sit and there is hot coffee. 
I wrote.
I took three scenes for Chapter Two and I wrote each out, free-fall, in the spiral bound reporter's pad I had taken with me for the purpose and, in all, it amounted to 450+600+300 words. Back home, I took the car for its MOT and it passed, thank the Lord. Now, I will be able to go on my writer retreat next week. (More to follow.)
Now for today. 

David Almond, the children's author and the 'creator of the award-winning Skellig', is on Desert Island Discs now as I write ... a moment's indulgence, please. Thank you.

• BBC NOW - National Orchestra of Wales
• Stravinsky - Symphony in C with Art Deco on YouTube 
• Newquay - West Wales 
• The Hungry Trout
• Desert Island Discs
• David Almond

Ends

Rewrite: Blog. Day 3 is not easy.

Not quite what was intended. 
There was nothing on the calendar, only a late-notified games night for the lads at 6pm, so I had all day to write. First though, because it was Wednesday, I went into town to go to the library for a couple of hours of research reading. I've been doing this for the past couple of weeks and it is a habit I want to get into. I had three books waiting for me, reserved under the counter, and as I climbed the last flight of steps up to the National Library of Wales at 9.30, the doors opened and the half-dozen or so folk who had been waiting trooped in, with me close behind them. 
I have been reading and making notes on Invitation to Archaeology by Philip Rahtz (Amazon) who was once Professor of Archaeology at York. Making up my pile of three books were Mortimer Wheeler's report on his dig at Lydney in the 1920s and a treatise on problems in archaeology written in French. I concentrated on the Rahtz. 
Back home, I had an hour working on Chapter Two, half before and half after lunch, and then all hell let loose in the form of phone call after phone call about car insurance and MOTs and, to cap it all, our British Gas central heating boiler service contract. I HATE THEM ALL. The MOT is booked for tomorrow. It ran out on March the First. The Gas Man is coming on the Wednesday after Easter which gives me time to collect myself and, well, behave properly.
And the dog needed a walk.
It was five o'clock and just time to do a word count on Chapter Two: 1500 words. Yes! The daily quota achieved. How, I don't know. Maybe I'll put it down to the new Pope. God bless Francis. I'm grateful for all miracles.
Tomorrow is another driving day and it will have to be the camper van and not the car (the MOT for the car is booked at 4pm) but we are going to the seaside so that's OK. We're off to Newquay in the morning - and that's the Ceredigion version, not the one on Cornwall. I hope.

Ends

Rewrite: Blog Day Two

Today was one of those days.
It was one of those days not destined for writing.
My wife had to pursue her calling in a remote part of mid-Wales and I was designated driver so, after a ninety-minute, sub-zero drive we arrived in Llandovery, aka Llanymddyfri, (see: Wikipedia) and parts beyond. I deposited my wife and drove back to town to park the car, take a quick walk and loosen up. It was a very quick walk. It was still sub-zero. Back in the car, I made myself a mug of coffee and settled down to wait.
It's not my birthday yet but I have already received a present in the form of a Tab 2, seven inch tablet computer. It came free with my wife's new smart phone. I topped it up with Twitter before leaving home and now I had the leisure to check my three Twitter streams and see what the world was doing. Three? I know. Mad.
But what about the writing? Or, rather, the rewriting.
Dropbox is such a handy gadget. I dropped Chapter One in from my laptop computer at home and now I opened it on the Tab 2 - Voila! - and read through Chapter One out loud. There was no-one around - this part of mid-Wales is famously empty: The Cambrian Mountains or Elenydd. Reading out loud is such a good way of spotting problems but no sooner had I started making corrections than I realised my time was up and I had to dash.
Home. Six hours of the day gone.
Walk the dog. Seven hours.
One hour left. (If you work in eight hour days.)
On the laptop, I accessed Dropbox and checked the amended file, finished the corrections and decided that the chunk of text at the end was in excess. I lopped it off and pasted it into Chapter Two.
From an initially unpromising start, the day had yielded a result. Yay!
Chapter One is now essential complete. Until the next time...

End

Rewrite: This is getting serious

I am going to blog every day for the next ninety days. 
I have accepted the awful truth. I am going to have to rewrite this novel from page one to page three hundred and thirty-three or however many it turns out to be. It starts today. At fifteen hundred words a day, that's sixty days; I mean sixty days of writing. Add in all the other days, family days, shopping days, travelling days, lazy days, high days and holidays, and it will be ... more than sixty. I'm reckoning on ninety but I could be wrong.
At fifteen hundred words a day, I should complete a chapter after two days writing, however, this is not a mathematical exercise so of course it won't be like that. It will be like this: totally crazy.
It must be crazy to think I can write all day or even part of a day and then write a blog. So I'm crazy but I intend to try. It's not you I'm trying to convince, it's me.
Haven't I been rewriting this novel for the past three months? Five months? Yes. But that was then and this is now. There's no time like the present. I have done a lot of work on this rewrite already. I have restructured. I have written chapter one so many times that I can't bear to think about it. But I am starting again.
What I have been doing for the past month (and more) is to try and stitch together stuff I have already written. I have indexed my notebooks and I have ordered my files conveniently and I have delved back into Draft Two, iterations 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 ...4, 5, 6, and 7. There is so much good stuff back there and I am reluctant to let it go. But I have to start again. Write fresh. Write from my head. It's all in there somewhere.
So that's the plan. Stay with me. I'll only do it if I know you're watching.
Today, for a starter, I have restructured parts 1, 2 and 3. That's the whole thing. I have  converted the telling of the story to one Point of View. The pain! The pain! So it is now a story in three parts: What Broderick Did, What Broderick Did Next and What Broderick Did in the End.  
Yo!
And I looked at Chapter One - Don't scream! - and rewrote it. Twice.
Am I serious about this? Yes. Serious and/or crazy. Your vote. 
Thank you.

Ends