I've been busy these past few weeks with edits on WATD. I received an 11 pages of notes from my editor with loads of great suggestions on making the book better. I'm slowly making my way through them all (and I can see the improvements) but it's also tough. This is a book I've lived with for nearly two years now and tweaking things gets tougher and tougher each time. It will all be worth it though. In other news, I've also been to see Avengers: Infinity War like everyone else in the world. Obviously no spoilers but I enjoyed and want to see it again In a weird way, my favourite characters were the Children of Thanos. I thought they made great great villains and really got me thinking....
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I'm getting into the groove of writing book 2 now after some slow progress to start off with. I've found a soundtrack that's helping me write - a compilation of Johnny Marr tracks. I don't normally like lyrics with my writing music but having the same songs on loop eventually becomes like a sonic wallpaper more than anything else. (Book 1 was written initially to U2's Joshua Tree album in case anyone's interested). My process has improved over the years. I start out with notebook, jotting down random notes and then plotting key points out over 5 acts. Then I flesh things out into much more detail. The plans for book 2 are something like 15 pages long now but again only cover the key events. I still allow the characters to lead me in the writing. I also sketch out characters to help me 'see' them in better detail. Here's some Chosen and their boss....
We've still not settled on a title for Book 1 which is, I must admit, driving me a bit mad. It's like having a child in your life who hasn't got a name... hopefully soon though. The kids have gone back to school today and I've made some good progress on Book 2 at last. I still need to do more but I'll pick up speed. I've also been rereading Book 1 (and I still need a new title) to get my head back into the world and the characters. Slowly slowly but today I'm happy.
I've also done some more character pics. Yep. That's me. I'm struggling to get book 2 going so I'm doing everything I can to avoid actually doing some writing. Stupid really but there you go. It doesn't help that the kids are on Easter holidays at the moment so there's good distractions. "Sure, I'll play catch in the garden." "Yes, let's watch Paddington 2!" I'm now in my office, supposedly writing but instead I've done the above drawing. At least I've drawn a character from the book. The soldiers are called Skulls because of the masks they wear... Obviously inspired by Japanese Samurai armour... But now that's finished, I'd better get on. Especially now I've finished this blog post. |
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