Friday 14 September 2012

Editing - a force for good

Editing is an amazing process. Honestly it is. This is how it goes. I think I've covered it, dotted everything that needs dotted, crossed what needs crossed and punctuated anything left standing. I've cut out or changed the word that by some wizardry has turned up three times in the same paragraph or even the same line. I've sorted out direct and indirect thoughts and done the necessary to show which is which. I've deleted some things which just over-egg the pudding and yup, I've finished. At last.
Well. No. Actually. At least not yet. This is how it also goes.
In Anthem for Jackson Dawes I elevate Megan from the fifth to the twelfth floor in chapter two, but there she is, little minx, getting herself  back onto the fifth floor thirty pages later, from which she can't possibly see what I say she's seen. No wonder she gets herself into bother. And take Jackson. While he has huge eyes, which is fine and dandy, why does everyone else in the story want huge eyes too? They don't. They want some other eyes. But I give them all huge eyes. What am I thinking? I'll tell you what. I'm not thinking. It's me writing. It's me just full of a story I want to get down on the page, never mind that some things don't quite fit, or there are too many words trying to say something that can be said in one. Never mind that I've made a reference to something obscure and possibly not quite right. Never mind because it can be fixed. The next time I read and redraft, and the next. That's where my real writing, and thinking, begins. And if I've missed anything then I'm sorry. There have been many nexts with this book but maybe some little tiddler will still slip the net. I hope that doesn't stop you enjoying it. Look out for Megan and Jackson. January.

Sunday 9 September 2012

In answer to Alice

Sadly, apart from in India, where there are white coats a plenty, and on not very well researched tv programmes, there are no white coats. Not to worry,the amendments are made, my doctors, my students, are now wandering around in packs with gleaming stethoscopes like some sort of olympic medals around their necks and anything that could possibly flap or drip into patients' wounds well and truly tucked in or rolled up, or not there. Like white coats.

Now then, this is where I have something to say to those powers that allow, or in fact disallow, me to reply to comments to my blog. What's all this stuff about typing in that odd looking word you're showing to prove I'm not a robot? I tried three times and still you wouldn't let me. How many robots get it wrong that many times? I've proved it! Give me a break. 

Rant over. Normal service resumed. So just finished a long short story (or is it a serial, who knows, who can tell? Not me) which is all about the gold rush in Nome, Alaska. So enjoyed writing it. Will enjoy it even more if WW accept it and give me my own little pot of gold.

Novel two still under wraps till  it's accepted. Tenter hooks are awful things.