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