That was fun

 It was

I must do it again sometime

I have two more novels ready to go

Perhaps in the autumn, I'll let lose another one

For now, though, what did I learn?

I learnt that it is possible to blog a novel

I learnt that there is no limit to the number of pages you can have on Blogger but sometimes you do have to clear the cache or it won't let you add another tab or logout and log back in or restart the computer or something 

I learnt that blogging your novel concentrates the mind and helps you concentrate the story. Mostly, it went up as it was but there were some strategic edits, some deletions and some additional writing - usually, no more than half a page or at the most half a chapter

I learnt that blogging your novel helps you understand your story and the people in it. You begin to see more clearly what makes their lives tick

And I learnt that blogging your novel gives you closure

It's been twelve years and more I've lived with this story. I tried to do it as a dual timeline novel but it became too cumbersome and unwieldy so I concentrated on the contemporary story. I went to various writing workshops looking for advice and was told I had to have a body on the first page

"But, I'm writing a novel about archaeology!"

No. You have to have a body on the first page

It took me several years and several rewrites to extricate myself and the novel and my head from that experience. You can still see the ghosts of those years haunting the novel as it now is

And Broderick Arnot. It has taken me until now to really begin to understand Broderick but I think he has, at last, begun to come to life as a man

And that's another thing. It is a novel about a man. Elyssia Gadnall, among others, made a determined bid to take over the story and had to be put back in her place more than once, again and again ... and again. It is a novel about men and women. Staring into the past, as I've done for the past twelve or more years, you realise that this is what makes the human world go round

So, there it is: a novel blogged

I know self-publishing is the coward's way out but there is no way that I am ever, being the person that I am, going to hack all the razzmatazz of the publishing merry-go-round

I think it's a good novel. 

I think it stands up against published novels I read

I would like to think that you would agree

Thanks for (listening) reading